Brake free from overspending with Diabetes

 Two weeks ago I was getting the oil changed in my truck.  Once it was finished the lady behind the counter let me know my rear brakes were completely worn out and I was essentially stopping with metal on metal which is never good.  I asked her how much they would charge me since I use them regularly for oil changes and other minor work and when she told me 300 bucks  I almost hit the floor with that price.

 Brake work is not that difficult even for this diabetic.  The hardest part is probably making sure your vehicle is jacked up properly so you don't cut your feet off before diabetes gets the chance.  Then just a few bolts and you are done.  In the picture above you can see what is know as the rotor, which is the part that spins around with your tire and when you push on your brake pedal two pads are squished on this metal ring and your vehicle hopefully stops.  With the tire off and a quick view I could tell my rotors were thick enough for another 50 thousand miles and they were smooth as glass so they didn't need to be turned down either.

Here are my brake pads, which are the part that slowly wears out as they get you to a stop so you can text you BFF before the light turns green.  The lady at the oil change place said I was "metal on metal" which clearly you can tell I still had a solid 1/64th of an inch left to go before metal on metal was happening.  So I caught these in time because once your pads wear out they grind your rotors and then you have more things to fix.

When I was a wee young 17 year old, my father made me do all the maintenance on my beautiful Plymouth Reliant K car.  I remember the time I had to do the brakes on the car and he had me take the rotors down to Autozone to have them turned down and they let me know the pads were to thin to be turned down.  My father was not about to spend 15 bucks on new rotors so he had me in the driveway with my car on blocks, the transmission in drive, while I used a piece of sand paper held to the rotors manually turning them myself.  The the pads I bought did not fit so I then had to take the pads to a grinder and make them fit.  Looking back at how my dad was wise on making a square peg fit into a round hole and also maybe a little dangerous but I survived.  He had me changing the oil and everything.  Then when I graduated from high school he gave me his truck which had recently blown out the head gasket, and we both sat in our driveway rebuilding that engine.  I used to ask him why we did this work ourselves and he told me that we were able and capable to do it ourselves and paying someone to do the things we can do is just a waste of money.  Now my father was extremely mechanically inclined and I have two left hands and am like a bull in a china closet.  These days I do a few of the items personally but have a mechanic perform the rest.  I think this is a balance from how my father did everything himself because he was very capable, and the other part is from a book I read in college: The millionaire next door, where the author talks about how if you do everything yourself such as mowing the lawn and fixing your car then when it comes to the end of the day you have no time left for your family.  So I try to categorize things like mowing the lawn which is something I enjoy doing so spending 25 bucks on that is not worth it.  Then getting my shirts dry cleaned costs me 1.89 a shirt and that is worth it because I hate ironing and it takes me forever.  See where the balance is, spend money on non-skilled labor items that take away from your family time and pay for those things that you consider a bad chore so a little wise money spent can save you quality family time which in the end saves money.  Now, I should quit being so lazy and start doing my own oil changes and start washing the gain.  The brake job cost me 17.99 instead of the 300 quoted and now I can take that saved money and do something else with it like buy diabetes medicines.

Shoe Goo

 Here is the damage from my weekend in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge two weekends ago.  The sole of my shoe about 85% removed from the boot.  The good news is the sole had no cracks and plenty of tread left on them and the bad news is my leather and some of the stitching on my boots is starting to wear and come undone.

 About a year ago when I started having this issue with my boots I purchased this tube of "Shoe Goo" for about seven bucks at REI.  Whenever I would find a place where the old glue turned to dust I would replace it with a dab of this Shoe Goo.  Two weeks ago the right sole came nearly plum off and had it duct taped for the final day of the camping trip which held for the time being.

 Last weekend my son and I participated in an orienteering event and I did not want to wear tennis shoes so I glued the old boots back up one final time and let me tell you guys something, these boots probably have another five years left in them after that.  This Shoe Goo is amazing stuff.  It sticks to practically anything (I did get some on the kitchen island I was working on but thanks to lots of laquir it came off with a paper towel and water).  The hard part about Shoe Goo is that there is no way to use it clean and neat.  You pretty much are playing with a hand grenade and globing it on everything you want to be stuck together is the best way.  This stuff also is a water sealant so any where you get this stuff on your uppers it becomes water resistant. 

 The worst area to try to look neat or pretty is the toe.  I have not found a way to glue and have it set correct.  The placement of heavy objects is not working but, the end result is the same a complete glue job.  Now with this fix I can still use these boots while searching the world for a replacement pair.

