Archives 2018

Yesterday I left work early to meet up with a rep from the company that did my neighbor’s gutters to get an estimate to have ours redone.  I had the roofers rip off the 4 inch gutters that I installed myself, poorly, a long, long time ago.  The replacement gutters will be the bigger 6 inch variety and seamless which will be a welcome change as the joints in my install were a constant source of leaks as they aged.

I was surprised the amount of downspouts I need are about half of what I have currently.  The guy said with 6 inch gutters you only need one downspout for every roughly 40 feet of gutter.  The price quote was good, a little less than I was braced for.  Their lead time is 4-5 weeks which isn’t horrible and should have gutters back on the house before rainy season arrives in force.

The work on the metal roof continued yesterday.  It looks like it is about 75% done at this point.  I have somewhat mixed feelings about the result so far.  It seems like the shingles that the house came with covered up a lot of warts with the decking below it. With the smooth metal panels on there you see every bump and undulation in the surface.  I also noticed last night when I was back a distance looking at the west side of the house the metal finish looked inconsistent.  It almost looked like three different types of metal were being used.

I sent a picture and a text message to the project manager, expressing my concern.  He said that all of the panels come from the same run of metal.  I couldn’t get him to acknowledge the mismatch on the phone but I plan to follow up again today.  I am dropping a lot of money on a new roof, I’m not going to be very agreeable to letting things slide although I realize it could possibly be a big undertaking to replace mismatched metal. The other issue is the silver metal is not a great match with the existing house color, which we already knew.  I can definitely see a house repaint down the road that is more complimentary to the metal roof but that won’t be happening this calendar year.

As I was typing this entry I came up with a possible reason for the apparent difference in the panels currently.  The metal has been sitting in multiple stacks in my front yard for over three weeks.  My theory is the panels that were on the top of the stacks are more dull in appearance due to exposure to the elements where as the panels below are untouched.  If that’s the case, I would hope natural weathering would even out the appearance rather quickly.

So I eat my lunch at my desk everyday.  That lunch is always the same, which Cindy lovingly packs for me each morning.  Part of that lunch is a pint of almond milk which I pour into a plastic cup. I normally pour the milk into the cup and sit it on the top portion of my stand up desk.

Another cog in lunch is my cottage cheese mix which has a foil lid. Yesterday after pouring my milk I turned my attention to taking the lid off the cottage cheese.  The adhesive was being a bit stubborn so I had to apply extra force to remove it.  As my strength finally overcame the glue the foil tore off suddenly, leaving the remaining force to send my hand flying towards the desk, and the full cup of milk.

I have very quick hands, perhaps a byproduct of juggling.  Without thinking I quickly grabbed at the cup to hopefully avoid disaster.  Unfortunately my hand grabbed low on the cup, the weight of the tipping milk had already set the disaster in motion.  I had a tsunami of almond milk spill all over my desk as well as my keyboard and phone which got knocked down in the flurry of movement. I also had milk soaked pants and shoes.

I sat there stunned for a few moments at the mess before I quickly started moving things out of the way of the almond milk waterfall.  I was most worried about the phone and keyboard as you can imagine.  As I tipped the keyboard upside down a steady stream of milk flowed out of it.  Clean up of the area consumed at least a half roll of paper towels, first to absorb the milk, then a second set soaked with water to do a preliminary cleaning, and then a final round, using Windex to make sure the residue was gone.

The keyboard also got blown out with compressed air as further remediation.  Surprisingly it still appears to work although the keys definitely have a bit more resistance in their feel than normal.  Rest assured I will be much more careful with my milk placement from here on out.

This morning walking up the steps to the back door of the office I had another case of the dropsies.  As I was fiddling with the key to the door somehow my lunch box fell out of my left hand and proceeded to roll down 5 stairs, losing it’s lid in the process.  Luckily all of the food and almond milk managed to stay sealed and intact.  Sure the spoon got ejected into the mulch but I picked it up before 5 seconds expired, meaning it is good to go.

Last night I finally successfully printed a phone case out of flexible filament, something I had been trying to do since very early in my 3D printing hobby.  The print turned out well.  I need to test fit it on my phone although I don’t plan to use it full time.  I paid a lot of money for the Mous case I have on my Iphone 6 and it does a great job.  However I still want to verify that what I printed actually works as I hope.

