Last night as sunset was approaching I made a decision out of the blue to go ride the Onewheel GT around the park. I do very little night riding and I don’t know that I ever rode a OneWheel after dark. It was a good time to start as any. The temperature was perfect and the park was alive with activity, but not enough to be overbearing. I rolled for over an hour and loved every minute of it. It’s part of a conscious effort I have been making to keep the nose up and pointing forward toward a happy future, wherever that path may lead.
Anyone that knows me well knows my love of animals of all sorts. I feel a connection that is hard to explain. If I make it to retirement I could definitely see me volunteering doing something to benefit them. This post in fact has no topics not related to animals.
So let’s start with the animal that is the closest to my heart, sweet Elsa. Her and I have always had an extremely strong bond but since my relationship split that bond has become more of a weld. Without her I am not quite sure how I would have maintained a degree of sanity over the last half year plus. This picture was taken last night while I was folding laundry at 10PM. In the middle of it she decided to use a folded shirt as a pillow with a look that said to me “can we just go to bed now…”
The next picture is one of the two cats that our department has sort of adopted over the last year. My buddy and ex-boss Don noticed back then there was a cute little black cat that was napping out in the AC compressor yard outside of our offices pretty consistently. He bought some food and put it out there. We were both pleased to see he started eating it although he was terrified of humans. He/she would hide until we left the area.
Over time two more black cats have joined the rotation periodically, the most recent addition being the one in the picture who has white feet and belly. Over time we upgraded them from paper bowls to actual cat dishes. We also started putting water out as well.
Since Don retired a month ago the cats have become primarily my responsibility which I don’t mind. The white footed cat is increasingly less scared of me. In fact when I put food out now he will hang only a couple feet away until I am done. He still looks ready to run at a moment’s notice but I hope one day I actually get to pet him. I also noticed he spent a lot of the day after eating just laying on the concrete slab under the compressor. I immediately felt badly and found a small outdoor, water resistant pet bed on Amazon. I put it out there last week, worried they would be scared of it and not use it. However by the end of the first day white paws was sitting/sleeping on it which made me happy.
The last animal story of the day is not a happy one. Fiona, one of the two remaining chickens is following an all too familiar downward spiral. The descent starts when the chicken has nothing but diarrhea for a prolonged period of time. The end result of this is her rear end getting caked in dried mess. I have already blasted her butt with a hose and/or soaked her in a tub four or five times. Next comes a lack of eating and lethargy. When I take her off the perch in the morning I can clearly tell she has lost weight. It is pretty clear to me what is coming down the road. Fiona NEVER had a health issue her entire life. To see her going downhill makes me sad, despite her consistently grumpy disposition towards me and everyone else her entire life.
Kathy, the other hen is a freak of nature. She has had runny poop for years and at one point had gone pretty deep down that same spiral to only bounce back on her own. Since then day in and day out she has been fat, happy, and hungry, despite being the oldest hen around, a model for chicken seniors around the world.
One of the very early projects I did when I got into 3D printing was making an Octoprint box for my CR-10. This consisted of a Raspberry Pi with a special version of Debian Linux on it. Octoprint let’s you remotely control your printers, monitor the progress with a camera and much more. I used it pretty heavily early on. However my CR-10 became problematic and I started moving on to other printers, leaving my Octoprint box abandoned. I am thinking about doing a new Raspberry Pi project with one of my Prusa’s but just thinking about this new project made me think about the good old Octoprint box, which at this point is probably 5+ years old. I decided I wanted to try to update/revive it.
I spent a good portion of last night trying to do that. My linux knowledge is very slim so I relied heavily on Google. I was able to update parts of the install but other things would simply not work. I finally gave up and decided to just blow away the current install and reload a new Octoprint image on it today. I look forward to using it again although my 3D store printing operation has ground to a near standstill recently with very minimal orders.
You may recall a story I told about an order that was destined for France. Instead of going there the post office instead sent the package to the west coast and then returned it to my mailbox 2 weeks later with no explanation. Luckily I got the 50+ dollars it cost me to ship it refunded by Stamps.com. I contacted the buyer and asked him if he wanted me to try to send it again, he did.
So this time the package did actually cross the Atlantic Ocean and wind up in France. However when the customer checked with his local post office he was told the package was mistakenly sent to the wrong city. Well evidently it never made it to the correct city and instead the incredibly dirty oversized padded envelope was back in my mailbox with a sticker checked FD. I later found out that means “False Destination”. I verified the address with the customer, he said it was correct.
