Archives April 2020

Last night when I got home Katie and DJ were still at the house so I got to hang out with my little buddy which always puts a smile on my face.  Because of my aching right shoulder I had to do all baby support exclusively with my left arm.  Later in the evening Katie called Cindy excitedly to report DJ took two or three steps unsupported for the first time which is cool.  It’s hard to believe he will be one year old already next month.

Cindy and I put together the new workbench for the hobby room.  This was ordered weeks ago online with Home Depot before finally showing up at the store on Tuesday.  The new surface goes above some my EUC’s but gives me more table area for printers or whatever else I want to up there.  I think the room is officially full at this point.

The Florida governor announced yesterday the initial relaxing of Covid 19 restrictions.  It definitely is a measured approach that will open stuff like beaches, parks and a number of other businesses albeit still at scaled back capacities.  A number of things remain closed, most notably for me, gyms.  All of this comes with strict social distancing still in place along with a recommendation to wear masks in public.

It will be interesting to see how the general public reacts to the relaxing of restrictions and what the result will be on the infection numbers.  My assumption is many people will not continue exercising the same restraint when not forced to as that is what human beings do.  It has become more and more apparent that the virus is not only droplet based but aerosol as well, which is the worst scenario, meaning it can float in the air for a couple hours, easily inhaled by others.  It makes sense based on how stupidly easy and lightning fast Covid 19 circled the globe.

Our office, which has remained closed to the public since March 20th is going to be reopening next Monday.  There will be some additional spit shields installed, plenty of hand sanitizer available and a recommendation for both customers and customer facing employees to wear masks.  They also will be imposing the same social distancing standards that were in place before the closing like only allowing 10 people in the customer lobby at a time.  It will be interesting to see what transpires once the doors are opened.

There was a message on our IT Coalition forum from a guy that was retiring after 36 years.  He is a funny, personable, high energy dude who will surely be missed.  However what got my attention was the title for his retirement post “How can you miss me if I don’t go?”  This simple statement rang true with me for some reason.  I think to some degree everyone is guilty of taking people and situations for granted throughout our lifetimes.  Sometimes the consequences are trivial, sometimes they are impactful, however they are always learning experiences.

Last night I documented a new feature that was part of the latest Tesla software update, traffic control device awareness.  In a nutshell the car now sees and reacts to both traffic lights and stop signs.  Prior to this update if you were approaching a traffic light or stop sign and were not behind another vehicle that was stopping, the car would not stop on it’s own. Now it does, the problem is it will stop at EVERY traffic light, even if it’s green, unless you interact with the car to let it know it’s clear to go.  It’s an annoyance but I assume it is part of training Tesla’s “neural network” to help shape how the car should behave in various intersection scenarios.  The car was flawless in identifying lights and stop signs.  The only bug I saw was when you approach an intersection with a flashing yellow light it will continue prompting you to react.  Your only option is to keep your foot on the accelerator until you are through the light.  Regardless, it’s a cool next step towards the ultimate goal of a full self driving vehicle, which originally was supposed to happen before the end of last year.  I think they still have a ways to go.

My shoulder still hurts.  Yesterday I said to myself if it still hurts significantly today I was going to call someone about it.  Today I I repeated that mantra.

My waking hours are still dominated by trying to not move my right arm in a way that sends shooting pain into the shoulder region.  In order to do that I need to keep my right elbow as close to my torso as possible if I am trying to lift the arm.  I am giving it today yet which will mark one week since the pain started.  If there is no improvement tomorrow I will have to reach out to a medical professional to assess what the hell is going on.

Yesterday the additional workbench I ordered from Home Depot finally arrived at the store.  Cindy took the Tacoma to go pick it up.  Normally I would have jumped right in to putting the unit together but the way my shoulder was feeling last night it would have been a very painful project.  Hopefully one day this week I can knock it out.

My shoulder pain meant no running this weekend, bouncing up and down would have been highly problematic.  Starting Friday I began taking some of Cindy’s CBD which has a number of benefits, including pain management.  Over the weekend I made consistent improvement.  By Sunday afternoon I was able to slowly lift my right arm above my head under it’s own power, an impossibility 48 hours prior.  I was excited to be on the road to recovery.  However last night during sleep I noticed more pain returning and by the time I rolled out of bed this morning it felt like I was almost back to my starting point on Friday.  Yes, I’m frustrated.

