Sunday, July 11, 2010

rain rain go away

Let's start with kickball - that didn't go well. We started the game very shorthanded with 7, but our 8th arrived almost immediately after the start. Our 9th and 10th players came during the first inning, but the discombobulated start threw us off our game. The game ended with some outrageous score like 4-16, us being the 4. The good news is that I scored 2, or half our runs. I knew being skinny and fast would come in handy one day.

It rained some more on Thursday, apparently because raining for several days before that wasn't enough. Our softball game was cancelled, but I wasn't totally feeling it anyways, so it worked out.

I had Friday off, but woke up early anyways because me, Andy, and Kelcey were doing volunteer work! We headed out around 7:30 to get to Fort Hood for their Christmas in July event. The idea is that they are celebrating Christmas now, because their moms or dads will be in Iraq in December for Christmas. BAE Systems and Walmart donated several hundred bikes to soldiers' children, and we were there to build them all. We tackled them assembly line-style, and I was mostly in charge of putting on training wheels for the 12" bikes (the smallest ones for little kids).  I helped put on training wheels to probably around 100-110 bikes. Here is a link to the photo album for the event: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194228&id=85820336449&ref=mf

There are some nice comments on there from the wives and soldiers, but they don't have the pictures from the actual build up yet. They took a lot of pictures of us building, so I'm looking forward to seeing them.

The colonel personally thanked us, and out of appreciation they gave us all military coins for their regiment. I thought that was pretty cool, because they're not normally given to civilians.

(click for larger version)

All in all, it was pretty fun and rewarding.

Friday night we just hung out at the house. Started off with an hour or two of both Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and then ended with some Apples to Apples which was a pretty fun game. Didn't sound like we did much, but we were up until around 3 AM, so I guess we had some fun. It's been a while since I've been up that late.

On Saturday, Taylor and I ran by a few places to take care of some errands. I also spent an hour or two prepping myself for "Motorcycle Maintenance Mania of 2010." Since my clutch cable snapped, I decided it was finally time to give myself a fresh maintenance baseline on my motorcycle. I don't know what kind of maintenance they did before I bought it, so if I do pretty much everything this summer, I will have a fresh start and can properly follow the maintenance schedule.  It'll be quite a bit of work, so I'm going to space it out over the next couple months. I think I'm looking at around $500-600, most of that being parts. I'm going to attempt to do almost everything myself, except replacing the tires (I'll take it somewhere for that).  Here's my list for MMM 2010, in no particular order:
  • Replace clutch cable (gotta get my bike home first!)
  • New tires
  • Replace chain
  • Replace brake pads and brake fluid
  • Change oil and oil filter
  • Replace coolant
  • Engine valve clearance check
  • Replace fork oil
  • Replace spark plugs
  • Inspect hoses, other fluids, etc and replace anything that needs replacing
After this summer, I will be thoroughly bonded with my motorcycle. Anything that goes wrong after this summer can only be blamed on me.

Okay, time to come back from my tangent. The rest of Saturday was just hanging out, and ended with some Battlestar Galactica.

Today, Sunday, has been spent doing typical Sunday things: laundry, vacuuming, etc. I also went to the gym today, which sadly has been the first time in a couple of months. My routine is a 4 day split (meaning I work my entire body over 4 gym days), which really doesn't work with my schedule right now. On Wednesday and Thursday I have kickball and softball, respectively, so I'd have to work out 4 out of the 5 remaining days, which I just don't see happening. It's not worth changing my routine, though, because by the end of the month those sports will be over. I'll probably go twice a week right now (three if I'm feeling particularly motivated), and by the time those sports are over I'll be back in "gym shape." I took that hard first step though, going back for the first time in a while. Now I just have to keep it up, and stop looking for excuses to not go.

Oh, and Spain won the world cup