Steamed, Leveled, 500 off the ground, face to the ground

I was outside Saturday morning bright and early.  I had a ton of things I wanted to get done, small things that added up to a larger block of time.  I placed a new set of solar pathway lights to replace the 4-5 year old lamps that were mostly dead.  Cindy asked that I place a couple by the entrance to the driveway for better visibility.  Or course no more than 30 minutes after I placed them Katie hit one backing out her truck, breaking the mounting stake.  I actually had lights by the end of the driveway before and they got pulled after repeated vehicle strikes.

I also used the steam mop and went over the tiled living area.  There has been a constant feeling of grime on the floor since the house has become a psuedo dog kennel.  I hoped the steam mop would help alleviate that.  I inherited this mop when my mom passed away.  I actually bought it for her as a Christmas present a few years before that.  Well it seems like for some reason it does not pump steam like it once did.  I was not happy with the end result.

Later in the day I bought a new and improved floor steam mop and got dramatically better results.  For the first time in weeks the floor actually felt clean to bare feet.  Of course with the dogs constantly bringing in dirt and sand, unless I allocate a couple days a week to steam cleaning, the floors will be back to their gritty state in no time.

I volunteered to help Cindy do some work at her mom’s condo.  Cindy was doing a lot of painting which I wanted no part of but there were also some shelving that needed to be installed which I have experience with.  I first dropped Cindy off at her mom’s place so I could get a look at what would be needed supply wise.  We took a few measurements and I headed to the the closest Home Depot.

I bought that white wire shelving that is used everywhere.  I bought six foot sections that I had a HD employee cut to length using his hydraulic snips, saving me a lot of sawing.  I also bought a DeWalt hack saw.  I have an old shitty one at home that I didn’t bring.  I figured I needed to have a saw in case the cuts the clerk made were not good enough.  It turned out that was a good decision as I had to saw a fraction of an inch off of three sections.

Hanging shelving is never fun and of course the most important aspect is that they are spaced correctly and level.  After hanging the first shelf which I used Cindy extensively to hold things I developed a better system that allowed me to hang everything else solo with good results.  Cindy and her mom thanked me for the work.

I actually had thrown my electric unicycle in the truck.  Even though Cindy planned to leave in a  few minutes, I told her she should just take the truck, I would ride my EUC the 13-14 miles home.  The weather was beautiful and I wanted to get a ride in.  She passed me while I was approaching Collier Blvd, waving as she saw me.

On Saturday night we, well mostly I, watched the latest Bourne Identity movie.  I was glad to see Matt Damon reclaim the role.  I thought the movie was very entertaining, a high energy action flick with a strong revenge plot.  I really liked it, enough to give it an A- rating.

I started my Sunday off with a 5K run at the track.  I did not have the strong IT band pain this week as I did last Sunday.  I completed all laps sans-limp although according to the GPS my pace was slower than it felt.  It was pitch dark for most of the run.  The only source of light was the moon which was filtered by thin clouds.

I again had a “go” attitude when I got home.  I headed directly outside to attend to the chicken duties.  I was finishing up by the time Cindy brought Elsa outside.  Cindy had several things she needed to do on Sunday but she agreed to go ride with me for a bit which was cool.  We went to North Collier Park since it is closer.  Cindy continued her excellent riding progress and is demonstrating  natural abilities that I don’t possess.  At the end of the ride I told her to try my Msuper a little bit, my theory being since it is bigger and more stable she would feel more steady on it.  She promptly rode the wheel the distance of the parking lot and did a six or seven foot backwards ride at the end of it.  It was easy for her.

During the afternoon Cindy was out.  I had some more videos I wanted to shoot.  The first one was something that I had in my head for awhile.  I wanted to see if I could still flip the 500 pound double stack of tires, a feat I did roughly four years ago, back when I was doing a lot of power training.  I wanted to see if I could still pull it off on the doorstep of 50 years of age.

It was windy outside so I thought I would be smart and use my external mic rig that has a wind screen.  Well I wasn’t smart enough to test the functionality of the rig ahead of time.  The end result was the audio was a mess which I replaced with a music bed and captions.  Elsa was out there cheering me on as I got the tire stack flipped not once but twice.  My experience at Stone Park with IronLoo was a huge help as I now knew that getting my feet away from the tires and pushing into them low with my shoulder was a key factor in the start of the lift. The side of my face, hands, and forearms were black from the old dirty rubber.

I then had MORE EUC videos I wanted to shoot. I went to the school to first shoot an intermediate rider tips tutorial where I talk about some of the skills to practice once you are able to more or less stay on the wheel.

I then wanted to shoot footage of me trying to learn to ride backwards.  Another guy I know, Marty that is a few years older than me recently started seriously to try to learn backwards riding.  I felt if he could try, so should I.  I have tried riding backwards a little bit in the past but had very poor results.  As comfortable as I feel going forwards at this point, it doesn’t seem possible that going backwards should feel so foreign, but it does.

So anyway the video shows my dozens of frustrating attempts.  I was actually getting a bit fatigued from all of the awkward stumbling dismounts.  Shortly after I commented how I mentally was done, I had a nasty face plant fall where the wheel shot out from under me.  My hands/wrists took the initial impact followed by my elbows.  Of course I neglected to wear my elbow pads yesterday which would have helped.

Despite having on the wrist guards, both wrists hurt considerably.  Both elbows were scraped/bruised and although I didn’t realize it at the time, I sprained my right big toe as well.  Despite the crash, I refused to let that be my last experience as I am a firm believer that ending on a positive note is a very important thing.  I did a few more attempts and stopped after I had maybe a 10 foot backwards ride.  Watching back the video is actually helpful to me as I can see some clear mistakes I am making.

My Msuper took some nasty falls along with me.  I added a bunch of new scratches to the case.  Later last evening I added some foam bumper material to key impact points to hopefully minimize additional damage as long as I am trying to learn the skill.  I awoke this morning feeling all sorts of aches and pains from the running, tire flipping, face planting activities of the weekend.