So I officially gave up, refunding the amount of the sale and the $50+ shipping cost I paid. I wrote it off to an expensive lesson as well as made the determination to never ship to France again as I have had similar issues in the past there. It looks like the package had a rough life in it’s thousands of miles journey. When I opened it up the parts inside had some damage along with some weird wear marks. I guess if I ever have a scratch and dent sale these stands can be part of it.
It has been perfectly cool in the mornings the last few days with temps in the 50’s. On Friday after work I knocked out the weeding instead of going on a bike ride. The reason for doing so was to allow me to get the property mowed early in the morning. It was very nice doing so while the air was cool. The reason I was advancing my normal schedule was I made arrangements to go back up to Babcock Ranch with Ali and Shugs to see the latest progress on their house.
Elsa gets ridiculously excited when she see Ali, Shugs, Sadie and Ferdie. She was sprinting around in circles, jumping and just being a total spaz. It’s very cute. I brought the Tesla so we took it to Babcock. When we got there we had lunch at the Lake House a nice restaurant in the town center. Evidently they are pretty severely understaffed, as a result it took a long time to get through the meal. However we were outside overlooking the lake in beautiful weather so it didn’t bother me much.
There has been a ton of progress on their place since I saw it last where the house was basically just a foundation. There are now walls, a roof, and the inside is studded out. The lines for natural gas and water have been roughed in as well. It was cool to both see the house and see Ali and Shuggs excitement for it. I think they will be very happy there.
The Saturday switch up meant I did my grocery shopping on Sunday with Elsa in tow of course. When I got back I decided to finally install the upgraded bathroom vent fan I bought from Costco a couple weeks prior. For as long as I have been in the house the guest room fan has annoyed me because the vent cover would not stay locked against the ceiling, despite my repeated efforts to rig it. Also the bearings in the motor would occasionally make a nasty squeal that would come and go.
Many times I thought about replacing the fan but for some reason I had it in my head it would be difficult to do. Well it turns out I was wrong. When I saw the label on the new fan boasted of an easy 10 minute installation I was skeptical. It turns out it is stupid easy and made me laugh that I avoided doing this for a decade or more. The new unit has a bigger motor yet is quieter however the biggest thing I like is the integrated LED light in the new fan which adds a lot more light to the space. Of course I shot a video about it just in case someone needs guidance on the stupid easy install.
Late Sunday afternoon I headed down to the Greenway again with my OneWheel GT to try out some of the other riding modes which can significantly change the way the board feels. The one mode, Flow, which I never tried but had heard about actually felt really good and might be my go to for most riding environments.
I was up late editing both videos. The weekend flew by but I came out of it with a better mindset than I have carried for awhile.
I have been going through a very aggravating circus with my dermatologist office. I had four spots cut for skin cancer testing several weeks ago. Two weeks ago I got a message to call the office for results. Over the last two weeks I have had multiple aggravating phone calls to them. Each time my hold time has been at least 15 minutes before I get to talk to someone, it’s nuts. So I was told all four spots were positive for skin cancer. For the first time ever one of them is squamous cell cancer. Every other instance I have ever had is basal cell.
So the reason I needed to keep going back and forth was initially they said they wanted to set up four different appointments to do this. I asked why that was necessary and I would much prefer fewer visits so there are fewer healing cycles. Well the best I could do was get them down to three sessions. They are going to do the two on the back of my neck/scalp at once but the two on the forehead will have their own cut and stitch sessions. This is all going to go down in the span of a week, the first session is May 2nd and the third surgery is May 9th. It isn’t going to be fun to be cut into repeatedly like that but at least my healing should happen at more or less the same time.
Last night after work I headed outside and got the weed whacking knocked out. Although doing this on a weeknight takes you right up to sunset it is nice to have it out of the way, allowing me to just sit my ass on the mower tomorrow. The other nice part of doing it late in the day is you escape the heat and sun, a large bonus.
This weekend besides mowing I may go out with Ali and Shugs to check out the progress on the house they are building. Elsa loves seeing them and it’s good for me to keep ejecting myself from the house, into the world. Now that some of my OneWheel GT injuries are healing up maybe I can get back out on a pickleball court again. The video I made about my calisthenics history is seeing surprising interest, I thought nobody would care. I was wrong.
A couple days ago I got a comment from someone watching some of my older calisthenics content, which is pretty much all my channel was about for a period of 4-5 years. The conversation with him motivated me to shoot a video talking about my time heavily into calisthenics and why I got away from it. I do still incorporate calisthenics in my normal workout routine and try to get out to the bar park a few nights a week after work to do quick sets of pull ups, push ups, dips and hanging knee raises. I might try to expand my efforts to see how my body reacts as I likely have more of the fuel I spoke about in the video on reserve nowadays.
