For about a week I was getting a stream of notifications about user accounts being created on my WordPress blog installation. It didn’t make any sense because I have registration disabled. I would check my user list and not see any of these user accounts which were being supposedly created which obviously were not legitimate users. I was paranoid and unsure of what was going on so I installed a security plug in on the blog to keep an eye on things. I finally realized yesterday what was happening.

I host my blog with GoDaddy. One of the options they have is to create a staging site where you can try out changes first in a test installation before doing them to your main site. I evidently created a staging site years ago but have not touched it. It was this site that the bots found and were creating bogus accounts on. I addressed the issue by simply deleting the staging site, end of problem.

Mexico won their knockout game last night in the World Cup, the first time they have done it in 40 years. Sure I am pulling for Team USA but Mexico is my number two based on my girlfriends rooting interest.

I talked to my dad on Father’s Day. During the call he informed me he was sending me a large collection of pictures he has of me. I guess he came across the collection and thought I would want them. I said sure. The box arrived yesterday. Inside were dozens upon dozens of pictures, mostly from my childhood, some of which I never saw before. There were pictures of me and my first junior high love interest, my first girlfriend, and my first wife, none of whom have I thought about it in a very long time. The pictures illustrated the various stages of my childhood where I went from being a pretty cute kid to an awkward and downright weird looking teenager.

Of course flipping through them fires off memories of when these photos were taken. It’s a bit surreal in some ways mentally retracing the twisting path you followed to get to where you are at this current time and place. I stored the photos in a box that already has a ton of photos that I have not touched in ages. Maybe some day I will, maybe somebody else will, who knows.

I talked to my brother yesterday for his 56th birthday. It has been awhile since we caught up. He has a myriad of aches and pains as I do but to a more serious degree. He already has had a hip replacement and has knee problems. Like me he has had his knees scoped, each knee once. I had the same knee scoped twice. After his second knee was done he did not get any sort of significant relief which can be an issue with scoping. To me it’s sort of a crap shoot if it is effective or not depending on how scar tissue forms. He also has back pain. He has been relying on cortisone shots to get by which is not a great solution. Getting old sucks.

I neglected to mention that I saw Supergirl on Friday. I had already seen the numerous negative reviews on the film. I went into it already having disliked the recent James Gunn Superman movie, the worst version of Superman I can recall, IMO. Maybe I forgot to mention I saw it because the movie is pretty forgettable. The only noteworthy thing is a very strange choice they made in the plot at the end where Supergirl does something she would never do based on her comic book history. I mean the movie was ok. I wasn’t bored but it did not invoke any sort of significant emotion in me. I just didn’t really care what happened to the characters, good or bad. I’d give it a B-.

Remember how I doubled my memory in my PC which used to sit at 32GB? My plan was to sell the old memory on FB Marketplace. When I listed it I did not get one inquiry in the first 24 hours so I said f it, took the listing down and installed the memory back into the PC since I had two available DIMM slots to do so. I now have 96GB of RAM and can run whatever I want without concern of memory overhead.

I had another solid pickleball session Saturday morning, again playing with Brian whom I will partner with in my next tournament. We played well overall winning the majority of our games against some good competition. As I have become more intellectual about my play I have become more patient with my shot selection which helps a lot. It used to be I got much more satisfaction just smashing a ball so hard that my opponent can’t touch it. Now things like a dink that turns the opposing player around like a corkscrew, a well placed but slower paced shot that is in or having the opposing player bang the ball as hard as they can only to have me block it back in their face give me similar levels of enjoyment.

I had a busy riding weekend on the V14 Pro, doing a 50 mile range test on Saturday afternoon/evening followed by an off road test Sunday morning. The range test was actually split between two rides because of intense rain that swept in around the 30 mile mark. After 90 minutes or so I was able to head out and finish although I got a bit wet in that segment as well.

The off road test had it’s own difficulties. I planned to ride the swamp just as I have for the last nearly 10 years. When I pulled up to the gate I saw it was locked with a notice that the boardwalk was closed until the end of the year for replacement. It was getting dilapidated so I am glad they are fixing it, I just wish I knew about it.

I saw that you could potentially still access the loop via the connector trail in Bonita. Even though it was another 40 minute drive I figured I would give it a shot. I don’t know the Flint Penn trails well at all but I did manage to find and ride to the connector trail. Unfortunately that connector trail was a water logged mess. Every few hundred feet there was a small pond on the trail. I called it quits and rode back to the truck.

