Our planned ride at Victoria Park got washed out last night by heavier and wider spread than expected rain. Instead we spent the evening at home doing the things that usually occupy our nights namely, catching up on recorded DVR content, working in the the 3D room, and logging into WoW. We are hoping to get out tonight to ride instead.
So today I bought the tickets for Disney for our long weekend visit. I was somewhat stupefied at just how expensive Disney park visits are even though I have experienced it several times before. Just to get in the door for one day costs Cindy and I something like $130 each which includes nothing extra. When you add in all of the additional potential expenses once you are inside the park the costs escalate exponentially. I simply can’t imagine how much a typical family of four would drop visiting Disney for three or four days. I can only hope our experience is memorable enough to blunt the edge of the financial sting up front.
In true December fashion I am spending money like mad left and right. Luckily years and years ago a GIFT category was added to my budget book. Every pay period $125 is dumped in there. At the end of the year whatever lump sum that has accumulated gets dropped onto the massive January credit card bill to help ease the pain significantly.
I am now at the point with my Christmas shopping where I am running through my mental shopping list, calculating if enough currency has been spent on each person on there. I think the number items that need to still be addressed can probably be counted on one hand at this point. Christmas will be here in the blink of an eye so I want to get everything knocked out pronto.
Cindy and I haven’t watched any Christmas specials this year outside of holiday cooking/baking shows on Food Network. Last night I flipped over to the Amazon Fire Cube and searched for specials. Somehow we landed on a collection of 14 very old animated Christmas shorts, some of them dating back to the 40’s. We watched three or four of them, none of which was more than 10 minutes long. I found them fascinating and endearing. The combo of old style animation with old style story telling was really cool to see, for me at least. I want to take some more time to watch the rest as time allows. If you have Prime Video the special is called “Christmas Cartoons: 14 Christmas Cartoon Classics – 2 Hours of Holiday Favorites”
This morning I spent 20 or 25 minutes trying to address a printing issue, unsuccessfully. The end result was me having to swap out my normal breakfast of eggs, OJ and toast with chocolate fudge Pop Tarts due to time constraints. I hardly ever have Pop Tarts anymore. They used to be the staple of my weekend breakfast routine but awhile ago Cindy started making us breakfast on the weekends so now a box of Pop Tarts could last for months in our pantry.
We are targeting tonight to go ride around Victoria Park to see the Christmas lights. The hope is since it is two weeks before Christmas and a weeknight the congestion would be too bad. It also is forecast to be on the mild side which will be better for Cindy’s lack of cold tolerance.
Yesterday I documented my thoughts on finally getting satellite maps for my Tesla along with my first real world use of Santa mode.
So during the day I once again called into the electric company to see if they received the email with required documentation to initiate the connection of my solar system to the grid. Once again they said they had not received anything. Prior to making the call I asked the construction manager to forward me the email he sent in which was dated last Thursday. While I was on hold waiting for them to check to see if they got the email, just for the heck of it I resent the email from my email account. Within 10 seconds I received a bounce error saying that the file attachments were too big. Um, ok….problem identified.
The LCEC email system has a relatively small 10 meg file attachment limit. 10 meg used to be the standard maybe a decade ago but certainly not now. Regardless, the construction manager should have received the exact same bounce message when he sent it on Thursday. Perhaps he was too computer ignorant to act on it but I still found this frustrating. If I would have not gotten involved we would have just been sitting here with nothing happening for days or even weeks, waiting for a response to an email that was never delivered.
I broke the attachments apart, splitting them into three separate emails to keep the attachment size down. They were delivered successfully and a couple hours later I received a confirmation that the plans had no been submitted to the LCEC solar designer for approval. The email said it could take 10-15 business days for the two way meter to be installed, more than the week the guy told me on the phone but less than the month the construction manager told me. I am hoping LCEC under promises and over delivers, allowing me to get hooked up to the sun before Xmas or at least before the calendar flips to a new year.
