The other day I saw someone in one of the FB EUC groups talking about a 3D printed EUC stand he bought on Ebay. The design was much bigger and bulkier than mine but it did have something that interested me, an included side compartment for the charger brick.
This compartment isn’t something everyone one would want or need but it would make a nice option. In the course of an hour or so after taking a few measurements of one of my EUC chargers I had a prototype modeled out. I started the print last night and woke up to the physical object this morning. I was thrilled that not only does it fit the charger perfectly, the pass through holes for the bolts lines up perfectly as well.
I plan to do a few more tweaks to it like adding some punch outs to the side to provide additional ventilation for the charging brick but to be quite honest it is pretty damn good as is. It will be interesting to see how many people show interest in the add on.
So HBO is doing a limited time free access deal which ends on the 17th. I had HBO for a number of years but dropped it when I reworked my plan to save a few bucks. I am hoping to take advantage of the gratis time period to binge watch season 3 of West World. We watched the first episode last night and it seems pretty damn interesting to me.
Yesterday I may have been a bit too aggressive with my exercise recovery. After work I tried doing a few pull ups. I stopped after 6 as the hanging motion just did not feel very accommodating to my shoulder. I guess I will give my upper body another week of light activity. I have my first PT therapy session scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I expect the exercises to be similar to what I was taught over 30 years ago when I went to therapy for my bad left pitching shoulder. Once I have access to a regular gym it will be easier to more equally exercise both the front and back parts of the shoulder. I think my doing exclusively pushing exercises for the last 6 weeks fostered an imbalance in the joint that contributed to the problem.
So the big news here over the weekend was the city of Naples shutting down beach access after a week because of people absolutely ignoring any and all social distancing recommendations. Naples police put a drone up and said they couldn’t even see the sand because people were packed in so tight. In addition beach goers evidently ignored parking restrictions and threw their vehicles pretty much wherever they could find space.
The Naples city council had an emergency meeting yesterday to come up with a revised beach plan. There was a lot of disagreement and took four votes until a version of reopening was passed. Weekday access is pretty much the same although they are stepping up parking fines and enforcement, including vigorous towing. They also are banning coolers and tents. On weekends is when things get really weird. They are only allowing beach access from 7AM till 11AM. The beach is then closed until 5PM where it reopens until sunset. How in the F is that supposed to work?
Are cops going to shoo people away at 11AM? It sounds like a logistical nightmare. I’m glad it isn’t my headache. Of course this could all have been avoided if people exercised common sense and personal responsibility. I know expecting that from the masses is not realistic, if it was we wouldn’t have the dolt sitting in the White House that we do.
Miguel told me that the sod was going to be delivered either Saturday or Sunday. Of course I should have known that meant neither day. When I contacted him yesterday asking for an ETA he said it was raining at the sod field so they had to wait for it to stop to cut it. Well evidently it must have rained there a lot more than it did at our place as we only had some off and on light rain. I am awaiting the next delivery ETA that will be missed.
I once again got my run in over my lunch hour on Friday, running the parking garage for the second week in a row. It’s a nice challenge, forcing my body to deal with elevation is a good way to shake things up. Even once gyms reopen I may include this as a Friday thing occasionally.
On Friday night Cindy was exhausted from working hard outside during the day. She went to bed early. I had been messing around with a new streaming platform called StreamYard during the day. I decided I wanted to give it a try. The solution is entirely browser based, you don’t install any software on your machine. The UI is intuitive, simple but surprisingly powerful. I also love that it makes streaming with other people incredibly easy, something I struggled mightily with when Marty and I were streaming together. I polished off the remainder of my Smirnoff Ice’s during the record long three and a half hour stream. I also had not one but two guests later in the stream, Mickey and Marty. Even though the session went until after midnight it was a lot of fun as you can see for yourself if you have half a day to kill.
Saturday I kept quite busy with various tasks. One of those tasks involved lifting a very heavy rock that was part of the fill into the back of the Tacoma. Katie said she would like it for her landscape. Cindy offered to help me lift it but I did not want her to risk hurting herself. I had lifted a heavy rock last year that was buried in the front yard and it went pretty well. Of course back then I wasn’t nursing a bum shoulder.
So as soon as I fully supported the weight of the rock I could tell it was significantly heavier than what I lifted before. As I strained to get upright it wasn’t my shoulder but my lower back that felt a jolt of pain shoot through it. I half fell into the bed of the Tacoma with the rock, man it felt heavy. The good news was my right shoulder seemed unimpacted at least.
I got on the tractor and did a half ass speed mowing run around the property, knocking down the areas that looked shaggy and leaving the rest alone. It was good enough to buy me another couple weeks until I need to do a full yard trimming session.
