Archives May 2020

Last night I was out in the chicken area sprinkling scratch grains for the chickens in their feeder by the oak tree.  As I was doing so I heard a thud to my right.  I look and see a left over piece of water melon on the ground.  I glance up at the tree and see the squirrel that was eating it looking at me at eye level with an “oh shit” look on his face.  It felt like the scene out of Christmas Vacation when the squirrel was in the Xmas tree.  However instead of diving my direction he jumped down and ran off outside the fence, despite me telling him it was ok and to not be scared.  It was pretty funny. The chicken area is a hot spot for a variety of non-chicken animals including tons of different type of birds, rabbits, squirrels, and even ducks.

Last night I boxed up my Meepo V3 KT skateboard, I sold it to someone on the internet that saw it on my YouTube channel.  This board was my first foray into the world of ESK8.  The board was fun to ride as long as your riding surface was free of irregularities.  On rough roads or sidewalks it got unfun pretty quick.  Since I bought the skateboard in August of 2018 I bet I have logged less than 50 miles onboard.

I got a couple hundred bucks for it which wasn’t bad.  I still have the Backfire Ranger X1 all terrain skateboard in my collection.  I enjoy riding that a lot more because of the larger rubber tires and smoother speed control.  The Ranger is also one of Cindy’s favorite things to ride.

So I have now been in the midst of trying to get Miguel to finish this sod project.  You may recall last week I had 10 of the agreed upon 15 pallets of grass delivered and laid down.  When I had Cindy ask him when the other 5 were coming he said he wanted to see how much area was left to be done after the 10 were laid out.  Well the answer is a lot.

I told him that it looked like we could probably throw down another seven pallets.  When I asked him about this earlier in the week he said the large amounts of rain we had over the weekend made the sod field too wet to cut which was reasonable. However we have been rain free since Monday so yesterday I once again started texting, asking for some time frame for getting this shit done.  There was no response to yesterdays attempt at communication so I sent another this morning. If that is also ignored by tomorrow I will begin applying the full court press which will eventually include me reaching out to his dad to scold Miguel for being one of the poorest communicators I have ever encountered.  Rainy season is rapidly approaching so the urgency only increases with each passing day.

I felt a bit bummed yesterday that we canceled Patrick’s visit because although it looked overcast and rainy for a good portion of the day, precipitation was actually quite limited.  Like I said, he will be down here in Florida for awhile yet so rescheduling isn’t a huge deal.

So Katie texted Cindy yesterday to let her know that once again the Prius would not start for her.  I wasn’t shocked although I hoped my drive on Sunday was enough to get the 12V battery up to functional levels, it apparently was not.  I theorized that depending on how long the car had been left in this dead state that the battery has drained dangerously low, perhaps to the point where it can’t even be revived, despite it being less than two years old.

I came up with a plan to go to Katie’s, jump start the Prius again and then drive it back to our house so I could throw the battery on my charger to hopefully get some electrons back into it while Katie and baby DJ hung out.  Since it was DJ’s actual birthday we wanted to spend time with them anyway.  I had the car on the charger for several hours and when I disconnected it was able to fire up on it’s own.  The real test will be to see if it will start after sitting overnight.  If it does, great.  If not it will be time to buy another battery which is a pretty expensive ticket for the Prius.

As is always the case the visit with Katie and DJ was fun.  DJ had a great time in our pool, he just loves water.  When it was time for them to go I was holding him while the car seat was being prepped.  I then placed him in the seat and as he was getting buckled in he reached for me like he wanted me to pick him up.  When he realized I wasn’t he started to cry which broke my heart just a little bit.  I love the little guy.

Rain has been the dominant weather pattern pretty much the entire holiday weekend.  In a practical sense it is a good thing, our area has been very dry and more selfishly I just had 10 pallets of sod laid down so all the rain allows it to get a head start.  From a fun perspective the rain definitely limits your options.