So I watched the Eagles game last night. It was downright atrocious for the majority of the time. I laid on the couch emotionless and expressionless the entire game until the very end when I finally cracked a smile. For the second week in a row the Eagles were poised to lose to an awful team, the Giants who had lost 8 games in a row. Eli Manning had his first start in 10 games and he had a monster first half throwing for around 200 yards with two TD’s, putting the Eagles down 17-3 after another sputtering and hapless half of football by the offense. Carson Wentz played with no confidence. The receiving core which was already razor thin got even thinner when Jeffries got hurt, again. By the end of the game their starting wide receivers was a guy that played QB in college, a rookie that caught six balls all year and some guy named Perkins.
The Eagles season which was already a dumpster fire looked like it was ready to be a dumpster fire pushed off a bridge if they managed to lose this game. Slowly they started to move the ball. On offense the Giants stopped moving the ball. It was funny/sad that when Jalen Mills went out with some injury I actually felt better about the Eagles on defense, the guy is a walking time bomb IMO.
I talked last week about how there has been a disturbing lack of pressure performances on Carson Wentz’s resume. Well last night I give him credit he finally had one. Not only did he get the TD to tie the game late in the 4th quarter, in overtime he drove the team 75 yards straight down the field decisively to win the game. He got it done when adversity was on his doorstep.
Now having to pull out all stops to beat a 2-9 team at home doesn’t say much about the long term viability of the Eagles. My hope is that actually performing in the crunch for the first time in a long time instead of just talking about it gets this team’s head out of it’s collective ass. Their wide receiving corp is decimated at this point, I’m not sure what they can do about it this late in the season. Maybe Carson can give Nick Foles a call to get some advice on how to pull a teams ass out of the fire and win big games when it matters the most at the end of a season. He did it twice.
I started off the weekend with a run at the track, my third week in a row that involved running. Sadly that may almost be a record for 2019 where my running program has been blown to bits by injury and old age. The temps in the low 70’s combined with darkness was a perfect combo for me. I wound up breaking a 10 minute mile pace for the first time since early 2019. I’ll be ready for the Olympics in no time. Seriously though, the off and on fatigue and lack of energy that has plagued me for over a year has definitely subsided for now. I have been feeling more like myself physically for the last couple months.
Saturday morning it was enjoyable tending to chicken and yard chores in the cool air, I really wish I was able to do that more than two months out of the year. We then headed out for errands which included a bunch of stops including Tractor Supply, our alternative source for chicken food.
Saturday afternoon I sat down to build my Creality Ender 3 printer. When I opened the box I realized I had more of a task ahead of me than I first realized. For some reason I thought the printer only required a few bolts to secure the frame together. Instead I had a box full of parts, albeit not nearly as many as with the Prusa.
A large portion of the printer was assembled but I did spend about an hour putting the rest together. The assembly instructions compared to Prusa were awful, consisting only of pictures that left out some important detail. Luckily I watched a brief assembly video before attempting the build to fill in the blanks.
After leveling the bed I started one of the test prints that was on the included SD card. It printed really well which made me happy as I didn’t feel like dealing with a lot of fine tuning or trouble shooting out of the box. This was my first printer purchase from Tiny Machines, a company based in Texas that takes in mostly Chinese made printers and tweaks them, making sure what the customer gets is working as it should be. I have bought accessories from them before and had a good experience so I thought I would try a printer as well. So far the slightly extra cost for dealing with a US based business has been worth it.
On Sunday morning Cindy and I pulled out for a DD ride, me on the 16X and Cindy on her Dualtron. It was on the chilly side with temps in the upper 60’s but it already felt warmer in the sunshine. Less than a mile into the ride we stopped, Cindy was already freezing. I told her it was no big deal, she could U-turn home and I would continue the ride solo. My new full face helmet totally insulated my head from cool air if need be. The ride was enjoyable. By the time I got to Dunkin Donuts it had warmed up considerably.
