Archives 2021

On Saturday I cleared out all normal tasks in the morning to make way for an afternoon and evening of EUC repair madness. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to get done on my Veteran Sherman.  The wheel was not “broke” in any way, these were more like “mod” or preventative maintenance, including swapping over to the knobby tire.

It was a big enough tear down that I brought my old Workmate in from the small shed to assist in the task.  In total I spent between five and six hours on the project.  For the most part it went ok except for a few snafu’s that are part of any task I take on it seems.  Part of this project involved pulling the motor apart.  As you can imagine, attention to detail is very important when reassembling as your safety and well being is only as good as the tight and secure electrical connections that have to be made when putting stuff back together.

I did a quick test spin when the work was done.  All felt well, I hope to take a longer ride before my vacation expires. Editing this video took forever.

Sunday was DJ’s official birthday party, although his actual birthday was the 25th.  Cindy and I went over early to help get stuff set up at Katie’s.  We then went back home briefly before returning for the celebration.  The party was attended only by Daniel’s family members, most of which I had not seen since Katie’s baby shower.  Some of that of course is covid related.

It was hellishly hot when the sun was out.  Luckily some clouds and even brief rain rolled in.  There were some other kids there, the two little girls were very cute.  At first they were shy but by the end of the party they both had warmed up to me.  It was a pretty buzzing party with a total of at least 15 people in attendance.  As usual I kept my social skills lubricated with a steady flow of alcohol.  I think DJ had a lot of fun which is what matters most.

Our Memorial Day didn’t really have an official celebration.  Cindy was off helping her mom pick out furniture a good portion of the day and I decided to set off for another EUC swamp tour that turned out to be much messier than planned.  I had been told multiple times of a connector path between our swamp and the Bonita trail.  The couple times I looked for it previously I could not find it.  I was told it’s clearly marked now so it sounded like it was time to try again.

I also brought my Skydio 2 drone along.  The last time I took it to the swamp it freaked out, flying above the treetops and refusing to come back down automatically.  The swamp was extremely dry which you would think is a good thing compared to when Dan and I had to lug wheels across tons of standing water in December.  However I was encountering a new issue.  The dry conditions meant a bunch of the sugar sand was super loose.  Hitting loose sand with an EUC is never good, the tire digs in and the odds of falling are highly elevated.

Once I discovered the now clearly marked connector path things went from bad to worse. 3/4 of the trail was exactly what I described, loose sugar sand.  Repeatedly I tried to ride and repeatedly I fell, several of which are captured on video.  I wound up pushing the wheel for miles which became extremely arduous once the sun broke back out from behind the clouds.  I originally planned to ride back from Bonita but I was too spent to do so.  I had no idea where I emerged on the other side, I sent Cindy my phone location so she could track me that way.  The two part video tells a pretty funny, aggravating, and curse word filled story.

I was spent last night as you can imagine.  Luckily editing video doesn’t take a lot of physical effort.

Today I have a number of small like to do’s, not must do’s.  We will see how many I can knock out.  It’s been a fun extended weekend thus far, here’s hoping for more of the same for today and tomorrow.

If you are around my age it is very likely you were a Friends viewer at some point during it’s 10 year run from 1994 to 2004.  Hell Cindy and I still watch reruns of it at night in bed sometimes.  I was not a maniacal fan but a fan for sure of the show.  Well the cast got together for a reunion show that started streaming on HBO Max yesterday.  Cindy and I watched it over dinner.

They went through a lot of effort for the production, recreating the original sets and bringing in some of the various other well known guest actors from the show and even Lady Gaga made an appearance.

Since I am a shallow person one of the first things I did was evaluate what 17 years has done to the appearance of the cast, all of them are in their 50s now.  All three woman still are in good shape although Courtney and Jennifer’s affinity for plastic surgery and botox was painfully obvious.  David Shcwimmer has held up pretty well too except for a puffier face. Matt Leblanc looked like he was rocking the biggest dad bod (Matt Perry not far behind), along with head full of gray hair which was a little shocking.  I think Matt Perry was the worst off, his years of drug abuse/addiction has not been kind to him.  He also had a set of veneers in his mouth that really looked odd.  I think Lisa Kudrow actually has held up the best of all.  She doesn’t look tweaked, cut, bloated or injected, just a slightly older version of Phoebe.

