Archives 2021

On Friday afternoon I left early from work to to do the closing on the sale of my one Lehigh Acres lot.  Almost on queue a tremendous downpour started as I pulled into the lot.  After waiting a few minutes, hoping for it to stop, I said F it and just dashed through the deluge, winding up very wet.  The buyer had already signed the paperwork electronically and wired the funds.  All I had to do was sign maybe a half dozen documents and then give bank information for a wire transfer of the funds.  In total I was there maybe 15 minutes.  I transferred a big payment onto my home equity loan with the proceeds.  In doing so I am now able to forego making any additional payments on the loan until Christmas, Christmas 2022.  Of course I will continue making payments as the HELOC is the last debt I owe on the property.

Since I got home early I decided to put the extra time to use.  I went outside and knocked out weeding and weed whacking. Doing so kept me out there until close to 7PM but it felt good to not have to worry about that task on Saturday.  I also wanted to keep my Saturday morning less crowded so I could help Cindy with a yard/plant sale she was putting on.  I helped set up the tent and a few other things.  Katie and DJ showed up as well.  I played with DJ until I had to sneak out to run some errands.

When I got back there were actually a couple people buying some items although the foot traffic for the event was far less than Cindy and Katie had hoped for.  DJ’s cheeks were red from running around like a maniac. Deb and Dawna, friends of ours had showed up as well.  The sale concluded around 1PM with a decent amount of stuff sold albeit at stiff discounts.  Yard sales to me are just a lose/lose when you divide the amount of money earned by the amount of hours invested.  Normally the hourly rate is far less than minimum wage.  That is why if I have something I no longer want it most often just gets left at the curb for someone to grab.  I just don’t have the patience or desire to sell many things, this used to not be the case. Saturday afternoon I also got on the tractor to mow the back section that I had to abandon due to torrential rain a couple days prior.  DJ joined me for part of the task, he enjoys sitting on my lap while mowing.

Later in the afternoon Cindy agreed to go with me to go look at recliners.  I have not had a recliner for a number of years.  I had the custom recliner my mom bought for me prior to that but it was never particularly comfortable for me and it was given to Katie when we got a replacement couch and loveseat.  The couch has two built in recliners but again, they are rarely used because they just aren’t that comfortable.

Cindy had seen a recliner at Sam’s earlier in the week that she thought I might like.  The price was inexpensive and she said it seemed nice.  We went there first.  It took me about 5 seconds in the chair to know it wasn’t big or soft enough for me, unfortunately.  Cindy had also looked online and saw some nice loungers at Ashley/City furniture so we headed there next.  This place was cavernous, easily the biggest furniture store I have ever been in, although I haven’t been in a lot of them as with t-shirts, if furniture works for me, I don’t replace it very often.

We saw a ton of recliners but the one we had targeted was not in the store.  The sales rep we were dealing with told us that if we try to buy something that is not on the showroom floor you can literally be waiting for months.  Another thing that become apparent is power recliners are no longer just a niche thing as it was when we bought the sofa set.  It seemed like more of the recliners on the floor were power than were not.  Initially I was not interested in a power recliner because it basically doubles the price and I have not reached the state of laziness where I can’t recline a chair myself.  However the more we tested various seats that position changed.

With a manual recliner, once reclined you have gravity working against you.  There are certain positions the recliner will hold you in but once you hit a certain point it wants to reverse.  With a power recliner any angle from closed to fully reclined can be held, making your number of positions nearly infinite.  The other option is a power headrest which I again initially thought was a waste.  However when you recline the chair to a large degree, if you still want your head in a position to watch TV you then need to have some sort of pillow assist that hopefully will get your head at a comfortable angle.   With a power headrest that requirement goes away as you can dial it in to exactly what feels good.  Yes I know this sounds over the top but after the experience I genuinely see the advantages of a power set up, which I did not before.  We picked out a chair with a lot of cushion, which is a requirement for me.

