Category WoW

The extreme standing water we had yesterday morning only accumulated throughout the day, bolstered by the unrelenting storms.  When I got home the visual was pretty unbelievable.  It was the most standing water I have EVER seen on the property outside of a tropical storm or hurricane.  The fact that it was the end of January seemed surreal.  This just doesn’t happen.

There was just a ridiculous amount of water in the front and back yards.  The chickens of course were soaked but didn’t seem to care all that much.  The big shed that they often like to hang under was totally flooded out underneath.  The standing water seems to be wreaking havoc with my internet connectivity in the coop.  Although the coop has power it seems like the buried, ground rated ethernet cable isn’t getting very strong signal out to the back yard, making some of my tech out there malfunction. I drove to work today in a steady light rain and I saw a chance of showers still in the forecast for tomorrow.  Please, make it stop.

Warning a couple paragraphs of WoW talk follow.

A little while ago WoW introduced something called Timewalking Dungeons.  They are basically a way for current players to play old 5 man dungeons that have been part of the 11 years of WoW’s existence.  Last night I did one of them from the Cataclysm expansion which was something like 4-5 years ago at this point.  I ran it as the “tank” aka. the guy that leads the group and tries to get all the bad things to attack him.

Despite not setting foot in this dungeon for approaching a half decade somehow “muscle memory” kicked in and I was able to know exactly where to go and what to do as a result of running through this dungeon dozens upon dozens of times when it was current content.  It almost felt similar to how I feel when I am back in the Reading area, still able to more or less get around despite not living in town for over 15 years.  It just felt weird in a good way.  Anyone that has played WoW and only someone that has played MMORPG’s like WoW will understand that playing these games is literally like living in a different world, complete with it’s own set of road maps, hot spots and rules.

So you may recall a week or two ago I mentioned how Cindy was getting a heavy metals blood test based on some health issues I heard Howard talking about on his show.  It turned out his fish heavy diet had resulted in him having high mercury levels.  Cindy has been having a lot of issues that most people would quickly write off as just the side effect of getting older.  However our diet was very heavily seafood based with us having seafood for dinner 5-6 times a week and possibly a couple more times on the weekend in the form of a tuna wrap for lunch.

Well after a long wait the test results came back earlier this week, Cindy’s levels were indeed high.  The test results are going to result in a change of our diet where the majority of our protein will come from plant based sources instead of seafood.  Fish is ok to eat in moderation and there are certain types of fish that are much more prone to high mercury levels than others.  However in our case we need to take steps to remove the heavy metals in our bodies that become embedded in many organs which causes a myriad of problems.  Over time the metal leaves your body through body fluids but it is a good idea to kick start the process as much as possible.

I already assume my heavy metal number is elevated as well since for the most part I eat whatever Cindy eats although perhaps because of my larger dimensions I am affected to a lower level.  I do have memory issues at times and my eyesight has definitely gone downhill dramatically since seafood became my main animal based protein.  It will be interesting to see how the next few months go as we try to “get the lead out”.

So with the bad forecast for the half marathon I came up with an idea on Friday to make timing in stormy weather more feasible, rent a box truck.  I secured a 16 foot truck for $35 a day and 99 cents per mile, far less than I expected.  With that size I would have plenty of room to set up two or three tables loaded up with the computer equipment used for race timing.  The only thing that would be left outside would be the timing boxes themselves which are able to be operated with their lids closed, making them pretty weather resistant.  I picked up the truck on Saturday after getting permission from the running club to do so.

When I rented the truck I had a funny interaction with the guy that ran the office.  When I walked in he had a gamer headset on and he appeared somewhat annoyed I interrupted him.  After I took a look at the monster PC he had on the desk which I immediately recognized as a gaming rig I asked him questions about it, letting him know my computer background.  Once he knew he was talking to a fellow computer geek the conversation flowed.  He told me about the specs of his big full tower box that he built himself which were impressive.

We exchanged stories of our gaming experience.  I found out he was an old WoW player and a quite high level one at that.  He played the game the first three years it was out.  I told him I have been plugging away for a solid 10 years.  In addition to completing the paperwork for the rental he took the time to show me some details of Fallout 4, which is what he was playing when I walked in the door.  It was a geeky interaction out of nowhere that I appreciated.

On Friday after work I went over to the running store where I stayed until packet pick up wound up at 7PM.  I worked on getting current with any entries that came in during the day. On Saturday afternoon I headed back down there to do the same.

Now of course the potential for bad weather was on everyone’s mind.  The weather forecast for Sunday was consistently bad but the time frame seemed to be shifting around.  Unfortunately it seemed like the worst weather was forecast to hit during the time everything would be set up.  The plan was to show up as normal and if the weather conditions were really bad we could slide the race start time back to accommodate it.  Cindy and I used the 16 foot truck to hold most of the stuff which was a good thing since I had the most equipment I ever used at a race with four timing systems and 24 one meter mats.  We went to bed early, hoping to compensate for the 3AM alarm I had set for Sunday morning. Unfortunately I wound up waking  up somewhere around 1AM and not really falling asleep afterward.  During my tossing and turning I heard several bursts of storm activity outside.

When we got up I immediately looked at the latest weather conditions.  I was not happy to see a tornado watch had been put in place that ran until 8AM.  I called the race director who was already in the process of setting up the course just to let him know about the watch and suggest we wait until that watch clears to start the race which was scheduled for a 7AM start. Cindy and I pulled out our race caravan with me leading in the box truck and Cindy following in the Tacoma.

On the way to the race I got a message that they were officially postponing the start until 8 to give the weather a chance to clear, a good move.  When we got there the roads were wet but it wasn’t raining and the wind was minimal.  However when I looked at the radar before leaving home I saw Naples looked to be on the tail end of a long line of storms that was moving northeast very rapidly.  It was not a matter of if the storm was going to hit but when.

Cindy and I started working on setting up stuff.  We dumped the timing gear at the start and finish lines.  I parked the big truck in position by the finish line and set up tables inside of it.  I looked at my temporary timing shelter with a weird sense of pride for coming up with a way to get the job done despite the very challenging weather conditions.  We started setting up the registration area over by the bank under a covered parking area that we hoped would provide shelter if the storm got really bad.  With the one hour delay we suddenly had a much longer window to get everything set up.

So Chris, who was there to help me do data entry had his iPad along.  On it he had the live radar view on loop which showed the line of red was almost on us.  The wind started to pick up along with the rain so the group of us around the registration area took cover.  As the wind and rain picked up it started blowing in so we quickly pulled all the tables and computer equipment that I already had set up back as far as we could to minimize it’s exposure to the elements.

