Archives September 2022

Yesterday was the first day post storm.  It brought with it horrific pictures of the destruction.  This was truly worst case scenario thanks to the storm surge.  It made me feel all the more fortunate to only have some minor landscape damage to deal with.  Mid-morning I drove into our main office with Elsa along. The drive was challenging as almost every traffic light was out.  It seemed about 50% of the drivers were aware of the “treat like a 4 way stop” rule when signals are dead.  I also got to see some of the mess ranging from downed trees to roads with lots of debris from when they were underwater.  I needed to see what was and was not working.  Everything at the main office was good to go but most of our branches were offline.  The branch at Marco Island was totally flooded out, meaning it could be a very long time until it resumes operations, if at all.  I got the information I needed for now and headed home.

The few gas stations that were open were being pummeled with lines reaching a half mile or more.  I had between a half and three quarters of a tank left in the Tacoma so I deemed it good enough.  When I got home I decided I wanted to get started on some the issues in the yard from the storm.  The first and biggest issue was the avocado tree.  The winds late in the day yesterday combined with the saturated ground resulted in the avocado tree leaning hard to one side.  I used a ratchet strap attached to the Tacoma to help pull it the other way.  I then used some old metal temporary fencing posts on the opposite side to keep it there.  It doesn’t look beautiful but it seems to be doing the job.  I also cut several of the low hanging branches to even things out.  The storm and my pruning resulted in a ton of not quite ripe avocados falling to the ground.  I am going to give some to Monique and keep a few for myself, hoping they ripen up.

I also cut up the bird of paradise that fell.  I felt lucky that it did not fall into the pool cage.  I did several runs back to the fill pit with the tractor to dump debris.  At spots I was rolling through standing water approaching a foot deep in the back yard.  I was glad I did not get stuck.  I also did some work in the chicken area.  I took down almost all of the corrugated plastic roof panels that I had attached to the run for rain protection for the birds.  They looked like shit and weren’t needed anymore.  I also disassembled the temporary shelter I made a few years ago for them to reclaim some lumber for future use.  Doing this invoked emotions of sadness in me, undoing what I did on their behalf, but it needed to happen.  I have more undoing in there to do this afternoon hopefully.

Later in the afternoon I was excited to realize my internet service was restored.  I was limping by with my limited access on my phone but it felt nice to be hard wired once again.   I was talking to my buddy and former boss Don.  He had no power yet.  He came out last night with Lucky to watch the Dolphins/Bengals game on Amazon Prime. (he is a Fins fan)  The quality of the broadcast sucked with pixelation of the picture the entire time, something that evidently has plagued every game Amazon has streamed so far.  I am surprised that Amazon can’t get live streaming figured out.  The Dolphins lost the game but it was nice having Don and Lucky there.  They slept over, being the first to use my guest room in it’s latest iteration.  Don said he slept well.  They headed out bright and early this morning.

Today we woke up to glorious weather with low humidity and temperatures in the 60’s, something we have not experienced in close to 6 months.  I opened the windows and really enjoyed stepping outside.  Mid-morning I headed to another branch to do some troubleshooting of our connectivity issue.  I got the ball rolling with our WAN provider and as a result we now have a half dozen more sites that have come back online which is awesome.

This afternoon I plan to change the oil in the Tacoma and try to figure out why my windshield washer now trickles out washer fluid like an old man urinating.  It seems that this issue developed after the windshield was replaced.  Hopefully it’s something simple.  I plan to continue my clean up of the chicken area removing/repurposing whatever I can.  I am hoping that now that the storm has passed I can actually respond to the avalanche of FB marketplace messages I received about the stuff.

I also have decided that I am not going to be going out to LA for the EUC event mid-October.  The storm has postponed my CT until an undetermined date and I am going to be needed to facilitate whatever comes up with post storm logistics at work.  I actually have already come up with another idea which I prefer, just going out there sometime before the end of the year and meet up casually with a much smaller group of people I know in the area.  It will be a much more relaxing pace for me and more enjoyable.

Here are the various videos I produced over the last few days.

Our office decided to close at 1PM yesterday due to the threat of Hurricane Ian.  A couple days ago the forecast path kept sliding west however in the last day the track had reversed, sliding more and more east which is bad news for us.  Once I got home I put a few more things away but put my trust in my new hurricane impact windows.  A number of people put up hurricane shutters last minute.

The rest of Tuesday was spent watching the rain pile up outside, the property was already flooded before the sun went down.  I watched a lot of the local news coverage of the storm but also took breaks to watch some “normal” stuff.  There is a limit to how much of the fear stoking broadcasts I can watch at one time.

