Archives August 2016

So I was unable to get an appointment yesterday at the clinic to have someone look at my ear.  I will be going there this morning instead.  My ear still feels closed although the level of hearing is better than when it first happened.  What has not changed is the low volume but constant ringing sensation I have in the ear.  Last night I dumped a 50/50 mix of vinegar and isopropyl alcohol in the ear for a few minutes which gave me a somewhat painful burning sensation.  It will be interesting to see what sort of diagnosis I am given.

Last night after work Cindy accompanied me to the school for some riding, her on the Minipro me on the Ninebot One.  I wanted to both get more practice in and show Cindy that she didn’t have to be so fearful of me crashing on the wheel now that I have some basic control.  We zipped all over the school grounds.  I used Cindy as practice for me as I tried to follow where she went on the Minipro which has more precise steering.  I was able to navigate wherever she went.

When we were on more open stretches the higher speed capability of the wheel was evident.  When the minipro speed limiter was kicking in I was able to keep going faster.  The Ninebot One E+ has a top speed of between 14-15 mph compared to 11 for the Minipro.  My rides were not without incident.  The one time I jumped off when I was unable to get over a thick lip on the road from the grass side.  I also had a few big wobbles and swerves that I was able to recover from without incident.  It was fun and I wish we could have stayed longer.

I find as I am driving around I am constantly evaluating the area for EUC riding fun level.  I can totally see me keeping the wheel in the car and stopping on my way home at various locations to give the wheel a spin.

I have been trying to get our office’s new Microsoft Office 365 subscription activated since late last week.  For some odd reason it is not allowing me to apply the subscription to our existing account that we set up for evaluation.  I have spent no less than two hours on the phone with someone named “Jake” that is obviously not a US citizen.  I can not quite place his accent but english is obviously not his first language which made the communication very frustrating.

When I would try to apply the key an error would pop up saying that key could not be used on this type of (government) subscription.  The problem seemed pretty obvious to me, I need a different key. He had me going through these maddening hoops that I knew would make no difference like clearing cache and cookies, using different browsers, changing internet options, and turning on compatibility mode.  I told him none of this made sense to do based on the error.  He said he had to have me do these steps before he was allowed to contact level two support.

At one point I lost my cool and ranted on him pretty hard.  I said I was tired of them wasting my time and if he was unable to resolve the problem I would like to talk to somebody that could.  He assured me he was escalating the issue and would get back to me asap.  It just seems ridiculous to me that Microsoft can’t figure this out.  It’s not rocket science.

So I mentioned on my Dufisthenics blog how my right ear popped while I was reversing out of a skin the cat, a difficult calisthenics move that has you upside down and inside out.  When it happened it felt similar to what happens on an airplane although I also started with an immediate low volume ring in that ear. I assumed the exertion from the move caused the ear to close and it would open up shortly.

Well it’s now Monday and it hasn’t opened at all.  I am worried I did something more serious.  I found some blood on my pillowcase over the weekend which I am afraid could have come from the ear.  I have tried various fixes, like yawning widely, the valsalva maneuver, cleaning out the ear with peroxide, and lots of nose blowing.  None of it has worked.  I am hoping to get an appointment at the on site employee clinic here so someone can take a look inside to see what is going on.

When I came home Friday there was a pretty incredible storm blowing through with sideways, torrential rain.  In the time I had the garage door open to pull the Tacoma inside the front half of the floor had a pond form.  It was crazy rain that of course once again left the property a mucky mess.

On Saturday Cindy and I had a full errand circuit, hitting Pinch-a-Penny, Dunkin Donuts, Rural King, Racetrac, and Home Depot.  By the time we got home the back of the Tacoma was fully loaded down with gas for the mowers, chlorine for the pool, sod, mulch, a 50 lbs bag of chicken food, and a few other items.

After eating lunch we headed outside to get busy.  Cindy worked on installing the sod in areas the chickens have destroyed, a task we have to repeat on a regular basis.  I worked on getting the 20 bags of mulch laid down.  Once again the chickens were the impetus behind the work as their tireless work kicking mulch out of several landscaped areas left nothing but muddy dirt in a lot of spots.

While we were working Ali and her boyfriend stopped by to drop off Sadie which was nice.  We gave them a quick introduction to the chickens.  It was the first time Ali had been in the back yard in a looong time so she was surprised how much things have grown/changed.

After I finished with chores I got out on my Ninebot One.  I had seen a video that made me realize what I was doing wrong when it comes to turning so I wanted to test out the tips.