The storm was bad but didn’t seem like anything beyond a typical Florida summer thunderstorm, until it wasn’t.  All of a sudden there was a few minutes where the wind ratcheted up to an entirely new level.  The huge flag that hangs over Cambier Park sounded like it was ready to be ripped from the pole.  I stood up and leaned on the huge, heavy wood tables in front of me for fear they could actually be blown around.  The sound of the wind, which was reported to be 80+ mph,  was dangerous.

So we all huddled underneath the overhang for around 15-20 minutes while the worst of the storm blew through.  I honestly felt a bit exposed there and had my eyes scanning for any flying debris that could come our way.  We took a look at the race banner hanging over the start line in the street.  We saw a mangled mess as one of the tether lines snapped from the force.  When things started to die down we did a brief survey of our immediate area and things seemed more or less intact with just some palm fronds down at various spots.

Just as we were getting ready to start drying stuff off and resume preparations we got word from the volunteer coordinator that the race was now cancelled.  Evidently there was much more extensive damage on the course with not just branches but entire trees down, severe flooding and even power lines down.  There was no way the event could take place with those sort of hazards on the course.  Later we were told that this storm had the characteristics of something called a “meteotsunami”, which very quickly and dramatically pushed a wall of water from the gulf on shore which caused the flooding.  The hurricane force winds were just the icing on the cake.

After we were told of the cancellation I just sat there for a few moments, shell shocked.  There has never been a race cancellation due to weather conditions, for it to happen with the biggest event the club puts on just seemed unbelievable.  I immediately felt very badly for the race participants, many of whom travel from out of the area to be here for the half marathon. I thought of all the preparation that went into the event by both myself and others.  To have all of that nullified by a 15 minute storm seemed crazy.

With a race of this scope there is no rescheduling possible so basically people are just SOL as “acts of God” do not qualify runners for refunds.  While I was on site I remote controlled to my home computer so I could quickly get information posted to the official race website.  Luckily the majority of racers had been following the updates and did not show up on site.

So the undoing of the race prep began with the crew of volunteers and ourselves picking up everything that had just been laid out.  Luckily for me I had not fully set up all my stuff at that point.  We packed up the stuff we set up at the registration area and I then took down the tables in the back of the box truck.  We drove the truck back to the start line to pick up the timing equipment we set there.  I was surprised to see some of the very heavy rubber mats had gotten blown off the stack. As we were throwing the wet mats into the back of the truck a reporter from the Naples Daily News snapped a picture of Cindy and I as we were standing under the mangled half marathon start line banner.  That picture wound up on the front page of the sports section of Monday’s paper which was unexpected.

On the drive home we saw all sorts of damage with tons of branches on the roadways along with a ton of uprooted trees.  When I saw substantial wind damage at the developments near our house I was quite worried about damage at our house, especially to the chicken coop.  We both breathed a sigh of relief that other than some smaller things scattered around the yard our property escaped basically unscathed.

I’m sure the chickens were scared to death. Having the shed/run pull through such extreme weather intact made Cindy and I feel good about the extra work we put in to make sure both structures were built to be as storm resistant as possible.  The one nuisance we did have to deal with from the storm was a power outage which lasted around half the day.

By the time we got home the weather seemed almost nice.  I pulled out the 24 wet mats and laid them out to dry, one side at a time.  We had some other stuff that needed to dry out as well.  All day I couldn’t help but feel weird about doing all of that prep and not actually getting to time the race.  After the huge timing disaster we had at last year’s half marathon I was really looking to make things run like clockwork this year, despite the conditions.  Since this was also the last half marathon I was timing for the club, not getting the chance to get that redemption was a little depressing.

The rest of our day Sunday felt incredibly long, a byproduct of starting your day at 3AM.  After getting all of the race equipment dried out and put away I turned my attention to the Tacoma.  While we were driving to the race Cindy told me the truck was acting weird and shaking.  When she first mentioned it to me I thought she meant just a tire vibration which I wrote off as no big deal.  I then got a clarification that it was an engine related problem.  The truck was missing and Cindy said she really couldn’t go any faster than 50 mph.  The check engine light had come on as well.

I hooked up my car computer scanner and got a P300, P304 and P304 error code which meant that cylinder three and four were misfiring.  I cleared the codes and took the truck out for a very brief test drive.  The misfiring was still there and the CEL came on again, great.  So I did some research about the issue on my phone as Cindy drove us home after we dropped off the box truck at the Penske lot.

The easy causes of the problem are stuff like bad wires, coil, or plugs.  Tacomas have a different coil arrangement.  Instead of having one coil there are actually three of them, each one drives two of the plugs.  The recommendation was to swap coil packs around to see if the problem follows the coil.  I swapped the coil pack on cylinder three assuming it also drove cylinder four.  After clearing the codes and doing another test drive the misfire was still present although I only got a P304 error this time.  After feeding these test results into Google it seemed like a more likely cause of the misfire could be a failed fuel injector, something very much in the realm of possibility for a vehicle with 186,000 miles on the odometer.  Unfortunately changing one involves pretty extensive tear down, similar to what I had to do to change the valve cover gaskets.  I called it good for the day with the intention to resume diagnostics on Monday.

On Sunday night we watched True Story, our latest Netflix rental.  With no naps during the day I knew I risked nodding off during the movie, which I did several times.  The drowsiness was not because of the movie which was interesting, seeing Seth Rogen and James Franco play very serious roles in a true life story about a man that killed his family.  I had Cindy help fill in some of the blank spots while I nodded off laying on her lap.  It added up to a solid B+ film that is a quality rental title.

Having Monday off was quite welcome after the events of Sunday.  We headed out relatively early to go pick up some oil change supplies.  Both the Prius and Tacoma were overdue for oil changes.    We also dropped off the left over race bibs from the race at the running store where runners were able to pick up race shirts and medals since they would go to waste otherwise.

I dug into the oil changes early Monday afternoon, completing both oil changes in the span of 45 minutes.  I then resumed my diagnosis of the Tacoma.  One of the things I did not do on Sunday was pull the plug in cylinder four to take a look at it.  When I pulled the spark plug wire something didn’t feel right.  When I looked at the boot of the wire something didn’t look right, the attachment terminal was missing.  A look into the spark plug hole revealed it was still attached to the spark plug.

