The sod did arrive on Monday albeit at the very end of the day, he rolled in close to 5PM. As I was standing in the yard at the spot I wanted the first pallet dropped at I noticed the driver was having some issues with the loader that is attached to the back of the truck. He started to lower it but then the engine on the loader died. He kept starting it only to have it die a few seconds later. After watching the scenario play out I walked over and asked what was up. He said the loader is out of gas. The issue is the loader was now partially undocked from the truck so the truck can’t be moved. I was a bit in disbelief that the guy wouldn’t check the fuel level on the loader before coming. I didn’t see any other options so I told him I would run to the gas station and buy 5 gallons of diesel fuel.
I returned with the fuel which he dumped in the huge tank. The loader fired right up and we were in business. I was getting four skids in total. I wanted to put two by the mound in the front and two in the back on the side of the house near the pool equipment. I had some concerns about the loader with a pallet of grass doing a number on the yard but it actually left very minimal imprints. I acted like a human flag, directing and then standing where I wanted the pallets placed. My goal was to keep them as close as possible to where the sod was going to be placed. Despite the gas fck up and later than promised arrival I still gave the guy a tip which he seemed surprised by. I appreciate people that do labor for a living, an appreciation deepened by experiences like what followed.
So despite it being around 5:30 I wanted to get started spreading sod. I had already made arrangements to take Tuesday off as well so I could complete the work. So the pallets were at the base of the house mound, the bare dirt areas were mostly on the top of the mound. I brought the wheelbarrow out front thinking a solid plan would be to load sod in there and cart it to the spot I was laying it to save back and forth trips. This plan failed miserably.
I have once placed a full pallet of sod however it was thick floritam grass which holds together well when cut into squares. Bahia is the opposite. Bahia is what we used last year for the ground leveling project, it is a native grass which is ideal because during dry season it goes dormant, unlike floritam which will completely die and turn to dust if you are not watering it all the time. However bahia when you get it looks like shit, like a big pile of mostly dead weedy grass. However the real problem is the squares fall apart. I mean really fall apart. I bet on each pallet at least half of the pieces were disintegrated.
So anyway, with my wheelbarrow plan I would pick up the pieces of sod that were falling apart and plop them in there. I them pushed the heavy cart up the incline and then tried to pull the pieces out a second time, making them fall apart even worse. At times I was pulling out small clumps of sod not much bigger than my hand. It was maddening. To top things off it was still humid as hell and the gnats were driving me insane. I f’d around out there until about 7:30, taking almost two hours just to do one pallet. I was miserable, knowing that I had that amount of work x 3 to get done on Tuesday.
I let my normal work alarm go off Tuesday. After cleaning and filling the chicken water and eating breakfast I was straight outside, somewhere around 7:30 AM. I took two advil up front, knowing what I was going to be subjecting my body to. I shit canned the wheelbarrow idea, just making endless back and forth trips holding shitty sod pieces that were falling apart. Despite dramatically increasing the amount of steps in the process it definitely took less time overall doing it this way. By the time I threw the last ratty, small piece of sod in place it was right around 11:30. My body felt awful and I had an armor made of a mixture of sweat and dirt. I was disgustingly dirty.
After a quick shower Cindy headed out with me in the truck. I had to return the four broken wooden pallets to get my $40 deposit back and I wanted to pick up a sod roller to press the bahia down as much as possible. The driver told me he was going to tell the office about my buying the fuel so they could reimburse me for that as well. When I mentioned the fuel purchase they knew nothing about it but gave me a $20 bill for the trouble without any fuss. The sod roller pick up went smoothly as well.
When we got back I filled the roller with water and got busy, despite there being a steady light rain coming down. The limited slip differential in the Husqvarna tractor came in handy in these conditions, able to pull the heavy roller back and forth over the wet sod without much issue at all. I zig zagged across the areas repeatedly, hoping to give the sod the best chance to take hold and fill these areas where now dead floritam used to occupy. I finished up and immediately took the roller back to Home Depot within four hours, meaning the rental only cost $15, one of the few reasonably priced parts of this project.
The rest of the day was spent recovering, it was the most grueling project I can recall in quite awhile. Probably the last time I had to bust it that hard was when I did the fencing around the chicken area. My lower body, back, and hands are all quite sore today. Of course as I was slogging through the pallets I thought how much better it was when I paid Miguel’s crew $25 per pallet to lay it down. Unfortunately I cut ties with him after he never finished the scope of work he was supposed to. However I made myself a promise that I would never spread another pallet of bahia grass myself. I will make sure whomever I get it from next time can lay it down as well.
WoW released a new patch yesterday meaning I have lots to keep my recreational plate full for awhile.
I am going to speed through my four day weekend recap which has yet to finish it’s fourth day, because I feel like it.
On Friday I got all of the grass maintenance out of the way, weed whacking and mowing the property. The humidity made it as enjoyable as waterboarding. Friday evening I did my first live stream in a long time. It went long as it normally does. I had my bud Marty on for a good portion of the stream where we covered a number of subjects. I also gave away a bunch of stuff, probably more than I should have. It totaled up to 14 items that wound up costing me $75-100 to ship it all. It still was a good time.