A buddy of mine from high school posted a picture of some farmland with real estate signs lined up in front of it.  Evidently the farm has been sold to a developer for houses.  When I looked at the picture further it looked very familiar.  Then it clicked, this was the farm on Hampshire Road, the road I grew up on.

I immediately felt a sense of remorse and nostalgia sweep over me.  This farm was something I rode my bike past countless times as a child during my endless rides to Gouglersville and Colonial Hills bowling alley.  It always looked old and somewhat dilapidated but there were always animals in the fenced in field.  Seeing that property destined to become another victim of suburban sprawl is sad but not unexpected.  The road I grew up on has transformed incredibly over the last four decades but I guess that can be said of just about anywhere. Still, it makes me sad to see this staple of my childhood fade away.

The metal started getting affixed to the roof yesterday.  Unlike the rip off which had more than dozen people involved, installing the metal is a much smaller crew of only a handful of guys.  They got maybe a third of the roof covered which I documented with a drone flight after work last night.  I am hoping to see a lot more covered tonight.

So Friday evening I hung out with Shugs and the dogs at Ali’s place for a few hours.  We drank a couple beers, ate pizza, and watched some baseball on the big 73 inch DLP tv that just had a new lamp installed into it by Shugs.  It really brightened up the pic on the set.  It was nice to just chill and shoot the shit.

Running the next morning was a challenge after drinking a few beers the night before.  I wore my new (to me) Forerunner 301 GPS that I bought off Ebay.  It has the same bulky form factor as my prior Forerunners but with updated electronics.  The GPS seems more accurate and as a result it confirmed I am slower than my old Forerunner said I was.  It’s ok.

So Cindy was over on the east coast participating in what was up until this point a secret activity.  She was competing in a bikini/fitness competition in Boca Raton.  She agreed to do it after encouragement from her friend who had done her first competition in November.  She has been working hard for a couple months training, dieting, and doing all of the other unfun stuff required for such an endeavor.

Of course she was apprehensive about getting on a stage to be judged wearing next to nothing but I was confident she would do well as her fitness level is great and her personality shines through.  When she sent me a picture after her heavy spray tan was applied and her make up was done it was a pretty shocking transformation, she looked great.

The actual judging occurred Saturday morning but the “show” in front of an audience was not until Saturday night.  During the show is when you actually find out how you did.  Later in the night I received a text from Cindy with a pic of her holding three trophies.  She placed in three different categories which is amazing for a first time participant.  I told her I was very proud of her.  She couldn’t believe it.

I tried to stay up until she came home.  I was up playing WoW until 1:30 AM.  She rolled in the door a little after 2 AM.  I awoke and gave her sleepy congrats.  Of course she was beyond excited, even with being exhausted. It was quite the accomplishment.

Despite going to bed so late my body awoke about 7:15 Sunday morning.  I closed the curtains to let Cindy sleep as I went out and tended to the chickens and a few other to do’s.  She slept until after nine which is unheard of in Cindy’s world.  One of the things I did was undo a smart switch install I did on the pool light.  I NEVER use the pool light, I thought if I installed a smart Wemo switch I could put it on a schedule so we get cool pool lighting in the evening for an hour or two.

Well when I wired the switch in I didn’t read the instructions. The old switch had a black wire, a white wire, and a green ground wire.  The Wemo had a green, a white and TWO black wires.  I made an on the fly decision to simply connect the two black wires to the black house wire and match up the other colors.  The switch appeared to have power and I was even able to configure it through the app.  I assumed the pool light was working but it was hard to confirm in daylight.  After the sun had set I hit the switch and was disappointed to see the pool was dark.

I did some digging and evidently for proper operation the switch needs a second black wire which is how most normal switch circuits are configured.  I am not sure why the pool light deviated from this.  I read online about people with similar set ups getting around it by wiring the white neutral wire directly to ground which evidently is a big no no.  It may get the switch working but it also has ther potential to cause other safety issues elsewhere.  So anyway the end result was me putting the old switch back in.  Imagine my thrill when I went to test it last night and it still didn’t work…

So for a few weeks I have been gathering intel regarding when Zima was going to be released for another limited production run.  They brought back my favorite alcoholic beverage last year over the summer and it sold out very quickly.  Evidently I am not alone in my love of this great tasting beverage with a 5% alcohol content, which makes it go down very easily.  Anyway, I found out that they were releasing it again this year with an official launch date of today, May 7th.