I was pretty beat up from the 70+ miles of riding I covered in two days. I spent the rest of my Sunday editing the two videos which took quite awhile. I filled in the remaining time doing some more leveling in WoW.

Elsa had another episode of unwellness where she threw up and had diarrhea. Lately it seems to be happening every week or two. It isn’t as severe as what happened in January but still disconcerting. She was better last night and this morning. At this point the idea of going on the road trip is fading as I can’t leave her for over a week with Alison if her well being is a crap shoot. It’s a difficult thing having her questionable health looming in the back of my mind most of the time.

It is safe to say I have watched more soccer in the last couple weeks than the rest of my life, combined. I have learned to have a greater appreciation of the game but there is one aspect, well actually two, that annoy me.

I can’t stand how players try to draw fouls by grandstanding if they are bumped by another player. Sure sometimes it is legit but most of the time it’s pure acting from what I see. It looks ridiculous when a player flops, the ref knows it’s a flop and the player stays on the ground writhing in “pain” until he realizes his ruse was not effective. He then gets up and goes back to normal.

The other annoying/confusing thing is how stoppage time is added on to the end of both halves. The refs evidently keep track of stoppage time during a half and then add that onto the back end. The thing is you never know exactly how much time is remaining in a game because there is no clock that accurately shows it. Instead it seems when there is a convenient stopping point around the end of stoppage time the refs will blow the whistle to end the half or the game. I have never seen a sport with fuzzy time keeping like this.

Yesterday I signed up for my third pickleball tournament which will be on July 11th. It will be a similar format to what we played last time. I am playing this one with Brian who I played with and won, in my first tournament last October. It should be a fun time for sure, regardless of outcome.

Last night I went out briefly on my V12S to do some sunset seated riding. It was peaceful outside after an evening filled with storms.

This weekend will include some pickleball play on Saturday. I need to shoot some more content for the V14 Pro, the type of content that takes more of a time commitment. We will see if I can make that commitment over the two days.

Last night I installed a memory upgrade in my PC. Despite having 32GB I was running into issues when doing video editing and playing WoW where I was pushing the limit. I bought 64GB to upgrade it. If you know anything about tech you know that RAM prices have been going through the roof because of the insatiable demand created by AI infrastructure. The two DIMM modules cost $500, geezus. They installed cleanly and within 5 minutes I had doubled my available RAM which should alleviate my issue. I hope to offset the memory upgrade cost by selling the 32GB of memory I pulled on FB Marketplace.

I believe I mentioned in the blog that I threw a $50 reservation on the new Slate electric truck awhile back. When it was announced the EV tax credit was still in place so it was advertised as being a sub 20K new vehicle which is unheard of nowadays. Since then the Trump administration has killed that incentive the starting price which was just announced has bumped up to $25K, still about half the average price for a new car nowadays.

Their approach is unique where every single truck that comes off the assembly line is identical, initially. If you want a different color they offer wraps for a reasonable number. However the customization options after that are crazy. You can tweak this truck a million ways including changing it into a SUV by adding seats and an enclosed top. It has manual windows and a bare bones interior that supposedly has enough head and leg room for someone my size. It has about 200 miles of range and ample power. Initial driving reports have been positive.

They opened up preliminary orders yesterday which requires you to commit another $250. Doing this supposedly gets you in line to get your Slate somewhere between January and March 2027. You aren’t actually picking out any options at this point, just committing more seriously to purchasing one as this deposit is non-refundable. I am not ready to commit yet.

When I laid down the initial $50 it was the idea that potentially the Slate could replace my Tacoma which is now 10 years old. Of course it is much smaller and would not have nearly the capabilities of the Toyota. However at this point I think I will continue rolling forward with my two vehicle household. Although I don’t see myself ever buying another gas powered vehicle there is a part of me that likes having my bases covered having the Tacoma in the collection. If I got into a scenario where charging the Tesla was problem as in a wide scale and long lasting power outage after a hurricane an ICE vehicle would be more viable.

I also have hesitancy about jumping in with two feet with a brand new car company. Who knows if the Slate will launch without major issues. How do they get fixed if something breaks? I think I would rather other people serve as guinea pigs to see if the Slate is indeed a good vehicle longer term.