Despite the weather I kept busy outside for a good portion of Saturday.  On our Home Depot stop we grabbed dirt, sod for the chicken area, and pond stone to fill in the stone landscape border near the one patio door.  A few times I forgot I was supposed to be protecting my injured shoulder and paid the price with a quick shot of pain.  Luckily the pain was short lived. Later in the afternoon I decided to weed whack the property despite a light rain which at one point got hard enough to make me stop for maybe 20 minutes before I finished it up.  Luckily the weed whacking position did not seem to irritate my right shoulder much.

On Saturday evening Deb visited again for the third or fourth consecutive week.   As usual the night was filled with fun and good times.  We discovered the app called House Party which allows geographically distant people to get together easily to communicate and play games.

Today is DJ’s actual birthday but yesterday was pegged as the day to to hold his virtual party so others could attend the Zoom broadcast of the event.  As usual Cindy had taken on the lion share of the responsibilities for the party, creating two cakes and trying to coordinate the attendance of other family members.

We headed over to Katie’s house early for two reasons.  Cindy had the two cakes and DJ’s presents to drop off and I needed to get the Prius running again.  Katie had been leaving the smart key inside the car for extended periods of time when the car wasn’t being used.  When the smart key is near the car it energizes certain parts of the vehicle.  Some of these parts evidently draw power from the 12V battery which was dead.

I had to first access and pop the manual release for the rear hatch since the battery is located back there.  Once I got down awkwardly crawling around in the trunk I got access to the battery.  I brought my portable jump starter/energy center with me.  After hooking it up to the battery the car woke back up.  I hit the accelerator to turn on the gas motor so it could begin charging the battery again.

Just to make sure the battery had some juice in it I drove the car to the gas station and back.  As I was driving the red triangle of death came on which is not surprising.  When the car is dead it is unable to manage balancing the cells in the hybrid pack as it should.  I had brought my ODBII reader/scanner along, anticipating this happening.  I cleared the error and the car seemed to be running ok, ok for a 235,000 mile vehicle.

DJ,s party was fun although getting people into the Zoom meeting turned out to be more challenging than we hoped.  DJ had fun digging into his “smash cake” which is designed with the intent of it being destroyed by the baby sitting in front of it.

The main cake that Cindy constructed was a painstaking reproduction of “coco melon” a cartoon series that DJ loves so much.  The inside of the cake looked like watermelon but tasted delicious, albeit both Cindy and I felt like we had a sugar overload afterward.

Before we left we assembled the large water playground toy that we got for DJ.  He loves everything and anything having to do with water so hopefully he will get a lot of entertainment out of it.

Cindy felt relief once we got home as the last 24-48 hours were mostly focused on party/cake related tasks.  It was still raining when we got back.  I split my time between the 3D room and playing some WoW.

Today Patrick was supposed to be visiting as he is doing project work in Melbourne Florida for a couple months.  He texted me last night about the near 100% chance of off and on rain all day.  He said he would take a rain check, literally but will be sure to visit before he heads back north.  As predicted it has been dreary which sort of sucks but again in the big picture the precipitation was needed.  It seems insane that I have not gotten out to ride a PEV a single time so far this long weekend.  I may try to sneak a ride in later in this afternoon but that all depends on the doppler radar.

My physical therapy includes doing certain exercises with would normally be considered a ridiculously minuscule one pound dumbbell.  The movements target small muscles in the shoulder that are not worked much regularly.  Even with the tiny weight I can feel the burn although I am doing up to 30 reps on some of the exercises.  Next week I am only going twice and I hope to taper off to nothing soon.  I have all of the equipment needed to do the exercises both at home and at the county gym.  The only thing I would be missing is the deep and thorough massaging that they do of the shoulder and the muscles surrounding it.

This is going to come as a shock but I actually arrived home to 10 pallets of sod piled up around the property last night.  After more than two weeks of failed delivery promises we actually had some grass delivered.  Of course, there is a but.  Having 10 pallets delivered was nice, but, I paid for 15 pallets.