This scenario was good and bad news.  The good news was that possibly the misfiring could have simply been caused by a defective spark plug wire.  The bad news was I now had to figure out some way to get the broken terminal off the spark plug so I could remove the spark plug itself.   This turned out to be a VERY challenging task that tested the limits of my patience.

At first I tried using a simple needle nose pliers to grasp the broken terminal.  Because of the lack of space it was impossible to get a grasp on it.  I then began a long and arduous session with a long flat head screw driver.  I stuck it into the plug hole and tried to work the terminal back and forth so it would loosen up.  I then tried to pin it against the side of the hole so I could pry it upwards.  After a couple dozen attempts over the course of 45 minutes I got it to pop off the top of the spark plug.  I was able to fish the terminal out of the hole with my retractable magnet.

I then confidently stuck my spark plug socket in the hole, ready to finally remove the plug after all that futzing around.  Despite removing the terminal it still felt like my socket was just spinning around on nothing.  WTF?  I brought out my stick light so I could get a better view down the hole.  What I saw was a circle of rubber on top of the spark plug.  Not only did the terminal of the spark plug wire break off, the rubber boot that normally surrounds it was down there as well, awesome.

This discovery lead to another incredibly aggravating session of trying to get the rubber removed.  I was able to spin it around with my screwdriver but not remove it.  I alerted Cindy to my issue and said I needed a small wire hook to snag the rubber.  She found an old wire plant hanger in the shed.  I was able to snip off one  of the wires and then bend the end into a very small hook.  As I stuck the wire into the hole my eyes were watering as I tried to focus, it was very hard to see.  Finally, finally I snagged the rubber boot and managed to lift it out of the plug hole.  Instinctively I said “f you” out loud to the remains of the spark plug boot as I removed it.  It was the end result of close to two hours of digging around in a little hole with no clearance and the wrong tools for the job.  I finally was able to get a socket on the plug and remove it.  The plug itself looked ok but I ordered a complete new set of plugs and wires on Amazon.  My hope is the misfire was all wire related and I can avoid ripping off the entire intake of the truck to do injectors.

After the Tacoma work I suggested to Cindy we take out the mountain bikes out for their first test ride of Bird Rookery swamp, something we had wanted to do for a little while.  The cool air in the low to mid-60’s left us both feeling quite chilled on the 3 mile ride to the trail head.  Once we got off road both of our bikes felt good on the mostly grass trail.  In total we went around 2.25 miles into the swamp before turning around.

Doing the trail on a mountain bike is different than doing the same by foot.  You obviously cover territory at a much faster clip.  I think you also get to see less since you need to concentrate more on the ground under you to avoid obstacles while riding.  We stopped several times so Cindy could take some pictures of especially scenic locations.

By the time we started the return ride out we were both feeling some aches and soreness.  Mountain bikes are double the weight or more of the road bikes we are used to riding,  Riding them over uneven terrain introduces a new sort of effort level which also carries a discomfort penalty for your rear end, back, and hands.  By the time we rode the 3 miles back to the house we were BEAT.    Our eventual goal is to do the entire 12 mile circuit in the swamp which when added to the ride to and from the house will be around 18 miles.  The way we felt doing the roughly 10 miles yesterday makes me only imagine how we will feel when we take on the whole deal. The rest of our Monday, the little that was left of it was more low key with us enjoying a nice dinner and dvr’d tv content to wind up the 3 day weekend.

Of course I saw the news that the Eagles hired a new head coach, Doug Pederson, who was the offensive coordinator for the KC Chiefs.  I wish I could say I liked this hire.  Eagles fans remember the name Doug Pederson.  He was the starting QB VERY briefly right before the Donovan McNabb era began.  I remember feeling very unexcited back then when we were told that Pederson, despite not having much actual NFL play time, had been a back up in good programs which somehow meant he should be decent by osmosis.  Well the reality was he was extremely unimpressive  in his Eagles stint.  His starting record as  a qb was something like 3-14.

Well Andy Reid always liked Doug and eventually brought him on staff as a coach.  First as an “offensive consultant” and later as a QB coach for the Eagles.  When Andy was fired from the Eagles he took Doug with him to KC and named his as offensive coordinator.  During his three years there the Chiefs offense was ok, but certainly nothing dynamic.  Plus since Andy Reid is very much involved in the offensive play calling, being an OC on an Andy Reid team means you aren’t really calling the shots.

The overwhelming consensus is the Pederson hiring is underwhelming.  I read an ESPN article that said out of the 6 coaches hired this off season, Doug is the least impressive of them. I assume that Jeff Lurie is hoping that somehow Doug will be Andy Reid-esque since he has been in his company for a long time.  We saw how that “greatness by association with greatness” theory worked out in Pederson’s QB career.  I have a bad feeling his head coaching career could follow a similar story line.  Hopefully I am wrong.

I really don’t feel like discussing current news items like circular gun control arguments, Trump proposing a stance on Muslims Hitler would be proud of, or Demarco Murray whining that he sucks this year and it’s Chip’s fault.

I also don’t feel like expanding on my conflicted feelings about the Christmas season as I get older. It seems each year carries with it more sadness because of the unavoidable loss of loved ones that accompanies the march through time.

Instead let me describe something that made me laugh, for a very stupid and immature reason.  The other night I was in a WoW raid which is a group of 25 players working together to take down very dangerous and difficult bosses in the game.  Typically before you begin one of these fights the players are mulling about, typing things into group chat about strategy or other random topics.

Just seconds before we engaged the 50 foot tall demon I participated in the discussion with a very simple “I have to poop”.  Watching the reaction of 24 random strangers around the world to that statement made me bust out laughing.  Sometimes it’s the simplest, stupidest things that bring a smile to my face.  And no, I actually did not have any pressing bathroom needs at the moment.

Last night on the way home I picked up Sadie for an extended stay as Ali is out of town for a few days.  It’s always fun to have her there and today she will get to hang with Cindy all day.

I had an impressive virtual achievement last night that will mean absolutely nothing to anyone that has not played World of Warcraft.  I finished up getting my last character to max level of 100, meaning I now have a monk, mage, priest, warrior, death knight, druid, hunter, rogue, warlock, shaman, and paladin at max.  I actually have 12 100’s since I also leveled Cindy’s druid to 100, even though she doesn’t play. 🙂

Now being at max level in reality is really only the start of where the game begins for most people where you begin doing high level stuff in the quest to equip your virtual self in gear that makes you stand above others in both power and visuals.  However with this many level 100s, the time required to do this with 12 characters would literally be impossible to find so instead I will pick a few that I want to focus on from this point forward.

