Struggle, Work, A Million to one shot, Robotic repair, Three way
Friday night for the third week in a row included getting my track run out of the way. Out of the three sessions this time was the most difficult. I just felt exhausted and tired, dangerously tired, a feeling I only have experienced in recent years. I was so tired that I actually considered stopping somewhere around lap 10 which I normally would NEVER entertain. I instead listened to my inner taskmaster who reminded me you NEVER quit once you start and trudged through the final few laps finishing the run about 45 seconds slower than I did the week prior. Like last week I rode one of my PEV’s to/from the track, choosing my One Wheel for the job.
My Saturday was busy, very busy. A good portion of it was spent outside in the ass melting heat and humidity, weeding, trimming, and finally weed whacking. The three tasks in total probably consumed a solid three hours of work. I did not one but two jump in the pool to get my body temp down sessions during the day. We did take some time late morning to do a coffee and Home Depot run with Elsa where we picked up some odds and ends, including a big jug of Round Up which I used Sunday.
Later Saturday afternoon I turned my attention to Ali’s Neato, which she had given me a week or so ago to look at. When you would try to start it on a cleaning cycle it would undock, start spinning up the motors but then stop, giving an error 3000. When researching the error online it indicated some sort of problem with the optical lidar unit in the bot, which is used for it to “see” and navigate a room. The problem is normally the motor that drives the lidar has failed. I watched a video outlining the repair which involved a near total bot teardown. I hadn’t ripped into a robot vacuum cleaner to that degree since my original Roomba days a decade or so ago. I told Ali if she buys the motor I’ll attempt the repair.
So I set up the folding table in the hobby room. Upon it I placed the Neato, my Chromebook with the YouTube howto video queued up and a fresh cold Zima, everything I should need for a successful repair. I followed the video methodically which was was very well done. I find with these sort of repairs organization is very important. I tried to keep the parts and the screws that attached them grouped together and laid out in a way that made sense.
To change this motor required a near total teardown of the Neato. Although the process was involved it wasn’t really hard. The most challenging aspect was the desoldering/soldering that was required on the replacement motor. Reassembly went pretty well although when I got around to turning the Neato on I realized something was not right as I got a bumper stuck error. I noticed the bumper was definitely not moving normally. Fixing it required disassembly a second time to adjust some of the bumper switches that were not in there correctly. The end result was satisfying, the Neato which in most households would have wound up in the trash instead is now sucking and brushing once again.
Saturday night we watched the latest Netflix rental, The Greatest Showman, a request of Cindy. Before we started watching Cindy said she understood if I bailed since this was a musical and I generally hate musicals. I told her I didn’t mind watching it, after all she sits through most of my picks, even if they aren’t really her thing.
Early on I was ready to pull the plug. It was outright bizarre to see Wolverine dancing, prancing and singing on the screen. However they included enough conventional dialogue that it kept the movie enjoyable, even for someone like me, I’d actually give it a B. However the most noteworthy thing about the movie is the incredibly random and remote situation that happened at the end of it.
So the finishing song of the movie is called “From Now On“, a very high energy piece which played into the credits. So as I flipped off the Blu-Ray player and switched TV inputs back to live TV, I hear the exact same song?? I do a double take, thinking somehow I didn’t turn off the disc and the audio was still coming from the surround sound system. Nope, the song was playing on America’s Got Talent by some huge chorus of 150 people. The odds of this floored both Cindy and I, that we would finish watching that movie, playing that exact song, the exact moment it was playing on AGT, a show we never watch, was mind blowing. Cindy said she should run out and get a lottery ticket as the odds of what just happened seemed in line with lottery winners. It was a bizarre moment.
Sunday morning Cindy and I headed to the Greenway to ride. We brought four vehicles with, the One Wheel, the Meepo, the MiniPro and Cindy’s skateboard. We had a somewhat abbreviated but fine ride as we rolled around the beautiful pathways. It once again was hot as hell.
After eating lunch I had more to do outside, it felt like so much of my weekend was dedicated to just maintaining the landscape. I first walked the property with the bottle of Round Up and sprayed down various borders. Doing so on a regular basis makes weed whacking less of a pain, especially along the fence lines. I then hopped on the tractor to mow. The skies were already looking threatening so I buzzed around as fast as I could. Now I have a documented history here of mowing through rain and storms. However yesterday there was something about the skies, the lightning was close and felt dangerous. So once the rain started to fall heavily I parked the tractor even though I was only two thirds done. It was a good move in retrospect as a full blown monsoon blew through dumping several inches of rain in a very short time period. Of course the property was a lake afterward, scuttling any opportunity to finish the task.
Sunday night we had a very long EUC live stream. It included our first guest, Jason, the owner of EWheels, the company I have bought a half dozen EUCs from. It was a very informative show with Jason giving us a somewhat behind the scenes view of the business. The show which we advertise as being roughly an hour long went on for double that.
The next 7 days are going to be quite busy. I look forward to emerging from the other side.