I have determined the yard finally needs a full whack/mow session. My hope is to be able to get the weed whacking done after work tonight to alleviate some of the demands on my weekend, which are shaping up to be substantial enough as is.
I am already half way through the new work week. Returning to cleaning the chicken coop by spotlight at 5:45 AM was not a welcome change. Since returning to work I conducted my first job interviews where I was the primary decision maker in the process. It is actually quite a tough job market from an employer perspective, there have been far less resumes coming in than the last time we had an opening. However I think we may have gotten really lucky and found a candidate that could be a near perfect fit for the job. I am crossing my fingers it all works out.
I have not done any deep introspection on how I envision myself being in charge of our department which is small in number but HUGE in organization responsibility. I need to have capable and trusted people working for me. I am not the type of person that gets off on wielding power over people to satisfy my ego or make them grovel for recognition. Instead I try to stick to my general philosophy of treating others like you would like to be treated. In that regard my short term effort has been to reward those that do a good job for me. It helps them and helps me in the bigger picture and longer term.
Another part of my personality that I am aware of is how I need to process and evaluate requests made of me. Quite often my knee jerk reaction to something may be negative but if I am allowed to digest things further I may come to a different conclusion. So for example I try to avoid blurting out NO, even if that is I how I am feeling initially. Instead “let me think about it and get back to you” is a more tactful response. Of course you can’t be the type of person that says that as a crutch and then never actually thinks about it.
I am slowly healing up from my series of falls during my GT testing. I have bruises on my hip and back as well as some nasty brush burns. I am no longer walking with a limp at least. I should be going back to my typical less risk filled riding habits now that the flurry of testing is done. Last night I tried on my new lower body hip/ass crash pads. I need to wear them consistently.
I have been trying some techniques to short circuit some of the negative thought loops I referred to in the last entry. It probably won’t work. Get it?
Looks like I last posted on Thursday. Wow, my last three days have been very full, despite house chores not being part of that equation significantly. The fall I took on Tuesday still had me sore but not enough to prevent me from going out on my 10 mile ride on my road bike. I did it earlier in the day Friday to get it off my list as I still had a long list of One Wheel GT want to do’s.
One of those was doing a range test which I did Friday afternoon. I wanted to go to the DD that is roughly 10 miles away, something I did once on my OneWheel XR and barely made it, coasting home on fumes. I was confident I should be able to do the ride on the GT that has a bigger battery but I wasn’t certain. I titled the video a “No Net” range test.
Doing a range test on a PEV is a risky proposition. If for some reason the device gets less range than expected you are SOL unless you have a rescue vehicle available. With every range test I have done in the past of course Cindy was that safety net for me. This was the first time I was doing such a test with no backup plan. This no net principal is something I will talk about more later as it applies to other areas of my life.
Originally I thought I would need to go slow to ensure I had the juice to do the trip. Instead I found myself right up against the board speed limits, carrying 18-19mph for the majority of the ride. I had 65% battery left at DD. On the way back I had enough reserve that I went into the park and farted around for nearly a half hour trying to use up more of the battery. I timed it pretty well as I rolled back into the driveway with somewhere around 5% battery and covered 27 miles and change, a great performance.
During the day I also installed my orange bumpers, rail guards and carbon fiber fender. It was an easy swap that really changes the visual of the board, I was happy with the end result.
Friday night I went to see the new Batman movie. A friend of mine said her brother thought it was the best Batman yet so I had high expectations. I thought the movie was dark and well done but not the best Batman ever. I would give the Christian Bale/Heath Ledger edition that title still. There are also some things in the story that annoy me that I can’t really talk about without ruining things somewhat. I’d give it a B+ overall.
I got home late Friday night and it became much later. I saw an email about an error the office network was having. I remoted in and wound up spending a ton of time on it. I eventually got things ironed out but I went to bed at a ridiculous time, somewhere around 3AM.
On Saturday I spit out two more videos, one of them involved aerial footage from one of drones. I love the way aerial footage adds visual diversity and perspective, too bad most of the time I am in too much of a rush to do it.
Later in the afternoon I FORCED myself to drive down to the coast. My intent was to sit on the beach and read for an hour or two, like I promised myself I would. I figured at that time of day, a little before 5PM, most of the areas elderly residents would be swarming to early bird specials, not the beach. Boy was I wrong. The two spots I checked were both at capacity. I said F it and instead carried my beach chair to a small park near the beach. I found a shady spot and read a book. It was quiet and peaceful, even without sand and surf in front of me.
