Picture Dump

I thought I added a few of these before but was wrong.

Dawson and Grandpa Dave at Urijah's birthday dinner

GoKarts at Urijah's birthday party

Urijah running into the buckets which caused the GoKart freeway pile up

My plumbing nemesis

New electrical panel

3" whole through 9" thick concrete ready for the new service wire

Entry / Laundry room

Electrical panel and water heater closet

Hot

Having a Seattle style heat wave right now. weather.com says it hit 86 yesterday and my dumb ass decided it would be good to go for a run around 5pm which was the peak of the heat. I worked on the house the first half of the day so between that and a run in 80+ weather I zonked out on the couch. The house was so hot that I was laying with my damp towel from the shower no the couch to keep cool.

I did a little of everything at the house yesterday: insulation, framing, electrical. The entry area is starting to come together.

After it cooled down I walked to the Redbox and rented Silver Playbook Linings. Katniss Everdeen as a sex addict, hey why not. Oh yeah and it was nominated for a bunch of awards if that's your kind of thing.

This morning rolled out of bed and took the dog for a run to beat the heat. It was still pretty warm at 7am. The last quarter mile I was pretty sure I was going crap my pants. It's a tough call to make to decide to duck into the bushes and pop a squat. Once I got onto my street I that option was gone because there isn't anywhere to hide. That was the most awkward 150 yards of running I've done in a long time. Luckily made it home and avoided an embarrassing mess.

Pushups - 0 / 19845 YTD

Pull ups -   0 / 1188 YTD

Running -  3 Saturday, 3.47 Sunday / 156.51 YTD

Treadmill - 0 / 2 YTD

Elliptical -  0 / 44 YTD

Run total - 202.51 YTD

Closing the gap

I've done a pretty good job the last 5 days of trying to get out of debt. Today I did 4 sets of 40 spread out through the first half of the day and then 12x20 over the last hour. Only two more days left in the month. Pace would be 20833 and 208.33 I'm not going to get to either of those but hopefully I get close enough that I can hit the half way point at the end of July.

I worked from home because I felt like crap during the night and was coughing a lot. Which allowed me to get some stuff done in the evening. I was cleaning our lawn mower and couldn't believe the amount of grass that was built up underneath it. It is a miracle it was cutting any grass at all and rather obvious now why the bag wasn't picking anything up. I ordered a new blade online after seeing how dinged up the current one was. Hopefully I don't wait 8 more years to do the same thing next time.

Tomorrow construction and hopefully a couple mile jog at night.

Pushups -  400 / 19845 YTD

Pull ups -   0 / 1188 YTD

Running -  4 / 150.04 YTD

Treadmill - 0 / 2 YTD

Elliptical -  0 / 44 YTD

Run total - 196.04 YTD

Digging out

I created quite a hole to dig myself out of by not doing much for a few weeks. I highly doubt that I'll be on pace at the end of this month which will be the first time I fall behind pace. On the bright side I don't have soccer next week which will give me an extra day that I usually lose to that. Our game last night couldn't have been timed worse. For most of the first half it was raining harder then I've ever 'had' to be in. You have to wring your shirt out because it was so heavy. To make matters worse we lost 1-0, where the one goal was a deflection off of me. Other than that minor issue I thought I played a pretty good game.

After the game I went to meet an acquaintance/friend to chat with him about a graphic novel that he has written and wants to turn it into an app for tablets. It was nice to see him and his girlfriend. We hung out with them when we used to go down to Black Butte and stay at another friends cabin to go skiing. He just started getting pretty serious into running so maybe we'll try to meet up some. It would be super good for me to get some running partners.

Today I made it to the gym during lunch and did 5 sets of 40 pushups with minutes rest on the exercise bike then did 5 sets of 20 with a set of curls in between. A set of 75 with the pushup group at work and 2 more sets of 25 at home. Really didn't have time for much else today because traffic was horrible and didn't get home until 6pm. My legs are really sore but I want/need to go for a run tomorrow.