On Friday I also pulled the trigger on buying four pallets of bahia sod. There are a number of bare dirt patches in the yard, the side effect of trying to fill them in the past with floritam sod that doesn’t survive dry season without ridiculous amounts of watering. Bahia just goes dormant during dry season and will be a much better and more reasonable fit for the yard. The sod may be delivered today, laying down four pallets of sod myself is not something I am looking forward to.
On Saturday I noticed that Popcorn was again acting sluggish. Her backside was a mess. I once again soaked her and then cleaned her off. She was still not normal on Sunday so she got the finger again. Again I didn’t feel any egg in there. My hope was doing the finger last time seemed to give her some relief so it was worth trying again. I am practically a chicken proctologist at this point.
On Saturday night Deb visited again. We finally introduced her to the world of VR and she loved it. Cindy and her played a bunch of rounds of Beat Saber and then I showed her one of the Star Wars Immortal games. Being a huge Star Wars fan, she found the experience pretty amazing. I expect that she will be buying a headset of her own sometime soon.
I added yet another Ring device to the coop on Saturday, covering the west side of the coop area, which was unmonitored since I pulled the DVR system. That brings the total amount of Ring cameras in the household up to 10. I also went around and placed flags by the sprinkler heads in the spots I am going to add sod to make sure I don’t inadvertently bury any.
Mid Sunday morning Jeremiah stopped by. A couple months ago he stopped by the house to say hi to Cindy, he lives a few blocks away and started riding an EUC. He had seen my videos and thought it was ironic that I was right around the corner. I made arrangements to have him stop over to test ride my wheels. He has only ridden his KingSong 14D, a fun but very small wheel with limited speed and range.
I let him ride almost everything I have, including the One Wheels. We even rode to the new DD to give him some more ride time. He liked all of the wheels and adapted very quickly to riding them, despite them being much different than what he has. I could tell he has more natural riding ability than I have. He has an interesting background and currently sells solar systems. I anticipate we will get out to ride together more often.
Last night Cindy and I watched The Silencing, what I assume was a straight to Blu-Ray release. It was a cool thriller with the King Slayer from Game of Thrones as the main character. I’d give it a B+ We fell asleep watching some show about a realtor that sells properties to nudists in the Tampa Bay area. Evidently there are a number of nudist communities up there. The visuals are pretty insane as you see naked people washing cars, mowing the grass, playing tennis, doing yoga and even jogging. I just don’t understand how it is enjoyable to have that stuff swinging and bouncing around without protection.
We will see how the rest of today pan’s out, I have to drop Sadie back off at Ali’s place and then what happens from there depends on if the sod delivery happens today or not. After doing the budget work this week it is clear that I need to find a few months of more normalized spending to get my numbers where I want them. The trip to KSC, AC repair and now sod purchase has hit the CC bill hard.
Shortages and inflation have been hitting all sorts of industries in the last year, a side effect of the global lockdowns from covid and the slow recovery process. I mean everything is more expensive, food, fuel, building materials, electric unicycles and used cars. Yes, used cars are going UP in price. In particular I had heard how used Teslas were going up in value. A used car normally does nothing but go down in value however scarcity, rising gas prices and long wait times for new Teslas have pushed the used Tesla market skyward.
My coworker has a 2019 Model 3, almost exactly like I had. When he got a trade in number from Tesla it wasn’t all that impressive, only 27K, perhaps because Tesla demand is so high they don’t have much need to be generous with trade values. However when he punched his car into Carvana, he got a trade value of almost 37k, a huge difference and only a few thousand off what he paid for the car new two years ago.
So as he was in there he happened to look at what Model Y’s Carvana had in stock. There were only three of them and two of them were the standard range model similar to mine. When he told me to look at them I could not believe the numbers I saw. Each car was priced in the 58-59k range, what the hell? The list price on my car was 39k and my actual cost after everything was in the low 40’s. Could this be real?
For the hell of it I logged into my Carvana account and tried to get a value on my car. The system was unable to give me one, perhaps because of the crazy market conditions. I was directed to call and talk to one of their appraisers directly which I may do today. Now the odds that I would do anything are extremely slim. However if they would offer me 10k over what I paid for the vehicle I would consider it strongly. Now the reality would be if I did that it would have to be with the understanding that until market conditions settle, I just wouldn’t be able to replace the car. I would be relegated to driving the Tacoma full time, which wouldn’t be the end of the world. So anyway, it at least will be interesting to see what sort of number I would be offered. Regardless, if you are looking to get the maximum value selling/trading in your vehicle, now is the time to do so, without question.
Last night Cindy and I played some Beat Saber and minigolf in VR. My Beat Saber skills were rusty, Cindy crushed me worse than she normally does. She is exceptionally good in a rhythm game like this. Minigolf was fun, we played a new course which was situated in outer space. The game is just so well done, it’s really immersive and enjoyable. The immersion is so complete that I repeatedly find myself reaching for the virtual railings to lean on while I wait my turn.
