Thursday, August 27, 2015

Getting older (still)

My wife and I just spent an extended weekend in PA, with the main purpose of the trip being my 35th high school reunion.  It was great to see about a 1/4 of my class show up, but we are certainly getting old, it seems.  We had no name tags this year, and as we get older, I think we need them more and more.

I was still feeling less than 100% for the trip, but we manged to have a good time.  On our first full day in PA, we went to CrossFit Hanover, a box where we've worked out before.  The guys at this box work hard, and apparently Friday is their hardest day.  We started with some heavy back squats in triples.  Then, establish a 3RM for hang power cleans, and then do 4 sets at 90%-95% of the max.

Then, a metcon where we did a hang power clean, split jerk and push jerk every minute until we couldn't continue.  But, just to make it interesting, we added one clean per round.  I got through the round of 8 and my wife made the round of 10.  As soon as we failed, we had to jump rope for 3 minutes for max reps.  That one hurt.

One good thing is that this workout actually gave me an appetite and I was able to go to a restaurant and eat a normal meal.

Later that day, I was the DD as my wife enjoyed some craft brews at a taproom called Holy Hound.

The next day was the reunion, where I once again played DD.  Having lost all taste for beer, I just wonder if it's ever going to come back.  With coffee, I have simply stopped drinking it.  There is just no appeal.

Sunday, we had dinner with my dad and sister, visited with my sister for a while, and then had dinner with my brother and uncle.  It was nice to see all of my local family on this trip.

Monday, we drove to Bucknell and poked around the campus nostalgically.  Then, we went to CrossFit Lewisburg for a workout, and I got my butt handed to me.  I don't know if it was the heat, residual soreness from Friday (this was a major issue) or the anemia, but I truly struggled, and almost quit without finishing the workout.  But, I made it.

After that, we visited a high school friend of mine and his family (he and my wife had sort of gone to kindergarten together as well), and had a really nice meal, including some wild PA venison.  And then, it was time to come home to reality.

Just before we had left for PA, we'd gotten a call from our roofing contractor.  Apparently, the people who built our house had committed a cardinal sin, and nailed shingles directly to foam insulation.  This led to a lot of leaking and rot,  We had rot in the insulation, rot in a plywood player, rot in the next layer of insulation, and finally rot and carpenter ants in structural 2x4's.  Our original price for the roof was far more than I thought it would be, and with this new information, the price was going to nearly double.  I simply didn't have that money, but the roof was torn off the house, so we proceeded.  Luckily, as the roofers proceeded, some of the rot was not as bad as anticipated, and the additional costs might drop down to "only" $5K.  Still a lot of money, but way better than the number we heard last week.  The roof should be done early next week, and we will get the final bill then.  The roof was overdue and I'm glad to get it done, but this additional cost has been a big hit.

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