Pushups -  Tuesday 25, Wednesday 425 / 19445 YTD

Pull ups -   0 / 1188 YTD

Running -  1 / 146.04 YTD

Treadmill - 0 / 2 YTD

Elliptical -  0 / 44 YTD

Run total - 192.04 YTD

Must break funk

Another week long slump. Maybe today is the day I turn it around.

Weekly recap

Tuesday - Soccer, Tasha brought the kids to the park during the game and they hung in the car the first half hour because they both were asleep. Then Urijah played on the big toy the rest of the game. My legs felt like crap. It is taking me a while to bounce back from working on the house on the weekends right now.

Wednesday - Went to see Fall Out Boy with Marcus at the Showbox Sodo. I'm so sheltered. This was the first concert I've been to see there. We had a good time rocking out. I knew something was up when he asked me to go and there were a couple other times he's tried to do stuff recently but didn't have it work out. So it wasn't a big surprise but our man date was so he could ask me to be in his wedding. It will be nice to take a vacation out to NY for the wedding. At this point I think we are going to leave the kids behind which will be their first overnight away from Mom. Not sure who that's going to be harder on.

Thursday - My Mom and her friend Miko from Hawaii came and hung out after work and I watched the kids and chatted with Miko while Tasha did my Mom's hair. Miko is one of the coolest ladies I know. Typical Hawaiian attitude just ultra chill. Her husband used to work with my Dad at Northwest when I was a baby. They lived right next to us for a few years before moving to Hawaii. She still gets her flight benefits so she drops in once or twice a year. Last time she came was before Christmas to pick up a gift for her grandchild that couldn't be shipped to Hawaii so she shipped it to my parents house and flew to pick it up. Genius plan except no one foresaw the package being stolen from my parents front porch. Workout consisted of one set of 75 pushups

Friday - Took the day off work to prepare for the electrician coming to the house on Saturday. Now that I have the power turned off at the house I need to run everything off a generator. I didn't bring a gas can so I only had power for a few hours and got enough of the wall up that was needed to hang the new electrical panel on. Made it home and then we went to Seattle to eat dinner with Dustin and Nicole. Went to the Icon Grill where I'd never been before and thought it was pretty good. Cool fact - Tasha was an extra in a scene from Life of Something Like it (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282687/). Pretty funny that she didn't remember that is where it was filmed until I told her.

Saturday - Woke up crack of dawn to head to the cabin. Stopped at HomeDepot to buy all the breakers for the panel and rent a rotohammer to drill through the concrete wall. This is when things started going down hill. HD took way longer than I expected. Get to the top of the pass and it is closed for rock blasting. Traffic is backed up like crazy but was able to make it to the first pass exit and drive down the shoulder on the left hand side of the road to get around the traffic waiting to get on the freeway and make it to the house. Drill a 2" hole through the concrete wall before the electrician realizes the current service wire is only sized for 100amp service. For 200 amp we need the pipe to be bigger. Which means we might have to completely replace the service wires and weather head. I had Tasha go to HD to rent a 3" drill bit to support the bigger pipe. We ended up getting most of the panel done and just now need to figure out the service issues. Needless to say I am learning a lot.

Highlight of the day was sitting on the couch in the evening and Urijah runs down stairs completely naked with a $10 bill yelling about the ice cream man driving by. We frantically put some underwear on him and he goes darting down the street after the truck. He was running so fast super excited and yelling which way he saw him go. "No not that turn (pointing left), that turn (pointing ahead)". Pure joy and it made my day.

Sunday - Finally a day to sit and relax. Dawson started crawling for the first time. Which means it will probably be the last day to sit and relax for quite a while.

Monday - I decided instead of throwing in the towel on these pull ups that I need to get back into the groove. I did 200 (40,40,20,34,33,33) before I left for work another 100 (34,33,33) when I got to work, 250 at the gym with 2 miles of elliptical (34,33,33, 1 mile, 34,33,33, 1 mile, 25, 25), 75 at 3pm (50,25) and 50 more at home in the evening (25,25). I also went for an easy 2 mile run with Cosmo.