After I got home I wasted minimal time before I headed out to Home Depot. For some reason I finally decided to get the materials to rebuild the landings on both sides of the pool deck. These were originally built somewhere around 15 years ago and were both suffering from significant rot. I identified this as needing to be replaced somewhere around three years ago but it never percolated to the top of my to do list. The pressure treated 2×4’s I use to build the frame were pretty cheap bu the Trex decking I bought for the top was not, each 12 foot board was something crazy like $30. I can not imagine how much it would cost to do an entire deck in Trex.
Even though the official temperature was in the low 80’s, the sun felt extremely intense and warm. I donned my new mega-brim hat we got at the sand sculpture event the week before. Removing the old steps required a lot of work with my huge metal post bar and good old fashioned pulling which brought on some waves of back pain. Once I had the old rotting structure out I took a couple measurements. I built the new frame to the same spec except for adding one inch in length to the bottom stair to better support the decking.
I also added a mid support to the frame this time, something the original landings were missing. The end result of this was the treads sinking in the middle over time. With the new set up there will be no more opportunity for sag. I drove two pieces of rebar into the frame to give it some sort of anchor although the sandy soil doesn’t provide much stability. After a couple hours of work I had the new landing in place. It felt solid and looked good. I asked Cindy if she could hit the exposed 2×4’s with some brown waterproofing at some point.
Originally I had ideas of completing both landings the same day. That idea was quickly tossed out the window as I only finished up with the first one around 4PM. The second landing will have to wait until another day and until I buy one more expensive piece of Trek board.
Despite feeling beat up, I asked Cindy if she wanted to do a twilight skateboard ride over at the school. I rode the Meepo while Cindy was on the Backfire Ranger X1. We had a short but nice ride that included rolling around the next door development for a bit, checking out Xmas light displays. The ride was brought to a hasty conclusion when we started riding through swarms of gnats.
I forgot to mention a surprise email I received Saturday morning from Tesla announcing they were finally offering a premium connectivity subscription service. Premium connectivity was something I mistakenly thought I already had with my car, when I realized it was only included on the long range and up vehicles I was bummed. Tesla had a subscription service listed on their website as coming soon but with no update for months. To have it sprung on me with no warning was like an early Tesla Christmas present. I thoroughly enjoyed my commute to work today with the satellite maps which included a live overlay of traffic congestion. I really love my car.
My uncle posted a link to a site talking about the qualities of an introvert, something I am without a doubt. If you are not an introvert yourself, meeting up with one can be off putting as we generally don’t like “shallow social interactions”. As I read the article I found myself saying yep, that’s me again and again.
Yesterday I got a request from the solar company for a copy of my one million dollar umbrella liability policy that was required to connect to the LCEC solar grid. I immediately forwarded the policy hoping this meant things would continue to progress with minimal delay. When I asked what the estimate was for flipping the switch I was not happy with the answer, somewhere around 30 days. I’m going to be calling LCEC this morning to see what I can do to get some acceleration on that timeline. It would be unfortunate to have the array in the backyard for a month twiddling it’s thumbs.
This weekend has standard fare on the menu including trying to get more of the Xmas buying task completed so I can move on to just enjoying the season.
I was very surprised on Wednesday when I heard Hilary Clinton was on the Stern show. I heard maybe an hour of the interview which I found to be very interesting. Howard has always been a big Hilary fan and during the 2016 election he repeatedly said how he would have loved to have her on the show. The lack of time restriction and free flowing style of the conversation gave insight into Hilary that probably would have been helpful in her presidential bid.
Speaking of presidential politics, my views on it have shifted somewhat in the last 6 months or so. In 2016 I was all about Bernie and his progressive ideas that basically were the next step, building on some of the ideas that Obama tried to get rolling. I thought the way Hilary won was definitely shady and I think the “super delegate” system is utterly ridiculous. However, I also think that the bitter stance that Bernie took about Hilary being the nominee possibly was a deciding factor leading to King Clown being in the White house today. Bernie’s half hearted endorsement pushed a lot of his supporters to more or less waste their vote on the independent candidates in 2016 to make a statement, which had an impact in close states. I know my brother Patrick who is a HUGE Bernie supporter did exactly that.