This morning I had Cindy ask Miguel about the missing pallets.  He said he wanted to get this stuff spread first because he thought we might need less than five more pallets.  I have plenty of lowish spots left that we can throw extra sod onto so I am going to be pushing for the full five I paid for.

This weekend we will be celebrating DJs first birthday.  It seems hard to believe a year has passed already.  It also is funny how my interactions with him have changed as well.  When he was first born I held him briefly but it felt awkward and weird as I have never been involved much with babies my entire life.  However in the subsequent year since his birth I have become deeply attached to the little guy and love him very much.  The sweet innocence of a baby is something you wish could go on forever.  Every time he comes over to me, looks up and extends his arms in “please pick me up grandpa” mode, it makes me feel good.  Hell by this year next time he will be walking and talking like a champ.

Our long holiday weekend will hopefully also include a visit from my brother Patrick who is down in Florida for his job.  The last time we saw Pat was for my stepmom’s 60th birthday in January.  I always enjoy hanging out with Patrick, his passion for the environment and just doing the right thing is admirable and something worthy of duplication by others.

Last night I was up until after 10:30 working on server maintenance at the office.  I also had a number of 3D store related tasks to complete.  I awoke tired this morning, as seems to be the new norm.  I seem to consistently be getting at least 1-2 hours less sleep than I used to, which is surely not a positive trend.  As I was plugging away on my VPN session to the office I realized that I had not had a chance to play any appreciable WoW in at least a week.  For a long time I have used my time available to play WoW as a scale of my level of busy.  Based on that, I have been too busy.

The amount of conflicting information out there regarding Covid 19 is mind numbing.  It seems every day there is information that contradicts previous things that were believed to be true.  Masks are bad, masks are good, covid is droplet based one day, it’s an aerosol the next, and now most recently covid having a long shelf life on surfaces is now replaced with infection from surfaces is not common.  I have no doubt there is an intention of obfuscating the truth so no one really knows what the real deal is which helps to nurture and grow the overall environment of fear in society.  It is really frustrating.

I have now taken a shoulder shrug approach to most of what I hear.  I try to take reasonable caution in what I do but don’t obsess over it.  Hell I have even been able to resume going to the county gym this week.  Social distancing inside the gym has been very easy since it has been basically unoccupied.  I did a cautious bicep and tricep workout yesterday.  Not cautious because of covid 19 but because I was being very careful to only do movements that caused no irritation in my right shoulder.  The weight amounts were kept intentionally low, well off what used to be my standard.  Even with reduced numbers I can feel some soreness in those areas since real weight resistance training  has been off the menu for so long.

You would hardly know we are in a presidential election year.  Since Covid 19 has squashed traditional campaigning we have heard very little from Biden, besides a few things he has broadcast from his basement, which don’t get much traction.  However the other day I heard the first thing from Joe in awhile that made me laugh.

We all know one of the things Trump fans like is his affinity for 3rd grade name calling, something in our old reality the country would be embarrassed about in their leaders.  Donald has come up with nicknames for pretty much anyone he has conflict with.  Well Biden threw out a nickname for Trump that I think has staying power, “President Tweety”.  It is so ridiculous sounding yet perfect at the same time.  I hope to hear that name repeated thousands of times in the next few months as I am sure Trump HATES the moniker which so perfectly encapsulates the lunacy which his time in power has become.  Nancy referring to Trump as morbidly obese was another knee slapper.

Last night I shot a quick video outlining the simple fix for what I was beginning to think was a complicated problem.  I like to make videos when I have an “aha” moment so I can potentially save someone else from going through the same hassles I encounter from time to time.

I had another PT appointment today.  The shoulder is ok to get about my day but certain movements, especially something involving raising the arm in an extended position is uncomfortable.  When the therapist was massaging and moving my shoulder around he felt some crunching, which I also felt yesterday when I tried to do a few pull ups.  He suspects I could have some sort of labrum tear going on in there but if it is, it’s been around for a long time as shoulder pain has been a thing for me for at least a decade.