I announced my accomplishment to Cindy last night.  She did a good job of expressing fake excitement for me.  I love that she encourages me to participate in mindless entertainment from time to time to help balance the non-entertaining portions of life.

I have targeted Saturday as tree trimming day.  A forecast low temp of 65 degrees was the lowest I saw in the 10 day forecast so I am going all in, hoping to get out there nice and early with my brand new loppers.  Cindy has an event she is going to first thing tomorrow so that will allow me to get a good head start on the trimming and then allow me to double back and help her with the equally grueling task of picking up all the cut fronds and other organic matter to dump it in the back of the property.

The grass is overdue for weed whacking and I have a number of other ancillary chores that could get done as well.  When you have a monster job on the menu like tree trimming it has a way of sucking the energy to do much else out of you.

Cindy emerged from the operating room quickly on Thursday, around 9:30.  She did so in an extremely silly and loopy manner thanks to the propethol they used to sedate her for the procedure.  The doctor said they removed another large chunk of ingrown nail and then burned the area with acid as opposed to using a suture.  Despite the work only being done on her toenail, Cindy’s entire foot was wrapped all the way to the ankle.

While they got her ready to check out I was sent downstairs to get the supplies they prescribed to her including antibiotics, pain meds and bandages, lots and lots of bandages.  It was so much stuff that it filled a large shopping bag.  Just like the rest of the VA hospital the pharmacy area was big, modern and efficient.  They wheeled Cindy out as required and we loaded her into the Prius.

Once we got home I had to be vigilant in trying to make Cindy take it easy.  Despite just having surgery she wanted to do work around the house.  I had to basically strap her down to let me go out and clean the chicken coop and run.  She did rest some during the day but not as much as I think she should have.

During the afternoon I made a run to the local AutoZone store.  I was picking up front brake rotors and pads for Cindy’s daughters 2010 Mustang.  She said the brakes felt bad with pedal pulsation which means at a minimum the rotors are warped.  I have replaced the front brakes on three or four different vehicles at this point.  After watching a video briefly on YouTube it looked like doing the same on a Mustang should not be a big deal.  I figured I could knock it out Friday morning.

So before Katie showed up Friday morning I got the weeding done in the yard and prepared the garage for active work.  I pulled out all the tools I imagined I would need including my video camera.  Amateur auto mechanic videos are among the most popular on my YouTube channel.   Katie showed up around nine and I got started wrenching before 10 am.  The front brake pads were worn but not horribly so.  I started with the passenger side.  I didn’t see anything that would necessarily have caused the rotors to warp. However that changed when I got to the driver side.

When I pulled the caliper pins on that side I immediately noticed one of them was dry and sticking.  They are supposed to slide easily back and forth allowing the brake pads to move against and off the rotors.  I was pretty sure I identified why the pedal was pulsating.  The sticking bolt could cause the pad pressure to stay on the rotor even when not braking which would heat/warp it.  Cleaning the pin and applying caliper grease solved that problem.

After putting everything back together I took the car out for a road test.  The brake pedal pulsation was gone but the stopping power still didn’t seem as good as it should be.  I decided since I have all the tools out I should just replace the rear brake pads as well.  The Stang has rear disc brakes, something I never worked on before but I assumed it would be no different than doing the front brakes.  I jumped in the SSR and headed back to AutoZone for the second time in as many days.

I pulled a back wheel and got busy on what I thought would be a 30 minute pad swap.  When I popped out the old pads I saw it was a very good thing I decided to replace them.  There was a small fraction of an inch of braking material left.  No wonder the car wasn’t stopping well.  Things went fine until I got to the part of the procedure where you need to compress the caliper piston.    You compress the piston to make room to get around the new brake pads which will always be thicker than the worn pads you pull out.

The way I have always done this with front brakes is to use a C clamp and an old brake pad to push the piston in.  It is normally quite easy.  Well for some reason the rear piston would not retract.  At first I thought it was just stiff as I tried multiple times with  the C clamp at different positions.  It would not budge.  I then thought that possibly the rear caliper was defective which lead my mind down annoying scenarios where I would have to replace the entire caliper which was an area I was not comfortable with.

In total I bet I futzed around trying to compress that piston for close to an hour, getting continually more frustrated as each minute passed by.  I finally decided to take an additional step in trouble shooting.  I put the wheel back on the driver side and jacked up the opposite side of the car and pulled the wheel.  I then pulled the pads and caliper and again tried to compress the piston with the C clamp.  Again, it would not budge.  I then realized this was likely not a caliper problem  but a knowledge problem on my part.  I was missing something.  I went inside to my computer to do a search on rear caliper problems.

In less than 30 seconds I saw that many rear calipers require to be turned in and can not be pressed in.  This has something to do with the dual function rear brakes share being used for conventional braking and the emergency brake.  When I looked at the rear pistons I noticed they appeared different with two slots in them which I thought nothing of until I got on the computer.  Those slots are what are used to rotate the caliper using a special tool.  I realized I was going to have to make ANOTHER AutoZone trip to complete the job, something I was not happy about in the least.

I picked up a small ratchet attachment that looked like a dice cube.  Each of the 6 sides had a different configuration which worked with different styles of brakes. Once I got back home I slapped the cube on the ratchet and got busy.  Turning in the caliper required a considerable amount of strength as you had to apply major inward pressure while rotating the caliper clockwise.  The little nubs on the cube easily popped out of the slots on the piston if you did not keep it pressed very hard against it.  Finally after a lot of grunting, pressing and twisting I had the caliper fully retracted into the body.  After doing so I was able to finally proceed with the pad replacement which went ok.

So after putting everything back together I took the car out for another test drive.  It did not feel right, the pedal was too soft.  I knew why.  When I was originally fcking with the first rear caliper piston one of the things I tried was opening the bleeder screw, thinking it would relieve whatever pressure I was feeling.  (it didn’t)  I assumed that by doing so I sucked some air into the system.  At this point I had spent hours on the brake work and was very frustrated.  Obviously I needed to get it right despite my desire to jut call it quits for the day.  I hoped I could reach the bleeder screw with the wheel on but a quick glance confirmed I would need to jack the car up and pull the wheel AGAIN.

Once I got the car back up in the air I called Cindy out to help me with the bleeding process.  As I opened the bleeder screw with a tube attached I had her slowly apply brake pedal pressure.  As she did I instantly saw air bubbles filling the tube at first but it quickly turned to all fluid which is what I hoped.  If I wanted to be super thorough or had a hydraulic lift in my garage I would have pulled all four wheels and bled them.  I was hoping that bleeding the only caliper that was opened up would be sufficient.  A quick road test confirmed it was, the brakes felt firm and strong, finally.