One of my co-workers just picked up a low mileage Chevy Silverado EV, trading in his Model Y to do it. You may recall that was another vehicle I was considering. In that scenario I would trade/sell both my Tesla and Tacoma to replace them with one vehicle which would save in registration and insurance costs. I got to ride in it. It’s very nice and huge with space for days. On the downside it is the LT model which is missing a few bells and whistles including no self driving capability. To get that you need the pricier RST model. If I got one it would need be the RST but it just makes no financial sense right now. As much as I dislike Elon nowadays I do love my Tesla.

I started off my three day weekend with a nearly three hour pickleball session in the high heat and humidity. I used my new paddle for the entire time and it felt good. Brian, my buddy that I played my first tournament with came to play the first four games with me. It was a good session, I have been slowly improving my fundamentals.

Saturday afternoon, despite feeling a bit wiped out from playing I got a few things done. The drain in my one sink in the master bathroom has been slow to drain for awhile. I have been unable to twist the drain stopper to remove it, making it hard to clean properly. I finally realized why when I took off the arm that controls opening and closing the stopper. You can’t twist it out, the rod goes through a hole in the stopper which makes it impossible to remove unless you remove this arm/rod. After removing it I was able to use a good dose of Drano and hot water to get things moving again. I am not sure if I ever have cleaned that drain since I moved into the house and the cabinets were redone. It was gross as you can imagine.

I also got around to installing the auxiliary seat for my V12S. This mostly 3D printed seat is pretty high. I was hoping high enough to allow me to ride seated. Installation had a few challenges along the way that I was able to overcome. It is a very well engineered design, I wish I had the 3D modeling skills this guy must have. After installation I took it out front and was very pleased to find I could now ride this wheel seated. The V12S has a sweet suspension so riding it while sitting down will be great.

Saturday night I went to go see Toy Story 5. I think I have seen all the prior films. As always it was entertaining and well done. I did not realize that the first Toy Story came out in 1996, that’s insane. The plot of this movie revolved around how kids have replaced toys and conventional play with endless time in front of screens, which is not a good thing. Kids today don’t know any other reality but for those of us that do, we realize just how handicapping it is to a kid’s development to allow them to exist primarily in a digital world where their self worth is manipulated by social media.

I am not sure how you put that genie back in the bottle. When I was a kid I did tons of conventional playing with my brother. We would use our imagination with toys, explore outside, ride bikes and play sports regularly. Ironically at that time video games were seen by some as having the same brain rotting capability of phones and digital devices today. I was a big video game player much to the dislike of my dad. Hell I remember at one point him being negative about just watching TV. I guess my point is each generation thinks the ones that came after them is deficient in some way. Even with that being the case I still have a hard time imagining the majority of the screen addicted kids of today becoming fully functional adults in the future. Oh, I give the movie a B+ by the way.

On Fathers Day Sunday I did something I haven’t done in forever, went to the beach in the middle of the day to hang out. My girlfriend and I have done early morning walks and sunset watching there but we never had a “beach day”. Now I would hardly call this a day as we were only there a couple hours but it was still nice. I kept under the umbrella and had my big sun hat on as well. We did go into the ocean a couple times which was nice and warm, no adjustment period was required. Those couple hours was enough to make the tops of my feet and exposed upper arms rosy red. I would like to work beach time more into the regular rotation. Sunday I also gave my dad a call to wish him happy Father’s Day. He caught me up in the latest and greatest in his neck of the woods.

My day off started with a gym session that I concluded with another 15 minutes on the rower. I need to keep working decent cardio into my routine. I got out on another ride during the day, this time on the V14. I need to do a couple long rides on the wheel, a range test and an extended swamp run. I have to figure out the time and motivation to get those done.

So since Elsa had her GI issues two weekends ago she has been in an unsettled state. Getting her to eat consistently has been a problem. The food I have been giving her she is turning her nose up at now. We have rotated a few different types of food to try to spark interest. Even the appetite stimulant we have been giving her every day or two has not had the same effect it has for the last 6 months.

Of course I am worried that her kidney issues are the root cause. I have been holding back on taking her back to the vet just because I know the potential rabbit hole that becomes. She ate pretty well last night and more this morning so I am holding out hope she can rebound on her own but it is a constant grey cloud hanging over my head. Her health also could impact the planned road trip next month. If she isn’t stable I can’t leave her with someone for nine days. I just want her to be “normal” again.