I am part of Facebook group called Zima Permanent.  As the name implies, the desire of the group is to bring back Zima as a full time offering instead of seasonally.  I would think the sales would dictate that.  On this group I saw that some locations were getting their Zima shipments early.  I used a site called brickseek.com to search local Walmarts for Zima.  I found ONE location that supposedly had 114 units.  It was in Cape Coral, almost an hour drive away but I didn’t care.  Cindy was down to take the dogs on a Zima treasure hunting trip.

So after the hour drive I entered the store with a short grocery list in hand that Cindy made which was in addition to Zima.  She stayed put with the dogs in the Prius.  I grabbed a cart and walked towards the beer and wine aisle with great expectation.  As I made my first pass down the refrigerated aisle I saw no Zima.  I didn’t panic, it must be on an endcap or perhaps stacked in one of the main aisles.  I slowly circled around seeing other alcoholic items on display but no Zima.  I went back to the refrigerated aisle, three times, hoping I just didn’t see the distinctive packaging, somehow.  Nope, no Zima….

I was dejected as I went around the store and grabbed the handful of other non-Zima items on the list.  After doing so I made one more return run towards the beer, but from a different side.  I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.  There it was, a full five shelves of Zima 6 packs, in an aisle three our four away from the beer aisle.  Why it was there I don’t know but I didn’t care, I had found it.

Now I have seen pictures of people doing ridiculous hoarding of Zima, one guy had 10 CASES in the back of his truck.  I was much more conservative, grabbing 12 six packs or three cases.  Yes it was a lot, especially when you factor in that each six pack was just under 10 bucks.  But again I didn’t care, I found my quest item.

I was a little self conscious as I pushed my shopping cart full of Zima towards check out.  The clerk that assisted me in self check out said she used to drink Zima when she lived in New Jersey 20 years ago.  She had no idea they brought it back.  I told her she better get some while she can.

I returned to the Prius triumphantly.  I took up a good portion of normal dog laying real estate in the back as well as putting a couple six packs on the floor.  I drove with extra caution on the way home, conscious of the value of the cargo I was carrying.  Once we made it home I scattered my Zima around the house making sure I had various sources to pull from.  I am hoping three cases is enough to get me through this calendar year as I normally only drink them occasionally.  Cindy is a fan as well.  I look forward to many good Zima times during the rest of 2018.

On Sunday I had my first ever successful 3D print with TPU which is rubber like, flexible filament.  I have tried printing the stuff multiple times on several printers with little to no success.  This time I tried on the Ender 2 which has a very short Bowden tube which I thought may work great with TPU.  My hunch was right as I printed a flexible cap for the charging port of my EUC.  I later printed a flexible Benchy boat which came out very well.  I am now thinking about what sort of projects would benefit from being able to print in this new flexible material.

Our roof is supposed to start having the metal installed today which should take a total of no more than three days.  Cindy and I are both looking forward to it all being completed.  I have one more related task to be contracted out, new gutters all the way around.  I hopefully have an estimate for that being done tomorrow.

Last night I shot a video illustrating the EUC stand part that I modeled and created from scratch.  It allows you to assemble a stand without using the stainless steel screws and nuts that I normally use.  Instead the part I made is a press fit which keeps the sides of the stand in place.  It’s easier to demonstrate.

Originally our metal roof was supposed to begin phase two yesterday, where the metal is actually attached to the prepared surface.  There was some sort of work they had to complete elsewhere so that start date has been moved to today.  Supposedly it will take two to three days to complete.  By this time next week Cindy and I should be residing under a durable, hurricane resistant and highly heat reflective roof.

Cindy is over on the east coast tonight and tomorrow for an event she is participating in.  We both decided it would logistically make more sense for me to stay home on dog duty.  It just so happens that Ali is also out of town this weekend as well.  I suggested to Ali’s boyfriend that we hang out a drink a few beers as part of my Sadie pick up trip.  I planned to grab Elsa from home first so she isn’t left alone.

It is a bit of an unusual situation where you like your ex-wife’s significant other enough to want to hang out.  It should be a different sort of Friday night and just a weird set of circumstances where both females in the picture are out of town at the same time.  Cindy has been putting a ton of time, energy and effort into this event.  Regardless of the outcome I’m proud of her.