I did not finish cleaning up and going back inside until around 6:30 PM. If I did the same job today, knowing about the pitfalls I fell into I could do the same work in probably a third of the time.  Cindy told Katie the car was done so she brought back the Tacoma which we let her borrow for the day.  She was very thankful for my efforts and equally happy Cindy and I gave the car a much needed quick cleaning both on the interior and exterior.

Friday night I really felt like I earned my pizza and Mexican Coke.  We enjoyed it while watching Chappie, my latest Netflix rental.  I really wanted to see this movie in the theater when it was out.  I was surprised when I saw it didn’t do great at the box office.  I was more surprised after watching it, I thought the movie was very good although it was odd seeing a mullet wearing Hugh Jackman play the bad guy.   I’d give the film a strong A- rating.

On Saturday I got up and outside early, starting weed whacking the grass shortly after 8AM.  I wanted to get the labor out of the way early if possible.  Cindy and I then headed out to grab even more sand for the chicken run as well as some more bags of rubber mulch to fill in various areas the chickens have been kicking out.  After spreading both after returning home my only other project for the day involved cutting up some plastic cutting boards to be used as a top shelf on the chickens perch.  Cindy had some thinner plastic up there but it was too flexible, allowing it to bend down and deposit poop along the wall.  Our hope is using cutting boards in that spot till make it more rigid and easier to clean.  I cut them on my portable table saw.

Over the weekend one of the things I did in between projects was upgrading both my computer and Cindy’s to Windows 10.  I was surprised just how smoothly the process went, I really had no issues at all.  The new OS combines the best features of Windows 7 and 8.  So far I am very happy with the upgrade and am still digging into some of the new features like Cortana and the Edge web browser. The system boot up and shut down speed seems even faster as well.  Thank goodness someone at Microsoft realized people actually like the Start Menu.  Taking it away was like forcing people to steer a car with their feet.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went to see the latest Mission Impossible movie.  I have liked every Mission Impossible film.  Hell I have enjoyed pretty much any movie Tom Cruise ever does.  The latest MI kept the streak alive.  It combined smart action, suspense, and story telling.  I have no problem giving it an A- rating all day long.

On Sunday morning Cindy was not able to consider biking with her toe surgery but I had hopes of getting out on the road.  When I looked out the window the skies looked gray and menacing so I scrapped the idea, despite knowing I would probably regret it.  If I don’t get some sort of significant exercise in over a weekend I feel like a bum.  Late in the morning I tried to fill that void by going in the bar park and doing four rounds of short circuit involving push ups, hanging knee raises, and pull ups.  I was surprised how low energy, uninspired and weak I felt during the mini-workout.  It shows on film.

The vast majority of my Sunday was spent geeking out in WoW, another thing that can bring on feelings of guilt.  Sure I had done significant amounts of work the prior 3 days but all it takes is one day filled with primarily screwing off to erase that in my mind and make me feel lazy.

Late in the day Cindy and I sat down to map out a day by day tentative schedule for the road trip.  It includes two days for both Yellowstone Park and Vegas.  Both destinations could easily demand more time but we have to work it in with 6100 miles of travel by road.  The way things are mapped now we would have 12 nights and 13 days of travel which allows us exactly one day of slack if something comes up.  My goal is to spend no more than we did last year on the road trip.  I’m not sure if that is possible or not since there are a couple extra days and more feature destinations this time around.

This past weekend has been one of the most dreary and waterlogged as I can remember in quite a long time.  It basically has been raining to some degree since Friday.  The end result is our property has once again turned into lake front.  There are standing bodies of water all over the place.

On Saturday morning I wanted to get the weeding done and I didn’t care if it was raining.  When I stepped outside it was a light, tolerable rain however the intensity went up and down the entire time I was out there.  At a few points it was an outright downpour.  I was already soaked all the way to my underwear so I didn’t even bother trying to escape the deluge.  After weeding I had my first of three clothing changes during the day due to wetness.

While I was weeding I pulled this huge mutant grapefruit that was in the orchard.  It had split open.  After slicing it with the machete I saw the fattest rind ever.  Unfortunately the fruit did not look appetizing at all so after it’s photo op the monster grapefruit was tossed in the compost bin.

After drying off Cindy and I went out for what is a pretty normal weekend shopping circuit of Dunkin Donuts, Home Depot and Rural King with a Pinch A Penny stop for good measure.  We grabbed five more 50 pound bags of sand for the chicken run.  In total I bet we have dumped a couple thousand pounds of sand in there.  The goal is to eventually have a few inches of sand in the entire 8′ x 12′ run to make clean up easier as well as raising the elevation slightly, something that became an apparent need this weekend.

On Saturday I introduced Cindy to the world of Periscope, an app I only recently discovered myself courtesy of Bubba talking about it on the radio.  Periscope is a way to basically instantly get yourself broadcasting video live.  There are already have been many ways to do this for several years ( I used JustinTv to broadcast live 5 years ago) but somehow they way Persiscope handles it just feels slicker and easy.  When you like what you are seeing a viewer taps his screen and it generates a heart which is the Periscope equivalent of LIKE.  It’s twitter integration and seamless notification system allows you to grow an audience pretty easily.

It is also like Snapchat in a way, something I never used.  You have an option to make the video stream only available live and even if you do archive it, it is still only alive for 24 hours on the Periscope servers until it goes away.  I guess it adds a sense of urgency to viewership. If you want to see the content you better watch it now. The only broadcast I still have alive is some WoW footage.  Better watch it soon, it goes away in 3 hours. 🙂

So Cindy and I took turns shooting silly Persicope videos at various points during the day, the longest of which was sitting in the car before we went into the movie.  It’s a weird thing how a bunch of random people would instantly jump into your broadcast.  A handful of them would use the chat function but the vast majority are silent voyeurs. What they were hoping to find is beyond me.

So after a tasty meal at Olive Garden Cindy and I went to see Southpaw, a boxing movie with Jake Gylennhall.  The lobby of the theater seemed pretty empty so I was looking forward to an equally empty theater.  This was opening weekend for the film, for most big name movies Coconut Point will have a 7:00 and 7:30 showing.  Southpaw only had a 7:20 showing which meant it was not getting big film positioning.  The theater it was showing in was one of the mid-sized rooms instead of the big ones we are used to. This theater had the love seat layout which is nice but actually a little less comfortable than the seating in the bigger theaters.

