Archives May 2021

The 2007 Prius has left the building.  Yesterday in a FB Marketplace whirlwind, the car, which I gave to Katie a little over two years ago, was sold.  As soon as Cindy listed the car she was deluged by interest, primarily because of the low ask price of $1200.  With 14 years and over 235,000 miles on the odometer it has now left my circle of existence.

The Prius was the car we bought for Cindy to replace her Miata, which she loved but had a boatload of problems.  When Ali and I bought our 2007 Camry Hybrid we had first looked at a Prius.  I recall at that time I dismissed it as being too small for me to fit, however as I found out later, the Prius actually fits me just fine, in more ways than one.

Cindy used the car as her daily driver until we bought her the Ioniq.  At that point she “sold” the Prius to me and I used it as my daily driver, instead of piling miles on my then new 2016 Tacoma.  When I think about what I have been through with the car, both good and bad, the log book is huge.

Besides reliably performing the mundane task of taking us to and from work daily, the Prius was also a part of one the most memorable western road trips I ever had.  Prior to this, all of our road trips were done in conversion vans which offered lots of space with little mpg.  Surprisingly, doing 5000-6000 miles in the Prius was not nearly as bad as we feared. Spending 25% of the amount of money we usually would spend on gas was a huge pro with the 45-50mpg I could normally pull.

The car took us through the winding and beautiful roads of Yellowstone Park.  It was the vehicle we were driving when I had my infamous drone flight in Yellowstone which resulted in almost a $1000 fine several months later. The car delivered us to Craters of the Moon in Idaho, which lived up to it’s name.  At that park I again flew my drone and this time ran out of battery in the middle of a lava field which resulted in another infamous moment as I searched and searched for it, walking on areas that I was not supposed to be.

It took us to the Great Salt Flats in Utah where I did repeated speed runs which left the undercarriage coated in salt crystals.  Cindy and I had to then track down the closest car wash to blast off the corrosive salt as quickly as possible.

On our way to Vegas on one of the wide open roads with 80MPH speed limit I took the Prius to it’s top speed ever of 101 MPH.  I remember being surprised that the speedometer even had a third digit.

The car also made a visit to White Sands (top picture), where we once again took in the beauty of the park which has sand dunes so white that you could easily mistake it as snow, if you didn’t look at a thermometer.

In addition to the road trips the car was involved with it also has been the target of a lot of maintenance/repair work for me.  A few of my Prius repair videos are some of my most viewed on the channel, with my headlight bulb video crossing 125,000 views.  The car was responsible for what was probably my most involved repair ever when I removed the hybrid battery pack, took the pack apart and replaced two bad cells with refurbished ones.

I had never owned a vehicle that had over 200k on the odometer, the closest I got was my 99 Tacoma that was in the 190’s when I sold it.  The Prius smashed that mark by more than 40,000 miles.  The last two years since I gave the car to Katie things started to go downhill for the old girl.  The red triangle of death would come on pretty regularly but I was always able to clear the error.  The repairs I did to the hybrid pack actually did allow the car to keep plugging along.

The struts on the car were shot and the ABS controller is on it’s way to failing as well, which is another very expensive repair if you pay a mechanic to do it. The tires were marginal and because of lack of driving, the 12V battery was also discharged.  This laundry list of issues is why the car was listed so cheaply.

Despite listing some of the issues in the FB ad the demand for it was sky high.  Katie got full asking price.  She got the paper title for it during the day and completed the transaction in the afternoon.  Just like that, the car is gone.  As you can tell by my walk down nostalgia lane here, I definitely have some sadness with the sale of the car but there is also a sense of relief.  Even though I transferred ownership of the car to Katie, I always felt like I was still responsible for maintaining it.  With the increasing number of issues the car had I have some sense of relief that those problems are no longer  my concern.