The weather this weekend was mostly overcast and dark.  The good news out of this was we did at least score some much needed rain.  I kept busy a good portion of Saturday, even with a bum shoulder.  I bought all new brushed nickel handles for all of the interior doors. (well all but one that I forgot about)  The old fashioned brass door knobs looked dated.  I have had a handle style lever on the door from the garage for a couple years.  I always intended to do the rest, now it’s finally done.  Maybe it was wishful thinking but the new anti-microbial handles felt like they freshened up the look of things.

Deb came over again on Saturday afternoon.  I donated my remaining AnyCubic I3 Mega printer to her, after donating my other one to Katie a couple weeks prior.  We again had a fun time hanging out.  One of the highlights for the girls was making fun of my famous “party shirt” which was bought somewhere in the late 80’s/early 90’s time period.

This shirt is obviously bizarre with it’s mismatched breast pockets, capri length sleeves, and short cut that exposes your waist with the slightest lean.  However I used to think the shirt was cool, way cool.  It was the shirt I wore on my first date with Ali way back when.  Yes I realize now the shirt is silly yet I will keep it forever due to the imagined magical powers I once thought it had. The girls laughed their ass off at my party shirt modeling session and I didn’t mind.

I have begun printing the parts for my new adjustable EUC stand.  I put the prototype together and have one of my wheels on it currently.  It seems solid, despite having the ability to adjust to different widths.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out once I list it on the store.  A customer will have the ability to buy one stand that should fit almost any EUC out there.  Of course I plan to charge more for these stands as they require more prep and hardware than any previous models.

Sunday was extremely drab and dreary.  I didn’t even get out on a PEV to ride.  Sure I kept busy somewhat but I played a bunch of WoW and even laid down to watch Captain America Civil War again during the day, which is a rarity.  I just was not feeling very high on life.

I have talked once or twice on here about regret that I had regarding how I used to use the blog during my second marriage as a podium to express my displeasure with certain things that came up in our relationship.  Regardless of if my feelings were justified or not, putting them out there in the blog for the world to digest was unfair as it only allows for a single side of a dual sided conflict.

Ironically the time I decided to stop doing that was pretty close to the time that we separated.  To be clear, I don’t think posting or not posting to blog would have made a difference in the end result, I just don’t think it was the right thing to do. Over the years there are times where I resist the urge to put down in words various personal thoughts that run through my head as I remain steadfast to the desire to not be a one way street with two way traffic.   Yea it may be fun for readers to get a peek behind the curtain but in the big picture there is no fun to be had with the end result.

That is the word I would use to describe the pain I have been dealing with in my right shoulder.  Instead of lessening since it’s onset on Tuesday evening it has gotten worse, which concerns me.  What concerns me is I can be laying in bed with the arm fully supported and I still have constant pain throbbing and radiating from the shoulder down into my arm.  If I am forced to move my right arm in any way that forces my elbow away from my body it feels like I am getting hit by a taser. It limits more or less anything I try to do.  At this point I am trying to figure out how long I wait for it to start improving before I get worried enough to have to seek medical advice. I have had off and on shoulder pain for a good portion of my adult life but I don’t ever recall anything that felt quite so debilitating.

Yesterday there was no way I could workout anything upper body so I rode my old Ninebot One EUC instead.  I talk about many things during the ride including the shoulder issues.  It’s amazing this wheel still works after all of the abuse it has taken.  I checked the odometer and found that I just passed 700 miles during the ride.

I’m not sure what this weekend is going to consist of.  It is very dependent upon if my shoulder situation improves or worsens from here.

I have had issues with my shoulders, mostly my right one for years and years with pain from pressing movements like bench press.  It got so bad at times I stopped doing the movement altogether for long periods of time.  Since I started benching back up the last few years I have had some off and on issues with pain in the shoulder but typically that pain is restricted to when I am actually doing that movement.  The good thing always was that even when bench pressing hurt I still could do push ups relatively pain free.

Well since the gyms closed I obviously have not been bench pressing but I have been doing push ups, lots of push ups during my parking garage workouts.  I had started getting some of that same shoulder pain I did from benching but it was the type that hurt the first set of reps but then went away as I warmed up.  So I returned to the garage Tuesday after 5 days of no push ups, I expected to be feeling pretty good.  Instead the shoulder pain was immediately there, probably the most I have felt.