Pushups -  Thursday 75, Monday-675 / 18995 YTD

Pull ups -   / 1188 YTD

Running -  2 / 145.04 YTD

Treadmill - 0 / 2 YTD

Elliptical -  2 / 44 YTD

Run total - 191.04 YTD

Bad habits

Starting to form some really bad habits about not blogging and not working out. I'm so busy and so soar that it has been rough the last few weeks. See if I can remember what happened the last 7 days

Monday - Made it to the gym during lunch. Did Pushups 6x30, 25,25,20 and Pull ups 3x10. I haven't had the amount of energy there that I would like because I'm so beat up from the weekends. After running the jackhammer all day on Sunday and the race on Saturday I was just happy I made it there. We did dinner with Tasha's parents and then hit the pool for the 2nd to last swim lesson.

Tuesday - Drawing a blank for what I did on Tuesday. Only thing I can think of was watching the US mens world cup qualifying game on TV. A little disappointed I didn't go watch in person. I guess when they come here next time, its only been 30 years since the last one. Doh! Now that the Sounders are here and Seattle is known for soccer fans I'm sure we'll get one soon.

Wednesday - Happy Birthday to Urijah! It was Urijah's 3rd birthday. I worked from home and then we went to Trampoline Nation before meeting both sets of grandparents for dinner. After dinner we went for the last swimming lesson. Dawson wasn't feeling good so he slept and watched from the sidelines. This was the first time the teacher brought out life jackets for the kids. Urijah thought it was awesome. He was able to float on his own and roll from his back to his stomach spinning in circles over and over.

Thursday - Really long work day. In total I put in around 12 hours. REI was doing usability testing the next day in the store so I wanted to take care of a bunch of things before they did that. It worked out good because then taking Friday off I only needed to use a half day of PTO. Workout pushups 9am 40, 10am 40, Gym 6x25 Pullups 5,5,6,6,7,7  Rest 3 minutes Repeat

Friday - Took the day off work and went to work on the mountain house. I ran wire for the last smoke detector, re-configured some of the upstairs light wiring, added outlets in the entry, washer machine and started the bathroom outlets. Moved the downstairs bathroom door over a few inches so the shower can be bigger.  We didn't do much at night just hung out at home.

Saturday - Work up at 6am and ran 6.6 miles to my parents house. I hadn't run since the race last weekend and needed to get some miles in. Unfortunately there isn't a good route to their house. You have to go down the giant hill leaving our house and up the other giant hill on the other side of the valley. It was a good run though. I like running one-way to places. It gives you a real sense of freedom that you can go anywhere and do anything. I ran there because I was going with her to look at the house my brother and his family are moving into next month. We had to do the walkthrough and point out any damage. This house is like 6 years old but is in amazing shape. The owner seems ADD over the top obsessed. He probably shouldn't be a landlord, hell I can't believe he is married. His poor wife must walk on eggshells. 

After that we had Urijah's birthday party at Family Fun Center in Tukwila. I was shocked to learn they had go-karts that 3 year old kids could drive, and that they let all the kids go at the same time. Urijah does pretty good at home driving his little ATV and cars but this was way more difficult. The track was a really tight oval. And if that wasn't bad enough they have obstacles to go around. Urijah cause a four car pile up when he didn't see the pile of buckets in his way. After the guy got him going again he couldn't make the tight turn and ended up running straight into a fence. At this point he had enough. He took his seatbelt off and got out of the go-kart. I'm yelling at him to get back in the car before someone runs him over. Luckily nobody was close and he made it to the gate safely.

Sunday - Happy Father's Day to me! I woke up early to go work on the house. Did some framing, needed to rebuild one wall in the bathroom upstairs to surround the main stack vent, finish a corner in the downstairs bathroom. Ran wire for the dryer, and last of the bathroom outlets and lights. Loaded up a ton of wood to take to the recycling plant. I was beat afterwards. I was there a little more than 8 hours and was exhausted. Got home and relaxed as much as possible with a 3 year old who loves to climb on top of me. 

