Relented, Wait for the bonus, One Wheeling
So I because of my stinging brush burns from One Wheeling and left over soreness from dead lifting during the week I allowed myself a one week respite from running. It was nice to not wake up with the 6AM alarm but I couldn’t help but feel guilty for not being out there and putting in my slow and miserable laps. It’s almost like a rite of passage.
I had hoped to get the mowing all knocked out in the morning but heavy rain the previous two days had left the property with massive standing water, delaying that task. I did get the weeding done and Cindy and I worked on Lucy, the hen with the bad wing. Cindy and I were not looking forward to trying to drain the huge swollen area under her wing. Out of all of our chickens Lucy is the most fearful of us, by far. She is also the only hen that we didn’t raise from baby chick age.
We thought trying to hold her still to work on the problem would be near impossible. Well after some tag team effort we were able to get a hold of Lucy. As scared as she is of us, once you actually hold her she almost does a complete 180 and is very passive. Well to work on the area we really needed to have the hen belly up. I could hardly believe it when Cindy flipped Lucy on her back, handed her to me, and she stayed put. She looked incredibly comfortable in the position which I couldn’t believe.
What was more incredible was when Cindy started poking the blood/puss filled area with a needle Lucy didn’t flinch at all. At times she was half closing her eyes, she almost seemed to be enjoying the experience which was bizarre. Unfortunately the small gauge needle wasn’t able to make much progress in draining the area but Cindy was able to get some gunk out. When we did the same procedure on Sunday with a bigger gauge needle she was nearly as calm until we finally hit a spot that must have hurt that sent her flying. We hope to keep at it to at least get her some relief, there must be some sort of infection going on.
The intense sun during the day made a little progress on the standing water, enough that I decided to mow. I couldn’t get everything but I was able to knock down 90% using max deck height when cutting through areas that still had some low water on the ground. The tractor becomes an absolute mess when mowing in these conditions but it is the price you pay when living in a summertime bog.
On Saturday night Cindy and I got out to see Ant Man & The Wasp. The Ant Man series doesn’t generate nearly the same level of excitement for me as the top tier Marvel films do but I liked the original. I thought the sequel was equally good for a solid B+ rating. Be sure to stay for the bonus clips, it will answer a question that likely was on your mind the entire movie.
Sunday morning I was anxious to get out on my One Wheel. Cindy had her own stuff to do so I headed out solo, which I sometimes prefer since I can go wherever I want to go for as long as I care to. I did indeed go long, at least 11 miles on the board, almost double my longest ride to date. I did well on the ride with only one skin dissolving incident where I had a bad dismount. The only negative I have with the board is it isn’t the best device for open road cruising because of the speed cap. Despite having a posted 19mph top speed, it starts throttling you at 15 mph. The end result was I was riding the majority of the ride with “pushback” where the board raises it’s front nose to let you know to slow down.
During the afternoon I finally got around to installing “float plates” and a fender on my board. I realized that the fender would have prevented me a bunch of pain. All of my brush burns are the end result of my leg hitting the top half of the exposed huge rubber tire during falls. The fender totally eliminates that situation. I think the wheel looks cooler without it but I’ll take a less hip appearance over not ripping my skin off any day. It’s been a week now and the brush burns on my legs are still not close to healed.
During the video I admitted that I had not ridden any of my EUC’s since I got the One Wheel. I thought it funny when a commentor said that he thinks I am not a “core EUC” guy as a result. I asked him to review my channel. In the last two years I may have posted more EUC content than almost anyone on the internet. The One Wheel is a new challenge and that challenge just happens to be getting the most of my attention.
Later in the day I tried something really challenging, riding the One Wheel around our backyard, at least the areas that were dry enough to do so. Wow it was tough, requiring infinitely more effort than smooth open road riding. I had to run off the board a few times but I didn’t hit the ground. I think doing this sort of riding will be the way to build my skill level the quickest.
I finally pulled the trigger on ordering a new phone yesterday. The replacement battery I put in my iPhone 6 several months ago already is going south and my screen developed a bright white spot awhile ago that I have just been living with. I didn’t take the route I always have in the past, upgrading to whatever the latest version Apple had available. Instead I ordered a lowly iPhone 6S as my new phone, only an incremental upgrade over what I have. My reasoning was simple, I like having a headphone jack that doesn’t require a dongle, a home button and I don’t really need a bigger screen that does face recognition. I don’t care about turning myself into an animal emoji. A 6S will do everything I need and will allow me to reuse the awesome case that Cindy bought me for my iPhone 6 at the holidays. Having an iPhone X would do nothing to increase my quality of life except cost me double what the 6S will. I must be getting old.