So before I knew it Sunday was here, the last day of my 9 day staycation. I filled it mostly with more of the same, riding the GT and shooting videos about it. I made something like 8 videos during my time off. The first one was a more cinematic short video of the aerial footage from Saturday.
For the second video I headed to the Indian Hill area of Marco Island. This is one of the steepest hills in our area. I thought it would be a good spot to test the GT’s improved power and compare it directly to the XR. I did a similar test on my EUC’s where I go back and forth over Indian Hill 10 times which adds up to 20 hills and 2.5 miles of stress testing.
I used the XR first. Very early on in the test I was getting weird surging sensations as I climbed. These surges became more frequent as I got deeper into the test, they were warning signs that I did not heed. In the middle of the 7th back and forth the board surged one final time and then suddenly shut off, launching me to the asphalt once again. I landed on the same spots that were already bruised and brush burned, it was not good. My equipment took damage in addition to my body. The mounting clip on my mic transmitter broke as well as the door on my camera. I was pissed.
After composing myself and carrying the XR to the top of the hill I rode it back to the car. Throwing me on the road is an instant disqualification. Once back at the car I searched for a way to rig my camera so I could film the GT doing the same test. I grabbed some velcro from the “steering wheel balancer” I had in the console and used it to half ass throw things back together.
I expected the GT would do better on the test but after eating asphalt on the XR I was worried that doing the full 10 back and forths would be too much. Luckily the GT was up to the task. Other than a couple real minor surges late in the test the board gave no signs of problem carrying my 190 pounds back and forth over the steep terrain with no breaks. It was the final gold star of many the board has earned since I received it. There is no doubt in my mind it is a considerable upgrade to the XR.
I left Marco battered and bruised. My hip really hurt, that pain intensified throughout the night. The no net feeling returned. One of the benefits of having a partner is ideally they are your net, if you fall they catch you. I feel like I have no net anymore and it isn’t a feeling that makes me feel good. If something bad happens I have no backup plan. Despite having a week filled with a lot of things I enjoy doing, at the end of it I still find myself stuck in negative thought loops that lead to nowhere good. I still feel a lot of sadness in my heart which I hoped would be less obtrusive by this point in time.
It felt unwelcome getting up at 5:35 AM once again. My body was quickly getting accustomed to sleeping in between 7:30 and 8, especially since the time change. I limped out to the chicken coop and hosed off chicken shit, like every other day. I need to get back on track, whatever that eventually means.
Just wanted to give a quick recap of my prior two days as I am on the cusp of heading out for a range test ride on my new One Wheel GT. The GT arrived on Tuesday as promised but it was almost a miss. I knew the board was shipped by FedEx with signature required. Because of this after getting my coffee in the morning I planned to plant my ass at home all day, I did not want to miss the delivery. I spent a good portion of the morning just sort of bumming around. Around 1:30 I decided to go out and put the mats back into the chicken coop. I may have been outside 5 or 6 minutes. After coming back in the house I wanted to walk out to the mailbox. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the OneWheel box sitting in my garage.
I verified with my Ring camera that the delivery was made during that 5 minute window I was outside, unreal. Thankfully since I had left the garage open the driver assumed I was home and left the GT without signature. If he didn’t I would have been driving around the neighborhood chasing him down. I decided to fire up a live stream out of the blue for the unboxing, it’s a thing some people enjoy seeing. The board looked great and thanks to the massive hyper charger I got for it, I was able to go from 32% to 100% charge in something like 50 minutes.
I ended the stream and wanted to get out for my first ride. Because of the new rounded profile tire and high PSI the board felt very twitchy, especially the first 10 minutes or so of riding. My body adjusted to the physics somewhat and I was able to ride to DD to grab some coffee. On the way back I dipped into the park to take the board around some of the pathways. I sat the camera down to get some footage of me coming up one of the paths. I was carving back and forth and suddenly had an extreme back and forth wobble on the board, I must have gotten too far onto the tire edge. I was unable to ride out the sudden movement and got launched, landing very hard on my right side. Because I had the wireless mic on me, the sound of impact was pretty intense.
I sat there for maybe a minute doing a self assessment. My right elbow and hip clearly hurt. My right hand was scraped and bruised as well. The good news is nothing felt broken so I eventually got back on the board and continued on, although I definitely cut the ride short. It shook my confidence a bit as you can imagine. You can watch the first 10 seconds of the video to catch the moment of impact.