I have been creating another custom piece of 3D printed gear, a headlight cover for the Veteran Sherman. I call it the Full Face Headlight Helmet or FFHH for short. The design went through 6 or 7 iterations until I got it where I want it. Like the Exo-Armor that I released earlier, I will sell these on the store but I also released the file publicly so those with 3D printers can print it themselves. That of course isn’t the best move to maximize revenue but I look at it as just a nice way to give back to the community.
Speaking of the community, one of the things I plan on doing during my four day weekend is hosting another live stream, something I have not done in a while. It is scheduled for Friday night. I am sure much of the talk will be focused on the insane and dangerous riding in the “alleycat” race as well as my video about it. It should be fun regardless.
The rest of the weekend will have some tasks/chores of course but hopefully not to an overbearing degree.
I forgot to mention that over the weekend I was in VR playing some miniature golf against random people. One of the guys said he loved playing real golf and found the physics in VR golf amazingly accurate. He told me of a crazy experiment he did. When you set up in VR you map out your virtual play space on the floor. You can only move around in this boundary, if you approach the edge of it you will see the virtual wall, alerting you. Of course this is designed to keep you from inadvertently hurting yourself or breaking something.
Well this guy told me he took his Quest outside and drew a HUGE boundary. By doing so he was able to play the golf game and walk around the course almost normally. He said it felt amazingly realistic. It sounds like a fun thing to try out. Maybe during my extended weekend I will make a big outdoor boundary and see what sort of trouble I can get into.
I also have been forgetting to mention a situation with a mockingbird. We are in active nesting season so the mama birds are protective of their babies. A couple weeks ago I had Elsa outside to go to the bathroom. As Elsa was in her squat position pushing one out a mockingbird dive bombed her, poking her in the butt. Elsa jumped three feet and came running back inside. It looked hilarious of course.
Well since then the bird has caught on that Elsa is now scared of her. Anytime Elsa is on that side of the house the mockingbird comes shooting out, trying to scare Elsa away. I now act as Elsa’s bodyguard. If the bird starts moving towards her I move towards it aggressively and it backs off, but not too far. Cindy has found it less and less funny as the bird doesn’t seem to be as wary of Cindy as it is of me. I told her once the babies are out of the nest the mama bird should move on. Until then I have been trying to walk Elsa on the other side of the house or stick to her like glue if we are in the dive bomb zone.
Today is the second 24 hours of Prime Day. Prime Day has lost some of it’s impact over the years. I have not bought a single thing. As I perused the site, looking at the deals, I thought to myself that if I have to hunt through pages of deals, I really don’t need anything.
Although I am no longer running I got a decent amount of cardio in on Friday. At lunch I did my parking garage 5K which entails walking from our office to the six story parking garage and climbing it up and down twice in a S type fashion. With the heat and humidity it was a bit of a sweatfest. Then when I got home I did a 20 minute live cycle class that used a tabata format. I was drenched. Neither of these activities give the same sense of accomplishment that running does but it allows me to elevate my heart rate and burn calories without the impact penalty on my joints that I can no longer tolerate.
As I mentioned last week, the grass has been growing like mad since rain has returned in earnest. While Cindy was out at an appointment Saturday I got on the tractor with it’s fresh set of blades. I have had my tractor canopy off for awhile because it is a bit screwed up, meaning my sun protection has been relegated to my ridiculously oversized straw hat. It keeps the sun off my face and neck but not a lot else. I was broiling during the two hour session. The new blades did a great job of delivering an even and clean cut.
As I was finishing up Deb came over for an earlier than normal visit. A little later DJ was dropped off for us to watch while Katie ran some errands. DJ seemed to take a liking to Deb which was cute. Even with three of us, DJ can be a handful to keep safe, entertained, and under surveillance. Late in the visit all of us were outside. I brought my one EUC out and started riding around the back yard. DJ started chasing me incessantly, he thought it was the coolest thing. If I stopped to let him catch up he would bend down and point to the foot pedal, meaning he wanted me to ride some more. I swear I had the kid running around for nearly 20 minutes, it was funny.
Saturday night we had some alcohol which led to the normal degree of silliness. At some point Cindy and Deb were referencing scenes in Flashdance that I had not seen. Thanks to the wonders of Prime Video I was able to launch the movie within seconds. Deb watched about half of it with us and Cindy and I finished it after she left. It confirmed that although of course I had heard of the movie, I never actually watched it. It was entertaining, silly and had surprising nudity.
Sunday was Father’s Day. I already told Cindy I had no major projects planned for the day which she was glad to hear. Really outside of taking care of the chickens first thing, the rest of the day was chore free. Mid-afternoon we met up with Deb for a ride around the golf course again. We brought two vehicles that had not been there yet, my Veteran Sherman and Cindy’s Dualtron scooter. Cindy had a blast zipping around the curves and hills on the powerful scooter. The Sherman with it’s high power was fun too but I did miss the softer ride the suspension wheels give me on that terrain. It was so freaking hot and humid though, we didn’t stay as long as I would have liked.