So I still love Bernie but to be quite honest my biggest concern is getting a candidate that will beat Trump. Despite the utter lunacy of the last three years up to and including the current impeachment process, there is a dangerous chance he could get reelected because some key economic numbers are good. His short sighted corporate tax breaks and regulation roll backs have resulted in lots of profit reaping for those in the penthouse looking down. The average Joe is not better off, especially if he is smart enough to figure out that he basically traded a few less tax dollars for paying more for goods and services courtesy of tariffs. Employment numbers are also at some of the best levels ever however that doesn’t factor in that workforce participation is actually at a historical low, somewhere around 63%. People that aren’t looking for jobs don’t count as being unemployed. This is the same participation number under Obama, yet he was vilified for it while Donald sweeps it under the rug.
The most damning and telling truth about the propped up economic prosperity is that despite some big numbers elsewhere in the economy they have not had the affect on deficits that they had in the past. Usually when the economy is booming the federal deficit shrinks. Remember those years where Clinton actually was running at a budget surplus? Well the stable genius instead has thrown long term viability in the dumpster for short term gains. The deficit has exploded under Trump. But you know what, most people just are too lazy or unfocused to care.
They see the stock market is high and unemployment is low and that is good enough for them. If their own tiny circle of life is ok most are unlikely to be concerned with the big picture, it’s a shortcoming of human nature. Until a pile of shit is in your own front yard you don’t care about it. So anyway what all this ranting means in a nutshell is if the main numbers in the economy remain at this level, it is going to be difficult to shake people out of their lack of common sense coma. A popping stock market bubble that seems to be long overdue, would go a long way towards helping the election outcome.
So anyway, this situation has morphed my ideas about the most viable candidate for the democrats. If I am being honest the extremely progressive ideas that candidates like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren present, while being idealistic and definitely greater good based, are also too polarizing and just unrealistic in today’s political environment. To actually accomplish what they propose would basically require ripping out most of the current sitting Congress and implementing term limits. They would never be able to get anywhere with these ideas without progressive support from both the House and Senate, which I just don’t think is there. It’s great that they say they want to make all of these sweeping changes but if they have no shot of actually making them happen and their policies are like throwing gas on the Trump acolytes fire, does it serve the end goal of getting the insanity out of the White House?
So with my revised thought process the two candidates I really like are Buttigieg and Yang. Both men are incredibly intelligent, young, and offer more middle viewpoints that still push towards the progressive side without creating the sort of noise and memes that phrases like “wealth tax” invoke. Yang is pretty far back in the pack but Buttigieg at least has some momentum in Iowa so we will see if that translates into actual traction. Unfortunately being a gay man will carry the same if not more discrimination from some people that also hated Obama. It’s pretty pathetic that the religious right would never consider a gay candidate but will openly embrace Trump who never met a moral he wasn’t happy to walk on top of.
I took yesterday off to make sure I was available for the permit inspectors. I headed out early to drop off some packages and grab coffee with Elsa. Of course the first inspector arrived probably 5 minutes after I left. Luckily Cindy was still home to open the garage so the electrical box could be inspected. It passed the first inspection without issue. Later in the day the second inspector came. I was told that someone did not have to be home for his inspection but it was a good thing I was.
I walked with the guy out to the array. He was impressed with both the size and construction method used to build it. He said this was the biggest residential solar install he has seen which was cool. However when he got back to his truck to enter information into his laptop he saw that there was supposed to be a third inspection called in for the footers of the structure which the installers didn’t do. I told him each footer was a 2 foot across by 5 feet deep block of cement. He already knew the footers were massive from being out there so he was able to have someone in the office do something on the back end so another inspection would not be required which was great. I sent a picture of the signed permit over to the construction manager so he can get started with the final step in the process, getting the electric company here to make the final connections.
I was really busy Wednesday, the weather was beautiful and I just had a ton of different small things to keep me busy. One of those things was installing an Echo Dot in the chicken coop. I took advantage of a Black Friday deal for the Echo Show 5. Installing that set off a chain reaction of home assistant shuffling that resulted in my having two extra Echo Dots. Now at first it may sound moronic to have an Echo in the coop but it actually is useful. Using the built in two speaker feature allows Cindy or I to communicate to and from the coop if one of us is out there. I also had the device streaming Christmas music all day so the hens could enjoy it while laying eggs. They told me they liked it.
