Rotated and buried, She can rent a car, Checked by a tree, Can’t Complain much

The weekend weather contrast was pretty dramatic, when I was working Saturday it was warm and humid.  When I was outside on Sunday it was cool and crisp with temps starting in the 50’s.  I preferred the latter conditions for sure.

I had two things I wanted to get done Saturday, bury the extension cord I ran to the big shed and rotate the tires on my Tesla.  Although definitely not up to code, I have used buried extension cords repeatedly to get power to various structures in the yard including the small shed, chicken coop, and pond.  I always use the same technique to do so, taking a edger tool to make a slit in the ground which I shove the cable into which quickly “heals”.  Getting power into the big shed is something I always wanted to do anyway for those times I want to run power tools for projects.  I also hooked up a third sonar rodent repellent device in there to make any remaining mice pack up and leave.  I added one to the small shed as well.

The Tesla is just about ready to hit 10,000 miles which is the recommended interval for tire rotation.  I bought a low profile floor jack from Harbor Freight last week to make the job easier.  I already had the recommended jack pads which insert into a small hole in the four different jack points around the vehicle.  Doing the rotation wasn’t significantly different than doing it on any other vehicle.  I was happy to see my tires, which some owners have complained of having premature wear, looked to still be in great shape.  I did take the extra step of using my torque wrench to verify the lugs were tight enough.  On all of my other vehicles I would rely on a pure feel torque rating.

I followed up with some of the other minimal maintenance required on the car, topping off the washer fluid.  I have one more task to complete, replacing the cabin air filter with an upgraded model and cleaning the evap coils.  I was going to make it a tag team event with Matt who also has a Model 3.

Saturday evening we took Katie, Daniel and Baby DJ out to dinner at Cirello’s, at an alternate location which we never had been to.  Cindy and I went to the Cirellos next to the movie theater once and enjoyed ourselves.  The site we visited Saturday was newer and bigger.  We opted to eat outside.

One of the things we liked about Cirellos was the service we got was great.  Well it took me all of 5 seconds to determine that we were not going to have a similar experience this time.  Our waiter was a guy who was probably in his 50’s.  I described his attitude to those at the table as “fck my life I’m in my 50’s and waiting tables”, he just didn’t seem very happy to help us although he did the minimum to get through the service.  It was almost like I could see a little thought balloon above his head any time we would ask for him anything that said “eat shit, I hate you”.  My meal wasn’t great but everyone else seemed to enjoy their sushi dinners so that is all that really mattered.

After dinner we had some of the incredibly detailed cake that Cindy made.  She really enjoys cake crafting and put a lot of time into Katie’s for sure.  Even though Katie’s birthday wasn’t officially until Sunday we gave her her gifts then.  My gift included another handful of scratch off’s, I figure sooner or later she has to get lucky since I never do. Katie joked that since she is now 26 she can officially rent a car.

Sunday morning we went to go pick up Katie and the baby in the Tesla.  This weekend is the first time the Tesla has been used for baby transport and it passed with flying colors.  Katie wanted to go ride around Baker Park for her birthday, which she had not seen since it opened fully a couple months ago.

The place was absolutely packed with people, despite the chilly temps in the low 60’s,  the most I have ever seen by far.    The plan was for Katie and I to ride while Cindy pushed the baby around in the stroller.  Katie was amazed st how beautiful the park was, it definitely will be part of the regular rotation as DJ becomes more mobile.

Katie rode her Mten 3 while I had my One Wheel Pint which is a near perfect vehicle for the Greenway with slower speeds and high agility.  We did a ride in reverse as we normally would do, riding from Baker Park to the Greenway parking lot and back.  On the way back we stopped and once again looked for a geo cache that we could not find months before.  Geo caching is something Katie liked doing as she grew up.

We looked around for a good 10 minutes trying to apply the clues to the objects location to the physical spot we were in, without luck.  All of a sudden I was looking down and I saw what looked like a sprinkler head in the center of four trees.  I reached down and realized it was a little screw type canister, we had finally found it.  Katie was quite excited on the discovery and marked it as found in the geo caching app.  Often when you do this activity you are supposed to add your own little object to the cache.  I had an unused eucarmy.com sticker in my wallet so we stuck that in there.

So we headed out back towards Baker Park.  We were riding a twisting portion of the path with Katie ahead and me maybe 10-15 feet behind.  For some reason I looked to the side or behind me for a couple seconds.  When I faced forwards I suddenly had a cabbage palm tree ahead of me.  I had a split second to react but I didn’t do much other than point the Pint away from the tree.  Unfortunately this also resulted in my right thigh squarely hitting the tree, sending me rebounding harshly into the ground.

After doing a brief physical inventory I determined I wasn’t severely injured although my neck and thigh were both a bit sore as expected.  The exciting thing to me was I actually was rolling the camera at the time of impact.  People crashing/falling always make for entertaining content.  Multiple people saw the crash and asked if I was ok which I assured them I was.  I hopped back on the board happy it wasn’t worse and wondering how I could have been so dumb as to not look where I was going with a curving path ahead of me.  Cindy was not thrilled when we relayed the story to her back at the park.

I settled in for the Eagles/Seahawks game late Sunday afternoon.  I went into the game not expecting a win.  Despite winning the last four games of the season to get into the playoffs the team was still decimated by injuries.  The one exception to that this season has been Carson Wentz who has manged to remain on the field all season, for the first time in his career.  It was almost fitting for the way this season has gone that he too left the game in the first quarter with a concussion, leaving Josh McCown to steer the ship.

For a good portion of the game the Eagles defense played well but there were numerous critical times where they simply shit the bed, allowing Seattle to convert on multiple third down and longs which were back breaking.  McCown did a decent job and the team moved pretty effectively between the 20’s but  were unable to score a TD all game long, settling for three field goals.  I thought the victory ensuring long third down conversion by the Seahawks was almost fitting, with Jalen Mills once again giving up a big play, just as he has done time and time again.

As I said, I didn’t really think the Eagles would win, especially once Carson went down.  With all of the injuries the team suffered this year I think their end result should be respected.  I wonder what next year’s plan is, keep things more or less the same and cross your fingers for less injuries?  The defense, specifically the secondary is as inconsistent as you can get.  I am hoping they can make some moves to get some real play makers back there.  On offense they obviously need to make sure their wide receivers are deep and talented.   Relying on players like Desean Jackson just isn’t feasible, at this age players like him just get hurt too often and are off the field as much as they are on it.  Same goes for Jeffries.  The Eagles finish is certainly lackluster when compared to my preseason expectations but as circumstances change your expectations have to realign accordingly.

Hey we may have a war with Iran, how exciting.  This seems like a direct rip off of a House of Cards story line, cover up scandal at home with manufactured conflict abroad.