He had me do some movements with a 1 pound dumbbell which sounds ridiculously light but it is all that is required for these exercises that target small muscles in the shoulder.  The movements felt very uncomfortable at first but dulled a bit as the reps continued.  My homework is to continue doing these exercises as I can.  It sounds like the therapist wants me to keep coming for a little while while my hope was to go this week and be good to go.  I didn’t expect to be healed and pain free, I just wanted a treatment plan that I can follow myself as I don’t need babysitting.  The ending sooner rather than later hope I had is reinforced by me having to plunk down a $35 copay for every visit.

I went back to the county gym for the first time yesterday.  It reopened it’s doors on Monday.  I wore my buff for the session which isn’t all that much fun.  When I arrived there were two other people but for most of the workout I was solo which is nice.  I did lower body weight training which felt odd after the layoff but good.  I did try a few pull ups but bailed after 8 reps because of a persistent and disturbing crunching sound coming from my right shoulder.

Instead of hopping on the cross trainer for 15 minutes of cardio at the end I instead fast walked up the parking garage.  The gym closure exposed me to some alternative ways to exercise and spend my lunch hours.  I don’t plan to abandon those options entirely.  Instead I would like to add them to the rotation to provide more variety.  The tricky thing is going to be doing upper body weight training that does not exacerbate the shoulder issue.

I neglected to mention in yesterday’s entry that I had another 3 hour marathon stream on Friday night.  The primary reason I started it was because I wanted to test the dual platform streaming capabilities of StreamYard.  I configured it to stream simultaneously to Facebook and YouTube for the first time.  It’s cool through the UI I can see comments from both services roll in and respond in one spot.

I didn’t plan for the broadcast to go that long but then my buddy Jeremy got on.  Jeremy, an ex-vball partner of mine and I communicate all the time via internet messaging.  He has been doing a lot of streaming himself regarding how the Covid 19 situation has been affecting the Boca area.  So I asked him if he wanted to join the stream which he agreed to.  He connected and we started talking as we normally have in the past.  Sometime during the interaction I realized that this was the first time Jeremy and I have actually “talked” as in using our voices to communicate in somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5 years.  It was a bit shocking to me that so much time had elapsed since our last voice communication.

I have been to his home and he has been to mine several times but recent years have found both of us very busy with our respective responsibilities.  Via internet messaging both of us have more or less kept current with each other’s lives over the years.  Jeremy was on the stream for probably close to an hour.  Of course EUCs were not a primary topic during that time but it was fun nonetheless.

Later in the stream I was once again joined by Mickey where the stream once again turned EUC-centric.  We chatted for over an hour before I called it quits at 12:30 AM, ridiculously late for me.  I enjoyed the the loose format but I don’t think I can swing streaming on a weekly basis.

So I have still been going through a circus trying to get Miguel to actually do what he says and what I paid for.  He has literally given me at least a half dozen missed dates for the sod to be delivered/installed.  Sometimes there are excuses, sometimes there is just no explanation and no communication.  He blamed his own equipment failures, blamed the sod cutting company, blamed the weather, it’s maddening.  Yesterday he was supposedly taking matters into his own hands. He was going to pick up the sod in his own truck, since the sod company evidently has some sort of issue preventing delivery.

Well of course that didn’t happen either.  Now supposedly he is going to have to cut the sod himself as well.  It’s crazy.  I have been very restrained in my response with Miguel so far with all of these failed promises.  The only reason for that is he is the son of the guy that has done yard maintenance for our neighbor for 20 years.  However this latest miss is piling up my frustration to the brink.  I texted him that I need solid dates for stuff to get done and reminded him this has been promised to happen for not days but weeks.  As is typical, no response came.  The first time around I got response by contacting his dad which I really don’t want to have to do again.  I don’t think I should have to have an adult man be scolded by his father to get shit done that he is being paid to do.