I was successful doing some simple turns along with a few fails.  I was able to ride a circuit down our driveway, onto the street, into the neighbors half circle driveway, back on the road and into our driveway without falling.  The key was realizing I needed to control the lean of the bot on slower turns from the knees down instead of leaning my entire body.  I felt good about the progress.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched our Netflix rental, 10 Cloverfield Lane. We both liked the original Cloverfield which was a very odd but scary movie.  10 Cloverfield will have you scratching your head as you try to figure out what exactly is going on.  Of course I can’t give away the plot but I’ll tell you the movie had both Cindy I and yelling out loud, more than once. It’s a solid B+ film.

On Sunday morning I set the alarm for 6AM which Cindy wasn’t thrilled about.  I actually was awake a couple hours previous to the alarm for whatever reason so when the alarm went off I felt like death.  I set the alarm so we could accomplish a goal we talk about often but never accomplish, getting out to run before the sun is up in the sky.

We got to the track around 6:45 and started our roughly three and a half mile training run.  We have hopes to compete as a relay in a 10 mile race at the end of October.  This was our first step towards that goal.  The run was challenging, even without having the sun in the sky baking us.  The air was still very humid and we also had to dodge the poorly adjusted water sprinklers that in some cases shot out 15 feet across the running surface.  The run was not easy but we completed it, averaging about 9:30 per mile which was fine.  I am pretty confident that in the span of two and a half months Cindy and I can tack another mile and a half onto that distance for the race.

When we got home we went for a coffee run with Sadie in the back seat.  When we got home Sadie acted like she was disaapointed and did not want to get out of the car.  We made an illogical decision to grab her leash and head right back in the direction we just returned from to go to Home Depot even though we had no real reason to go other than we knew Sadie would like walking around.  We did wind up buying a few things while we were there, there is ALWAYS something we need for a home repair/project if we think hard enough.

Early afternoon Cindy and I took the Segways out for some more dual riding fun.  We rode around another development area.  Once again the Minipro’s delivered easy, quick, low stress fun.  I found that my Ninebot One riding actually made riding the Segway feel a but weird for a few minutes as it is a much different experience.  In total we put in a little less than 5 miles on the ride.

Later in the afternoon I got in some extensive Ninebot One training.  I wanted to build on the turning progress I made the day before.  I figured the school parking lot would be a much more beneficial location to do it.

I bet a spent over an hour at the school grounds.  During this time I felt that finally the elusive IT clicked in my head, I just could ride.  During the session I put in excess of six miles on the wheel, traversing a variety of surfaces including the parking lot, sidewalks, speed bumps, road, the running track and even a 100 yard section of open grass.  Don’t get me wrong, it is not easy for me and I still had moments where it felt like I was close to falling off but I stayed on the wheel.  It felt sort of awesome.

The closest thing I can compare it to is when I taught myself to juggle as a young man working as a meat cutter at Weis Markets.  It had a similar feel where it felt nearly impossible at first but through practice and determination it became another reflex reaction.  Riding a EUC was similar from the mental standpoint with the addition of a physical toll that is paid in bumps and bruises.  I was proud for forcing myself to continue to get on the wheel time and time again, knowing the end result was going to be me falling off and/or hurting myself.  48 years of age is definitely not ideal for learning a new balancing skill.

After getting home and announcing my accomplishments to Cindy I was anxious to build upon it more.  I threw the wheel on the charger for an hour or so and headed back out.  I came up with the goal of running the complete length of 8th street, something I did the other day in multiple segments, as one continuous ride.  As I approached the dead end side near the county fairgrounds I came up on a family that was out in their driveway.  I could tell they were all looking at me with confusion.  When I got closer the father said to me, “What are you, some sort of wizard??”  I laughed as I kept rolling and told him there were a ton of falls before I got to this point.  I was able to complete the roughly three mile circuit without falling or getting off once.

That wasn’t enough for me, I went out once more a little later as the sun was setting.  I wanted to get some FPV of me riding, something I was far too unstable to consider doing previously.  The LED light rings on the Ninebot One are really cool and I wanted to get a good shot of them, something you can’t do very well in bright sunshine.  The end result was the video below where I again ran an uninterrupted but shorter circuit. Once again, it felt awesome.

I still am not nearly as smooth or stable as I would like to be.  I still have regular wobbling that kicks in but for whatever reason my body can just deal with it and keep rolling.  My turning is not fantastic but I was able to maneuver a lot of sidewalk angles successfully when I was at the school.  I honestly feel at this point I could go on a ride with Cindy on a bike path or slightly populated sidewalk and be ok.  I need to be much more focused when riding the wheel than on the Minipro but as time passes I am expecting single wheel riding to become more and more a reflex instead of conscious thought.

This newfound ability has me wanting to be on the wheel more and more.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it finds it’s way into my trunk for some lunch break riding now and then. 🙂  In total three weeks have passed since I received the wheel.  If you factor in I did no riding the week prior to Comic Con my learning curve has been roughly two weeks.