The transaction went smoothly and although I wound up spending more than double what I originally had pictured, I think it will be a worthwhile investment for future years of relaxation.  Instead of waiting for months for the recliner it is scheduled to be delivered this afternoon.  I did decline paying them and extra $120 to assemble the recliner, confident that I would be able to do so myself utilizing my above average fix it skills.

My Sunday was ok.  I got out on the new V12 to do my standard range test ride out to Ave Maria and back.  The wheel did very well, able to keep me rolling at close to 25mph the entire 35 miles.  This wheel has so many good things about it, I can’t wait to dig into it more.

Over the weekend I found myself behind someone with this sticker on the back of their vehicle.  I don’t know if there is anything that could identify Trumpism  any clearer.  When I see this sort of stuff it just makes me sad and lose what little hope I have remaining for society.  Losing hope is a feeling I seem to have more and more often over recent years.

Yesterday it was sunny most of the day.  When I got home I did a quick survey of the property, I only saw a few small really wet areas so I made the snap decision I was going to try to mow the yard.  The first half of the session went ok however when I started behind the fence things didn’t go as well.  Dark clouds started rolling in, I hoped the rain the dark clouds normally contain would hold off.  Before any rain started I managed to get the tractor stuck in muck.  Getting out meant putting boards under the tires and pushing the Husqvarna while Cindy was at the wheel.

After that things went from bad to worse with rolling downpours starting.  I mowed the chicken yard in heavy rain.  After finishing that I had one section of the yard to go but it was flooded out again.  I relented and just mowed the high ground near the house before parking the tractor, which looked like I just went bog racing with. I looked and felt like I just jumped in the pool fully clothed.  I was annoyed I didn’t get the task completely done.

This afternoon I close on the sale of my one (bad) investment lot.  It’s a surreal feeling to be able to finally rid myself of one of these postage stamp lots after nearly two decades.  I can hopefully repeat the process with the other lot sooner rather than later.

This weekend Cindy is hosting a plant/garage sale, hoping to get rid of the excessive inventory of plants she has accumulated along with a bunch of other items.  I should take a quick run around the house/sheds to see if there is anything I can add to the collection of don’t need items.  I just have been preoccupied with other things recently.

Due to some technical difficulties I was unable to post yesterday, hopefully things go smoother today.  I received my new V12 on Tuesday and wasted no time doing a livestream to document my initial impressions.  During the nearly two hour broadcast I gave my thoughts about the wheel and several other subjects, some of which had absolutely no EUC connection.

Last night I go to do a short road test and was immediately impressed.  The wheel felt fantastic.  It was strong, nimble, fast and felt planted to the road thanks to it’s nearly 65 pounds of weight.  During the test I ran into Jeremiah, the guy I rode with before.  He was going down his street walking his two dogs while riding his EUC, it was a funny sight.  We chatted for a bit and I held onto his dogs so he could take the V12 for a quick spin.  It was an unexpected bonus.  We both said we need to get out to ride together again.  Weather permitting and back pain permitting I am hoping to get a lot of riding in over the weekend.  I did document the ride last night, of course.

So yesterday I got the closing documents for the vacant lot I am selling.  It looks like we are locked and loaded to complete the transaction tomorrow afternoon.  It still feels weird that I am finally unloading at least one of the two worst investments I ever made in my life.  I have mostly erased them from my mind over the last 18 years except when I have to pay the property tax bills every year.  I am hoping to now focus on getting the other one moved as well.  Now that I have the template for what is involved in selling a lot privately, the next transaction should go even smoother.

My life has had a clear pattern of finding patterns and routines and perfecting them to suit my needs.  Once I find something that works for me I am very resistant to changing it, whether it be a certain type of food, a brand of toothpaste, a 15 year old t-shirt, a route to work or infinite other things.  I like knowing what to expect from situations and one way to do that is to craft guardrails that keep things inside boundaries.