I plan to do my normal thing this weekend, work, play, and whatever else comes to mind.

I just got fantastic news yesterday.  They are re-releasing Zima on May 7th for ANOTHER limited production release.  They did the same thing last summer.  The release last year was a huge success and they sold out of product very quickly, leaving Zima addicts craving more.

Despite the running joke that Zima became over it’s initial lifespan, it is my favorite alcoholic beverage of all time.  The taste is great and the alcohol content is pretty high at 5% so it makes for a potent combination.

I wasted no time to track down potential sources for Zima, calling Total Wine last night at 9:30 to see if they planned on carrying it again this year.  The clerk on the phone was unable to confirm if they were or not which was a bummer but I have Cindy doing more reconnaissance for me this week.  I will make better provisions for stockpiling this year.  Last time we bought by the six pack, this time it will be by the case.

So my final weekend of my staycation was just like the rest of it, enjoyable.  On Friday I got weeding and mowing out of the way, making the weekend as chore free as possible.  I had a good time concentrating on doing whatever I felt like working on.  Have I mentioned that my staycation made it absolutely clear that I could retire tomorrow and be absolutely content?

Saturday night we finally got to see Infinity Wars, a movie I have been anticipating forever.  I was fearful of being let down like the last Star Wars movie where mountains of anticipation is met with a lackluster actual experience.  Thankfully, as is most often the case with Marvel movies, they got it right.  The movie was epic and exciting with the just the right mix of drama and humor.  Until we were ordering our water before the movie, I had no idea that there was a part two to Infinity War.  After watching it the reason for a part two was obvious.  Despite a MASSIVE cast of heroes, I thought they did an amazing job of making the movie feel balanced where everyone had their moment to shine in different ways.  There was only one scene where I thought to myself “This is a really dumb way to accomplish this goal”, otherwise I just held on and enjoyed the ride from start to finish.  A+

My last day of staycation on Sunday was just like the rest of it, fun.  We went out for an EUC ride, well I rode while Cindy walked with Sadie and Elsa at North Collier Regional park.  It was a short but enjoyable time in the beautiful weather.

During the afternoon I spent at least a couple hours digging hardcore into my new 3D printer, something you don’t normally expect to have to do when you buy something.  The end result was positive although I went through a lot of negative to get there.

Late in the evening Cindy and I headed out for a quick ride across the street, her on the Segway I2, me on the Msuper.  It was cool cruising during a different part of the day.  I used to do a lot more late day riding but it has tailed off during the last year.

It was a great week off and I look forward to the time where working becomes an option and not a requirement.

Yesterday I used my Monster to go pick up my Tacoma which was in for it’s 20,000 mile service. I hitched a ride with Cindy who had to go to work which got me two thirds of the way there already.  I originally wanted to just ride all the way from home but Cindy felt less worried if I did it this way.  The ride only took around 15 minutes and left me wanting more.

My new 3D printer showed up yesterday.  I took a good chunk of the afternoon setting it up and testing it out.  I was disappointed when I discovered a Z coupler was stretched out and needed to be replaced.  Luckily I just happened to have a spare that I never used.  Swapping it in wasn’t too tough.   The printer has a large build volume which is one of the big reasons I was interested in it.  It has some quirks as well that I am trying to get figured out but I think it will be a great addition to my 3D printing farm.

Today is Friday already meaning my staycation is winding down.  I am planning to front load today with a couple chores that normally would be relegated to the weekend.  I really have enjoyed having a full week off without a MASSIVE project dominating my time.

Yesterday was my first day of the staycation without a to do list hanging overhead.  After our early morning run we cleane dup and headed out mid-morning.  I actually stopped in at the office for about a half hour to say goodbye to a co-worker that was retiring after 36 years.  She and I always have had a funny relationship where we pick on each other like brother-sister.  It will be sad to see her go but she is still young enough to enjoy her retirement which is cool.

We stopped for lunch on the way back at Fuzzy Taco’s one of our fav eating establishments.  It was nice to be able to live like a retired person for the day.  Later in the afternoon we had to head back out to drop the Tacoma off for it’s 20,000 mile service, even though it is about 500 miles short of that mileage.  When you buy a Tacoma they give you free maintenance for 25,000 miles or two years, whatever comes first.  I did not realize that I am actually a few days past the two year mark.  Since I have been daily driving the Prius, the Tacoma has been seeing a lot less mileage.  My service advisor said she would still be able to get me the work done for free since it’s so close but this will be the last freebie.  On the way back to the house we picked up Sadie for another long weekend.