Speaking of hot and humid, it has been so nice to have the AC performing to normal levels again. The difference between outdoors and indoor is drastic. I actually had to bump the thermostat up a bit last night because I was “cold”. I also am curious how my energy consumption is affected by having the until being able to drop into low power mode to maintain temp instead of screaming like a banshee all the time, trying to keep up with the cooling demands.
I called my dad during the day to catch up and wish him a happy Father’s Day. I was curious how his reinsertion into the workforce since May had been going. As I would assume, he isn’t thrilled with all aspects of it and he dropped some clues that made it seem this may not be a very long term experiment. I have been wondering if my dad and step mom have given any consideration to adopting another dog to fill the huge void left by the passing of Maggie and Clara. I haven’t had the heart to ask.
I finished up my Father’s Day with a spaghetti dinner and some time in WoW. All in all it was a pretty excellent day. I am going to start chewing through my excessive vacation starting this week. I am taking off Friday and Monday.
I wound up taking yesterday off to have the evap coil in the air handler replaced. I wanted to be onsite for the work, just in case. I had requested Sam, the same guy that made the visit on Monday do the work because I had a good experience. Sam showed up with the new coil around 9AM. Unlike last time where I basically hung out with him the entire time, I just told him to let me know if he needed anything and let him roll. Normally overcast and rainy weather is something I don’t enjoy however yesterday being that was actually worked out well, it kept the temperature in the house down while the AC was offline for roughly four hours.
Unlike the old evap core which had steel as one of it’s major components, the new unit was made out of aluminum. One of the biggest advantages is aluminum does not rust. The steel rusting was what led to the hole in the original coil. Sam had a few bumps along the way he had to work through but in the end he got the unit back up and running in the four hours it was predicted to take.
At the end of the visit I was a bit stumped as I saw a sheriff’s deputy in our driveway, talking to Sam. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on but didn’t want to inject myself unnecessarily. When the deputy left Sam came in and told me that he somehow managed to accidentally trigger the Emergency SOS feature on his Iphone. Doing so evidently contacts local police and gives them immediate GPS coordinates. I never knew this was a thing and either did Sam. He said the guy asked if he was in trouble or if anyone in the house was in trouble. Of course no trouble existed. The officer said that accidental emergency SOS signals are sort of common, which is activated by default if you rapidly hit either side button 5 times.
Once the AC system was back on you could quickly feel the humidity getting sucked out of the living space. I paid the almost $1500 bill without much trepidation, hoping that it will be money well spent to extend the life of my system a number of more years.
Of course I didn’t want to spend the day tapping my toe, waiting for the AC work to be done. I kept busy with some small projects in the hobby room and then worked on the garage style door in the large shed. My intent was to make it seal tightly so once I catch any remaining palm rats they are no longer able to get in there. The door had a hard plastic seal at the bottom. Upon observation I saw that it was gnawed away at either corner. I cut out the remaining seal and installed a rubber one that isn’t as thick, which hopefully means the metal part of the door will be closer to the floor, giving a hard barrier the rodents can not penetrate.
I also rerouted a power cable I have running into the shed. When I installed it a couple years ago I was lazy and just ran it under that same door. I now drilled a inch hole in the floor that I routed the cable through and then filled the gap with pipe insulation, similar to what I had done in the small shed awhile ago. My hope is this combination of changes with make the large shed no longer accessible as a palm rat Air BnB.
I also took some time to record a video that was requested of me by a number of people. Somehow I have assumed the role of one of the people that promote/talk about safe/responsible PEV riding in the community. There was a race in NYC a couple weeks ago that showed an insane disregard for the well being of others. I won’t get into much detail here as I lay it all out in the video. When I do these sort of talks I am very mindful of not falling into emotional rants.
This weekend the grass is going to need to get mowed again, this time with blades that are not beaten to a pulp. I have some smaller tasks as always to keep me hopping. I need to do some serious vacation usage before the middle of August. I have over three weeks remaining. I will likely opt to sell one of those weeks back which I will receive pay for. The other two weeks I would like to use to extend the length of my weekends between now and then. Ever since Cindy and I stopped doing extended road trips, using all of my vaca time allocated each year has been challenging.
Yesterday the AC company gave me a window of arrival of between 1 and 5PM. I asked for the tech to call my cell to let me know when he was on his way so I could meet him at the house. Around 2:30 I called in for a status update, they said the tech still had two customers ahead of me. It was clear if the tech made the window at all, it wouldn’t be till the very end of it. Well that wasn’t the case.
Of course anyone that knows me relatively well knows that I really dislike people/companies that over promise and under deliver. To their credit, the AC company called me around 4:30, letting me know the tech was still going to be there, it was just going to be late. That simple communication helped to dull the edge of my aggravation. The clock continued to tick. I got a call from the tech named Sam about 6:20, saying he was just leaving the office in Bonita, he should be there in 35 minutes. Geez, ok.