Last night after work I got inspired to take my Ninebot One on it’s longest ride so far.  I went down our road to the first cross street which has very minimal traffic.  Heading down to the side street made me a bit nervous as I passed a couple vehicles going to opposite direction as I was riding on a single wheel, which sounds a bit crazy.

Once I got on the side street I was less nervous.  The long, straight stretches of asphalt were good for practice.  I did pretty well although I still had issues with wobbling which would kick in during the ride.  I wanted to try to do some turn practice.  A couple times I managed to complete a turn within the radius of the width of the road but it was VERY shaky and much more difficult than it should be.  After coming out of one of those shaky turns I developed a bad wobble that turned into a pretty bad crash where I came down hard on my wrist.  I had my lifting gloves with wrist wraps on but that crash convinced me I need to get full fledged wrist guards.  The last thing I need is a broken wrist. Both of my wrists now are hurting.

There are weird mind games that go on while I am riding.  I will be cruising along more or less smoothly and I will start thinking about losing control and crashing.  Many times these thoughts are followed with feeling unstable with wobbles returning.  I also got nervous a few times where I was going fast enough to initiate the automatic tilt back which kicks in at 12-13 mph.  I was surprised I was going that fast (first time) but once I was, I again thought about the implications of falling at that speed.

I find my lower body fatigues when I ride, probably because I have so much tension in my legs.  It seems like the deeper I go into a ride the more shaky I get.  My longest single ride last night was probably over a half mile in length.  In total I put in somewhere around three miles, obliterating any prior distance totals from other sessions.  The one fall I had however was a reminder that I am still far from ready to be riding in environments with a lot of people, vehicles or other obstacles.  This weekend I want to get more wheel time, hopefully practicing a lot with turning.  I watched a video last night that made me realize a few things I was fundamentally doing wrong that makes turning harder than it needs to be.

When I got back Cindy was a bit freaked out.  I had not told her I planned to ride down the road so she had no idea where I was or if I was upright or on a stretcher.  I told her she didn’t need to worry since my life insurance premium is up to date. 🙂

Even though last week I suggested that perhaps the idea of the Olympic games may have run it’s course, I still have found myself watching the games quite a bit and enjoying it.  Michael Phelps has been nothing short of amazing.  To perform at such a high level across four Olympics spanning 16 years is unprecedented and unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.  It really doesn’t matter which sport is on, I’ll watch it, unless it’s soccer.

This weekend should be pretty normal with work around the house, a Sadie visit, some endurance training, Segway riding and whatever else sounds fun.  With the new WoW release some virtual relaxation will be on the docket as well I am sure.

Yesterday at the gym I rebooted my more serious endurance training doing a running/riding brick.  I have been rewarded for my effort with a solid block of pain that starts in my lower right back and extends through the hip to my knee.  It’s not unexpected.

So I took a serious look at road trip options yesterday.  My original idea of going up the east coast all the way to Maine just was not going to be feasible due to a lack of days available.  We would have been sleeping somewhere different every night with limited time to enjoy much of anything.  Cindy came up with the idea of doing a much more abbreviated trip that only takes us as far north as Ashville, NC with additional stops at Myrtle Beach and Savannah.

I have never made any effort to see stuff in any of these states, they were just road real estate I had to travel through to get to my other destinations.  The total amount of driving we will be doing is a tiny fraction of what we covered last year.  It will be a different feeling type of trip for sure but it’s better than no road trip at all.

Yesterday I used an online service to create a snappy intro to front many of my YouTube videos.  It was something I had intended to do for quite awhile.  I was originally going to try to make something myself but dropping 5 bucks to have it looking more pro was worth it to me.

So Saturday will mark the two year anniversary of my mom passing away.  Although the 13th is the actual date, to me, yesterday the 10th of August was really the day I lost Mom.  The 13th was just the day the life support was removed.  In some ways it still seems impossible that my mom isn’t around although my mind has more or less adjusted to the reality after this much time.

I have a picture of her and I at her 50th birthday party in my office that Cindy framed and gave to me.  I look at it every morning when I come in.  It affects me differently from day to day.  It can make me smile or tear up randomly, I just never know.  It is also amazing to me that I am only a little more than a year away from being the same age as Mom was when that picture was taken.

As I was rummaging through my digital stuff I came across what I said about Mom at the remembrance we held at Lowdermilk Park.  I don’t remember if I ever shared it before but here it is.

As I stare here at a blank page, trying to figure out how you are supposed to represent the life of your mother in a few paragraphs, I am struggling.  How do you describe an entire lifetime of love and support that a mother provides for her children?