Last evening we had some torrential rain moving through the area.  When I got home it started pouring which annoyed me because I planned on burying Katie.  I waited until the lightning subsided and then slapped on my raincoat to do the work in a steady light rain.  Cindy came out to join me as I was in the middle of grave digging.  As is normal I got choked up as I said a few final words to Katie before placing her body in the ground and covering it up with both dirt and palm fronds.  I am hoping we can be done with chicken burials for the foreseeable future.

I figured I will get the tear jerker stuff out of the way up front.  Katie has been having physical issues for damn close to two years.  Out of the blue she developed a problem walking that we never determined what from.  She has gimped around ever since.  Last year she had an episode where she seemed on death’s door, she was just sitting alone and hardly eating or drinking anything.  It was amazing that she somehow rebounded and was more or less normal, for her, limp and all.

In the last couple months Katie was having more difficulty walking.  Many days I would be her personal Uber, picking her up and moving her to different spots so she wouldn’t have to walk there.  It was so sweet at night, she would wait for me to come out to give her a lift onto the perch.  I would call her name and she would make the cute little noise she always did in acknowledgement.  I would always try to place her on the perch next to her sister, Kathy.  So for awhile Katie seemed to be on a plateau, not getting any better or worse.  Despite having problems walking she was always fine on the perch at night once I placed her there.

On Saturday Katie seemed a little slower than normal but she livened up once I cut up watermelon and gave it to the hens.  She ate it up happily.  So Saturday night Katie was standing a bit oddly in front of the coop but she was doing that now and then recently.  I scooped her up and placed her on the perch as I have been for so long.  Looking back, when I called her name “Katie Kate” she didn’t chime back with her cute noise, a sign she wasn’t feeling well.  When I placed her on the perch she was unsteady and fell off in a few seconds, that was when I knew something more serious was up. I picked her up off the floor and put her in a nesting box.  Sure it meant I would have to clean the box in the morning but at least I knew she would be safe in the box, or so I thought.

So I opened the door Sunday morning and I see Katie on the floor, wedged between the food bin and the wall, which is on the opposite side of the coop form the nesting boxes.  She must have tried to get out of the box, fell on the floor again and then struggled to get where she was.  She did not look good.  She could no longer stand, and she couldn’t even sit reliably without support.  By this time I have seen enough dying chickens to know Katie was on her way out.  Her bottom was soaked from not being able to stand.  I started to cry as I placed her outside on the ground in a nesting box for support.

She kept her eyes mostly closed as I interacted with her during the day.  She did take a few bites of melon for me and a couple sips of water.  I moved her to various spots around the yard to keep her in the shade and nearby the other birds, just because I thought she would like it, we did a greatest hits tour of her favorite hang out spots.  By the time evening came around she was barely responsive, keeping her eyes mostly closed as she breathed deeply and slowly.  I filled up the nesting box with fresh shavings to give her something soft to sit on.  As rubbed her head I told her she was a good girl and that I loved her.  As I closed the door I was pretty positive that was the last moment I would see Katie alive.  Before I left work I went out to check on her and confirmed my feeling was correct.

She hadn’t moved from where I placed her, hopefully she passed peacefully.  Although I felt emotional about her laying still, part of me was relieved she was no longer in pain and suffering.  As has been the case with some of other hens, they will put up a good face when they are ill right up until the very end but when they have nothing left they succumb quickly.  Tonight I get the unwelcome task of burying Katie in the back of the property, a miserable but necessary duty.

Ok so what less miserable things went down this weekend?  Saturday was a day filled with mini-tasks and chores.  We had Sadie out at the house for the first time in close to two months.  We were both surprised to see that she looked noticeably heavier.  With the weight came a much more difficult time with basic mobility.  We both felt badly and attribute some of the problem with not having her at the house recently where she has a lot more opportunity to exercise in the wide open spaces of the property.

I finally figured out what was wrong with one of my 3D printers during the day.  I was considering doing a pretty extensive tear down on the unit to fix a chronic under-extrusion issue.  Just when I was about to look at ordering some parts I discovered the problem was stupidly simple.  The brass hot end nozzle somehow worked it’s way loose.  A couple turns with my nozzle installation tool and it was printing perfectly again.  The printer had been down for over a month and the fix was so damn easy.