Monday - Went to work. Did 50 pushups. Went to bed

Pushups -  Monday-250 Thursday-380 Monday-50/ 18245 YTD

Pull ups -  Monday-30 Thursday-72 / 1188 YTD

Running -  6.6 / 143.04 YTD

Treadmill - 0 / 2 YTD

Elliptical -  / 42 YTD

Run total - 187.04 YTD

Good times

Ohhhh geez I'm really falling off lately. First post of the month shouldn't be happening on the 10th. Last post was over a week and a half ago. Since then we have been super busy, even more than usual. Normally I wouldn't be able to recap 10 days but we did enough eventful things that I think I can do a pretty good job.

Friday 31st - We dropped the kids off at my parents house and went to dinner with Tina and Davis. We need to make a point to get out more often because it was lots of tun and we hadn't seen them in forever. After dinner we went to go see Hangover 3. Tasha couldn't remember the last movie she saw in the movie theater but guessed it was before Urijah was born, sign #2 we need to get out more. We timed hanging out with them perfectly because Tina had tickets to the Kenny Chesney concert from a friend that she decided last minute not to use on Saturday and we were able to snag them.

Saturday 1st - Went with Josh to work on the cabin. I ordered a bunch of plumbing supplies online and we picked them up and bought more stuff on the way to the house. Unfortunately we weren't able to do much because I haven't dug the concrete out that is needed for running the drain for the shower and toilet downstairs.  More on this later. The upside was we didn't stay long and I got home and had a little bit of time to hang out before we dropped the kids off with the in-laws and headed up to Seattle for the concert. The seats weren't very good and we sat and reflected on the horrible acoustics while Eli Young Band played. Mid-way through Eric Church we realized it wasn't the band it was the seats and decided to walk around. I won't buy concert tickets unless I can get really good seats because I don't think it is worth it. The people sitting up above were all so clueless. You couldn't hear a damn thing and yet they still clapped. I guess ignorance is bliss. Not sure how those people could have thought it was good. I don't care how big a fan you are or if you have never been to a concert before. You couldn't hear shit.</rant> During intermission we tried to find Duane and co. Ironically we found all of co. but none of Duane. Drank some beers with Eric Oh, Chuck of Show me what you showed Chuck fame, and Ben. Free tickets + $80 of beer = a good night.

Sunday 2nd - Wanted to wake up early and run. Beer from the night before prevented that from happening. Think I took Urijah to the park and played for a bit. Then we had Addison's birthday party. Tad and Ashley's go to b-day spot is a Chuck*e*Cheese type place down in Lacey. Urijah took a while to warm up but was the last man standing and didn't want to go home when it was time to leave. But I could only crawl through so many tubes and slides with beer sloshing around in my stomach.

Monday 3rd - Swimming lessons at night. Pushups 8am 40, 9am 40, Gym 3x10 pull ups, 10x30 pushups

Tuesday 4th - Soccer. Got killed, glad season is over. Hopefully we get moved down a division and are more competitive in the Summer. It was hot and I felt super blah. Had a few bright spots but quite a few moments to forget. One mile jog to start

Wednesday 5th - Hurray for Brandon coming home. I picked him up from the airport when I got off work and we ran to my house chatted with Tasha for a second grabbed the dog and headed out for a run. We ran down by the river which is 3.6 miles. It was pretty warm and I could tell Cosmo was struggling and wasn't pulling at all the 2nd half. Take that back we were all struggling, but we were running pretty fast 7:08ish pace. When we got done I noticed Cosmo's back paw was all bloody and I was trying to get her water because she was panting so bad. We ended up walking down to the river where instead of just getting a drink she plopped down in the water and laid there drinking it. She barely would move and would try to roll over to lay down only to realize that she was under water. We finally drug her and walked towards the car. I looked down and am pretty sure she had thrown up but wasn't 100% at the time because I didn't hear anything. Loaded up the car and headed home. I decided to skip swim and keep an eye on Cosmo. She layed on the grass in the front yard and it was clear she didn't feel good. Almost right as I was looking up heat exhaustion on dogs online does she throw up 3 times in quick succession. I jump up and throw everything in house and grab the truck keys. We take off for the vet and I'm worried we killed the dog running. Everything checked out at the vet and they figured she just overdid it running and drank too much water. It took her almost 2 days to bounce back but she seems totally fine now.