As her son I knew Mom as a loving parent who time and again would do the best that she could to ensure I was provided for.  She truly was my rock solid foundation.  No matter what situation or trouble I found myself in I could always count on my mom to support me when I needed it  and to tell me when I was acting dumb when I deserved it.

My mom’s hard work ethic, sense of responsibility, kindness, and humor are all qualities that she passed on to her children which I am eternally grateful for. 

I have many fond memories of mom growing up like our annual  vacations to Rehoboth Beach, countless afternoons spent at the Green Valley pool, and our Christmas Eve family dinners where mom did all of the work with little acclaim, while my grandfather complained that he didn’t like eating by candlelight because he couldn’t see his food.

When my parents divorced, mom was thrust from the role of a housewife into that of a family provider overnight.  She was able to build a long and successful career as a salesperson using nothing more than her honesty, friendliness and smile. 

I was proud of my mom when she took the brave step over 10 years ago of leaving Pennsylvania to join me here in Florida.  She loved Florida winters and having a surplus of sunshine year round.  She also was able to make a new circle of good friends here in Florida, many of which are here today.  I know my mom cherished these relationships.

Mom was lucky enough to see her children have children of their own.  I know my sister has relied on my mom time and again for advice as she raises her own two beautiful children.  My dogs, Nicki & Sadie loved their grandma.  As soon as Nicki would spot my mom she would grab a toy as a gift and rush towards her with her tail wagging uncontrollably.    

I was most recently proud of my mom after she decided to finally give up cigarettes cold turkey in January, something I had always wanted her to do since I was a young boy.  I used to hide or even throw her cigarettes out, until I got punished for doing it of course.  For her to finally quit smoking on her own was very special to me.

Anybody that knew my mom knows that despite her far too soon sudden passing, it is exactly the way she would have wanted it to be with no pain and no suffering. 

One time when I was discussing aspects of life with my mom she told me that she judged how successful her life was by the type of people her children grew up to be.  She told me she was content that she did a good job. 

Based on the outpouring of love, support and kindness I have witnessed the last several days for my mom I think she can rest peacefully, knowing she touched the lives of so many people in a positive way.     

Last night I put on my full body armor to have a more prolonged session on the Ninebot One.  I was curious if the week long layoff would have a noticeable negative effect on my still very basic EUC riding skill.  My primary goal last night was to get the hang of stepping off the wheel at the end of a ride instead of the awkward hop/fall off I have been doing so far.

The rides up and down the driveway went pretty smooth.  I felt more or less under control.  My first few attempts at stepping off were not good but eventually I got a little better.  I really have to think through how I need my body to be in order to make it happen.  Of course this needs to become a reflex reaction before I would feel safe riding around more obstacles or people.

I had one big highlight of the night when I started the ride crossing the driveway into the front yard.  I then crossed the house mound and descended down the hill to the front yard, turned and was able to climb the hill and wind up where I started, stepping off in a controlled fashion.  I was surprised and very excited I pulled that off.  All in all I was very happy with the way things went and I am finding myself feeling much more anticipation instead of dread when I step on the wheel now.  In addition to continuing to work on stepping off the bot I need to get much, much better at turning.  Tight turns is something you need to be able to do in real life, all I have been successful with so far are larger sweeping changes in direction.

Warning, WoW talk ahead.

Yesterday the initial stages of the new WoW expansion released which unlocked the ability to play the new class of demon hunter.  My decade plus in the game meant that I had already brought every class in the game to max level.  Getting to try out a brand new class is always interesting.

I had a lot of fun rolling around the desolate landscape kicking demon ass wherever I could find it.  Demon hunters are a bit of an anomaly.  As their name suggests, their primary goal is to destroy demons however they are part demon themselves.  The main difference is they are not part of the hive mind that controls other demonic forces in the game.

With this new expansion they have changed a TON of things which is the case with pretty much every expansion.  The changes cause players to have to re-learn a lot of things which can be a pain in the ass but all part of the cycle of MMORPG’s.  If they kept things the same forever the game would get stale very quickly.  Just as in real life, if you are not adapting to and embracing change you will be left behind.

Last night Cindy and I were trying to decide if we wanted to get in another September road trip this year.  I have one window of time that is available in September to do it.  If we do decide to take the trip it would be an east coast course that would hopefully takes us all the way to Maine.  We are weighing the time, logistics and expense of something like that with a staycation where we mix in some more local fun and projects in that same time period.  Of course the traditionalist in me is uncomfortable with breaking the streak of long road trips Cindy and I have done since we have been together.  I get a lot of enjoyment exposing Cindy to places/things she never has seen before.