But physical appearances aside, the interactions between the cast were as we remembered.  Their genuine friendship and adoration for each other still came clearly through.  Despite nearly two decades of time passing, it still felt like Ross, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey were still there, still Friends.  Cindy and I both thought the special was really well done.  It made you wish this cast could still perform together but we will all have to be satisfied with that 10 year time capsule of near perfection.

Tomorrow my 5 day weekend begins.  It is going to be jammed full of things.  As I mentioned before the biggest project I hope to accomplish is the work on my Veteran Sherman.  I have some hesitation tearing into a perfectly functional wheel but I keep telling myself it will be an worthwhile expenditure of time and effort.  DJ’s official birthday party will be Sunday afternoon which will be fun as well I’m sure.  I also would like to get some time to play WoW and hang in VR, both of which have been sidelined for damn close to two weeks, at least.

In the last video I made I was riding my KingSong 16X.  During that video I briefly mentioned that when the Inmotion V12 came out I would likely sell my 16X since I don’t need two 16 inch wheels.  That simple mention brought about 4 or 5 inquiries asking me if I wanted to sell my 16X now.

I responded to a guy that asked me what I would want for it.  I gave him a number and he offered $100 less than my number but said he would pick it up in person since he lives in Miami.  I agreed but the guy said he didn’t want to get the wheel until July so he sent me a $100 deposit to hold it until then, no problem.

In the span of 24 hours, picking it up in July had changed to he could get the wheel now if I was willing to ship it to him, with him paying the shipping cost.  I have shipped a number of wheels over the years and I always keep their original box so I told him that would be fine as well.  I dug the box out of the small shed last night, put the wheel in it, weighed it and then got the shipping estimate which I sent to the buyer.

Within a couple hours I had the remainder of the funds in my Paypal account.  I sealed up the box, slapped a shipping label on it and dropped it off at a UPS Store on my way into work, completing the transaction.  It’s funny how this came out of basically nowhere, by a simple statement of future intent in the video.  Now all I need is the V12 I spoke about, unfortunately I have absolutely no ETA for that happening.  The good thing is I still have 7 or 8 other PEVs to keep me occupied until then.

I had mentioned yesterday was DJ’s birthday and how I was sad that I didn’t think I was going to get to see him on his big day.  However when I got home the sadness was averted as I saw Katie’s truck in the driveway.  It’s funny, it used to be when DJ would first see me he would come over and want me to pick him up.  Now he has a more subdued almost shy response at first although he will say Pop Pop non-stop.  It didn’t take long for the fun to start however.

DJ came out to the chicken area with me as I tended to the birds.  We then spent some unexpected pool time together.  Cindy and Katie thought the water was too cold but I jumped in and splashed around with DJ for close to a half hour I bet.  They were at the house until after 8PM which was nice.  It always makes me sad when I say goodbye to DJ when he is in his car seat.  He points to an empty seat and says “sit”, meaning he wants me to come along with him.  When he realizes that isn’t going to happen the tears start flowing, poor little guy.

So I put in to take off next Tuesday and Wednesday, extending my Memorial Day weekend to a pleasant 5 days.  The weekend after that is our trip to the Kennedy Space Center, meaning I won’t have to work a full week until mid-June.  For this upcoming weekend the big project I am targeting is not house related but EUC related.  I have a new rim/tire for my Veteran Sherman that I would like to get installed.  It is going to require a major tear down of the wheel that will likely consume half of a day, good thing I have five of them off.

This morning I was scrambling around while trying to down my breakfast as I was working on fulfilling store orders.  I had a couple issues to resolve, including some guy named Jim buying an order with a special store entry labeled as Custom Order – Steve, for some reason.  I also had some oddball parts orders that I had to sort out.  In total there were 5 packages going out today, one of them to the UK.

On my way to work I found myself behind a black Ford pickup truck.  His back window was adorned with various decorations including a faded Trump sticker, some assault rifle art and a Black Rifles Matter sticker.  You just have to love ‘Merica and the individuals that wish for nothing more than to turn back the clock to a time when lynching was cool and treating others that don’t mirror yourself poorly is the status quo.

Today is DJ’s second birthday.  It’s crazy how two years have passed so quickly.  He is now a legitimate little boy, running around like a madman.  I love the little guy like he was my own flesh and blood.  I can only imagine how things will change by the time next year rolls around, he should be talking like a little human by that time.  Although today is his birthday, his official party isn’t until Sunday.  It doesn’t look like I will get to see him today, which makes me a bit sad.