Last night Cindy and I worked on stuff, with my attention being mostly on solving an odd 3D printing problem which turned out to be a bad SD card.  I also dove into WoW hard core for the first time during the staycation.

This morning when I was cleaning the coop I saw this thing on the floor that almost looked like a hardened egg yolk.  Upon researching it later I discovered it is a “lash egg” which appears to have come out of Kristen, our only white chicken.  A lash egg is not an egg at all as you can see from the words on the picture.  It is a symptom of a serious and potentially fatal infection in the bird’s reproductive system.  There is a chance a chicken can recover on it’s own from such an ailment but I read that it is more common for this to be the ultimate demise of the animal.

I am going to see if I can find some sort of antbiotic we can give Kristen as well as getting liquid yogurt to try to help boost her immune system as well.  I am crossing my fingers she can recover.  She is a sweet hen, one of my favorites.  She is still acting normal otherwise but that is often the case with chickens, they will hide ailments until the very end.

Yesterday the roofers were again back bright and early with a reduced workforce since there was only the front facing side of the roof to strip and prepare.  After doing the chicken chores and a few other things Elsa and I headed out to Home Depot.  I wanted to get a new timer for the pool pump.  The old timer switch was so stiff that it actually bent the tabs that are used to turn the pump on and off.

Elsa had her normal up and down Home Depot experience.  She is perfectly content as long as everyone ignores her.  The second someone stops to interact with her she panics and tries to hide.  It’s a weird aspect of her personality that we have not been able to cure with time.  Cindy and I both wonder what happened in her past to make her so fearful of strangers.

Mid-afternoon I replaced the switch.  The design is cool.  I was able to remove the guts from the case mounted on the wall and simply insert the guts from the new Intermatic switch.  I felt a wave of relief when I flipped the switch and the pump fired up as it should.  There was secondary relief as the repair meant that I officially had finished the 15th and last item on my to do list, meaning the rest of the staycation can have a lot more of my doing what I want to do as opposed to what I feel I need to do.

During the day I did a lot of futzing around with the CR-10 which again was being problematic.  I finally got it printing again, cranking out more EUC stand parts.  While Cindy was teaching a class I fired up my web cam for a YouTube live stream.  I wound up streaming for over 90 minutes to only a handful of people but it was still fun for me.

I made an appointment to get the Tacoma in for it’s 20k service although I am about 500 miles from that number.  I figured it made sense to get it out of the way while I’m off.

I’m looking forward to a pleasant Wednesday where I can once again simulate retired life.  Cindy and I started the morning right with a three and a half mile run departing from and returning to Dunkin Donuts.

Yesterday was a good day.  The roofer arrived bright and early and got to work.  It was a large crew of at least a dozen guys.  Before long the inside of the house was filled with the noise of a shingle roof being removed which was a lot of scraping and banging.  Later in the day it was supplemented with a lot of banging and hammering as they re-nailed all of the exposed plywood to bring it up to code level strength.

The workers seemed very efficient and meticulous, laying tarps everywhere to catch any debris, which there was a lot of.  By the time they wrapped up for the day around 2PM three quarters of the roof had been stripped, renailed, and covered with the new rubberized underlayment.  All that remains is the front face of the roof that they are actively tearing into as I type.  After this we have around a week to wait until county inspectors check things out before the metal can be attached.

I flew my drone overhead twice yesterday to get a unique high perspective on the work and the transformation as it occurs.  It may be the first time I had the Mavic in the air since the hurricane.

I busted ass on more list items yesterday.  At this point out of the 15 items on my staycation to do list, only one remains, fixing the pool pump timer.  I plan to look at that issue today and hopefully be able to cross it off as well.  Don’t get the wrong idea, once the list is complete I won’t be sitting around doing nothing the rest of the week.  I always have something to do that either needs to be done or I want to do for entertainment, always.  Extended time off at home always makes me feel confident that I could retire tomorrow and not be bored at all.

Late in the afternoon yesterday I found some time to go cruise on my little Mten3 wheel, riding more backwards than forward.