Despite this hard wired desire to live my life primarily in this manner when I venture out of the routine via cross country road trips, a cruise, vacation or many other random events in my life I always find myself discovering new moments that I hold onto and cherish.  It’s a weird dichotomy to me.  Over the last 3-4 years there has not been nearly enough of that deviation from the path straight ahead for a number of reasons. I need to try to be more mindful of what I am doing with my time as it becomes an ever more fleeting resource with the passing of each year.

One event that definitely threw me far off my path was the passing of mom, which happened on this day in 2014.  I still think about that day and wonder how mom would be if she was still with us today.  I wonder what sort of thoughts and advice she would have for me as I move through life at this advancing age.  I definitely see an increasing amount of parallels in my journey and hers.

The soon to be reformed Tropical Storm Fred is forecast to roll by our area this weekend with the promise to bring a lot of moisture with it.  There is still standing water in certain areas of the property so a major dumping of rain is not welcomed, at all.  The winds should be no worse than what we get with typical thunderstorms so if there is any silver lining, that is it.

I have a number of things to do this weekend, we will see if any of those plans get washed away.  I am excited that my next electric unicycle is only a few days away from arrival.  Gone are the days where I would buy several new EUCs every year.  This is the first wheel I have bought in 2021 and probably will be the last.

I leave you with a picture of the front doors of the Everglades City city hall building, for no particular reason.

Have you ever had a really bad dream about something negative happening only to wake up and realize it was only a bad dream, feeling that wave of relief come over you?  Now imagine that feeling in reverse, waking up, wondering if something was just a bad dream and realizing it is reality.  I prefer scenario one.

Over three weeks ago I took the Tacoma to get it aligned at a local Tire Choice.  I described here my joy when I discovered the steering wheel was about 10 degrees off center after the work was done.  Since then I have been trying to get the truck back in to get fixed however supposedly there was an issue with their alignment machine that had not been fixed until last week.  So the truck is sitting there now, Cindy met me at the shop on my way home last night so I could drop it off.  I took her car for the commute today, I don’t get to drive the Ioniq very often.

Speaking of vehicles, my new Tesla delivery date has again swung backwards with an ETA of October.  It has shifted forward and backward at least a half dozen times since I ordered the car.  I’m not bent out of shape about waiting longer, it’s a longer period of time without a car payment which allows me to save/pay down other areas in my budget.  I would be lying however if I didn’t admit that I miss driving a Tesla for my daily commute.

Saturday was a rough day in several ways.  I have a usual format for my chores that start on earnest every Saturday morning.  I get up, do all of the chicken requirements, eat breakfast, go back outside to weed and then typically will go grab coffee, run errands, and then resume remaining chores during the afternoon.  Well this Saturday was different because I was attending the memorial service for Mark at 2:30.  I went on a kamikaze-like chore run where I did everything non-stop, chickens, weeding, weed whacking and mowing right up till less than an hour before the service.

The reason I was pushing was because the ground was more or less clear of standing water.  As I said previously during wet season you need to take advantage of these times and I was solely focused on doing so.  The heat and humidity was oppressive, really, really oppressive.  When I was done weed whacking I was totally on fumes, exhausted, and dehydrated.  I still had to get on the mower and get that done as well.  Mowing doesn’t drain you as much as weed whacking but you are still baking in the sun.  It turned out that my effort was well timed as when I got back from the memorial several inches of rain had fallen and the property was once again flooded out.

So when I saw Mark’s memorial was being held at a church I assumed it would be what you would expect, people sitting in the church quietly while various others gave tear jerking speeches about Mark’s life.  That was not the case.  The memorial was held in the huge church ballroom.  The layout reminded you of a wedding reception with a ton of individual tables, a huge spread of food and drink (including alcohol), with various video screens showing all sorts of cool pictures/videos from Mark’s life.  I did not expect this.