Well slowly the theater started to fill up with a steady stream of patrons filing in during the previews.  I bet the theater was 75% full, normally unheard of during the summer.  Of course the more people that are in your nearby vicinity the more likely you are to have an annoying asshole in range.  This time it was a hispanic woman that had no understanding of talking quietly during a movie.  Every time she spoke it was at full volume.  It didn’t take long until she drew stinkeye glances from Cindy who said she was ready to yell “Callete su boca!”  If our only option to see movies was in theaters that were this level of population I would stop going to the movies as much as we do.  The more human beings, the less fun, is my general rule of thumb.

So the movie itself was good.  Jake got himself into incredible shape for the film.  It had a real Rocky flavor to it which in my book is a good thing.  Sure it was predictable but that isn’t such a bad thing with this kind of film.  Jake seems to be a lot like his deceased co-star of Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger, in that he really tries to transform himself into the character he is portraying.  He did an equally good job of turning himself into a mega-creepy dude in Nightcrawler. Anyway, I would give Southpaw an A-, just try to watch it out of range of the annoying people.

When we checked on the chickens via the security dvr we saw that all of them were in place except Peaches, who decided to fly up to one of the shelves and sit in a box.  Despite having the chickens integrated for quite a few weeks, more often than not Cindy still has to go out there at bedtime and rearrange chickens which has to stop.  Basically what happens is Lucy decides she is not happy with having the younger chickens close to her and starts to peck at them.  Instead of retreating to any of the three lower perch bars the chicks instead have often used the side shelves or nesting boxes as a sleeping spot which we don’t want.  For clean up efficiency we need them all to stay on the perches.

We tried to address the problem somewhat by adding two half perches a few inches below the top perch so the birds could all be together without having to squish onto one bar.  Cindy also added additional screen hanging from the roof to block access to the top shelves.  Last night seemed to be the best sleeping outcome yet.  Not only did we not have to place the birds, Lucy actually allowed Stephie to cuddle up next to her, a first.

So Sunday morning I had hopes of getting out to do a bike ride since it was not raining when I woke up.  However a quick glance at the precipitation radar indicated we were just in a small break of the wet misery so we bagged it.  It started to pour shortly thereafter.

Like I mentioned, the  steady and at times torrential rain has drenched the yard.  One unfortunate casualty has been the ground underneath the coop deck, an area the chickens normally hang out in frequently.  It became pretty disgusting since obviously the chickens shit under there and we are unable to clean it conventionally.  It had a disgusting sewage like appearance.  The main chicken run was wet but much cleaner due to the additional sand that is dumped in there along with our normal daily poop pick up it remains relatively clean.  Unfortunately there is really nothing we can do about the ground under the deck until the water recedes.

We have had a couple freak out moments with our neighborhood hawks.  The other night Cindy went sprinting out the door when a hawk was on the ground only a few feet from the open chicken run door, being much too brave for our comfort.  Cindy has been firing warning shots with her CO2 BB pistol I bought her to keep the hawk away when she sees it.  At Rural King we went a step further and bought a fake hawk and owl.  You place and move them periodically around the yard as a visual deterrent.

The owl seems more effective as it has a bobble head that spins with the slightest breeze, making it seem more realistic.  We filled them both with sand to make them heavy and resistant to the strong wind gusts that often blow through the property.  I sat the owl right on top of the chicken run. It is annoying to have a constant paranoia about the chicken’s safety when they are free ranging but short of having them live in a bubble it’s just a risk you have to accept.

So the miserable weather on Sunday resulted in me having one of the laziest days in recent history.  I played hours of WoW and enjoyed myself doing so. You may recall me talking about the requirements to unlock flying in the game with the latest expansion.  When I first saw them I knew it would be a lot of work/time to accomplish these requirements, I had no idea just how much.

For the last few weeks anytime I have had in the game has almost exclusively been utilized in accomplishing this goal on one character, which in turn unlocks flying for all of my other characters.  It just seems like it took too much time.  To just do the portion in the new content that was released recently you have a minimum of close to 3 weeks to accrue what is needed to fly.  If you had to do the other achievements in the older areas, like I did, that gets tacked on top.  It was an annoying, extremely repetitive grind that sucked most of the fun out of playing.  I am very glad that it is behind me.

The only real “work” I did on Sunday was to pay my bills, a very minimal chore.  Late in the afternoon we decided to finally film an eating challenge I proposed awhile back, consuming ghost pepper powder.

Unless you have been living in a cave you have seen/heard of ghost peppers.  They are one of hottest peppers on the planet, registering a blistering 2,000,000 on the scoville heat index. For reference, jalapeno peppers are rated at 2,500 to 10,000 heat units.  The powder version of ghost peppers supposedly is more concentrated. Well anyway YouTube is jammed full of ghost pepper eating videos and there is a good reason for it, people like watching other people suffer.  If you eat a ghost pepper you WILL suffer, there is no way around it.

Cindy was very nervous leading up to the challenge.  I was not nervous until the last few seconds.  At that moment I had a feeling similar to prior to jumping in the Arctic Enema at the Tough Mudder.  I knew there was immense discomfort to follow.

We decided to use the dining room table for the video, hoping it would offer the best lighting.  I don’t think that spot has ever been used for filming anything else.  Cindy measured the powder and put a 1/4 teaspoon in each of our conventional spoons.  We started the cameras rolling (Cindy simulcast it on Periscope) and after a 3,2,1 countdown cleaned the spoons of the powder.

We used different techniques when it came to cleaning the spoon.  I used a method similar to if I was eating cereal or a spoonful of peanut butter.  The end result was the powder adhering to mostly my upper teeth, gums, and inside of my upper lip.  In contrast Cindy turned her spoon upside down and deposited all of the powder on her tongue.

The first sensation is the taste of the powder which was not pleasant.  However soon all taste is obliterated as the heat from the ghost peppers starts to set in.  It took very little time until I was reaching for my large glass of water, even though it did not really help.  I almost immediately started hiccuping as the burn really set in.  The watery eyes and running nose followed closely.  The discomfort actually ramps up as time goes on and lingers.  It turned into more of a stinging sensation, almost like I had hornets in my mouth.  At one point I felt somewhat nauseous and was nervous since we had no vomit containers nearby.

Cindy of course was struggling as well.  She slammed a glass of almond milk, followed by water, followed by peanut butter and yogurt.  I only used water and peanut butter to help relieve the pain.  None of it was all that effective.  Basically you just have to ride out the burn.  After about 10 minutes or so things started to die down.  It was a stunt that I wanted to accomplish and now that we have, I have no desire to revisit the ultra-hot pepper genre ever again.