I had to work on more tech in the coop, replacing the hard drive on the DVR that is out there. I recently discovered it had not been recording for quite awhile so I am not sure how long the hard drive has been bad. It’s back up and running now, recording the perimeter of the coop for any potentially harmful predators.
I also got a chance to record two videos I had wanted to do for a long time, one regarding my struggles with the Prusa MMU2S and another 0-60 test on my M3 after the reported 5% power increase.
During the Prusa video I had a real time example of how the device can fck up and why it’s so frustrating. I also am going to be sending back my brand new MK3S that continues to have weird issues. Yesterday I had my third online chat with Prusa about it which resulted in the recommendation to send it in. It’s frustrating to have a prebuilt printer be buggy but at least they are taking the steps to make it right. Shipping to and from the Czech Republic is going to cost them a chunk of change. Hopefully I helped offset that expense for them with the 11 boxes of Prusa filament I bought on Black Friday.
Ever since the software update on the Tesla came down that increased power I had been wanting to do a fresh 0-60 test, something I did shortly after buying the car. I have been feeling a big difference just doing normal driving on my daily commute however I wanted to see how it translated in real numbers. When I did this test the first time months ago my best time was 5.43 seconds.
Because I only know the exact time after editing the video I could only base my feelings on the seat of the pants feel I was getting. That sensation was not all that different than I recall from my original test however when I timed it the car was legitimately two tenths of a second faster, my best run was 5.178 but I consistently got 5.243 seconds. I was impressed that the promised speed gain was tangible and made a car I already love all the better.
I was buzzing around all day wrapping Christmas presents, doing stuff in the 3D room, laundry, cleaning up, and even playing some WoW. I really enjoyed getting a mid-week weekend.
You know I just realized this morning that I have now lived at our house here in Naples longer than any other place in my lifetime, including the Gouglersville farm house I grew up in. For some reason that struck me in a weird way, maybe it just made me feel even older. Next July will mark 19 years here with no plans of going anywhere soon.
Yesterday I hit Amazon hard, very hard taking advantage of a number of good deals which helped me put a nice dent in my Christmas shopping list. Along the way I also grabbed a couple deals for myself as well including ANOTHER 3D printer. To make room for it I gave away another printer to one of my co-workers. It felt good to get a lot of the buying done. To delegate I asked Cindy to handle buying stuff for a few people on the list which she always does a good job with.
Yesterday out of the blue I took a picture of my key chain. This isn’t just any key chain, this is my Pontiac Sunfire key chain that I was given when I bought a Sunfire GT back in the late 90’s, which was the first new car I ever owned. It had a 140HP four cylinder motor and was a five speed. I did not have the car more than a few years from what I recall, I think it was traded in on a Nissan Sentra.
You may ask why I kept and continue to use the key chain from that vehicle for over 20 years. The reason is I like the way it works with the ability to easily detach one set of keys from one side. Yes I could have found more stylish or modern key chains that aren’t branded with a car model from a company that doesn’t even exist anymore. However I have a deeply ingrained trait to stick with what works for me, this is just one of the many examples of my doing so.
The electrical work that needs to get done for the solar system has been moved up to today instead of tomorrow. Hopefully this means the county inspection gets moved up a day as well. Assuming everything passes we then can pass the baton to the electric company to get us on the schedule to do the final hook up. It will be a nice little Christmas gift to myself.
I got the idea in my head to go run Thanksgiving morning since we were not participating in any race for the second year in a row. I had further ideas of trying to run 4 miles, like I did last year to match the distance of the Gobble Gobble race here in town. Last year it wasn’t that much of a stretch because I had been running consistent 3.5 miles leading up to Thanksgiving. In 2019 my running had been greatly curtailed. Last week was the first time I had run in somewhere around three months so it was going to be much more of a chore.