Thursday 6th -  Pushup10:45 60, Gym 25,25,25,25,40 Pull ups 5x10, 1 mile elliptical

Caught up with Brandon and Matt Kolve after work and drove downtown to eat dinner with a big group of friends.

Friday 7th - Impact Day at work. Once a year Deloitte sets up a number of community service projects and expects all employees to volunteer at one. Last year, I picked black berry pushes all day at Lake Sammamish park. I learned my lesson and signed up to work at an elementary school in Rainier Beach. We had an artist at work he outlined a massive mural for people to paint, others painted playground sidewalks, some landscaped, and I worked with a group that painting cutouts that we hung on different fences. It was a lot of fun and extra rewarding to see the kids head out for recess and comment how cool everything looked. Not sure I would have been as affected by it before having kids but it made doing the work more worthwhile to see their appreciation.

Me risking my life to hang signs for the kids

Mural part 1

Massive Mural

After that we went to Davis and Tina's place to bbq in honor of Brandon for shedding his blood sweat and tears in the sand. Or at least that was his drunken go to line when trying to convince anyone to do something. I showed self restraint and only have a couple beers because of running the race the next day. Brandon on the other hand wasn't going to let 7.5 miles of running stop him from having a good time. We hung for a few hours at which point Urijah's head was probably overfilled with obscenities from Brandon and Davis' rowdiness.

Saturday 8th - Sound to Narrows - Brandon and Tina picked me up just after 7 for the race. Brandon was laying in the back yelling along to the music on the radio and then passed out for the rest of the car ride. We joked that he won the competition for drunkest person in the race. This was my first time doing a race at this distance and the course added the challenge of being start to end hills. The first 1.5 miles are all down hill after that it is rolling up and down with two fairly steep hills towards the end. It was tough mentally because you just try to survive each hill by the time you recover you are at the base of the next one. Official time was 53:55 7:14 pace 156 place out of 2246, though my watch had a longer distance and said 7:09 pace. Brandon was 58:11, not bad for being half drunk.

We got home and threw together an impromptu garage sale and sold some baby stuff and made a quick benji. Our neighborhood gets pretty hectic when they have the city wide garage sale weekend. After that we had a birthday party for Urijah's friend Max. Max just turned 3 and can already swim completely on his own. His parents rented out the pool at the Federal Way community center. Urijah had lots of fun and I did my best to keep up with him with legs that didn't want to do anything.

Sunday 9th - I rented a jackhammer and Tad was foolish enough to come with me to the house to demo the concrete slab. Things were going pretty well until the bolts on the bottom started coming loose. After we tightened them it seemed like it wasn't impacting the way it should. We thought it would be a good idea to take the bolts off and look inside to see if something else was loose. This wouldn't have been a problem if I didn't try to pull the trigger to see if things were moving alright. Next thing we know 4 pieces come flying out of the shaft. You would think that with only 4 pieces it wouldn't be tough to find the correct order. After some incorrect attempts Tad found a schematic on his phone and we got it put back together. It will seemed a little off but we kept going and got it to function. Not sure if it was running at 100% but we made do. Part of the slab was only 6 inches thick and we made pretty quick work of it. But as we moved towards the wall we encountered a giant rock that I estimated at 80lbs after we finally were able to pry it out. After we got the rock out we ran into 18 inch thick concrete. We weren't able to finish everything because the edge became so steep that the jackhammer would just slide down. The big issue is that the drain stack is still surrounded by concrete. At this point I'm thinking we will have to use a roto-hammer or handheld demo hammer so we don't crack the cast iron stack and cause a MAJOR MAJOR issue. If there is a time in my life I could use some good luck it will be when we go to try and finish that.

Pushups - 380 Monday, 200 Thursday / 17565 YTD
Pull ups - 30 Monday, 50 Thursday / 1086 YTD

Running - 1 Tuesday, 3.6 Wed, 7.5 Saturday / 136.44 YTD
Treadmill - 0 / 2 YTD
Elliptical - 1 / 42 YTD
Run total - 180.44 YTD