The van pulled into the driveway around 7PM. It took me very little time to figure out that I liked this guy. You could tell he actually gave a shit about fixing my issue. I described the history of the unit and what has been happening lately. The first thing he did was act on my question of if the ducts in the attic were possibly leaking. He climbed up in the attic and did a thorough inspection, spending at least 15 minutes crawling around. He said for the most part things looked good although he did find a mechanical damper that was not fully open which would restrict air flow to some areas of the house. He wasn’t sure why it was there but he opened it fully to maximize air flow.
Sam did a temperature check in the air handler, measuring the air temp below and above. Normally there should be around 20 degree difference, my unit had only a 14 degree difference, not good. I explained how it seemed like the variable speed fan in the blower was cranking at top speed all weekend, trying to keep up. These symptoms pointed to low refrigerant level in the system. He went out to the compressor to get some readings and found the level was indeed low, very low. Capacity for the Trane unit is around 10lbs of coolant, the tech had to add 6lbs to get it up to that number. So it was clear, there is a leak.
I mentioned to Sam that to lose that much, you would think it had been leaking for awhile. I questioned why during the PM in January it wasn’t noticed? He didn’t have a solid answer for that. So once the refrigerant was added he had to figure out where the leak was. To do this he used a cool ultrasonic tester that “listens” for leaks. He opened up the air handler and started sniffing around. He got a hit on the back of the coil, a clear leak.
He explained to me that many leaks can be patched, and if this leak was on the front of the coil he would have tried to do so right there. However since the leak is in the back the entire coil would need to be pulled from the air handler, hopefully patched and then reinstalled. The coils were very rusty and the issue is there is no guarantee that another hole won’t open up because of the condition of the unit. That immediately sounded like a bad option as my desire is to get the issue fixed for the longer term. That fix means replacing the coil unit entirely.
Sam went to his van and got together the bill for the service call and the estimate to replace the coil. Because I have a service contract the majority of the service bill was to pay for the refrigerant which costs $35 a pound. The estimate to replace the coil was steep as expected, around $1500, but a worthwhile repair based on longevity I still am hoping to get out of the system. The part needs to be ordered today. Hopefully they can get it within a few days. I asked Sam if I could request that he is the tech to do the swap out, he said I could. I latch onto people in the service industry that pay attention to detail, are thorough, and give a damn about what they do. Sam demonstrated he was all of those things to me. By the time he left around 9PM he had turned around my negativity about the late appointment by doing his job well.
I could instantly tell a difference inside the house with the system once again having normal cooling power. Sam said with as low as the levels were was there was a lot of humidity that was not getting pulled out of the indoor air. I look forward to moving forward with a solid AC solution once again, a necessity for brutal Florida summers. Who knows how long this leak has been going on, however a side effect in addition to the poor cooling performance also is a lot more power usage. Lower electricity usage should be nice, blunting the effect of the $1500 on my wallet. Of course this failure occurred about 9 months after my 10 year warranty expired, right on time….
We have now been immersed in oppressive humidity for a little while now. You would think after 20+ years in Florida I would adapt to it better but no, it still makes doing anything outside very uncomfortable. Despite this fact I spent a good portion of Saturday sweating my ass off outside. The big must do was get the tractor back in working order. The onslaught of rain has kicked yard growth back into high gear so having a mower that doesn’t mow is a real problem.
I knew the original blades that were on the Husqvarna were in poor shape but I didn’t know they were this bad. The one blade looked like it was missing 2-3 inches off either side, no wonder it was vibrating like a son of a bitch. The blade swap went easy, similar to the many swaps I have done before over the years. I breathed a sigh of relief when I engaged the PTO and the blades spun up normally.
After the swap I checked the deck for side to side level as the tractor also started scalping badly during last Wednesdays mowing session. I was surprised to see it was indeed out of whack, a half inch higher on one side. I think the level being off and the old blades being mangled in a way where part of the blade was bent downwards was causing the scalping. After doing the work I wanted to do a thorough test so I headed out back and mowed the rear yard which was getting pretty scruffy. The tractor performed flawlessly which I was pleased with as there is a long, hot mowing season ahead of me.
Saturday night we watched Midway while enjoying takeout burgers from Brooks Brothers. I never knew any real details about the Battle of Midway, the film was eye opening. Plane/ship warfare back then was just brutal, I can’t imagine the bravery involved. It was well done and further reinforced the horrors of war, continuing to make me wonder why mankind has chosen to inflict it upon one another for centuries on end. B+
On Sunday I had an extended bill paying session with a wallet stuffed full of CC receipts from the trip to KSC. Thanks to the magic of Quicken I was able to determine that in total the trip cost $750, a little more than I expected for a three night trip with no gas expenses but we both enjoyed the time away so I can’t complain too much. During the day I did more repairing, this time to another one of my 3D printers. Imagine my joy when I did my first test print and it failed as well. The printer needs more tweaking but I am running out of energy to do so.