Saturday morning I got done with my early chores with the chickens and weeding the property.  I threw two gas cans and the empty chlorine containers in the back of the Tacoma which were to be filled as part of the errands run.  Cindy’s mom had just moved into her new place and Cindy had been searching FB Marketplace for some furniture for her.  She came across a great deal on some furniture that I did not think would last long.  Cindy called the woman and found out she was in Bonita Springs, the direction we were headed.

I suggested to Cindy that we go there now so we can pay for the stuff, grab what fits and then come back for the rest later.  The woman was down with the plan so our destination was rerouted on the fly.  When we entered  the address the location looked to be by the water, interesting.

So as we pulled up we were in front of a large condo building.  It turns out this place is on the third floor, something that didn’t come up during the phone conversation.  So we went up to take a look at the furniture which seemed to be in good shape despite the ridiculously low price.  Cindy was getting something like 8 pieces for 75 dollars, including a sofa, shelf unit, a few tables, chairs and a rolling cart.  The issue was how we were going to get the stuff downstairs.

I said that my preference would be to try to get the biggest pieces out on the first trip so Cindy could come back with the truck herself later to grab the small things.  First out was the sofa, it was the longest piece but relatively light.  To get it into the elevator required us to angle it upward awkwardly but somehow we wedged it in there.  Next I wanted to tackle the shelf unit which was shorter but much taller and heavier. The lady’s significant other helped me with this piece thankfully.  It just barely fit into the elevator.  When I dropped it inside the elevator I did so on top of big toe, causing the nail to cut the skin, seeping blood in a gross manner.  I had not left the house wearing footwear appropriate for moving furniture.

The big piece went in the back of the truck next to the sofa but I had to leave the tailgate down and rely on my ratcheting strap to lock it in place.  We brought down a few of the smaller pieces of furniture and the cushions, wedging them in strategically.  The empty chlorine and gas jugs had to be stuffed into/under furniture as well, it was quite the configuration.  After loading and securing we carefully made our way to Cindy’s mom’s new place, avoiding the interstate, making the trip longer but safer.  Cindy’s mom seemed to like the furniture and could not believe it was that cheap.  I got a quick tour of the new place which seemed nice and easier to take care of.  Cindy’s mom is pushing 80 so smaller is better.

When we got home Cindy prepared a quick lunch.  As we were finishing Deb showed up.  Cindy called and asked her if she wanted to come along to pick up the small items and then hang out that night which she agreed to.  I headed outside for a non-stop taskathon which included weed whacking followed by mowing the few parts of the yard that are actually growing during our dry season drought.  The grand finale involved me grabbing my electric pressure washer.

The corner of the metal roof by the large oak tree was covered in gunk, looking almost black in sections.  I wanted to blast it away to restore a uniform look.  Washing a metal roof is risky business.  Every step you take has to be on one of the exposed screw heads for traction, the bare metal, especially when wet can take on almost an ice-like slipperiness.  Luckily both the electric cord and hose on the pressure washer are long, allowing me to cover a large section without having to move the pump unit.

The pressure wand did a great job of clearing the tree residue off the roof however while I was up there I then targeted the leaves and other shit I saw piled up in the gutters.  Now I had gutter screens installed on part of the roof line but even those had leaves and shit piled on top of them.  As I blasted the gutters it was like a blizzard of organic matter showering on the ground underneath.  Once it all dries some time with the blower will be required to get all the leaves pushed away from the house.

So once I got the leaves blown out I returned to the ground and noticed the outside of the gutters had scuzz growing on them as well so they had to get blasted too.  I concluded with doing a quick blast of the lanai floor near both doors, which gets dirty pretty quickly.  By the time I limped back inside it was 6PM, sheesh.  I had gotten a message from Cindy that her and Deb were returning with Burger Fi for dinner which was nice. In the meantime I took a shower and was laying in our bed, watching curling on tv when they got back, I was beat.

We enjoyed the meal while watching the new documentary about Pink on Amazon, Cindy and Deb are both huge fans.  I like Pink’s music as well but I found the documentary to be really interesting.  Seeing behind the curtain was cool and the way they mixed it with her concert performances was just the right ratio.  It made me appreciate her more as a person and artist, the girls of course loved it.

Sunday morning Cindy and I did the chlorine run and Rural King stop that got bypassed on Saturday. During the Rural King visit Elsa decided she would take a dump in the middle of the store.  Cindy did a mad scramble to contain the shrapnel, it was quite the mess.

