Big Food, Big Sale, Big Rides, Big Work
Thanksgiving morning I flipped on the tv to see the mutated version of the Macy’s parade. I was quite curious what it would be like having the event in front of NO spectators. It turned out to be like the rest of 2020, very strange. They cut the parade down to bare bones. The normal two mile route jammed with millions of spectators was slashed to a single block where they basically did their thing in front of the TV cameras and that was it. The couple thousand balloon handlers normally used in the parade was reduced to 130. A lot of the segments were pre-recorded. I guess it was better than nothing and I understand wanting to continue the tradition but let’s be honest, that wasn’t really the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.
Katie and DJ came over mid-morning to do another family PEV ride, a fun thing to incorporate into the day. We went to the Pelican Bay park and explored some of the quiet residential areas surrounding it. Cindy again pushed DJ around in his stroller which is cool. It’s nice that we can incorporate him into the rides this way. More than once during the ride I thought back to how for a long time Thanksgiving morning was a stress filled event timing the holiday race. I felt grateful that I am no longer in that situation.
Katie and DJ stayed all day. Daniel showed up around 4PM. Both of them got to mess around with the Quest 2. Katie is very entertaining to watch when she plays in VR, she really throws herself into it. This was Daniel’s first time in VR and he was pretty impressed as well with how immersive and realistic the experience is.
As is always the case, we had way too much food for the small amount of people we had gathered. It tasted great of course and I am thankful Cindy likes to put in the effort for the meal. We finished up our last round of leftovers last night which despite them still being tasty, I was glad to be done with them. I feel like a fat blob from eating such calorie dense foods for four consecutive days.
In past years I felt the desire to throw myself into the Black Friday quagmire, doing in person shopping for at least part of the day. I felt no such desire to do so this year, due to covid and my inner dislike of crowds of human beings. Instead of being the one buying I was the one selling thanks to the Black Friday sale I was running on my store, offering a flat 15% off everything. The response was large, we dropped off a huge bag of packages to the post office during the day, it was my single largest day ever.
I also got busy on chores Friday, weeding and mowing the grass to make room to get other things done on the weekend. While I was doing that Cindy started busting ass on Xmas decorations, setting up the trees inside as well as getting out the inflatables for the front yard. We worked on setting up the outside decorations as the sun was setting. It was completely dark when we were finished but at least we got to immediately see the fruits of our labor.
Saturday was an absolute grind. It felt like we were on the go almost all day and that was because we basically were. I did a number of smaller projects outside. One of them was taking some 1 x 6’s to seal the gap under the platform the chicken coop sits on top of.
When we blocked the chickens from going under there I just haphazardly threw some boards across the opening and held them in place with concrete blocks. Well the seal was not tight and allowed palm rats to freely come and go from that spot as they wanted.
I now have the area boarded up tight meaning if they want access to the run they are going to work much harder to do so, via tunnels. As I find tunnels I will fill/block them as needed. I have been trying to catch more of the palm rats with my live trap but it seems some of them have caught on and won’t go into the trap even with peanut butter on the lever.
I also tackled another problem I have been putting off for awhile, ever since the dirt and sod was brought in during early summer, fixing sprinklers in that area. There was one sprinkler in particular that was now under a foot of dirt that I needed to adjust/fix. I kept putting it off because I knew it would be a pain in the ass plus we were in wet season so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to procrastinate.
The job was a huge pain in the ass as expected. I had to dig down through the rocky top soil that was added to not only expose the sprinkler head but also the flex pipe that ran to the PVC feed line. As I disconnected the old sprinkler and hose water ran out, filling the hole with mud that I needed to clear. I struggled to get the old flex out unsuccessfully so I had to turn out the adapter fitting on the PVC instead, replacing it and the flex pipe with a longer section needed to accommodate the higher ground level. By the time I was done I was a sweaty and muddy mess. It felt good to have it done though as this sprinkler is one of the two used to water the garden, without it trying to grow anything in the winter in there would be futile.
After a long day of outdoor labor we moved inside where we got around to decorating the Christmas trees. We have a lot of ornaments so it took a good chunk of time but by the time we got done the house felt primed for the holidays. Saturday night we watched our Netflix rental, Mr Rodgers. Mr Rodgers was a core part of my childhood, his show and Sesame Street were the two children shows everyone watched in a pre-cable TV world that had significantly less options.
I thought Tom Hanks did a fantastic job depicting Fred Rodgers and I thought the story, which is supposed to based on a real life encounter was surprising, touching, and emotional. Cindy felt the same way. If you are like me and grew up watching the show you will give it an A too.
Before I could blink it was already Sunday. During the morning I followed my normal Sunday routine which includes chicken clean up, doing my weekly bill reconciliation, and doing a Dunkin Donuts coffee run. After we got home Katie and DJ stopped over for another visit which was fun. DJ sticks to me like a magnet when I’m around, it’s very endearing.
The Eagles did not play Sunday afternoon so I had some extra time. I decided to spend it doing another long ride out to Ave Maria on my S18. I wanted to do a higher speed ride to see how the wheel would perform. When I did this on my V11 I ran out of battery after 29 miles and had to be picked up by Cindy. Well I once again required a save by Cindy but the S18, which has a smaller battery actually carried me further, almost 32 miles before I had to call the cavalry. I am excited that my Veteran Sherman that I have been waiting nearly three months for is supposed to show up tomorrow.
Sunday evening was consumed mostly by editing the very long video as well as some work in the hobby room. I have a couple printers requiring my attention. I also was researching how to set up mixed reality recording for Quest 2 game play. I think inserting Cindy or Katie into the VR view would be pretty entertaining.
Tonight the Eagles play the Seahawks. I am already anticipating another loss as I think the 2020 team is pretty rudderless thanks to injuries and Carson Wentz regressing this year. Luckily I don’t feel emotionally invested enough in this team to care all that much.
If you needed any reassurance to just how broken of a human being Donald Trump is, his performance since he lost the election should eliminate all question. His refusal to live in reality is startling, terrifying, and par for the course.