Sunday was mostly overcast with off and on rain most of the day which is ok since our area has been arid dry for quite awhile. It was Mother’s Day so my primary goal was to make sure Cindy had a good day with minimal work. She headed out to Katie’s house mid-morning to hang with her for awhile. I took Elsa with me to Home Depot to get a couple things for my new workbench in the hobby room.
I bought a small piece of wire shelving that I mounted to the bottom of the bench. I then used velcro to attach the chargers for the various EUCS to the shelf to make for a much cleaner set up, similar to what I did on the other wall. I’m really happy with the way the new arrangement has turned out. I have my small Prusa printer on the side of the bench and the rest of the surface is a great work area where I can easily assemble the parts to the 3D stands. There is still some more organizing and throwing out I can do in that room but overall I am quite happy with the current layout.
Deb came over to visit late in the afternoon. I told the girls I would be happy to go pick up dinner as I didn’t want Cindy to have to cook on Mother’s Day. In normal times I would take her out to dinner. So for the second week in a row we ordered from Lil Apetitio, a small italian place a few miles away. Cindy called in the order, they said 40-45 minutes until it was ready.
So I headed out to go get the food, arriving at their door almost exactly 45 minutes after the order was placed. Last week we did the same thing, you arrive, call again to tell them you are there, give payment info and they bring your food out a couple minutes later. Well I did the same thing yesterday except that last part instead of taking a couple minutes took almost another 45 MINUTES. It was frustrating as hell. After I saw a few people arrive 10-15 minutes after me getting their food brought out before me I was annoyed. I rolled down the window and asked the young girl if they had our order in there. She was annoyed by my question and said yes they are just waiting on the food. WTF, wasn’t that the point of telling us to wait 45 minutes before coming to get it?
When the food was finally brought out she told me the salads that were supposed to be included were not there because they ran out of lettuce. I said fine, whatever. Cindy was really annoyed that I had to wait so long and she thought I should have asked for a credit for the food we paid for but did not receive. I told her by that point I just wanted to get the hell out of there. It wasn’t worth beating up on the young girl over a couple bucks to me. At least the food tasted good.
On Sunday my new upper body armor arrived. Because it is Asian sizing I had to order the 3XL size, the largest they have. Even so I was worried it would not fit my long arms. Luckily it actually fit well and should provide me with some pretty serious protection in high speed riding situations. It will be interesting to see how bearable it is in the brutal Florida heat and humidity. The hard body panels are attached to a mesh-like fabric so hopefully it breathes well.
This morning I had my appointment with the orthopedist for my shoulder. Ever since I made my appointment last Monday the shoulder has been improving slowly, so much so that I considered cancelling the appointment. Since I have had a long term pain issue in there I figured it was still worth my time to have him take a look.
They took some x-rays which revealed nothing abnormal. The physical exam went ok outside of a few movements that caused some mild pain. When I told him my recent workout routines which have been including 200 push ups in a session he said it seems clear it is an overuse scenario. He cautioned at my age I may want to consider adjusting my routine. I threw out there that I suspect it may be also because since there is no gym, I am not working both the back and front of the shoulder more equally, it’s been all push and little pull. He said that is an issue as well. He didn’t think any serious tear was in there else I would not have been able to do some of the things I could in the exam. He recommended I try a month of physical therapy and see how I feel from there. I can do that.
Yesterday at lunch I decided to do another PEV ride but to a new destination, the beach. Originally I thought it would take a lot longer than it actually did. I was concerned I would barely be able to get to the beach and back in an hour. It turned out my concern was unmerited as I was walking in sand in less than 15 minutes. I chilled at the beach for 10-15 minutes and still had time to do some riding on Gulfshore and Gordon Drive. Now that I know I can cover that distance with time to spare I will try to make it part of my normal rotation of lunch destinations, at least until normal gym access is restored.
Speaking of gym access, it seems the lack of resistance training is affecting the scale but not in the way you might think. My weight is going down, not up. I assume I am losing some muscle from the lack of weight training. Some good news physically is I am on my fourth day of my shoulder feeling better. I have pretty solid range of motion back. I am tempted to cancel the appointment with the orthopedist but I figure I should still go to get a better idea of what is going on. I have had pain in that shoulder forever, just not the debilitating type I dealt with the last two weeks plus.
This weekend the sod is supposed to be delivered. Counting on what Miguel tells me has not been a reliable course of action so far but hopefully this weekend it bucks that trend. This weekend is also Mothers Day which has become a sad day for me since my Mom passed away in 2014. I sometimes think about what my mom would think of my life at this juncture. I have spent most of my adult life working towards goals, learning new skills, accomplishing new projects, and supporting my loved ones. I have plenty of flaws for sure but at my core I think mom did a good job instilling core morals and work ethic into me, without religion being necessary to provide them.