This weekend I have three medium level projects to tackle.  I am hoping to have minimal hurdles in accomplishing that goal as mentally, I just am not feeling all that motivated right now.  I officially booked my 2nd Moderna shot for next Wednesday.  With the CDC announcing yesterday that if you are fully vaccinated you basically now have a hall pass, I have a feeling more people will be motivated to get the shot.

On my way home I saw scenes that would make you think a CAT 5 hurricane was bearing down on our area, gas lines.  Repeatedly cars would be backed up into the roadway, participating in the panic buying of fuel, despite repeated assurances that it was not necessary.

The pandemic has brought out this side of human beings repeatedly where you saw people driving away with pickup beds full of toilet paper and hand sanitizer becoming as valuable as gold at one point.   It sadly takes very little to push many individuals into “trample the weak, hurdle the dead” mode where all consideration for others goes out the window and it becomes all about ME.  You may have seen some of the images of people putting gasoline into plastic storage bins and even plastic bags, although I can’t verify those pictures are from this latest panic.

The good news is the ransomware locked down pipeline has started moving again and is expected to be back to normal operation within a few days, hopefully putting an end to the panic mentality.  Of course it is only a matter of time until the next event triggers hysteria among the masses.  Being insulated from at least gas panic’s is one of the many benefits of Tesla ownership.

Recently there was a cyber attack on a company that maintains a pipeline that is responsible for about half of the gas on the east coast.  It was a ransomware attack which are the most damaging, encrypting whatever data it has access to, making it unusable.  Evidently this company has some PC’s controlling pipeline operations that got locked down as a result, disrupting everything.  So when this was announced the news advised people that there was no need to panic and that gas supplies remained normal.  Of course what do human beings do when they are told to not panic, they panic.

Motorists have been flooding gas stations due to lemming mentality, worried that they will not be able to get it, despite assurances that any shortage would be short lived and minor.  Instead, because of the gas hoarding an actual shortage is now a real thing in parts of the state.  Of course in situations like this it is hard to not gloat just a little bit that I am untethered from being a slave to gas pumps with my Model Y.  It is nice to be able to drive right past the rat nest of cars lined up at pumps.  Lemming mentality is a powerful force.  These type of incidents reveal just how fragile our infrastructure really is.  It takes only a small ripple to quickly amplify to a tsunami once public panic sets in.

The state had to enact an emergency order to prevent price gouging, just like they do in hurricane situations.  The Russsian hacker that has been identified as the likely source of the ransomware attack must be rolling on the floor laughing at just how easily he can break the chain.   Expect these sort of incidents to only become more and more frequent over time, just like data breaches/leaks.  Remember when companies were blasted across the news when they had a leak of personal user data?  Not anymore, it is so commonplace it hardly gets a sentence in the media.

It’s funny how as the years and then decades pass how a persons sense of normal evolves.  The aches, pains, and ailments I have every single day, some of which probably would have had me seeking medical assistance as a younger man are now just accepted as part of the deal.  Shit hurts.  It hurt yesterday, it hurts today and will hurt even more tomorrow.  You can either deal with it and move forward or become stagnated, focusing on things you can’t really change anyway.  Typically I will take the former approach.  My right eye is the latest body part that is not feeling up to snuff.  A few drops of Visine and I’ll call it good to go.

Yesterday Cindy booked our hotel for a quick road trip we’re are going to take next month to the Space Center.  It will be a fun little trip in the Model Y, it’s first longish distance journey.  I really have been missing the 10-14 day road trips that Cindy and I did the first several years of our relationship.  There have been a number of circumstances that have made us take a “maybe next year” stance to an interstate trip.  The last time we did it was the the northeastern summer road trip which had some fun moments but was soured by absolutely oppressive traffic along the way. That was four years ago.

I am hoping this small trip will be the launch pad for something more meaty.  Some of the most memorable moments of my adult life have occurred on these road trips.  Sure house chores and projects need to get done but they sure aren’t what you daydream about when you allow your mind to wander.