So I ordered a replacement canopy for the yard tractor back on July 17th online at sears.com.  When I ordered it I opted for local store pick up to save shipping charges.  When the order was placed there was no mention of any sort of delay.  When I heard nothing for 10 days I called Sears and was forwarded to what appears to be an India based called center.  I struggled through the communication barrier to discover that the canopy would not show up in store until August 6th, some three weeks after my order date.  WTF?? Well I had no choice but to wait it out.  While we were at Comic Con I got a text message and an email indicating that my order had arrived and I could pick it up.  I figured I would get it yesterday morning.

So I pulled up to Sears, which is part of our local mall around 10:20. I was lucky to spot the door used to pick up online orders, near the auto center.  The pick up area had two doors, one automatic, which didn’t appear to be working and a manual door which was unlocked.  I step inside and a young girl behind sliding glass said “We are still closed!”  I pause for a second and say to her, “What do you mean you are closed?”  as I just walked in the unlocked door which apparently happens to also be an employee entrance.  The girl tells me the store does not open until 11AM.  Again with a confused look on my face I said “You are closed until 11AM on a Monday??”  She again confirmed the store does not open until 11 which apparently was a recent cost savings move made necessary by Sears dismal fiscal situation.

Well my emotion shifted from confusion and surprise to anger.  I did not want to twiddle my thumbs for 40 minutes until the store officially opened.  I went on a bit of a rant, telling the girl I have been waiting for this item to show up for three weeks and I just drove close to 25 miles to pick it up.  I told her the notifications I got about my item being available made no mention of the restrictive store hours.  I was dug in and ready for a fight because this transaction had already been a pain in the ass.

The girl must have sensed I was not going to take no for an answer very easily.  She said the guy in the department that handles online orders just came in and “once the printer warms up” he will try to help me.  As I was waiting an old lady that worked at Sears came out to the lobby and was telling me the woes of Sears/K-mart from an employees perspective.  I told her how my transaction was an example of why customers don’t want to deal with Sears anymore.  She sort of agreed with me.

So the order guy came out and asked my name.  He disappeared a couple minutes and then emerged with my box.  I thanked both him and the girl that originally told me NO for accommodating me.  It was a small redemption of an overall negative transaction and indicative of why the old retail behemoth is circling the drain.  It seems like the great anti-Sears crusade my dad started in the 70’s might finally be coming to fruition.

Yesterday the box I was praying would show up last week before departing for Comic Con arrived.  It was the Soldier 76 mask I had ordered three weeks ago, almost at the same time as the tractor canopy.  The Ebay listing had a huge delivery window range, saying the item could arrive anywhere from July 28th to Aug 12th.  I ordered the mask hoping the China based seller would be under promising and over delivering.  Well it didn’t work out that way.

Luckily Cindy hand crafted me a mask to use in case this exact scenario occurred and she did a great job on it.  Both of us were complemented repeatedly at the Con about the quality of our attire.  If I had this mask it would have been off the charts.  Not only is the mask pretty much an exact replica of the in game mask, it even has a LED light across the visor to complete the visual. It is extremely cool. The good news is the jacket and visor aren’t going anywhere so whenever Cindy and I decide to jump back into another cosplay event I will be ready to roll.

The mask and the whole cosplay experience have started Cindy and I talking about some of the things that could be done if we had a 3D printer.  Once I have some more Amazon points accumulated it might be another mid-summer Xmas present to ourselves.

We had hoped to get out on the Segways on Monday afternoon however prolonged rain washed those plans away.  We spur of the moment decided to go out to a matinee of Suicide Squad.  I knew the movie had big opening weekend numbers.  I heard of Suicide Squad once or twice but never had any tangible comic book knowledge of them.  There were so many characters involved it was tough to get a good feel for a lot of them.  Some of the “heroes” seemed pretty lame, especially the boomerang dude.  I came away with much the same feeling I did with Batman vs Superman, the movie was entertaining enough for a B+ grade but it wasn’t better than any Marvel super hero movie I have seen in the last 5 years.  DC so far just is not in Marvel’s league when it comes to big screen productions.

Last evening I got back on my Ninebot One for the first time in a week.  Earlier I had wrapped it in some packing foam to help protect both myself and the bot from falls.  My goal was to work on getting off the wheel in a calm fashion instead of the “reach down, grab the wheel and then hop off awkwardly” thing I have been doing so far.

The intent is to slow to a stop and then simply step off with one foot, keeping the other foot on the bot, like you would do with a bike.  In theory it should not be too hard.  I tried repeatedly and just could not get it.  Each time I tried to step off with one foot and no hand assist the bot would wind up laying on it’s side.