I think about how my Mom was a little younger than I am now when she swore off relationships, something we always tried to get her to reconsider but she steadfastly refused. She insisted she enjoyed being alone although I never believed her. She just tired of being burned again and again by the process to the point where being alone and unhappy was better than being unhappy with someone else. I still wish Mom was around to talk to about life. Of course I love my dad and do talk to him about life’s up and downs, but I am definitely more cut from mom’s mold as we thought and dealt with things in similar ways.
Last night I watched a portion of a new documentary that is scheduled to come out this summer called Plandemic. It is in a word, troubling, very troubling. In the 25 minute clip I saw a respected woman immunologist who was arrested and prohibited from speaking publicly for a period of 5 years detail some pretty shocking history of the global health leadership. The most shocking of all were the allegations she made against Tony Fauci, who has been seen as a guiding light since Covid 19 became a household word. She talks about the dirty and corrupt business of big medicine and how leaders in the community, including Fauci have played a game for over 30 years where they only release medical discoveries once they hold the patent to profit from it. This practice dates back to the early days of HIV/Aids.
The woman at the center of the video seems as believable and sincere as one can be. The video talked about how hospitals are financially incentivized to declare patients as Covid 19 admissions. Supposedly declaring a patient as having Covid 19 is an instant 13k payout from Medicare. If you throw that person on a ventilator, which in many cases can cause permanent lung damage, you get another 39k bonus, which sounds like insanity.
The official web site for the movie is plandemicmovie.com but the video is no longer available on the site, apparently shut down by the powers that be. Luckily enough people saw it that it now has been reuploaded to YouTube many times, staying ahead of the censor-bots that appear intent on making it disappear. I encourage you to take 25 minutes and watch the video yourself to draw your own conclusions. My conclusion is it is another example of deception being the norm at very high levels of our global leadership. 911 was the first time my eyes got opened to some of it, Covid 19 won’t be the last example.
After watching the documentary I started thinking about the roughly year and a half problem I had with random fatigue which luckily has subsided over the last 6 months or so. I underwent a battery of testing, none of which revealed anything significant until I requested a heavy metal screening, which revealed a high level of thalium in my blood. So I knew I had a tetanus shot a couple years back but I did not recall the exact date.
This morning I reviewed my office visit history and found that my tetanus shot occurred at the end of April of 2018. I started complaining of the fatigue a couple months later. This timeline was an eye opener for me. Is it possible all of these mysterious issues were tied to getting the tetanus shot? It’s a definite and disturbing possibility.
I got the quote for the rest of the fill/sod work yesterday. If I add in what I already spent in the chicken yard I will have dropped almost 3k on raising the ground level around the property. It is a big investment but one I think I will look back upon favorably in coming years when I am walking on dry ground in the middle of summer.
My right shoulder has been continuing a slow improvement. I am doing my best to not retard that trend.
Yesterday was a busy day for the property. Two more loads of fill were delivered and they were out there with the Bobcat most of the day pushing the dirt around. I talked to Miguel and he said he thought one more load of fill was needed which I ok’d. If things go as he say and that is a big IF based on how unreliable his word has been so far, the sod would get put down this weekend. It’s going to be a big investment but one I really should have done a long time ago based on how miserable I felt every summer walking around in ankle high water.
I have had various things around the house like this that I put off for months or even years. Inevitably once I finally get around to pulling the trigger I wonder to myself why I waited so long.
So yesterday some of the fill for the ground elevation project was supposed to be delivered. I was only told that it would be delivered some time during the afternoon but not when. Well 4:15 rolled around and Cindy said nobody had come yet. I sent off a text to Miguel asking what was up and if the fill was still coming or not, which received no response.
When I got home from work and still saw no mountains of dirt I was pissed. I called Miguel. Of course he didn’t answer so I left a voicemail saying when I am told that stuff is going to get done at a certain time and we make arrangements for it, it needs to happen. I got no response to the voicemail either.
So as we are watching TV somewhere after 7PM we see reflections on the wall moving. Cindy looked outside and saw two large dump trucks in the road. WTF, I am not sure if Miguel called the fill guys up and complained or if it just took them that long to get to us. I quickly headed outside to direct them.
I am getting four loads of fill total. I had them dump the two loads on the west side of the property. Originally the guy talked about bringing a third load yet last night but time wise it would have been foolish as it would be dark by the time they returned. They said they would bring the other two loads today. After they left Miguel stopped by the house to drop off his skid loader and I gave him the check I wrote over a week ago as the deposit on the dirt/sod. I chose to not bring up how piss poor his communication and follow through has been as I just want the work completed. I felt that if I hammered him before that completes it would be counter-productive to my end goal.