This was a grind yourself into the dirt weekend.  The project responsible for this was redoing the garden area. The garden was set up at least 15 years ago, maybe closer to 20.  Over that time it has undergone a number of reworks.  The space was in pretty poor shape and Cindy was eager to change things up.  Part of this upgrade was actually downsizing the garden real estate.  At one point I thought we were going to be doing a lot more gardening than reality turned out to be so we had a bunch of raised beds that were empty the majority of the time.  We cut the garden size almost exactly in half.

Saturday morning we made a run out to good old Jack and Ann’s in Immokalee. The last time we were there was when I bought supplies for the chicken fence.  This place looks like it is straight out of the 50’s, which is why we find it fun to shop there.  We bought some hay and a cattle watering bin which was going to be one of our new planters.

Getting the old fencing down was a grind. Since the area was raised up last year some of the staples I hammered in to the structure were now underground.  Some I could pull out but a lot of them I just cut with my bolt cutters.  The fence posts were in bad shape as well, about half of them snapped off at ground level as I was trying to pull them out.  It was just tedious, annoying work, made more miserable by the high heat and humidity.

Cindy and I worked out there till after 5PM until we reached a decent stopping point.  She was wiped out just like me and didn’t feel like preparing a meal.  We decided to stop at Culvers after picking up a few supplies I needed at Lowe’s.  When we got home we watched Greenland, another end of days movie with Gerard Butler.  Gerard is far removed from his 300 spartan days but I still enjoy his films.  The scenario of comet fragments wreaking havoc around the globe is a theme I find interesting, perhaps because it is a certainty to occur, sooner or later.  The plot to survive the disaster gets sort of silly, even for Gerard, but I still enjoyed the movie overall, B.

Sunday was Mother’s Day, Cindy understandably wanted a labor-free day which I did my best to accommodate.  During the morning I was back out in the garden attending to stuff that needed to be finished up.  Part of this renovation is using three much higher metal planting beds.  I had to finish cutting out the bottom of the livestock waterer we bought at Jack and Ann’s.  I started on Saturday but I consumed an entire cutting wheel on my angle grinder before I could complete the job.  I finished it Sunday using the metal cutting blade on my sawz-all.

I had to stop the work after 11 to clean up for a Mother’s Day lunch with Cindy, Katie, Cindy’s mom and DJ. We once again went to Brooks, Cindy’s favorite place, Katie had never been there.  Keeping DJ entertained and under surveillance requires somebody’s attention at all times.  We traded off that responsibility.  I pushed him around in a stroller for awhile and he, Katie, and I went to the pet store next door for a bit for him to look at the fish and small animals.  Our meal was good but our idea of sitting outside was not ideal.  The second the breeze stopped it just felt sweltering hot, even under the umbrella.

When I got back I was right back at work, finishing clean up of all of the supplies and tools from the garden work and then washing both the Tesla and Cindy’s car.  We actually had a thunderstorm roll through mid-afternoon which dropped a nice chunk of rain, something our area desperately needed.  I had no time to ride my EUCs but I did make a quick video.  It was a response to a NYC rider who made a satirical video about me.  I utilized satire in return.

As relaxing and therapeutic going to the beach was on Wednesday night, I contrasted that by deciding to get the Costco shopping down last night.  Going into Costco is never a fun experience because of the abundance of human beings but since we are out of snowbird season, it was not as awful as it could be.  I was out of there in around 30 minutes.

On the way home I stopped to get coffee at DD for Cindy and myself.  Our old go to DD location was on the way so I placed the order there.  That place is just in disarray.  The longtime manager left and the staff that is there is pretty ineffective.  I placed an order in the app to pick up in the drive thru.  When I got there one car was ahead of me in line.  It took 15 minutes until I got the two drink order (which they messed up).  I made a mental note to do whatever I can to always choose the new location 3 miles from our house where the employees seem much more in sync.