I did my first extended print on the new Creator 5 Pro last night. In total the job ran just under 10 hours. It went perfectly with prints that matched the quality of my other printers. I also got to finish up my unbox/first impressions video on the printer.

I stayed up watching the Mexico World Cup match last night with my girlfriend. They came away with a 1-0 win. Despite the low score there was a lot of entertaining play throughout. Prior to that we watched some of the Canada/Guana game. I never understood the whole yellow card red card thing. A yellow card is a warning, if you get a second one in the same match it becomes a red card. A red card is an ejection from both the game and the player is banned from playing the next game. I was shocked at how severe a red card penalty is.

So knowing this, Guana had not one but two red cards in their match. I thought hockey was tough with their penalties where a penalized player is forced to sit in a box for a couple minutes, requiring his team to play short handed. In soccer the team is required to play the rest of the game short handed if a player gets a red card, wow. So with two of them Guana was playing 9 players against 11 Canada players most of the game. As a result Canada destroyed them 6-0. I had thought a red card meant a player was ejected but he could be replaced like in American football. Instead it can mean your team is at a permanent disadvantage the rest of the game.

I am taking Monday off to give me some extra time to get some things done. I have to get some rides in on the new V14 as well as shooting content on both it and the new 3D printer. I also have a few maintenance things to get done around the house. Having an extra 24 hours in the weekend will make that easier.

The new printer was waiting for me at the front door last night. I spent a good portion of the evening unboxing, assembling, shooting video and doing my first test print. Assembly had one annoying snafu that I was able to work around using more brute force than was probably necessary. The printer has a large top cover, one of the features of the Pro model. In retrospect I really have no need for the cover.

Enclosing the build area allows you to print higher temperature filaments which I rarely/never do. If I would need to, both of my Bambu printers are fully enclosed and would be able to handle it. Because of the way this printer feeds filament in a manual way you need to remove the cover any time you are inserting or removing filament so it is a bit of a pain in the ass. The stand I built appears to be a good fit. There is plenty of room while remaining sturdy. The test benchy boat I printed turned out well too. I need to finish up my initial impressions video and then I will continue to dig into the pros and cons of the CP5 Pro.

Yesterday I got to play with my first new pickleball paddle I have bought in awhile, the Enhance Pickleball MPP Turbo. This $100 paddle surprised me, it felt really, good. So good in fact that it make become my primary paddle, nudging my Bread and Butter Loco out of that spot which costs double the amount.

Last night I played some WoW briefly, long enough for me to get my eighth character to level 90, the current maximum in the game. I rotated playing 4 characters in this block to maximumize my efficiency. I have three more to go on this account (I have two). I plan to use the same strategy.

After waiting nearly two months my new 3D printer is due to arrive today. It is about a month later than originally promised. The printer has had a whirlwind last 24 hours. In that timespan it has gone from Hong Kong to Taiwan to Anchorage, to Louisville and finally Fort Myers early this morning. I hope to get it up and running tonight. From what I have seen, set up on this printers is significantly easier than my other multi-toolhead printer, the Snapmaker U1.

My girlfriend is a soccer fan and loves the World Cup. I have never been into soccer. I never played it and always found it almost unwatchable as my brain was conditioned for American football. I have however been watching a decent amount of games with her since the World Cup started and it honestly hasn’t been that bad.

I think the low amount of scoring is what turned me off but when you watch the game a little more you appreciate the incredible athleticism and endurance these guys have. I saw the Argentina game last night where Messi scored all three goals. It was genuinely entertaining.

No I haven’t made much political commentary lately just because it is like screaming into the middle of deep space. Every single day there is something insane being said or done in the Whitehouse and despite “outrage” everywhere these things continue, unabated. I mean the Iran war circus with what sounds to be an absolute lose/lose “peace agreement”, the Lincoln reflecting pool mess, ripping down and erecting buildings without proper authorization, a UFC octagon on the White House lawn and the man trying to get his name and scowling visage on airports, entertainment centers and even US currency are all things that I would have envisioned as pure fiction 15 years ago. Unfortunately it is our own awful version of Idiocracy being acted out in front of our eyes.