I had some cleaning chores I knocked out in the afternoon before I headed out for a quick ride on my 16X to the nearby Dunkin Donuts.  On the way back I stopped to talk about an aspect of my EUC hobby that doesn’t get much attention, the risk for injury.

Last night Cindy powered through the last few episodes of Jupiter’ Legacy on Netflix, a superhero based series that we both really enjoyed.  We started on another Netflix series called Pine Gap which has nothing to do with superheroes but we are finding interesting as well.

Yesterday morning I felt like my symptoms post-vax were improving but then as noon approached I started feeling more “blah” roll back in.  I was at first going to try to go to the gym but reconsidered and ran errands at lunch instead.  That feeling of mild malaise continued for the remainder of the day and I again was in our bed earlier than normal.

When I got home I did immediately tackle the UV bulb replacement.  The replacement for the replacement bulb I bought arrived yesterday.  There was some slight size differences with the base of the bulb which required me to enlarge the mounting hole in the coil cover just a bit.  The sound of me doing so with the drill scared Cindy, I am sure it sounded bad inside the house.  I had some struggles getting the plug from the ballast to seat properly into the connector for the bulb.  I would get the bulb lit and then if I bumped the wire the bulb would go out.  After multiple attempts I finally got it seated properly and the air handler reassembled.  I set a reminder on my calendar to replace the bulb yearly so I can be proactive instead of reactive with this task.

This weekend I have a number of to do’s on my mind.  I’m hoping to be completely free of the Moderna blues by this evening, getting lots done while feeling shitty is a tough ask.

So I received my second Moderna shot yesterday morning around 10:30 AM.  During the day I drank more water than normal and had my Tylenol on call.  The tech that gave me the shot advised that I only take the Tylenol if I start feeling poorly.    Hell I even went to the gym yesterday at lunch.  The soreness in the injection spot had started already but was not severe enough to prevent me from doing a bi/tri routine.

As the afternoon progressed the pain in the arm continued to slowly radiate outward and I could feel a sense of general malaise coming over me.  It was nothing crippling but I definitely did not feel normal.  Last night the feeling of blah increased but I still was able to function more or less normally although I did head back to bed earlier than normal.  I had a difficult time falling asleep, despite feeling tired both mentally and physically.

Overnight was not pleasant.  I felt like I had a fever and had weird spikes of pain in both of my arms. My entire right shoulder felt like I had been shot with a gun. I felt bad enough that I got up at 2AM and finally popped the Tylenol.  When I looked at myself bleary eyed in the mirror my face and body all looked very red and flushed.  I eventually fell back asleep although I don’t think it was very restful as the side effects continued, although dulled by the Tylenol.  I woke up with the alarm feeling severely hung over but functional enough to drag myself into work.  The stories I have heard from others is the side effects, once they start reversing should clear up pretty quickly.  I have conference calls today anyway so it is just as well.

It feels good to have the vaccination behind me.  In two weeks I will be fully vaccinated by all current standards although I feel like I was already pretty much there with one shot in the arm and my likely Covid infection in December of 2019.  Next week our office is lifting the mask mandate for staff and it was already optional for customers so I guess the timing of my second shot works out pretty well.

I have been reading multiple accounts of employers struggling mightily to fulfill open jobs.  It seems like one of the large causes behind this is currently there is a large disincentive to work if you are benefiting from the expanded unemployment benefits.  Not only has the period of time you can collect benefits been extended but the amount you collect has been increased dramatically.  The end result of this is in many people’s cases they can actually make MORE money by not working, which seems insane.  Unfortunately many human beings don’t have a real work ethic and sleep fine at night allowing the government to pay for their existence.  My brain is not wired that way.

When the pandemic started there absolutely was a crushing need for support by the government as businesses closed. Since most Americans live check to check, people were immediately in dire straits.  However at this point, with the majority of the country open or nearing normal operations, if you are still willingly suckling off the governments teet, you just don’t care.  You aren’t building your career, you aren’t saving for your future, you are just doing the short term, easy thing because you care too little to be bothered by big picture scenarios or the long term impact, IMO.

Cindy contacted me late yesterday afternoon to let me know the AC in the house was off again.  On Monday night the system had shut off.  When I went out to check the air handler there was water in the float cut off switch area.  When that happens the system cuts off as a fail safe.  I thought this was weird because part of what I did when I had the air handler open on Saturday to pull out the dead UV light was suck out the drain line from both sides with the shop vac, a normal preventative maintenance step.  To have water in the float area already was a head scratcher but I sucked the water out again and put the float switch back in, after doing so the system started running again normally.