It became apparent that the foam I used was not going to be up to the task.  Even those gentle layovers started to rip it in various spots. So although I was unsuccessful with proper dismounting, the good news was I went up and down the driveway around 10 times with no falls.  I still had some wobbling and still felt only loosely in control but any session that doesn’t involve me or the Ninebot barrel rolling on the cement is a win at this point.

I recently installed Snapchat on my phone, an app that I have avoided since it came out branded as primarily a sexting application.  It of course has turned into much more than that.  One of the cool features is it’s ability to overlay faces onto a person which can result in some pretty hilarious video clips.  My initial efforts were LOL funny, if I do say so myself.

So Cindy had been working diligently or more accurately, obsessively on costume prep for a good portion of last week.  I have no idea how many total hours went into the outfits for her and myself but it is way up there.  Her creativity in recreating the look of the two characters we were going as, Soldier 76 and Tracer was extremely impressive.  She made 80% of the costumes by hand.  She was working on stuff right up until we left on Friday morning.

After getting the chickens handled for the day we piled into the Prius and heading northward towards Tampa.  I had not been to Tampa in many years and never had much good or bad to say about it.  It took us around two and a half hours until we arrived at our hotel which was called Aloft, a hip sort of place.

I immediately was not happy that our only parking option was to valet at a cost of $20 a day.  The room was not cheap so getting add on expenses right off the bat didn’t make me happy.  We used a luggage cart to haul our large collection of props upstairs.  The room itself was very modern and cool with a flat screen tv mounted on the wall, modern accessories, nice view out the window and black slate floor in the bathroom areas. It was very nice.

The Con started on Friday so we wasted no time in prepping.  Of course the majority of the work that needed to be done was by Cindy both on her costume and getting me situated in mine.  Besides my putting on the costume, Cindy spray painted my hair gray and darkened the area around my eyes.  She once again did the face make up on herself to simulate Tracer’s goggles which takes quite awhile.

Finally after about 2 hours of prep we were ready to head to the convention center.  The skies looked like rain so we decided to get an Uber ride instead of walking the roughly half mile to the convention.  Since it was a “surge” time the ride cost about 50% more than normal.

We did not actually get to the event until after 5PM.  We headed into the main exhibit hall where all the vendors are set up.  It took no time at all until the picture requests came rolling in.  It seemed like once again there was a scarcity of people dressed up as Overwatch characters despite the popularity of the game.

At first I was trying to just put on the mask as needed since it limited my vision to a narrow slot in front of me.  However the picture requests were so fast and furious I wound up just leaving the mask on.  I used Cindy as a beacon in front of me that I would just follow through the crowd. Besides the limited vision I was also hot as hell.  In no time at all I had sweat running down my back.

We did not realize that although the Con ran until late at night, the main exhibit hall closed at 6PM meaning we only got to walk around it a bit.  To be honest, between all the picture requests and the crowds we didn’t get to really look at anything in depth on the show floor.

Once the main hall closed we headed downstairs where a bunch of things were set up in the smaller rooms that lined the halls.  Of course there were a ton of interesting costumes to look at which honestly is my favorite thing to do at these events, just people watch.

Cindy was having some costume difficulties throughout the show.  The complexity she added to her costume unfortunately brought additional fragility as well.  A number of things that were attached via glue gun broke loose.  Luckily she brought safety pins with that could be used to fix most of the problems. We hung at the convention center for several hours, posing for picture after picture.  Since this is the first time I dressed up for a con this was a new experience for me.  It gives you an idea of what it must be like to be an actual celebrity.  It was both cool and annoying at the same time.

We decided to walk back to the hotel Friday night in our full costumes.  Cindy was a bit scared by the idea of walking.  We saw some interesting things on the way like a bar owner in a screaming match with two patrons that appeared to be trying to skip their bill and some shady looking guys that bottomed out their low riding car pulling into a parking garage.  Walking in the warm and humid air in costume just brought on a whole new level of perspiration for me.  We were quite glad when we got back into the AC of the hotel.

We stayed up a bit on Friday catching some of the Olympic opening ceremony but then turned it off due to us both being exhausted.  We began a night of pretty miserable sleep thanks to bad acoustics and inconsiderate assholes allowing their children to run wildly up and down the halls after midnight.  Cindy called to the desk to report the noise but it really didn’t matter.  Pretty much any noise whatsoever in the hall seemed to amplify and broadcast into the room.  We woke up Saturday morning feeling like shit from a lack of solid sleep.

At first Cindy was saying she wasn’t going to dress up at all for Saturday.  She was bummed out about her costume failures from Friday.  I told her she would regret not dressing up so she reconfigured her outfit on the spot to a less restrictive version.  It still looked good.  We once again hailed an Uber to get us on site, we got there late morning.