One main thing about shoes and boots, especially for us diabetics that have to buy the top shelf brands so we have ten toes when we get old is to wear them correctly.  Now, I mean to wear them where they were meant to be worn such as my hiking boots.  I do what I can to only wear them on the trail and not walking around the city on concrete.  Concrete wears the sole out on a pair of boots about 5 to 10 years before the rest of the boot wears out.  You don't want to have worn out lugs on your boots while hiking.  This goes for your running shoes as well.  Don't wear those stinky things around town if they are still in the proper life cycle, only wear them running.  If you plan on lolly gagging around town, wear some street shoes that have a good flat sole or your last pair of running shoes that have passed on to another realm.  I am not a podiatrist but have visited common sense-ville at least once in my life and know that having the correct shoe in the correct environment is what we should all do.  Basketball should be played in basketball shoes and tennis is to be played in tennis shoes, so if you enjoy those things get a dedicated pair of shoes for them and don't wear them around town destroying them.  Get walking shoes for walking and mow the lawn in anything else but a pair of flip-flops.

My new favorite sport

 No camping this weekend, instead we took it easy and my son and I participated in an orienteering event just a couple of mile from the house.  This was our first time to participate in a normal orienteering event.  We normally participate in a event that has a bunch of points for anyone to get.  You get the map 30 minutes before the start and plan out your quest for as many points as possible and everyone has to return to the finish at the same time and the team with the most points wins.  This event you sign up for a set course with set markers to find and the team or person that finds the correct points the fastest wins.  We chose the orange course that was 4.8 miles long and considered intermediate in difficulty with 10 control points.

 Since this was our first time to participate in this traditional orienteering event we signed up as a non-competitive team.  Once we were near the starting line it was a good decision to do this as a team because orienteering or map and compass takes alot of practice and constant use.  This is not like riding a bike and you do forget how to do it.  My son had this issue when ten minutes before we started he asked me how to shoot a bearing and then how to orientate the map.  I took him under my wings and once we hit our starting time we took a minute to come up with a plan and how to navigate the land and not run around like a couple of chickens with our heads cut off.  Trust me there was alot of random people running just looking for anything that looked like a control point.

 Here is a picture of the starting line.  You line up to your start time placed on your punch card which ours was :19 which meant we started nineteen minutes after 10:00am.  The starting line works in three phases, first you get on the line, then when the buzzer sounds you progress to the next line which has your clue sheet, then another buzzer sounds and you move to the next line where you get your map and wait for the next buzzer which is your official start.  In the picture you can see a row of people and each starting buzzer is a different course so that adds to the confusion and fun of the event because you are not sure who you are competing against or when they started.

 The finish was great and I had so much fun being the old man at this event.  There were cross country running teams and ROTC teams that were also participating in this.  One thing I have learned from years of participating on other styles of orienteering events is that you never trust that someone else knows what they are doing.  We were asked by a girl on the course where a certain number was and we let her know it was about a quarter mile back up the trail we were come down.  This girl was trucking it on this trail, then when we get to our next control point she comes up to stamp her card as well and that is where we learned she was participating on the same course we were.  Then I mentioned how we can get to the next point and she takes off down the trail and Zaine and I see on the map there is a concrete path that takes us directly to the point.  A few minutes later the girl comes running behind us realizing we were taking a longer but much faster way to the next point.  She of course runs off like lightning and at point 9 of 10 we catch up to her again and about four other teams all trying to find the point.  They are looking at their map and can't find the control point so they all start running around crazy looking everywhere for this next to last point.  My son joins them in this random search in the woods to find the control point and I stop and look at my map and orientate and identify my surroundings.  Everything on the map looked similar to the surroundings just that it was not right and I realized we were actually further away from where the control point was and I let everyone know and they run off and it is exactly where I told them it was.  That is the fun part about orienteering it takes athletic endurance, map and compass skills, and finally the ability to read your surroundings.  I would say this is like running for smart people (I am not a smart person just try to emulate what my wife does, she is smart).

In the end orienteering is an overlooked sport by almost all people, maybe because it is not promoted enough, or maybe just everyone thinks it is some sort of kids game.  This sport is great for runners of any ability and also campers and outdoor enthusiasts.  My son and I jogged alot of the time between points and finished about 20 minutes before the competitive girl because we took time to read the map and plan our route.  She did probably 10 miles not reading the map and sprinting around.  Now I am so hooked and have to find more orienteering events to participate in and brush up my skills at planning my route.