Cindy, who has done even less running decided to join me. We got out there early, hitting the track a little after 7AM. The air temp in the upper 50’s felt great. Despite a lack of running I just kept moving, at a decidedly slower pace than I used to keep. After nearly 45 minutes I finished up my 16th lap which made me feel some degree of accomplishment. Cindy ran around 3.5 miles which was amazing based on her lack of running this year.
We were doing Thanksgiving dinner at our place, a recent change as we supposedly were going to have it at Katie’s place up until a couple days prior. Katie came over early to watch the parade with Cindy as she prepared food. I spent most of the morning working on setting up the outside Christmas decorations. I did the entire operation solo and the end result was cool. The display is similar to last year with the addition of a few decorations that were used on the RV last year.
Our Thanksgiving meal was up to par with prior years from a food standpoint. Cindy made a ton of delicious chow. However the day didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving because we only had Cindy, myself, Katie, and the baby there. We didn’t even eat at the dining room table. In prior years we always had a number of Cindy’s family over on Thanksgiving which I found enjoyable. Some years we had eight or more people over so to have only us three plus the baby was sort of deflating for me. Cindy remarked repeatedly how it was nice for her to not have to do as much with less people which I understand, but it sort of defeats the purpose of hosting a Thanksgiving meal, at least in my mind. After eating we spent a good portion of the rest of the day decorating the INSIDE of the house. It was a lot to accomplish in one day’s time but it felt necessary. I have felt like I was behind schedule with decorating because Thanksgiving was so late this year.
On Black Friday I wanted to get out a little bit and hit some stores but not really to shop for others, more just to snag a few deals on things we could use. I hit Home Depot, Rural King, and Sam’s Club. I didn’t want to stay out very long because the solar installers were supposed to arrive on Friday to finish up the physical installation. I was sort of surprised when I rolled in the driveway a little before 10AM to find the installers had also just gotten there recently. They had a LOT to get done so I figured they would get started as early as possible.
They had to install all 48 panels, pull the wire from the array to the house, back fill the trench, and make the electrical connections. They worked all the way past sunset and ALMOST got completely done. The one remaining issue was making the electrical connection to the house. They used thick, heavy, low gauge wire which was not only difficult to pull in the conduit but also required larger electrical taps which they did not have on hand.
The 48 panels on the structure look very impressive. The electrician is supposed to be back on Wednesday to finish up followed by inspection on Thursday. If that all goes well then all that remains is scheduling the electric company to come out to do whatever needs to be done to allow the meter to go both ways and then throw the switch. I’m still hopeful this can happen before Christmas.
I did a video revealing the finished structure which includes drone footage which gives some cool perspective on the size and scope of it all.
On Saturday after doing chores Cindy and I went to the Fort Myers Sand Sculpting event. I went to this a long time ago when my dad and step mom were down visiting. I remember thinking was cool then and I thought Cindy would find it pretty cool now.
What I remember not being cool was the awful traffic getting into Fort Myers Beach and trying to find a place to park. It was dreadful. As we headed towards the beach I was surprised to see they had a huge parking/shuttle set up at the Lovers Key State Park area which was a few miles outside of FMB. This was awesome. You parked and paid the same $8 entry fee everyone else paid but it includes a free and convenient tour bus ride to and from the event. The buses were running constantly so you didn’t have to wait at all.
This addition removed so much hassle from what I recall when I attended over a decade ago. I was very happy they decided to go this route. When we walked into the sculpture area we were smacked with non-stop examples of incredible artistry, finesse, and patience. Some of the sculptures were totally done and some still had the artists working on them which I found fascinating to watch. We ate lunch at Pincher’s which was right outside the sand sculpture area. The outdoor seating was packed but we were lucky to grab a table albeit right in front of the speakers of the live duo that was performing, so we spent most of the meal yelling to hear each other. The service was slow but that was to be expected. We both enjoyed our meals as we people watched.