During the afternoon Katie and DJ were over. We had fun as always including extended time in the pool, visiting the chickens and a new activity, tie dying fabric. We quickly discovered that tie dying is probably not the best activity for a two year old to be involved with. Don’t get me wrong, the act of squirting colored ink out of a bottle is fun for a toddler. However the end result was DJ wearing a bunch of the colors as well, he had yellow/green feet, green eye shadow, and a purple rear end. I tried to be more careful and still have pink dye surrounding my fingernails. When it was time to go, originally Cindy was going to take them home in the Tesla while I did more stuff at home. However when I heard DJ crying “Pop Pop, Pop Pop…” as the car was backing up it broke my heart. I jumped in the passenger seat for the ride, DJ likes when all of his tribe is together. He fell asleep during the ride.
Today I will be meeting an AC tech at the house. For awhile Cindy, who has a more sensitive sense of smell than I do had been complaining about episodes of mildew smell coming from the system, part of the reason I replaced one of the two UV lights in the air handler. However even after doing this, even I could still smell the mildew at times which is not good. I discovered that if I remove the air filter in the return in our bedroom the smell goes away, almost like the system is being choked for air flow. Well you shouldn’t have to run a system without filters to function properly.
Then over the weekend I noticed something else. As I mentioned it was brutally hot and humid. I noticed that during the afternoon the system was unable to cool the house to the 75 degrees it was set to, it couldn’t go any lower than 77. Of course cooling a house in these conditions isn’t easy but my Trane system, which is normally very efficient, has never had an issue doing this in the past. The combination of these factors made me place the call this morning. At first I figured I could just double up my routine PM which was soon due. I was told that the PM guys and the service guys are two different departments and presumably different skill levels. I requested a service call which will cost me out of pocket but at least we can dig deeper into what is going on.
I am wrapping up another lightning quick two day work week, something I certainly enjoy but unfortunately can not expect to get accustomed to. The second half of the year at work is going to be a busy one due to a huge new building that we will be constructing/occupying. The staff that will occupy this new building is going to have to be temporarily moved out of their present office at the end of July so that will be a nice little headache to deal with.
This weekend I need to address the mower which has some sort of blade issue which I hope is easy to fix. I have not had to crawl under the deck of the Husqvarna yet. I also have a number of smaller things to get done. I feel the need to do a sweep of the house to get things in order, our busy schedule thus far in June has left things more disheveled than I like. It’s a treadmill that never stops spinning.
On Saturday we weren’t under any sort of time crunch to depart for the greater Titusville area. I did all of the chicken chores, trying to make it as smooth as possible for Katie to maintain the hens for the following three days. One of those tasks included soaking and cleaning Popcorn’s rear end, something we have done several times the last couple weeks. (more on this later)
We were able to take our time getting the Model Y ready for it’s longest road trip to date. After eating lunch we shoved off for Fort Pierce, our first supercharging destination. Our route took us up the middle of the state which is more scenic for sure than I-75 and I-4 however it also includes slowing down to travel through some small towns and driving on some two lane roads, which can be aggravating if you get stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. Luckily the Tesla has very comfortable seats so the discomfort penalty is small. Cindy spent a good portion of the time sprawled out across the spacious rear seats, which she enjoys.
The Fort Pierce supercharger was at a Wawa. I have had bad experiences with Wawa superchargers in the past where they were the weak/slow variety. Luckily this installation seemed pretty new. Early on the battery was charging at a rate of over 650 MPH, which is great. In total it took us around 30 minutes to juice up before hitting the road again, we spent the time stretching, using the bathroom, and checking out the store.
The ride into Titusville went smoothly as well. We decided to check in to the hotel before recharging again. The hotel seemed to be very new, a Hyatt that was close to everything we wanted to do while there. Our room was on the third floor. The space felt like an ice box initially since the thermostat was turned down to 65 degrees. After getting our stuff dumped into the room we went to the Titusville supercharger which was only four miles away. This one was in a Target parking lot and again was a high power set up. By the time we walked in and out of two stores in the shopping center we were good to go.
For dinner Saturday night we headed to an area called Cocoa Village. It is a quaint old fashioned part of town, immune to the cookie cutter modern construction that plagues much of Florida. We ate at Time Out Sports Bar. We were outdoors right in front of the live music, which was a guy and his guitar who was good. I had a couple beers and just enjoyed the laid back environment. As rare as it is for me to just relax, when I get these sort of chances during road trips I always enjoy them. (refer to our time in New Orleans)
After dinner we wandered around Cocoa Village some more, it was very walkable. We stumbled across an ice cream place where we both grabbed cones which we ate quickly before they melted as we continued walking. We were both a bit tired from the day of travel so we didn’t stay out late, retreating to the hotel to clean off the grime of a long day with a shower.