Before heading there we had the non-complimentary hotel breakfast.  Again with what the room cost, throwing in a free continental breakfast would have been beyond reasonable.  Instead we paid $21 for greasy egg sandwiches neither of us enjoyed.

Well we knew Saturday would be much busier than Friday but that knowledge did not make the situation any better.  There were just walls of humanity everywhere you looked.  We went into the main exhibit hall and tried to merge into the current of people circling around the space.  It was pretty damn miserable.  Of course we again had picture requests by the dozens.

Everywhere you looked there were long, long lines.  The lines to get Norman Reedus’s (Darryl from Walking Dead) autograph and/or picture were some of the longest.  I just could not believe that many people were willing to wait in a line that long to pay $200 to spend 30 seconds with the guy.  The lines for food were equally morbid.

After being there for 2-3 hours we wanted to get some food.  The lines were still horrible even though it was now around 2pm.  We headed outside to check out the army of food trucks by the convention center, hoping they would be less busy.  No luck, the lines there numbered in the dozens as well.  It was frustrating to be in a situation with that many people.  We decided to take a time out and took yet another Uber back to the room to chill out for a few hours.  Once we got there we ordered a pizza and just tried to relax for a bit.  We were already tired from the lack of sleep the night before.

We decided we would head back between 5 and 6 but do it in normal clothes.  I still had the dark make up around my eyes and a Soldier 76 T-shirt that Cindy hand crafted but that was it.  We walked there this time.  It was still crowded but not suffocatingly so as before.  It felt a bit weird walking around without being asked for pictures.  It made you miss super hero life in a small way although it was nice being able to walk around in comfort.

We had more fun this time around exploring some of the rooms which included Cindy schooling me on Galaga, one of her favorite arcade games growing up.  She was really, really good at it.  We also got to bear witness to a very odd cosplay battle where three or four Spidermans took on a sword wielding Batman, a T-Rex, and Popeye.  The footage from that is down below.  All of the video we shot was from Saturday.  We had the GoPro strapped to Cindy’s arm so we could have film rolling throughout the day to capture some of the craziness.

We decided we had enough somewhere around 8PM.  We had a much more pleasant walk back to the hotel which included a detour to the beautiful river walk area that was nearby our hotel.  We finished off our left over pizza for dinner and called it a night.  In order to block some of the sound from the hall we tried piling some shit in front of the door.  It didn’t really make a difference, we still both generally slept like shit.

Once we got up we wasted little time getting packed up and out of there.  We skipped the hotel breakfast and instead grabbed sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts.  The DD was actually in a town just outside of Tampa.  The drive there took us through areas that ranged from sketchy looking to historical.

On the drive home we listened to some podcast that Cindy discovered where a woman tells real life stories in very interesting ways.  The story we listened to was about Bo Berghdal, the soldier that the US traded five Gitmo prisoners for.  The story revealed that the headlines that 24 hour news organizations jammed down the public throat were extremely inaccurate.  The media made it seem like Berghdal was a Taliban fan and had a pleasant time while being their hostage.  Actually the opposite is true, his existence during those 5 years in captivity was horrific and he tried to escape multiple times.  It’s just another example of the American public being all too willing to accept what the media tells them at face value.

The drive home had a major delay as there was an accident on I-75 that involved fatalities.  Traffic jam situations generally make me dislike people more than a lot of things.  As you approached the area of the accident there were multiple sign boards indicating that the left two of the three lanes were blocked.  You had to be blind to not see them.  So a logical, considerate person would get into the right lane to minimize the quagmire of cars trying to merge over.  Well of course most people don’t give a flying fck.  They deem their time as more valuable than others and stay in those lanes they know are closed in the hope to get a few car lengths further ahead.  It is reflective of society in general, fck the greater good, me first.

We got home around 11:30 and started unpacking.  Cindy headed out to tend to the chickens.  I wonder if they missed us?  The rest of the day was low key as I ripped video from the con, paid my bills and chilled out.  Today I have a few things on the docket, including getting back on my Ninebot One.  Should be fun.

You can see the videos we took from the Con below.  It was a fun time but Cindy and I both agreed we enjoyed the experience at Miami Supercon more.

The back yard of the property was getting very jungle-like from all of the precipitation of the last few weeks.  I have been waiting for the standing water to recede just enough so I could mow it down.  Since we are out of town for a few days I targeted last night as the time to do it, despite menacing skies that had me driving through periods of rain on the way home.

As soon as I got home I quickly changed and went out back, although light rain had already started.  Well shortly after starting the light rain became steady rain.  Thanks to the mower canopy I wasn’t getting very wet but the grass was.  Cutting through high grass is a big enough pain.  Cutting through high wet grass multiplies the mess.