I did finally break down and make an appointment with an orthopedist regarding my shoulder. My appointment is next Monday. Once again I have had some slight improvement in the shoulder the last two days. I am hoping it does not follow the same pattern as before where I suddenly get thrust back into pain city.
So after my shoulder started feeling somewhat better on Thursday and Friday for the second time in as many weeks I had a relapse. All weekend it has felt like shit which will prompt me to finally pick up the phone and call someone to have it looked at. On top of all the other negative things swirling around in life right now having only one functional arm is the cherry on top that I do not need.
On Saturday I kept my chores light, pretty much isolated to chicken care and weeding the property. Cindy and I visited Lowes instead of Home Depot, a rarity. The reason we went there is the need for more of the paint that is on the majority of the interior, which was bought from Lowes 10 years ago. Ironically we walked out of there without the paint because of a ridiculously long line at the pain counter. We did walk out with a new umbrella for the patio and a couple plants. Since Cindy has been furloughed she has gotten real into plants, the patio all of a sudden has dozens of varieties on it. We also went to Total Wine to pick up some more alcohol to dull the edge of Covid insanity.
Saturday afternoon Deb came over for a visit. We hung out and went for a ride around the neighborhood which has become a near weekly tradition. It’s nice to have her over, the three of us have the ability to make the other laugh, a rare commodity these days.
Despite the global pandemic, sales on my 3D EUC store have continued to remain strong. Saturday may have been a record with me shipping out six packages in one day. It’s nice to have at least one thing that remains solid and positive.
Sunday was a pretty blah day for me. I did get out in the morning on my big Gotway Monster to ride to Dunkin Donuts which was enjoyable.
However the rest of the day I was just not feeling great. The shoulder injury cuts down on my ability to do physical things greatly and I don’t react well to that. When I lay down in bed in the middle of the afternoon to watch TV it’s a sure sign that I am feeling down. We did however have our first restaurant meal since the lockdown started. You never went inside the building, you called in the order and then called when you arrived for them to take the credit card. A mask wearing employee then comes out with your food and you are on your way. It felt good to at least do that, something Cindy would have outright refused a few weeks prior.
We enjoyed the food while watching the new photo realistic version of Lion King that came out last year. It’s the same endearing story with animals that look incredibly realistic. We both enjoyed the rework. It’s hard to believe the original came out something like 25 years ago. Still gets an A from me.
Today some of the fill dirt is actually supposed to be delivered, something I have been trying to get for a month or more. I really like the work the guy did on the chicken area but I absolutely hate his lack of communication. I am hoping now that the process is going to finally start we can reach the finish line without more unexplained and frustrating gaps in communication.
Today our office has reopened to the public. There was a long line 20 minutes before the doors even opened. I had my temperature taken this morning, just one of the precautions being implemented with the reopening. I clocked in at 97.9, I guess I’m not going to die, yet.
Last night I put together my first batch of adjustable EUC stands. As I went through the process I shot video to both promote the new stand and give some basic instruction on how it is supposed to be put together. I have already sold two of the new design, despite them being the most expensive stands I have ever put out there.
At lunch today I utilized the parking garage for fitness once again although in a new manner. Each day I normally try to walk up and down the long way, circling each of the six floors. Today I decided to try to run the entire garage, up and down, twice. It was an interesting challenge as my body is not at all accustomed to running hills of this angle, luckily the up ramps are not tremendously long. I was sucking wind pretty bad once I got to the top deck the first time. The good part of the experience is you get to recover somewhat running back down the structure. I circled the ground floor and headed back up once more. By the time I ran back to our building I had covered a little more than 5K of distance which just about perfect. It felt good to take down the challenge.
My problematic shoulder pain which is approaching the two week mark has been improving slowly over the last two days. It still is far from good but I do have more range of motion than I have had previously. The key is to not do anything to re-aggravate injury so it can heal completely. I think when I first started feeling better last weekend I overdid it.
Our area has started relaxing the restrictions starting yesterday. Things like beaches and parks have reopened with social distancing still advised as well as wearing of masks. Some other businesses are able to reopen with restrictions with limited public access. It will be quite interesting to see how the infection numbers react as a result. In our office spit shields are being installed, gallons of hand sanitizer brought in and employees are going to have their temperatures taken as they enter work.
This weekend hopefully is somewhat low key although I do have plans to come into the office on Saturday to knock out some off hours work I have been avoiding.
The other day I saw someone in one of the FB EUC groups talking about a 3D printed EUC stand he bought on Ebay. The design was much bigger and bulkier than mine but it did have something that interested me, an included side compartment for the charger brick.