The weird thing is Monday night I developed a stabbing kink in my neck out of nowhere, again based on the right side.  Certain head movements sent jolts of pain through my neck and at times I could literally feel the muscles in the area contracting like a vise, it was not a good sensation.  But despite that pain the night before I was able to knock out my 200 push ups on Tuesday, but I started paying the price Tuesday night.  My right shoulder started to just throb and ache nonstop.  The pain woke me up from my sleep and I took two Advil to try to take the edge off.

The pain continued all through the day and made any movement of the right arm that required it to be extended very painful.  Things have not changed much through today, I will be skipping the parking garage workout.  The last time I remember having full time shoulder pain like this is when I used to destroy my left shoulder in volleyball tournaments.  My plan for now is to just keep taking anti-inflammatory meds to dull the pain, stop doing any exercise that hurts and hope my body repairs itself.  The last thing I am interested in doing is seeking medical attention right now.

Speaking of medical attention, I finally got around to paying off my part of my ridiculous ER bill from last April’s Bells Palsy episode.   I have gone through repeated phone conversations with the hospital billing department and my insurance company trying to get the credit for the $700 single pill applied to my claim.  The bullshit required to wade through was insane and I clearly see why so many give up and just pay the bill to make it go away.  For whatever reason, I am not the type that gives up the fight that easily.

The last three days of my staycation flew by as I filled them with a combination of small chores, 3D printing and EUC rides.  On Saturday Cindy and I went on a massive errand run that concluded with picking up nearly $300 of groceries at Sam’s Club.  Shortly after we got home Deb came over to hang out, her and Cindy have been doing various crafting projects together.  I slammed a few White Claws during the visit.  The girls thought it would be funny to get a picture of me drinking with a flower behind the ear.  I was too buzzed to object.

I also spent some time Saturday afternoon working on the pool cleaner, once again replacing the rubber “skirt” which seems to have a very short useful life.  In the process of disassembly the gear train came apart.  I put it back together but the cleaner wasn’t running normally afterward.  It took a second tear apart and reassembly session the next day to get it right.

On Sunday I got out for a Dunkin Donuts ride on the MSX.  It was a fast ride with speed again cresting over the 30MPH mark.  During the trip I ran into a One Wheeler who was completing his coffee run from Starbucks.  This guy was an advanced rider with skills that far surpass my own.  After I returned I went right back out with the Skydio 2 in hand to shoot some aerial ride footage.  The drone did an amazing job tracking me around and over light poles and trees, all autonomously.

I spent a good portion of the day Sunday in the hobby room printing/assembling stands.  I have been fighting with problems on two of the printers which have been frustrating me.  I need to spend more concentrated effort to try to get the problems handled.

On Monday morning I decided to end the staycation like I started with another run.  I had my normal work alarm set so I got to the track early, hoping for a less miserable experience than Thursday.  Even with it being before 7AM the temp was nearly 80 degrees and the humidity was off the charts.  I’m not sure if the pic captured the misery well but I do enjoy the new portrait mode that comes with the Iphone 11.  It can make even a novice like me look like I know what I am doing when it comes to photography.

So when I got home I headed out towards the chickens when movement in the pool caught my eye.  Something was swimming around but it swam differently and was slightly larger than a frog.  As I focused I realized it was a baby palm rat.  Cindy had cooked out on the George Foreman grill the night before and didn’t get a chance to clean it afterward.  I suspect that is what lured him in.  The only reason the little guy didn’t drown was because the pool cleaner was still in the water, he was able to use the hose as a life raft.

I used the pool skimmer to coral the baby into a corner and then plopped him inside a container.  He got transported to the same general area as all the rest of the rodents I have caught.  I wished him good luck as he scurried away into the underbrush.

Late morning I headed out for my second EUC ride in as many days.  I went to an entirely new destination to ride, Bonita Beach Road, all the way into Fort Myers Beach.  It’s an area that Cindy and I talked about riding a number of times in the past but we never got around to doing it.

I made the trip solo and it’s a good thing I did as the riding conditions at times were pretty treacherous.  There was a gusting cross wind that was pushing me all over the place.  It was extremely problematic over bridges as it threatened to push my pedal into the high curb.