My first night of sleep in the hotel was not good. I woke up countless times. Sometimes it was due to back hurting from the very firm mattress, other times it was from a gross smell I kept experiencing. I didn’t know if it was coming from the AC system or something else. The next day I discovered the source, the pillow I was using. I don’t know why it stank the way it did and I don’t really want to know the reason. Whatever the cause it got tossed in a corner for the remainder of our stay there.
They had a surprisingly good gym at the hotel. After breakfast I went down and did a quick 30-40 minute workout just to feel better. If I don’t do organized exercise for extended periods of time I mentally feel poor as a result. We allocated Sunday as our chill and do whatever we want day. Our thought process was KSC would be less busy on Monday. We decided to head in the direction of Cocoa Beach.
Out first stop was an observation tower. Because of covid only the first and top floors were open but that was all we needed. Up top you got a birds eye view of the region which was cool. We could see the space center buildings far off in the distance. Man that would be a sweet spot to see a launch. Speaking of launch we were both bummed out that we missed a SpaceX launch at 12:30 in the morning. We knew there was a launch earlier in the week but somehow this one escaped our radar. Sure it would have been tough to stay up that late but it was a missed opportunity without a doubt. I have never seen a launch live, outside of the plume trails from a shuttle launch or two in the Naples area.
We spent the rest of the day just checking out various things Cindy picked out as potentially interesting. One of those was the huge Ron Jon’s complex. Cocoa Beach is the original home of the world famous surf shop. The amount of stuff in the store was a bit overwhelming. I grabbed a shirt and a hat and Cindy did the same. Covid protocol in Florida was obviously a thing of the past. There was hardly a mask to be seen anywhere. Since I am fully vaxxed I felt comfortable going “naked”, Cindy kept her mask on indoors.
We also went to the Cocoa Beach Pier. We found it very annoying that they had a flat $30 rate to park near the pier. Instead we chose to park several blocks away and hoof it. The exercise is good for us and we still got to take in the pier in it’s entirety. Like much of Cocoa Beach, the pier felt old and klunky, in an endearing way.
We also stopped at several spots to ride our PEVs around, Cindy on her Minipro and me on the OneWheel XR. It was a unique experience touring some parks in this manner, I enjoy this type of sightseeing the most.
So when we headed back we decided to hit the supercharger again to make sure we topped off for the visit to the space center on Monday. While we were there I suggested to Cindy we utilize one of the cool features of the Tesla, the ability to stream entertainment while parked.
I fired up Netflix and started browsing our options, I saw Ragnarok pop up, something I had heard about and was interested in but knew little details about outside of sort sort of tie in to the Thor story. We watched an entire episode while charging and were both hooked, we found the show extremely interesting. As I watched the show I noticed at some points the actors mouths looked out of sync with the dialogue. At first I wrote it off as just a streaming bug. I eventually realized it was because the Norwegian actors actually have english dubbed over, which is done very well. It was clean enough that it didn’t distract from what was going on.
So we went back to the room and all we wanted to do was binge watch more of the show. That is exactly what we did, watching all six episodes of season one and the first two of season two, which just came out in May. Our only break was a quick pit stop to grab food which we brought back to the room. It was sort of nuts but again something we wouldn’t normally do at home. We really like the show. We liked it so much that we managed to squeeze the last four episodes in on Monday, even with a KSC trip wedged in there. It’s a fantastic show which I highly recommend.
My sleep on Sunday night again was mostly lousy, perhaps a touch better than night one. At least the pillow didn’t smell. We had breakfast at the hotel but had a casual pace as the KSC doesn’t open until 10AM. We arrived a little after 9:30, early enough to get a front row spot. Since we had more time to kill I fired up Netflix again so Cindy could rewatch the last half of S2 E2 since she fell asleep while watching it Sunday night. We finished up the show about 10:05. We paid for our indulgence with a long line at the gate.
Cindy and I tag teamed the process. She went to the Will Call window to buy tickets so she could get her military discount while I waited in the long line to get in. The timing worked out well, she rejoined me in line about 5 minutes prior to us getting to the gate. Unlike most of Florida, KSC has not thrown covid protocols out the window. If you are fully vaxxed they were ok with you going maskless outdoors but any time spent in queue lines or indoors had to be with a mask. The patrons seemed to observe the restriction without much issue.
The facility had surprisingly short hours of operation, closing at 4PM. The end result was we were hustling what felt like non-stop for the entire day. We watched multiple presentations, took the bus to the Apollo/Saturn center, enjoyed the space shuttle center, ate lunch, did the shuttle simulator ride and wound up in the gift shop, 15 minutes before the park was closing. If we had more time there is more we would have liked to see but we did a good job of taking in a lot of cool things. My mind was constantly blown by the scale, complexity, precision, and tireless work required to make the space program work. It is truly an amazing testament to just what mankind can do. On the bus tour we saw a MASSIVE solar farm as well, the largest I ever had seen in person.
On Sunday we went back to Cocoa Village, enjoying dinner at another local hot spot, Murdoch’s. The building was again very old yet very charming. With it being a Monday evening the crowds were light everywhere, which we noticed with our second ice cream shop visit and walking the area afterward. I really enjoyed the older, hometown feel of the area. We hit the supercharger once again afterward to top off for an early departure Tuesday morning. We watched another Ragnarok episode in the car and finished it up in the hotel room.
