A long Segway, Big Short

Friday night after work a few people from work met up with my ex-boss Shirley who retired about a year and a half ago.  I had not seen her since then.  Cindy came out and joined us as well.  I downed five Shock Tops while we were there putting me beyond safe driving parameters.  We left the Prius there and Cindy drove us both home in the Tacoma.

Our new Segway miniPro arrived during the day.  I told Cindy she should open it up and put it together which she happily did.  She shot video of her unboxing which I combined with my first attempt to get on on the Segway, drunk, when we got home.  You can see both things here.

Trying to step on the miniPro for the first time drunk was not ideal.  The first couple times I tried the board rocked back and force violently.  It wasn’t because of a problem with the Segway, it was my alcohol impaired balance.  Even with drinking, I eventually got myself up on the board and was able to slowly maneuver around the great room without feeling like I was going to crash.

Cindy right away was more adept at riding than I was.  Even though it was pitch dark we took the board outside so Cindy could ride in the driveway.  There is a built in speed limiter on the miniPro where you can not unlock the top speed on it until you log about .6 miles of ride time.  After a few laps around our driveway Cindy had passed that distance so we unlocked the speed limiter, which allows the miniPro to get up to 11mph before the the automatic brake is applied.  The built in headlights made nighttime riding a piece of cake.  The configurable color LED tail lights are extremely cool as well.

Saturday morning I hopped back on the board inside and practiced sober.  I quickly gained confidence in my ability to control the Segway.  I had no issue riding around the hard surfaces in the house, easily steering around furniture and other obstacles.  I drove Cindy back to South Street to pick up the Prius which she used to get to the cycling class she was teaching.  When I returned home I wanted to get more miniPro time but I instead rode the tractor around the yard for a couple hours, the grass was getting high.

I didn’t have any major construction projects on the schedule but I did help Cindy assemble two wood pallets into a chair.  The bare pallets had been sitting around for awhile so I was happy to lend a hand to get them out of the yard.  I also ripped a couple boards off a third pallet so Cindy could turn it into a planter for a friend of hers.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched our current Netflix rental, The Big Short.  The film is based on a true story regarding the financial meltdown of 2007/2008 and the origin of the credit default swaps that pushed several financial institutions off the edge and required others to get billions of federal bailout money to remain afloat.  I thought the movie was extremely well done and did an excellent job at illustrating at just how greedy and disgusting the financial industry was and is.

Just imagine you bought a house and instead of buying one mortgage on it you instead bought 50 mortgages on it.  In simplistic terms that is sort of what these banks did, selling mortgage investment bundles, filled with horrible risky loans over and over and over again.  It is pretty incredible when you try to wrap your head around just how deep the fraud and irresponsibility went.  The scary thing is so many people act like it was ancient history while the financial industry received little more than a tap on the wrist for literally stealing TRILLIONS of dollars from the general populace.  People can’t be bothered with things like financial fraud and abuse when there are so many Pokemon pets yet to catch.  Anyway, I liked the movie a lot and every adult should see it, and pay attention.  It gets an A.

Sunday morning we had an interesting exercise session that included running, Segway riding, rollerskating, and rollerblading.  I put in about 3.5 miles on the track while Cindy rode around the school grounds.  We then drove to Dunkin Donuts where I rode the miniPro while drinking coffee while Cindy roller skated.  Cindy had told me she used to be a really good skater but I never saw her in action.  It didn’t take long for me to be impressed.  Despite her not skating for years she immediately seemed comfortable, skating backwards and doing spins like it was nothing.

We later switched, I put on my roller blades and Cindy rode the board.  I also had not rollerbladed in several years.  Unlike Cindy, I was never adept at it.  At best I could avoid falling down but I never was smooth or fast.  I managed to not fall on my face but if you watch the video you will see my awkward style.

After an active start the rest of my Sunday slowed down. Both Cindy and I felt very tired during the afternoon and actually laid down for a psuedo-nap.  The most productive thing I did during the day was to reroute an ethernet cable that used to be used for the Xbox 360, into the wall and back out behind the tv for hard wired internet speed.  I pulled the 360 out of the bedroom as it had no practical use with a smart TV and a Fire Stick residing there now.

This weekend the string of horrible events continued with more police shootings in Baton Rouge and a bloody, unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey.  Soon these atrocities will become so commonplace that they get as much news time as US soldiers dying unnecessarily in Iraq/Afghanistan.  It gets to the point where typical public response to these events just feels numb. Outrage, prayers, and cries it must stop are the typical blueprint.  To me the increased frequency of these events would indicate that whatever we think we are accomplishing with that response is obviously ineffective.