I was still dehydrated from all of the yard work so I consumed nothing but water in large amounts. It was almost an hour until anything formally began, up until then it was just eating, drinking, and talking.  I latched on to George and Susan from the running club.  I talked to a few others from the club too but I hung with them.  There were a huge amount of people there, that part I did expect as I knew just how many people Mark impacted positively over his lifetime.

Once people started to talk at the podium Mark’s positive influence was reinforced time and again.  When the speakers started to get emotional as they relayed their stories of how Mark touched their lives I felt emotional as well.  Even though my interactions with Mark were far less numerous than some, I had the same experience of a man with endless supplies of positive energy, a steady smile, and a firm shoulder grab on every handshake.  It still felt foreign to me that he was no longer here.

After the formal stories were done the party was going to continue for an unknown amount of time.  I headed out with George and Susan.  On the way out I ran into Chris who was Mark’s assistant coach for many years.  Chris also helped me time GCR events towards the end and also tried to get me into timing high school track meets which I bowed out of when I saw the work/time versus compensation formula was way out of whack.  It was good to see him as well as the other people I worked so much with over my decade or so of timing race events.  It does seem like that was a long time ago and it felt somewhat strange and awkward as I have dropped out of that social circle completely since leaving the club.

The memorial had a policy of requiring masks, to be mindful of the record setting covid infections once again, which I wore the entire time except for gulping my water.  That however was not the case for at least half of the people in attendance.  If you weren’t exposed to the delta variant before, there is a solid chance you were congregating indoors with a crowd of that size and density.

I have not really said much about the spike in covid, with Florida leading the way.  Somehow people seem to still not understand some very basic truths about what is going on.  Being vaccinated does not mean you are immune, which I think many people feel they now are.  The vaccinations should allow your body to react to covid effectively and help your immune system keep you out of the hospital, although even that is not a guarantee based on comorbidity factors.  Without a doubt it greatly decreases your odds of having a severe covid reaction.

The other thing I can’t understand is how so many people somehow still do not understand what masks do and do not do.  A mask is not a covid shield.  If there is active virus in your immediate vicinity you can certainly still contract covid even while wearing a mask as they are not tight and medical grade.  What a mask DOES do is dramatically decrease the transmission radius of a person who is actively contagious, even if they are unknowingly so.  The number of people that still do not understand this benefit is truly astounding.

Now since I have been vaccinated I have not been wearing a mask if it is not required, however I also have not been in a densely populated situation either. (EDIT The Kennedy Space Center was crowded and had mandatory indoor masking)  This was the first time since the pandemic started that I have been in a large group of people.  I had no issue masking up in that scenario but obviously many did.  Setting new records for covid hospitalizations this far into the pandemic should concern everyone but instead there are a lot of heads buried in the sand, unwilling to continue making efforts to reduce the spread.  Putting that genie back in the bottle, as in re-implementing mask mandates/restrictions/lockdowns, is going to be a near impossible task.

On Sunday I got it in my head that I wanted to go out on my road bike.  I have not gone on a substantial ride on my road bike in over a year, at least, if not more.  Since I stopped actively running I haven’t done long format cardio, the closest are my 20-30 minute Echelon rides on Friday evenings.  The timing of my resurrection ride couldn’t have been worse, it was close to 2PM, the hottest period of the day with heat indexes well into the 100s.  As is often the case with me, once I mentally commit to a task I don’t waiver very often.

So I pulled on my old triathlon “kit” which includes pants with a sewn in crotch pad for biking.  I filled a water bottle which in retrospect was much too small for the conditions and pedaled out the driveway.  The differences pedaling a real bike versus an indoor spin bike became quickly apparent.  My pedaling geometry felt different and it didn’t take long until I was doing the hand position shuffle, trying to stay comfortable on the handle bars.   I headed in the direction of Ave Maria with no real plan of how far I was going to actually go, I felt like I would play it by ear based on how I felt.  It didn’t take very long for me to realize I felt shitty.