So when Cindy contacted me it was the exact same scenario.  Water had tripped the float switch.  I tried giving her guidance over the phone but she was saying the thermostat display was still blank.  She said Katie’s boyfriend Daniel was home and could come over.  Daniel does HVAC for a living.  I told her that was fine but I would leave early to see if we could tag team the issue.

When I got home Daniel still had everything ripped apart.  He even had the cover to the electronics removed on the compressor outside.  He had swapped out two transformers, saying they felt abnormally warm.  I explained to him the scenario of what I did and how things normally go with this unit, it’s a higher end Trane system which I don’t think he saw a lot of.  He bypassed the float switch from the system temporarily and the thermostat kicked back on.  It seems like the float switch itself may be flaky, which is not a very common failure.  He swapped back all of the transformers he pulled but he did not have a replacement float switch on his truck so he just left it out of the loop temporarily.

The system fired back up and started cooling the house which had crept up to 80 degrees, not bad considering it was 94 degrees outside.  I think the metal roof really does a nice job of reflecting much of the heat. Daniel is getting a replacement float switch today and will put it in later.  I still have some confusion about why water started collecting in the float in the first place.  The drain line seems clear so if this scenario happens again once the float is replaced more thorough investigation is going to be needed.  I am going to have to open the air handler back up again anyway when the correct UV bulb shows up.

Luckily the AC work didn’t run too long.  Cindy and I were still able to get out to the beach last night.  We followed a similar game plan as two weeks ago, grabbing a cheap, quick meal at Tijuana Flats and then headed to Vanderbilt Beach.  Both the restaurant and the beach were less crowded than two weeks ago which was Cinco de Mayo, which made sense.

The water, unlike last time, was almost as smooth as a lake with next to no waves whatsoever.  The water itself was also the most clear that I could recall seeing in a very long time, perhaps related to the lack of wave action.  We could clearly see the bottom.  We mostly just sat and watched the sun drop from the sky, enjoying the sights and sounds around us.  I really like forcing myself to just step out of my weekly routine to enjoy the fruits of living where we do.  It’s good for me. Cindy loves it too.

Today is my second Moderna shot, the shot that has knocked a bunch of people I know on their ass.  I plan to hydrate as much as I can and I have my bottle of extra strength Tylenol on hand as recommended to try to knock down any symptoms I have.  The reaction can be pretty severe according to others, like severe flu.  The bright side is it is normally short lived, 1-2 days at most.  Like most unpleasant things in my life, my desire is to just get this out of the way so I can emerge from the other side, ready to address what comes next. If disaster strikes and you never hear from me again, let me leave you with the life advice I gave to my niece as part of a questionnaire she gave me for a school project.

#19.  What’s your best piece of wisdom you can share?

Don’t take the path of least resistance in life.  The rewarding parts of life come from overcoming obstacles, not avoiding them.

When I quit Planet Fitness early last year it was mostly a joyous event as I have always hated that gym and everything it represented. I left there because the county opened up their own on campus fitness center which was good enough for my needs, except for one thing.  The fitness center had no bench press, no shoulder press, no squat rack, and a general lack of any equipment used for pressing exercises.

Shortly after I started going there I contacted the person in charge of the center and asked if they were planning to add a Smith machine to the facility, a utilitarian piece of equipment that can be used in a variety of ways.  At that time I got a song and dance along with several excuses as to why they didn’t have one.  It was very clear that when this fitness center was laid out, it was done so with females in mind as 2/3 of the available space was allocated to fitness classes and stretching.

However about a month ago, an old leg press machine they had there broke and instead of fixing it they pulled it out to make space for, a new smith machine.  I was thrilled by the news.  The machine showed up Friday which is normally my body weight circuit day.  However I had to get on the Smith and do some bench pressing.

Now I have been bench pressing prior to this, sort of.  With no bench press at this gym I have been forced to awkwardly and painfully roll a barbell onto my chest to do the movement for months.  However that method has limited me to using no more than 135lbs.  With the Smith machine I can once again start moving heavier, body weight plus numbers which is good for me, both physically and mentally.

Yesterday, my normal gym chest day, was spent almost entirely on the Smith machine doing a bench press ladder that topped out at 225lbs before I stepped back down.  It felt great to have a similar feeling to the thousands of benching reps I have put in over the years.  I look forward to getting my pushing strength back to similar levels prior to covid becoming a household name.