Sunday night we watched 50 Shades of Grey, the movie based on the book that turned so many women into sex craving maniacs.  I was recently separated when the book was  making waves.  I recall many first dates where the woman mention they read the book which I did not know was a good or bad thing.  I heard several accounts of the book turning women into sex starved maniacs, it turned them on that much.

So the movie had a lot of hype behind it obviously when it was released which I obviously did not share.  I only rented it on Netflix because Cindy was interested in seeing it since she started the book but never finished it.  Well if the movie’s main goal was to produce mainstream soft porn it certainly hit the mark.  There was more nudity and sex in the film than any feature film I ever saw before.   However at my age it takes more than sex scenes to keep my interest.  The man in the film had all of these hang ups whose symptoms were his bizarre sexual rituals.  I think the movie needed some more focus on why that was instead of end result of his weirdness.  Overall, even with all of the skin on skin I can’t rate the film more than a B, perhaps a sign of my advancement into the kingdom of old fartdom.

I have short 3 day week ahead of me.  Cindy is having some foot surgery on Thursday so I am burning a couple vaca days to be her transport/caregiver. I have a few to use up by mid-August.

So last night Cindy and I tried again at setting up 8 meters of timing mats as quickly as possible, hoping to improve on the 15 minutes it took us the first time around.  Well we did improve but not as much as I hoped, clicking in right around the 13 minute mark.  The cable routing is what becomes a quagmire.  As you get further into the process you are wrangling with a bigger and bigger rats nest of cables that you are trying to straighten out and lay in their assigned rubber channel in the mats.  Today Cindy is going to try another method for set up to see if it works out any better/faster.  Like anything, with practice it should improve.

Last night we once again had issues with Jaina wandering under the coop deck, squawking while all of the other chickens were inside ready for bed.  When she finally came out I noticed she had a blood spot on her back.  It came from one of two things, a particularly hard peck from Lucy or more likely from Jaina cutting herself on something under the deck.

Jaina is not only huge, she is also clumsy and not able to easily get down low like the other chickens to scoot around under the deck.  This problem is only going to get worse the bigger she gets.  I went inside and got some cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide so Cindy could treat the wound.  I also grabbed stipic powder which is used to stop bleeding in animals.  Jaina didn’t seem to mind Cindy attending to her injury.  Typically her breed has already been slaughtered for meat at this point in their lives.  She is going to have a rough time getting by for however long her life turns out to be.

The final part of the blog is a WoW issue.  If you have no interest in the virtual world of nerds you can safely close this entry now.  This latest expansion to WoW has had a bit of controversy surrounding it for quite awhile regarding the lack of ability for characters to fly.  Flying is an ability that has typically been granted to all players once they hit the maximum level for that expansion.  Gaining that ability only required you to hand over a large chunk of gold.  Being able to fly has a lot of advantages, especially when you are trying to get things done quickly.

Well with Warlords of Draenor Blizzard has not allowed players to fly, at all.  They have been vague about possibly allowing it later on.  Their main argument was they felt that flying cheated players from experiencing content in the way it was intended to be experienced.  Instead of having to fight your way through various obstacles on the ground you can simply swoop in on your flying mount, accomplish your objective and zoom back out.  The players argument has been that after they hit the maximum level the have already experienced a good portion of the content on the ground.  Withholding the ability to fly once you are max level just felt like an unnecessary shackle to many.  Plus generally speaking, taking something away that used to be standard fare is never going to be welcomed.

Well a couple weeks ago somebody at Blizzard made the announcement that there would indeed be NO flying in the current expansion, period.  Well that was like throwing a blazing torch into a wheelbarrow of dynamite.  Massive nerd rage ensued.  People were PISSED.  They were pissed not only for the reasons in the previous paragraph they were pissed because Blizzard has continued to sell fancy flying mounts in their online store for real world cash, despite the inability to use them with thier most current content.  There was already the assumption it was just a matter of time until flying was turned on. When you consider the most recent quarterly report from Blizzard showed a massive 3 million drop in their amount of subscribers you would think the last thing they would want to do is give their player base a reason to /ragequit. It was just dumb.

Well it appears that somebody at Blizzard had the common sense to realize this was a poor move.  Somewhere around a week later Blizzard did a complete 180 degree shift, saying flying in WOD will indeed become available soon, although gaining the ability is going to be quite different than in the past where you just paid gold for it.  Instead you need to complete various tasks in the game to earn the right to fly.  These tasks will require you to pretty much experience the vast majority of the content and travel to all corners of the virtual world.  To be honest it seems overly tedious, to accomplish everything required will take well into the double digit hours to complete. On the plus side, you only have to complete this slog one time.  After that any and all characters you have will be able to fly instead of each one having to hand over a kings ransom in gold to do so.

I have started on the arduous task of unlocking flying in my spare time, which there isn’t much of nowadays.  I would expect this will be the blueprint for how flying will be handled in the future.  If we would have known it from the get go I could have done things in a way that would have made completion of the tasks much more of an inline process instead of a large, annoying tacked on blob of work.

Once again last night Cindy and I spent most of the evening working on the chicken run.  We now have the run completely under roof thanks to mostly Cindy’s efforts.  I was annoyed that after buying 100 more panel screws at Home Depot after work that we are exactly ONE short of what we need to finish completely.  Yet another HD stop will be on the agenda for today.

I also put the hardware cloth on the door to the run.  It went ok except for the three or four puncture wounds on my shins where the cut wire banged into them.  After they started bleeding I had swarms of gnats feeding on my wounds, it was lovely. I also sealed up the gaps on the front and back of the run where it meets the shed.  I did so with a combination of scrap wood wedged together Tetris style, secured by 3 inch screws.

The chicken run is really starting to come together, if I could get a solid four hours I think I could get the run itself done.  Once that happens there is additional construction that has to be done to turn the interior of the shed into a chicken friendly area.

So anyone that has played WoW has probably heard of “chinese gold farmers”.  For almost as long as the game has been around, gold farmers have as well.  At first gold farmers used “bots” to have their virtual selves repetitively and incessantly kill high profit virtual targets in the game to generate gold, the game currency.  They would then in turn sell this virtual currency for real world dollars to individuals that did not want to invest the time to make the gold, they just wanted to pay for it.  This has always been against Blizzard’s terms of service and they have waged a never ending battle against these farmers.