We set a 6:30 alarm for Tuesday. I woke up without after another subpar night of sleep, albeit the least shitty of the three. We skipped the hotel breakfast and instead grabbed sandwiches along with our Dunkin Donuts pit stop before heading south and westbound. Our trip back was an exact reverse of the trip there, stopping at Fort Pierce before the long push to our house. While waiting for that charge we pulled out the PEVs one more time to zip around on. While doing so we saw a bizarre looking lizard with an orange head and orange stripe around it’s tail. Cindy said she read that this was an invasive species. Florida has a lot of those.
The drive home went fine with the Model Y making the miles for the most part fall off quickly. I utilized autopilot frequently to make the driving close to brainless. When we got home Elsa was already there, Katie, who was taking care of the chickens, dropped her off shortly before. We immediately dug into de-tripping, unpacking, putting away and throwing stuff in the laundry. It didn’t take very long until I found myself outside weed whacking, however before that more chicken care was required.
I gave the birds fresh water and treats but immediately noticed Popcorn was not acting well. I can tell almost immediately when a chicken doesn’t feel well. They separate from the group, don’t move around much and just give off a “blah” energy. I have had concerns for awhile that Popcorn might have an egg blockage which can be deadly if they can’t correct it themselves. When I looked up signs for egg binding she had a bunch of them. The first step in treatment is checking to see if there is an egg stuck in the vent. You do this in the manner you would expect, a finger. You basically lube up a gloved finger and stick it it the chickens rear end to feel for the presence of an egg.
When I presented this information to Cindy she was not enthusiastic. I told her I would be willing to do the deed but I would still need her to hold the hen firm while I probe. Before doing this I wanted to clean up her rear area which had dried gunk around it. I held her backside in a warm tub with epsom salts and then rinsed her off while Cindy held her still. It was the time for the digital probe. I put on gloves that were too small for me but good enough. I had some vaseline in a sandwich bag that I applied generously to my index finger. I had several moments where I did a reality check, was I really about to stick my finger up a chickens butt?
The directions said if you insert your finger two inches and don’t feel an egg the bird isn’t egg bound. I went in to my second knuckle and didn’t touch anything hard so hopefully that means she isn’t bound. Surprisingly she did not really react to the violation by my finger. After I was done probing I grabbed her and again dunked and held her butt in the water, which was recommended. I repeated the dunking today, holding her in the water for close to 10 minutes. She still isn’t back to normal but definitely seems better than when we first got home Monday.
After the chicken fun was done I jumped into weed whacking the property. The recent return of afternoon rain has kick started growth in the yard. It took a long time and I was pooped by the end of it. I didn’t have much opportunity to worry about being tired as Katie and DJ showed up. We had fun with them. After whacking I was a sweaty mess. I jumped in the pool. It didn’t take DJ long to want to join me, he loves the water. They hung for several hours, it was a nice welcome gift.
Today I was buzzing around most of the day. I took Cindy to an appointment and ran errands while she was in it. When I got home I jumped on the mower for phase two of lawn maintenance. As I was getting close to the end the deck was getting louder and louder. With about 200 square feet to go the blades stopped spinning normally. My immediate theory is the blade(s) was damaged enough that it wasn’t spinning in a balanced manner which possibly loosened the retaining nut. I did not have motivation to tackle the issue immediately so instead I parked the tractor and finished off what was left with the weed whacker. I will dig into the tractor this weekend, I had Cindy stop to pick up a new set of blades for me on the way home. Hopefully I can just slap them on over the weekend and all will be good again.
I pulled the old DVR our of the chicken coop. I now have enough Ring devices out there for good coverage. I may get a couple more eventually to get all 360 degrees of the coop area under surveillance. I even had time to make a quick two minute video, a satirical one about how some EUC riders act when they are in a group ride situation. Basically, for some people, common sense and responsibility are replaced with one upsmanship and showing off. It was the first time I messed with a cloning affect. It’s far from pretty or well done but I get the basic concept and could do a better job going forward.
I popped open an impromptu live stream while I replaced the hot end on one of my printers. It is a very random stream which you may or may not find entertaining. It was a very fun mini-roadtrip but in some ways it will be nice to go back to work tomorrow, I prosper on a schedule.
I returned with the fuel which he dumped in the huge tank. The loader fired right up and we were in business. I was getting four skids in total. I wanted to put two by the mound in the front and two in the back on the side of the house near the pool equipment. I had some concerns about the loader with a pallet of grass doing a number on the yard but it actually left very minimal imprints. I acted like a human flag, directing and then standing where I wanted the pallets placed. My goal was to keep them as close as possible to where the sod was going to be placed. Despite the gas fck up and later than promised arrival I still gave the guy a tip which he seemed surprised by. I appreciate people that do labor for a living, an appreciation deepened by experiences like what followed.