I stopped briefly and drank some water at the 5 mile mark.  At the 5 mile mark I also determined that going 10 miles out and back would be enough of a first ride test.  After that first stop at 5 miles the additional stops and breaks increased in frequency.  My speed started on the slow side (15-16mph) and continued to drop from there.  I could feel my stamina eroding quickly.  When I got to the 10 mile mark I already felt spent.  With absolutely no break from the sun to be found and intense heat radiating up off the road I hit my water supply often and quickly realized I should have brought much more.  I started to ration the sips with the hope of having enough to get back.

The ride back was pretty tortuous.  Even though I was going slow I still felt the need to stop and catch my breath repeatedly.  When I got to the middle school, three miles from the house, I pulled in and plopped down under some shade for at least 10 minutes, maybe 15.  I just felt done.  As I sat there exhausted on the ground, leaning against a wall I tried to figure out how I could feel this terrible.  Now of course the incredible heat and insufficient water made the situation worse but even so, I just felt like I had no gas in the tank and I hated the feeling as I drank the last few sips of water I had left.

I was determined to go the last three miles without any additional stops, which I did but very slowly.  When I pulled into the driveway I felt old and weak. The first thing I did was jump into the pool to get my body temperature down which felt good.  However after exiting the pool I was just tired, a feeling that never left the rest of the day.   I felt badly because Katie and DJ came over later and I just had minimal energy.

It’s weird though, as awful as the ride felt, I have the need/want to keep doing it.  I need to prove that I can reclaim some of that stamina, some of that mental toughness required for extended cardio tests like this.  I wrote this on FB later.

Wish I could say I smashed my first 20 mile ride in forever on a road bike today. Instead it almost had me curled up in the fetal position. Choosing to do it at 2PM when the heat index was 100+ with insufficient water was probably ill advised as well. However, the experience makes me want to do it again, until I do smash it. If you don’t keep pushing against the walls of your box, that box keeps shrinking, quickly. Push on your box.

It was an eye opening experience for me as there were many times where Cindy and I would ride all the way out to Ave Maria and back a journey of 15 additional miles.  To feel so hammered after 20 miles was a rude awakening.

I watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics last night.  I always enjoy the Olympics and normally wish I got to watch more coverage than I get to.  I always feel somewhat saddened when they conclude.  This Olympics with empty venues and covid lockdowns are the most bizarre games ever.  Sadly I think this could be much the way the Bejing winter games go as well this winter.  The Olympic spirit is tangible and inspirational.  It’s too bad that it’s long lasting influence doesn’t stretch far beyond the extinguishing of the flame…

I am finishing up my two day work week to jump into a conventional two day weekend.  I am already thinking about the work that needs to get done. Summer lawn maintenance is always time intensive.  When you add in working around the periods of time when there is standing water in certain areas, it is just a big pain in the ass.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking at ways to lessen my responsibility load. The older I get, the more it wears away at me. Every time I trudge around the soggy property this feeling returns.

This weekend is the memorial service for Mark.  He helped and was loved by so many I am sure there will be a ton of people at the service.  On my way in I recalled that when we had the memorial service for my mom back in 2014, Mark and his wife were there, which I didn’t expect but was an example of what he was all about, caring about people.  If you told me at that time that seven years later I would be attending a memorial for Mark I would have never believed you.  I have said many times how tragic it is that most of us just bounce around day in and day out without really appreciating the time, people, opportunities, and experiences we have been given, not acknowledging that at any point that time can come to an end.

I got some potentially good news regarding my upcoming Tesla purchase.  Biden signed an executive order regarding EV’s that would reinstate the federal tax credit on Tesla’s and all other EVs for the foreseeable future.   In the framework that was laid out the minimum credit would be $7500 which was the maximum with the old plan.  If you buy an EV that is made in America another $2500 is plopped on top and if the car is made by a company with a union workforce, yet another $2500 is added on top!  Tesla is a non-union shop so that means my tax credit would “only” be 10k.  If this actually works out for my upcoming Model Y purchase it would be incredibly opportune timing.