As time progressed the methods used to gain gold by farmers became much more devious and criminal.  They started hijacking accounts using malicious web sites and malware to capture a player’s game password.  Once they got access to the account they would strip every character the player had of all of their items and gold, shipping it off to be sold to someone else.  This problem was rampant and forced Blizzard to develop and implement much more secure authentication to the game, including using separate authenticator devices to prevent hijackers from simply stealing passwords.

Well this week Blizzard may have put the final knife in the back of Chinese gold farmers with the introduction of the WoW token which is basically a way for players to buy gold legally in game, something they never have been able to do before.  A WoW token is a virtual brass ring that if bought by players in game on the virtual auction house is worth 30 days of game time, something that normally costs, roughly $15 a month.  It allows hardcore players to pay their monthly fee totally with virtual currency.

The people looking to buy gold (me), purchase a WoW token with real money ($20).  When they do so you are shown how much gold that $20 will get you in game, the amount changes based on supply and demand in game.  Once somebody buys your token in game you are sent the amount of gold shown when you bought the token.  When the token was released on Tuesday I immediately bought one.  I was curious how it would work and I also could use some extra in game currency.  When I bought the token I locked in a value of 30,600 gold for it, which I got in the mail the next day.

As I mentioned the amount of gold you get for that 20 dollars will fluctuate, possibly greatly.  When I checked on Wednesday how much gold it was worth it had dipped significantly, down to 23,000.  I felt fortunate to jump in when the getting was good.  Regardless I think the WoW token is a good thing on several levels.  Anything that squeezes out the farmers/criminals that literally stole from people to fund their business is a good thing.  Being able to buy gold instead of having to spend hours upon hours earning it in game is a nice luxury as well.

I think from Blizzard’s business perspective this is pretty brilliant.  Basically what they are doing is getting $20 for a 30 day subscription instead of $15 from every WoW token transaction that takes place.  Somebody deserves a raise.

I saw the video of the Charleston police officer putting 8 bullets in the back of the black man that was running away from him.  Just like everybody else  I found the video disgusting.  The officer deserves whatever punishment is handed down, no matter how severe.  Surely this incident will put more momentum behind the body camera push for law enforcement where literally every second of their interaction with the public is caught on tape.  Although I can understand the value in recording all police interactions, it’s still sad to me that this is what society has come to.

So yesterday pretty much went as I hoped.  I worked on various minor to do’s for the first half of the day, with things like doing laundry, paying the bills and washing the SSR, well I ran it through a touch free car wash and then dried it by hand.  During the rest of the day I chilled, playing a bunch of WoW and just unplugging from most real thought.

Later in the afternoon I wanted to let the chickens out for a bit while I moved their coop.  As soon as I stepped out back I saw the hawk that has been hanging around sitting on one of the posts of the fence.  I grabbed the bb gun and fired another warning shot by him.  The hawk flew off the fence but repositioned himself on top of the electric pole on the far side of the neighbors house.  He was probably 100 yards or more away but still obviously watching the yard.

Well I still didn’t feel comfortable leaving the chickens out with the hawk there so I pumped up the air rifle again.  Like I said the pole was on the far side of the house so only a small portion of it was in view over the roof line with the hawk perched on top.  My hope was to hit the pole to scare the predator away once again.  The sight on the air rifle is not very accurate at all, you have to aim right of your target.  Since the bird/pole was so far away I aimed a little high, figuring the bb would drop somewhat over the 300 plus feet it had to travel.

I steadied the gun and pulled the trigger, about a half second after the pop of air was the sound of a second impact followed by the hawk flinching and then diving off of the pole.  I think I actually hit him.  Instantly a wave of guilt washed over me.  I didn’t want to hit or hurt the bird, just scare him off.   Immediately I put down the rifle and walked across the neighbors yard and into the open lot next to them where it looked like the hawk flew down to.  I was hoping I didn’t see the bird on the ground injured or even dead.  I went in the field two separate times, increasing the search radius the second time.  I did not see or hear anything so I am crossing my fingers the bird just got a little stinging reminder to steer clear of the yard and our chickens.

One of the things I did while I was in WoW yesterday was to set up and configure an add in that makes it easier to fight in game.  Basically it takes most of your abilities and creates a macro that fires them off sequentially and repeatedly in  way that maximizes your power.  After doing this I went into a bunch of PvP (player versus player) battlegrounds, an area of the game I am notoriously poor at, and proceeded to kick ass and take names.

My blood specced death knight was a holy terror, dropping enemies left and right.  I was consistently one of the top offensive players in every game I played. I was so used to getting my ass handed to me anytime I did PvP, this felt amazing.  Having opposing players scramble to get away from me only to get death gripped back into my lethal range was just tons of fun.    This was the equivalent of the 98 pound weakling suddenly being able to bench press 400 pounds.

Anyway, I will be using a similar strategy to make my other characters equally lethal.  I just hope I can find some free time here and there to enjoy it.

The weather yesterday was pretty miserable, with the temperatures dropping 20 degrees during the daytime hours while being accompanied by a steady, cold rain.  The forecast lows for last night were in the upper 40’s.  Cindy and I closed up the coop for the first time, locking the ramp in the up position to cut down on the cold air coming in.  When we got up this morning to lower the ramp the chickens were waiting eagerly to escape.

Last night Cindy was playing WoW with me with her new virtual character, a night elf druid named Cincas.  Stepping into WoW is a daunting task for someone that doesn’t have a gaming background.  Hell when I started playing in 2005 I was overwhelmed.  The control scheme, which is second nature for me takes some time to get accustomed to.  Most of Cindy’s time in the game is submerged in confusion as she tries to get oriented.  Plus her new lasik altered, mono-vision eyes have a very hard time focusing on the screen.  The monitor appears to be at a distance which is in the dead zone between her one eye that is trimmed for close vision and the other which is used for distance.  In addition, the heavy mouse work that is utilized by WoW is tough on her hand.

I got on one of my other characters and traveled across the virtual world to be Cindy’s in game escort.  She hopped in the sidecar of my motorcycle so I could drive her around to save time.  I also was her guide and bodyguard, able to kill off any threats in milliseconds since they are much lower levels than I am.  I am not sure if Cindy enjoys playing enough to stick with it but regardless I appreciate her effort in trying.

Last night was the first running club board meeting that went down since my role changed to non-board member, part of which meant my attendance at board meetings was not expected.  Of course I still got a pretty comprehensive recap of what went down.  It will be a bit odd to hear about some of the points discussed, having opinions about them yet not expressing them to the board.  Like anything else, with time, it will become less weird.