Wow if anyone has any doubt that Ron DeSantis is posturing for a presidential run all you have to do is look at his recent legislative actions.  His cancellation of all pandemic emergency orders seems primarily just about telling people what they want to hear.  India declared all clear in February and look at the disaster that has ensued since.  Giving people the sense that there is absolutely nothing to worry about is the wrong message IMO.  It feels like he thinks there is an invisible, impenetrable virus wall around the state.  If there was any lesson to be learned from this mess, it’s that these type of outbreaks do not respect boundaries and can leap across the globe at a lightning pace.

The availability of the vaccine certainly helps dull the edge but it certainly does not eliminate the problem.  I just feel like saying “all clear” sends the wrong message, just ask George Bush how that worked out.

The other funny legislation looked like it was right out of Trump’s playbook.  There evidently was some covid discussion that Ron had with some scientists that was pulled off of FB.  They flagged it as having questionable covid 19 information.  Ron did not like this and whipped up some meaningless, unenforceable legislation that would penalize tech companies for censoring political figures.

I absolutely agree that companies like Google or FB can be overzealous in their reach when it comes to this.  Hell I got a warning on YouTube for a video that had covid tips I was sent early on in the pandemic.  It was all pretty much common sense practices and included nothing as crazy as injecting disinfectant into your bloodstream, but it was pulled down.  However these same companies have been broiled in the past for doing no monitoring of what was getting posted on their powerful and influential platforms.  Have they swung too far the other way? Perhaps, but throwing together paper tiger legislation such as Ron has has one purpose, to make him look better in 2024 and little else.

This weekend the main project will be working on the garden.  We are cutting it’s size in half and setting up higher raised beds, made out of metal.  It is going to be a pretty labor intensive task but as always, I have a loose mental blueprint of how it will go, subject to change of course.

Yesterday I had not one but two Florida experiences.  I spent the morning out at our Everglades City office, a tiny town in the middle of the Everglades.  The town feels like it has been a time capsule for the last 50 years.  There are no strip malls, no high rises, no national chains in sight.  It’s just a small, simple, and slow paced place that charms me every time I visit.

Last night after work Cindy and I did something we have never done on a weekday evening, went to the beach.  Since it was Cinco de Mayo we thought it would be cool to grab some food outdoors at Tijuana Flats on the way.  We both expected the place to be packed on this hispanic holiday but it wasn’t bad at all.  We both enjoyed our taco meals.  Cindy even grabbed herself a margarita that tasted like paint thinner on my first sip but became less repulsive on subsequent tastes.

We then parked in the Vanderbilt Beach parking garage which is only maybe 100 yards from the beach. I brought a chair for myself, Cindy opted for one of her yoga mats for herself.  We had somewhere around 45 minutes to go before sunset.  I packed some magazines to read but I didn’t pick one up.

Instead I spent the time just chilling, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the beach.  It was truly enjoyable.  Cindy, when she lived closer to the shore used to visit the beach all the time.  She was very appreciative that we were sitting in the sand enjoying the beauty of the ocean, on a Wednesday night.

Logistically it wasn’t that difficult to make this happen and I really would like to make an effort to make beach visits a more regular part of our lives.  Sitting in the sand watching the sun drop out of the sky might not help me cross items off the list but the less tangible benefits are real.

Yesterday at work I got a new beach parking sticker for the truck.  The reason being is I would like to make an effort to visit what many people would describe as the best benefit of living in SWFL, the beach.  A bizarre thing has happened since moving here, going to the beach, which prior to relocating south was imagined to be a core part of the Florida living experience has been anything but that.

The first year or so of living here we went to the beach pretty routinely and when I was playing beach volleyball I found myself there because that is where the tournaments were.  However once I stopped playing VB, my visits to the ocean became more and more sparse. The last time I went to the beach just to hang out was when my sister and her family were here visiting very early in 2020 before the shit hit the fan.