Today is my niece Caroline’s birthday.  It seems insane that she is already well into her teens, on the cusp of being a young adult.  It’s another byproduct of the blinding speed that time passes with each year you spend on the planet.

Yesterday was gray and raining for almost the entirety of the day, making for an anticlimactic end to my 5 day weekend.  I relegated myself to mostly indoor tasks, getting some hobby room work done, playing WoW and watching some Olympic coverage.  Speaking of the Olympics, how about the mens 4 x 100 relay team shitting the bed and screwing up the baton hand off AGAIN. The USA was actually favored to win the entire event, instead they didn’t even make it out of their qualifying heat. They have a long history of under performing in the Olympics for the last two decades.  You wouldn’t think it’s that hard to hand off a baton cleanly.  Maybe they took an Allan Iverson attitude towards it, practice, who needs practice…

I forgot to mention that one of the tasks I did over the 5 days was upgrade my Xfinity Xfi router to support higher speeds.  It was a free upgrade so it was worth the effort.  It turns out there was very little effort involved.  Any wifi router swap out I have ever done meant I had to go around and redo the wifi config for EVERY wireless device in the household.  I don’t have an exact count of how many wifi devices I have but I suspect it’s well over 20, possibly 30. It’s a pain in the ass.  This Xfi upgrade was the first time I have been able to do this operation without updating a single device.  There were a handful I had to reboot but that was it, the wifi network was moved across intact.  It was one of the few times I was pleased with something associated with Comcast/Xfinity.  The new router supports wifi speeds of 1200mb, a big plus for wireless VR activities.

The delivery date on my new Model Y has been sliding back and forth.  For awhile it showed a delivery window of mid-August to early September.  Then suddenly that got pushed back to October.  Now today the date has retracted to the first 3 weeks in September.  The good news is I am flexible so if it happens sooner or later I can make it work.

I am on the last day of my last extended weekend.  It’s dark, gray, and raining.  Monday morning I headed to the title agency I talked to on the phone to get the land transaction started.  All I basically had to do was hand them a signed vacant lot sales agreement and fill out a two page form.  I was happy to see the buyer wasted no time wiring over the $1000 deposit we agreed upon.  Hopefully in two weeks or so I will be rid of one of the two worst investments I ever made.

I had another unexpected small windfall when I got a check from Chase that was a credit on my now paid off auto loan.  Because the Vroom deal was moving slowly I made my July payment to make sure my credit was unaffected.  Evidently the amount paid by Vroom already included the July amount so I got it back.  It feels odd to have a number of financial things work out in my favor, something I am definitely not accustomed to.

My typical luck did return Monday afternoon when I lost my wireless mic transmitter during a ride.  Once I realized I lost it I went back out on another wheel and backtracked 9 miles looking for it, unsuccessfully.  After editing the video I could identify when I lost it however when I went back a second time and retraced those steps I again struck out.  I ordered a new $200 replacement.  The video documents the loss.

On Tuesday I tackled a non-list item task just because I knew it needed to be done sooner or later and I had the time to do it.  I grabbed the weed whacker and knocked down both sides of the outer perimeter fence as well as the trench towards the back of the property. It’s a tedious, shitty job.  After knocking it all down I followed up by spraying the fence line with RoundUp to keep the weeds down, hopefully, for at least a little while.

During the afternoon Katie, Cindy and DJ returned from an appointment to hang out.  I was feeling tired and low energy after the fence whacking.  Late in the afternoon some bad weather rolled in, dumping inches of rain in a short period of time, instantly flooding the property.  The feeling of blah continued the rest of the evening.  Today the nasty weather has persisted.  I drove through hard rain during my DD and errands run.  Today has no serious chores on the docket which is nice but also leads to feelings of laziness and little self worth.  In some ways it will feel good to get back into the office tomorrow.