Once I got into Fort Myers Beach the difficulty continued as much of the main drag is ripped up for construction.  My body was getting beat up trying to avoid/absorb all of the obstacles while rolling along at 25-30MPH.  The video does a good job of capturing some of the struggles.  I again put the drone up in the air at the end.  Despite the very windy conditions the Skydio managed to track me without issue.

Just as I was ready to completely write off the guy that did the chicken yard  fill/sod he out of the blue decided to contact me and let me know he could do the work this upcoming weekend.  Hopefully he follows through.  As the day wound down I lamented how quickly the 5 days had passed.  I know I say this after every staycation but I could retire tomorrow and not miss conventional work one iota.

I started off my 5 day weekend by getting my weekly run in, two days earlier than normal.  Despite getting to the track between 7:30 and 8 AM I still suffered through stifling humidity that made every step unfun.  I was quite relieved as I finished my final lap with the customary “sprint”, which is more like my normal pace when I used to be in good running shape.

Later in the morning Cindy and I headed to Home Depot to grab a few items.  My big thing was some wire shelving for a shuffling project we are doing in the hobby room.  I was moving several of my PEVs to a different location and I wanted to utilize the wire shelf not only to hold things in a conventional manner but also to attach the chargers for each device to.

The work was slow and tedious as I worked through different layouts and configurations on the fly.  I wound up with a set up I was pleased with that will be home for four of my devices and will be the spot where I will charge the two skateboards as needed.

Today I got a jump start on my core weekend chores by doing the weeding as well as the grass maintenance with an assist from Cindy.  I look forward to having three days with a minimum of must do’s.

I was hoping to have the guy that spread the fill and laid the sod in the chicken area come back to work on doing the same for some other low lying areas.  Just like the first sod guy I gave up on, my new guy has become a ghost, ignoring texts and messages letting him know I was ready to get the work done whenever he was.  I just don’t get why it has been so challenging trying to get people to do  work.  Perhaps my money is not green enough.  It’s frustrating.

So there is a lot of momentum in the news regarding starting to relax some of the restrictions for Covid 19.  This effort is fueled by a very simple truth where the hospitalizations and death rates are light years lower than the initial forecasts, which is a good thing.  I think this pandemic is going to fundamentally change a lot of things.  Just like the “me too” way that state closures fell into line, as soon as certain states start relaxing those restrictions I expect equal pressure to open up on everyone.  If one thing is clear, herd mentality has ruled the world for the last month or more.  I don’t think that will change, whatever direction this goes.

Yesterday I got a call from my solar installer.  He said he got a notification that there was an issue with my system, he was seeing 16 panels offline.  He asked me if anything happened recently, I told him no.  The news came as a surprise to me.

I normally check the panel output a few times a week but I hadn’t in the last few days.  When I jumped on the site I saw there was a problem since Sunday.  The company said they would be sending someone out today to look at the system.  The good news was the array was still making power, just a third less than normal.

Of course when I got home I wasted little time before I headed out to the solar panels to take a look.  I saw no physical damage so I opened up the electrical connection box.  I saw the controller indicating an inverter fault which was expected.  I tried rescanning the inverters which did nothing.  I then decided to throw the breakers for the panels and the controller.  As I examined the box I noticed there was one breaker for the controller and three for the panels.

So doing simple math, I have 48 panels, there are three breakers which made it obvious that 16 panels are tied to each leg.  I am guessing that 16 panels are wired in series and then those are tied in parallel to the other sets of 16.  If so my theory is one inverter in that series failed which in turn killed the entire leg, which seems like a less than ideal design.  It will be interesting to see what sort of diagnosis the system gets.  I am hoping it’s an easy fix as I am losing out on free electrons by the hour.

Today is my last day of work before my extra long weekend.  I do not have any large projects lined up in my head but there are tons of smaller things that will occupy my time without doubt.  The amount of heat and humidity for the last week has been awful, literally the same as July.  I am hoping for at least a slight reversal.

I was so happy to read this morning that Trump insisted his name be on the stimulus checks being sent out to the American public, resulting in a slight delay in the process.  Never before has a president wanted their name on IRS checks.  Of course never before have we had such an ignorant, ego maniacal human being with what he believes is “total authority” sitting in the Oval Office.  I can only hope that after November, we will never have such an ill equipped and dysfunctional individual in that chair again.