As expected I awoke Wednesday with a lot of soreness however I already had made arrangements to go ride at the Greenway with Clay. I don’t like to bow out of commitments so I just popped a couple Advil and headed there. Clay is real chill kind of guy and is a much more experienced OneWheeler than I am. He actually has a GT on order as well so he was excited to try out the board early. We had a great time cruising down to the beach and back. I rode his board most of the time so he could enjoy the GT. After we were done we talked about future meet ups, he was not aware that Cindy and I split up so it’s a good time to hang out with more of the local One Wheelers.
Today I awoke with second day soreness which may eclipse day one. My neck is now sore, likely from trying to prevent my head from smashing the asphalt when I went down. Again, I don’t have time for pain. Advil will be the key to the 20 mile+ Dunkin Donuts ride I am doing this morning. I have a lot of GT video ideas in my head but I am trying to not cram them all in at once as it could quickly consume a lot of my remaining time off. I still have some slow down and chilling I need to do.
Friday night I resumed my 10 mile bike ride after work after a one week hiatus. I had a pretty solid singles pickleball match at work during lunch so my legs were a little tired already. Pickle ball, especially singles really gets you moving.
Saturday morning Elsa again was excited to jump on the bed in the middle of my stripping it. It’s a very cute annoyance. In the morning it was hot and humid however in the span of an hour or two the temperature dropped almost 25 degrees as what is likely the last serious cold front of the year rolled in. The cooler temperatures made working on some chores easier.
I did have one list item “fix solar” become stupidly easy to complete. A week ago I noticed I was no longer receiving power from the two 160 watt panels in the chicken yard. I determined the solar generator they are plugged into was still working fine. I figured I was going to have an aggravating session with my volt meter, trying to find the break in the power chain.
Well while I was cleaning the coop I decided to take a closer look at the small adapter that connects the outside wires to the correct plug for the generator. After a closer look I realized one of these connectors was not fully seated. After pushing it back together power was once again flowing. In that moment I knew exactly what happened. Over a month ago I had something on the shelf fall off. When it did it hit the solar wires which come in through the window. However everything still worked fine. Evidently that impact must of dislodged one of those connectors but not enough to break connection. Over time it must have slid just enough to break the circuit. I was very glad to find such a quick and easy fix for that list item.
On Saturday I also tackled cleaning up several piles of stuff that had been in the garage, the side of the house and the pool deck for over 6 months. This is stuff that Cindy eventually will take, hopefully, whenever her living situation is finalized however I was tired of looking at it each and every day. It was like a little jabbing daily visual reminder of what no longer was, so I finally eliminated it. Things are now stored out of sight and I much prefer it this way.
Sunday morning was quite chilly with temps in the lower 40’s at the house. Elsa and Sadie seemed to enjoy the coolness. Sadie just sat out in the yard for prolonged periods of time. I knocked out a couple more to do’s during the day including repurposing some castle stones. When the chickens were free ranging the entire yard one of the annoying things they would do is dig in the mulch by the pool cage, kicking mulch out everywhere. I made two changes to address this, filling that spot with rubber mulch which flew less and adding a second row of castle stones to make a higher barrier.
It was a huge expense and physical effort to do this, which now is wasted effort, a recurring theme in my life. So anyway I have been taking the second layer of castle stones and repurposing them in spots that make more sense. I already added some to one of the front palm tree islands. Yesterday I added a layer to the bird of paradise circle. The castle stones that were there were already buried from erosion. The second layer now gives it a much more defined look which I like. I still have a number of castle stones remaining. I was thinking about building a firepit structure with them but I fear it could turn out to be more wasted effort, after all who wants to sit around a fire pit themselves?
During the day I also shot a video regarding an update on the coop solar system, a request I got from one of my subscribers.
The other list item I knocked out was cleaning the freezer, something I am unsure if it was ever done. I pulled out everything, throwing out old items or food I will never prepare myself. I then brought in the shopvac to suck out all of the debris in the bottom and followed with wiping out the remains. There was a section that had some sort of disgusting goo which I believe is from a leaking freeze pack. It took awhile to get it looking decent but the end result was nice, a clean, organized space.
I took Sadie back to Ali and Shugg’s place last night, they were away for another of their extended weekends, this time in the Kentucky area. They love to just fly to random spots, rent a car and explore. I told them it sounds just like the road trip mentality that I enjoy, just flying to the spot first. It sounded like they had a good time, even with getting several inches of snow at one point. I didn’t get back to the house until around 9PM.
The last two nights I have had an issue getting quality sleep. I’m not sure of the root cause but my brain will start going on tangents I wish it would refrain from. I just want to close my eyes and wake up the next morning to blue skies and sunny dispositions. I will likely try to polish off my to do list today so the rest of my week is filled with almost exclusively whatever the F I want to do time.