Deb came over again Saturday night to hang out, a near weekly tradition at this point.  I once again grabbed food from Lil Apetito for us, despite the problem the week before where I waited 45 minutes longer than told on the phone to get our meals.  This time the wait was reasonable and we got extra garlic knots thrown in because Deb complained about the lack of salads and slow service the week prior.

Sunday I didn’t get out for a ride.  I had other things on my plate and we were babysitting DJ for several hours.  I can’t quite explain how endearing it is to have the little guy come crawling over to me, get on his knees, and look up at me with his arms stretched overhead in “pick me up” form.  I love the little guy.  Based on my interactions with him I am pretty sure that if I would have been put into the role of fatherhood as a younger man I would have done ok.

Cindy and I spent the last several days binge watching the third season of West World.  It is an HBO show, which I no longer pay for.  However Xfinity was doing one of their promos where all of their premium services are free for a week or two.  Yesterday was the last day of the promo so we had to jam in the final three episodes in one sitting.  It’s a crazy and deep series.  I thought the story had come to close after season two.  I once again think the story has ended but there was a crack left in the door for them to continue further if they desire.

After my PT appointment this morning I grabbed coffee at DD.  When I went to pull the cup out of my cup holder in the Tesla, the lid which was not evidently securely attached flew off.  The end result was at least 1/4 of the extra large dumping straight into my lap.  I was furious and cursed the drive through worker as I sprung out of the car, looking for something to help curb the mess.  The best I could do was my gym towel and some hand sanitizer.

As I walked into the office I hoped that no pedestrians took the time to focus on my crotch area that clearly looked like I just had explosive diarrhea in my pants. Happy Monday.

Last night I printed my first “production” charger sidecar for my stands.  It has some additional heat venting openings, bump outs so you can see the charger LED light and mounting holes which fit both types of stands I sell.  I plan to throw them on the store this weekend as $9.99 option.  It will be interesting to see what sort of activity I get on it.

I had my second PT appointment today.  It started with 15 minutes on the electrostim machine which is not the most pleasurable sensation.  Something about having your muscles contract involuntarily is unsettling to me.  Afterwards I got stretched and manipulated for almost a half hour which felt good.  At this point I honestly would probably be just fine without PT but I will follow through in the hope that it will help the lower grade pain I have gotten for years in my shoulder doing pressing movements.

My plan is to run the Parking Garage 5K for the third week in a row over my lunch hour.  It is a tough but rewarding challenge.  Supposedly sod is being delivered today although that promise has been unkempt for the past week so hopefully it finally happens.  I have a number of smaller chores/tasks that are spinning around in my head on the to do list but I don’t expect anything earth shattering to go down.

Yesterday I had my first physical therapy session for my right shoulder.  The therapist was a nice guy who gave me a thorough explanation of the physical breakdown of the shoulder and what happens to those structures as we get older.  When I told him the pain started the night after a 200 push up lunch time work out he had much the same reaction as the orthopedist, don’t do that.  He said high rep load bearing exercises are a fast track to premature joint failures as we get into my age range, which is not news to me.

I have for the most part been listening much more to the feedback my body has been giving me the last 5 years.  However I think upping my push up numbers exclusively by a factor of five or six without doing opposing muscle group exercise is the key reason I ran into this wall of pain.  For the first session he did electro-stim on the shoulder and a lot of manual manipulation.  I have every other day sessions starting tomorrow although I don’t think more than a week will be necessary.  Once I get the framework of exercises to do I am good to go, I don’t need someone to motivate me to do them.

There are a bunch of brush fires burning in our area all of a sudden.  I saw huge clouds of smoke on the drive home last night.  This morning it wasn’t bad by our house but as I approached the office it became one big huge smoke screen.  The smoke smell has penetrated everything, there is no escape.