After we finished eating we went back in to look around a little more. As we did we decided to buy a couple wide brim hats. We felt like we were broiling in the sun, the hats made an instant difference. I plan to utilize the hat regularly when doing work at home requiring extended periods outside in the brutal heat. The shuttle ride back to the lot was equally easy. Really the only negative was the sand fleas that infested part of the parking area. They attacked my feet ferociously, despite them being nearly invisible.
Saturday night we watched Serenity, a movie with Matthew McConaghey. It seemed like an interesting plot from what I recalled about the previews. However as the movie unfolded I asked Cindy if this was a M. Night Shaymalan project. If you see or have seen the movie you will understand why I asked that. It was unique with a twist that I don’t know was needed. I think I would have liked it better if the plot was straight up, I’d give it a B.
So Sunday, the last of my four day weekend arrived. It felt like the time had blown by, mostly because I had kept myself so busy. That did not change on Sunday either. I changed the oil on Cindy’s car, paid my bills, and came up with an odd replacement strategy for my conventional outdoor antenna that was damaged during Hurricane Irma. I had bought one of those indoor HDTV antennas to hook up to the tv in our guest room. It worked so, so but did not have a long enough cable to be mounted ideally in the window of the room. The end result was not getting as many channels as I used to get when the outdoor antenna was working.
I came up with the idea of taking that indoor antenna and connecting it to the outdoor antenna coax which runs into the house. I disconnected the cable from the antenna which is mounted to the small shed. I then routed that cable inside the shed, connected it to my $29 indoor antenna and went back inside to see the result. I was happy to see we now got all of the channels we used to and did so without having to junk up the room with a wire running over to the outside wall. We now get 31 channels over the air.
I also decided to take a quick trip around the yard in the Mustang Skid Steer that was left on the property. I quickly found out that hard skid steering rips up a sugar sand yard very quickly.
I had limited time since the Eagles played at 1PM against the lowly Dolphins, a game the team was heavily favored to win. The Dolphins were 2-9 going into the game. At the start of the game it looked like it was going to be a non-contest. The Eagles defense and offense were both performing early on. In the third quarter the Eagles had a comfortable 28-14 lead. Well it was like someone put things on cruise control and forgot to grab the wheel. The Eagles allowed the Dolphins to score 23 unanswered points. The defense all of a sudden had no answers for the Dolphins offense which was one of the lowest ranked units in the league.
The Dolphins QB lit up the Eagles secondary, especially Jalen Mills, who I think is one of the most overrated cornerbacks in the league. He got burned repeatedly as well as committing stupid penalties. He was targeted time and time again. The end result of this awful play was the Eagles finding themselves down two scores with little time remaining. They managed a late field goal but a failed onside kick attempt sealed their fate. Once again Carson Wentz who overall had a good day statistically, could not deliver when it mattered the most, a recurring theme in the young QB’s career. The loss was downright embarrassing. This team is going nowhere this year.
After the disappointing loss I went for a quick ride over at the school on my Mten3. A good portion of the video was me venting about the poor Eagles performance. I also surprised myself when I realized that this was the first time I got to do any PEV riding during the long four day weekend. It’s kind of nuts.
The Thanksgiving weekend absolutely flew by. We wound it up by watching The Report on Amazon Prime. It’s a movie regarding the use of torture by the US after 9/11 and the effort to ignore and cover it up. It is just another of the numerous examples of the federal government lying to the populace in a disturbing manner. Federal government deception has been going on for a long time and has expanded further under the biggest of all big league presidents of all time.
Yesterday afternoon I got a call from Pawel, the solar company construction manager. He started off the conversation saying he has some not so good news and some good news. Instantly my mood worsened as he told me that they are not going to be able to get the Silfab panels that we agreed to. Even with going through different distributors they weren’t able to get the 48 panels they needed, despite last week saying they would be able to.
However Pawel then told me the good news. Instead of using the 300W panels, he convinced the owner to upgrade me to the Silfab 320W panels which are newer and obviously have more capacity. When multiplied times 48 it adds up to almost a full KWH of additional capacity which is significant, raising the array capacity up around 15.4KWH. This will translate to more savings over time. Pawel said despite these panels costing more they are not charging me any more for them, which of course I would have fought anyway, but still a nice thing.