I grabbed one on the bungees that we use to help keep the canopy in place and instead used it to keep the plastic chute guard in the up position.  If I didn’t do this I would be stopping every couple minutes to clear the clump of wet crass clippings clogging the exit to the deck.  Pulling the guard up allows the grass and other debris to fly out much easier.  The problem is a lot of that debris winds up getting blown back onto me.  The right side of my body quickly became covered in sand, dirt and various organic matter as the wind blew it back my way. It was pretty miserable.

For the first half of the job it was raining.  Whenever I mow in rain I flashback to a very vivid childhood memory when my dad was mowing on our large tractor at night in the middle of a tremendous thunderstorm.  I remember looking out the dining room window at the headlights of the tractor as lightning would briefly illuminate the outline of my dad at the controls as my mom commented on how stupid it was.  There is no doubt I share dad’s stubbornness when it comes to accomplishing a task once it is set in motion.

Cindy has taken over the dining room table for the last couple weeks doing extensive costume development for this weekend.  She has spent countless hours tweaking and retweaking things.  Her creativity really comes out when it comes to costume design.  I think mine will be pretty cool if I don’t drop dead from heat exhaustion while walking around.  We are bringing some alternative, less restrictive clothing for me to wear if I need a break during the con.

We hope to pull out tomorrow morning and get to enjoy Friday evening and all day Saturday at the convention.  It should be a lot of fun.

So I have been laying off riding the Ninebot One since Saturday.  The biggest reason is the bruise/blister on my left ankle which is very sore to the touch.  Despite all the pain and frustration I have endured since starting the learning process I still found myself wanting to be on it last night taking one more small step in my riding ability.

Although I am still very early in the stages of EUC learning I found myself already looking at higher end wheels that I could eventually master like the King Song KS-18.  It’s a huge 18 inch wheel that can go 20 mph with a range of 30-40 miles.  It’s profile is so high that they actually include a seat that you can sit on while riding, crazy.  I can only hope someday I have bike like comfort and stability on a single wheel device.

I have a short week and a long weekend coming up as Cindy and I are attending another Con, specifically the Tampa Comic Con.  Cindy has been going nuts doing costume development.  I am going to join her in the cosplay this time around.  My outfit should be pretty cool but I am worried about passing out from the heat of wearing it.  I can only hope they have the AC in the place cranked down to arctic level.

So the news reported that we now have our first confirmed homegrown cases of Zika infection right next door in Miami.  Of course this comes as no surprise. How anyone thought they would be able to contain the spread of a mosquito based disease is beyond me.  In no time at all Zika will literally be everywhere, spreading birth defects far and wide.  I wonder if the No Choicers will feel differently when they are informed that due to their Zika infection their fetus will be born with a miniature head and/or other horrible defects.  It seems like a pretty insidious thing as the symptoms could easily be confused with dozens of other ailments.  I am glad that I have no potential child births in my future.

Speaking of Zika, one of the big issues with the 2016 Olympic games is they are being held in Brazil which is a huge hot spot for the virus.  Any spectator or athlete that is attending the games is taking a huge gamble on becoming infected.  If you are not pregnant and don’t plan on becoming pregnant in the near future it isn’t a huge deal as the body will eventually flush the virus from your system.  However if that is not the case I think you are nuts if you are down in Rio.

If a mosquito spread pestilence wasn’t bad enough, Rio has another big problem, disgusting conditions around the Olympic venues.  I had no idea that Rio has India-like third world living conditions in parts of the city where raw sewage runs down the streets.  This sewage dumps directly into the waterways, the same waterways used for various Olympic events.  From all accounts it is disgusting and dangerous.  A study of the water revealed  “The first results of the study published over a year ago showed viral levels at up to 1.7 million times what would be considered worrisome in the United States or Europe.” Rio was supposed to mount some sort of monumental clean up effort but even now, a few days before the start of the games the water is still basically one large toilet.

To me this is just the latest example of why the Olympics may have run it’s course.  Recent decades are ripe with examples of the Olympics bringing financial ruin and disaster to host cities.  The doping scandals that seem to be a part of every games makes any result questionable if PED’s were involved or not.  Just like so many other things in the world, the core of the Olympic spirit has mutated.  It’s not really about the athlete’s struggle to succeed, it’s about money.  For the IOC to ignore serious health hazards and elect to plow ahead with the Rio games is just further reinforcement of this principal.

I finished up my third Warcraft novel last night.  It’s a hard thing for me to force myself to just read a book instead of doing something else.  There is a simple and peaceful feeling when you stimulate your mind with nothing more than the turning of a page.  Unfortunately this feeling is something that will be all but lost on the current generation of youth.

Have a spectacular day!