When I try to analyze why visiting the beach, something I absolutely cherished as a child when we would take our summer trips to the Jersey and Delaware shore, has become erased from my life, when I only live 17 miles from the coast is tough to explain.  There has been no deliberate intent to not go although my dozen or so skin cancer surgeries have definitely had some impact.  Going to the beach used to mean alternating between surf and sand with no regards to sun impact, part of the reason I am in the boat I am today.

I suspect the largest culprit in my beach absence is just how my life has for a long time diverted towards the road of fulfilling responsibilities and performing tasks, the process of which quite often makes the idea of taking a few hours off to sit on some sand seem like wasting valuable time.  I also have always been a very routine driven individual.  Beach visitation just never got a firm spot in my routine down here, despite how much I used to love it.

Hey I realize that interests come and go over time.  There are a ton of things I used to really enjoy/have interest in that have simply faded away, that is the way life goes.  However when it comes to beach visitation I would like to try to make an effort to work it back in.  Getting the parking sticker was the first step.  I discussed with Cindy possibly heading down to the beach after work some evening just to do something different. It’s cooler, the sun exposure is low, and it’s less crowded. Cindy is down with the idea as she loves the beach and has expressed remorse about not getting there as well.

So of course just talking about doing things means nothing.  Until the words are followed by meaningful action, intent doesn’t get the job done.

My weekend started off once again with a trip to another branch for our final conversion of the project which I was happy about.  The small size of the branch and the fact that we had done this 7 or 8 times before meant we were wrapped up in 90 minutes.  Instead of heading home afterward I instead went to AutoZone to grab a new battery for the Tacoma.  I was going to take the truck to the office but got clicks when I went to turn it over.  The truck is right around 5 years old at this point which is on par with the average lifespan of a battery in the brutal Florida climate.  When I got back I wasted no time installing it in the truck.

After I was done I went out and helped Cindy who was working in the chicken yard.  She was pulling all of the egg rocks out of the small landscaped areas in front of the coop/run, pulling out the weeds that had grown in between them, laid down weed block, reset the castle stone border and then put the stones back.  The areas looked 100% better by the end of the work which I helped with as well.

After lunch we went to Rural King.  I was looking at some supplies to use when redoing the garden area, the next project on our list.  I already bought a new galvanized raised bed for the spot.  That bed consumed a ton of my time over the weekend as I put it together utilizing countless nuts and bolts.  It also consumed all of my patience as it only went together a certain way, which required me to undo/redo a couple sections, multiple times. At Rural King they had water holders for cattle that were the same shape and roughly the same dimensions for less than I paid, with no assembly required.  I think we will buying one of those to fill out the space.

After a very busy day Cindy and I met Deb for dinner at Brooks once again.  Cindy absolutely loves the burgers there and would probably go every week if she could.  Because snowbird season has expired we were able to sit down outside immediately which was nice.  We had the same waitress we had previously who is very friendly, making the meal experience more enjoyable.

Sunday morning after doing chicken chores, paying my bills, and doing a coffee run with the dogs Katie and DJ came over for a visit.  The pool water is now in the low 80’s so it is comfortable to swim in.  DJ loves the water.  I discovered something he also loves, watching me splash Sadie with pool water.  Every time I would do it he would belly laugh, it was very funny.  They hung out for a few hours, DJ loved seeing Sadie there although she does not share the sentiment, for some reason DJ spooks her.  DJ now calls most dogs “Sadie”.

Mid-afternoon I decided to go ride at a spot I had thought about for a long time, a public golf course that was bought by the county last year.  It has been more or less abandoned since then but I thought the cart path would be a fun thing to ride, it turns out I was right.  I had a blast zipping around the course on the curving path which included lots of little rises and falls.  I definitely will be returning there with some of my other wheels in the future.

By the time I got done doing the editing that evening the weekend had basically expired.  I need to start chipping away at my vacation balance to start giving myself some long weekends for sanity restoration.