Pawel had one more piece of good news for me. With the original panels sourced through other distributors we were looking at at least another one to two week delay until they would have them. The 320W panels are in stock and they plan to install them on FRIDAY. Wow, I am not used to getting hit with so much good news at once. I thanked Pawel for his efforts. All of a sudden getting the array up before Xmas actually seems like a possibility.
When I got home I was pleased to see the skeleton of the frame was in place. It looked like the beginnings of a stadium bleacher section. The array of panels is going to be huge and the unobstructed view of the southern sky should be generating power at a pretty impressive rate. Today they are supposed to dig the trench for the cables that connect the array to the house and do some more work on the frame.
Tomorrow for Thanksgiving I would like to start the morning off with some sort of exercise, either a bike ride or run to get a little caloric deficit to offset the huge influx of food that is sure to come during the day. Originally we were going to have the meal at Katie’s new place but that plan shifted back to our place yesterday which is fine with me. It’s so nice to not have Thanksgiving associated with the mountain of stress and work that it once held when I was timing races every Turkey Day morning. This will be our second year in a row that does not involve timing, volunteering or participating in a Thanksgiving race and we are both thankful for it. Cindy and I are hoping to get Xmas decorations up tomorrow afternoon if possible.
My Black Friday is up in the air. I’d like to get some shopping in but since the solar panels are supposed to be going up I want to be available of need be. I guess I’ll play it by ear, like many things in my life.
Yesterday I wound up my three day weekend which was filled with arduous tasks with pressure washing the pool cage area. The cool temps in the 50’s felt chilly enough that I started off the work wearing a sweatshirt. However trying to control 10 feet of pressure washer extension pole quickly made the sweatshirt unnecessary as physical effort kept me warm. The cage was dirty but not as bad as it has been at times in the past. I wrapped up by around noon.
The solar installers arrived about 10:30 and got to work. There was a van, a big straight body truck, and another truck with two pallets of concrete that were in the back yard. The weight of these vehicles left deep tire tracks in the yard which isn’t surprising since sugar sand is underneath the grass. However the guy dropping off a BobCat did a lot more than that, he got stuck trying to cross the culvert, burying his Ram halfway up the tire and wedging the trailer into the dirt as well. They spent almost an hour getting the truck and trailer unstuck, utilizing the Bobcat to do it. The end result was the yard looked like a landmine went off where the vehicles were stuck.
While all of this was going on I was in the middle of changing the oil in the Tacoma. All of a sudden my neighbor pointed out that there was a large dog in our yard. He must have wandered in through the open gates. He was some sort of mastiff. I went over to him and called him to me. As soon as he approached he immediately rolled onto in a submissive position like he was ready to get hit. He had tags including one with his name, Leo and a phone number.
I called the number and it went straight to voicemail. That voicemail box was full so I couldn’t even leave a message. I got Leo some water and a couple big dog biscuits which he seemed thankful for. He was a good boy. I first posted on NextDoor hoping someone would respond quickly. I then texted Cindy about the dog. She said she knew the dog and the owner lived on 10th street, close by.
I went and grabbed a leash and took Leo for a walk. We got lucky and the owner must have seen us walking down the street and came out to get the dog. He thanked me for bringing Leo back, evidently he runs away pretty regularly. Unfortunately I have a feeling I know why. Some people should not own animals.
The solar guys worked until the sun had set. They got six of the 14 poles cemented into the ground. The holes for the footers are massive, each being two feet in diameter by five feet deep. There was some miscommunication about the time period for this phase of the install. I was under the impression they were going to get all of the frame work done yesterday.
It actually is going to take three full days to get the stand built and the wires run to the house. Then we have to wait for solar panels to arrive which supposedly will take 1-2 weeks. It’s a BIG project that I will be documenting as we go along.
My third Prusa printer arrived yesterday. I had it up and printing within 20 minutes. My print farm is one printer away from full capacity at this point. I have a fantastic two day work week prior to the Thanksgiving weekend. I can get used to this.