When I went to bed it was still raining hard but not horribly windy.  I got awakened several times during the night by Elsa.  One time she crawled all the way up to my head.  I pulled the blanket over her and covered her with a pillow as well.  Despite my efforts she was still scared.  I was then worried that she had to go to the bathroom so I walked her outside into the storm in my underwear.  It didn’t seem like she had to go urgently.

I finally fell back asleep and didn’t open my eyes until 8AM.  When I looked out the window it was extremely dark with standing water everywhere.  The trees were now getting whipped consistently by the wind.  I looked at the latest NOAA graphic and couldn’t believe the max wind of the storm had exploded to 155MPH, a couple ticks below category 5.  It was still off the coast with the eye almost even to the house.  What a shit show.  The projected path would have it make landfall somewhere close to the Lee/Charolette county line.  The property in the path of those core winds are going get smashed, however that might not be the worst of it.  This afternoon the storm surge from the storm is going to start pushing onshore and it is predicted to be as much as 12-16 feet in some areas.  In the Naples area there could be substantial surge as well which can be absolutely devastating.

For me, being 17 miles inland is a good thing with this storm.  I don’t think I will see hurricane force winds here although there have been some very strong gusts already.  Flooding is a given so my biggest concern is power outages.  Irma 5 years ago resulted in almost two weeks of no power madness.  I am crossing my fingers I can avoid a similar situation this time around.  The story of this storm is not going to be completed for at least 18 hours.  It is going to be a very long day.

The predicted path for Ian still is pretty favorable for our immediate area.  The center of the storm is predicted to be pretty far west when it passes Collier County.  Despite this schools have already closed for today and tomorrow.  The Clerk of Courts has also closed.  I’m not sure if our office will close tomorrow or not, if it does it would likely only be if other local county agencies did first. I went outside and did very minor prep for the storm, pushing pool deck furniture close to the house, untying one side of the solar shade in the rock garden and putting away a few loose items.  When Cindy lived with me the deck had a lot more stuff on it so that alone took awhile to secure.  I guess there is an advantage to the minimalism I have outside the house nowadays.

My latest wheel arrived yesterday.  Despite just doing a live stream two nights prior I decided to do another unboxing stream last night, they are normally fun.  I did something that I tried multiple times to do in the past unsuccessfully, run a two camera set up.  I set up my laptop and connected it to the stream so it could point at my table that had the wheel on it.  I think it turned out well other than the onboard camera on the laptop being sort of low quality.  The stream went a little over two hours and was actually more viewed than Saturday night’s stream, with less notice.  Maybe Monday nights are a better slot to stream since most normal human beings have plans on a Saturday night.

Last night and this morning felt very different.  The absence of the night time “putting the chickens to bed” routine felt weird.  When it got dark the thought flashed in my head for a moment how I needed to go out to the coop, just like it has for the last 8 years or so.  I then realized that is no longer the case.  This morning was even weirder.  For the past year I have been marching out to the coop at 5:30 in the morning to get everything done before leaving for work.  Today I was able to sleep an extra 25 minutes and still get to work on time which is a net positive for my overall quality of life.  There is going to be a lot of adjustments to the new state of things but if I am being honest, it will be a good thing overall to be able to live my life without the chickens being at the forefront of many decisions.

After dinner last night I felt like going out for a ride on a wheel.  I grabbed my S22.  No camera gear was included, I just wanted to get out to clear my head as it had been an emotional day.  After cruising around the side streets on the other side of Immokalee Road I headed into the park entrance.  It was pretty dark at this point.  I had pulled off the road to check something on my wheel.  When I was ready to go there was a line of 5 or 6 cars coming so I waited for them to pass.  So as I am ready to pull out I all of a sudden barely see another vehicle, some old shitty Honda with no lights on.  The exit road has absolutely no street lights so the guy was almost invisible.

So as I pass him I see his window is down and say “Turn your lights on dude…”  Without a split second notice the guy yells “f u” and other things I couldn’t make out as I was rolling away.  I thought to myself how this individual must be highly educated to lead with obscenities when he was the one that was driving lights out.  Sure if I replaced “dude” with something like idiot, asshole or another similar insult, I could understand the flash anger response but as is, it was dumb.  As I kept rolling I checked my rear view mirror to see if Mr FU would be dumb enough to turn around to pursue things further.  He wasn’t.  I’m not the type to initiate aggression but if you place it on my doorstep things might not turn out the way you hoped.

The predicted storm path is still tracking west of our area but there will likely still be significant impact to much of the state.  The biggest concern here is potential storm surge since will be on the east side of the hurricane which is the business end.

The drive home from work Friday revealed that full blown panic had ensued, spurred on by a NOAA potential storm path graphic that showed what was tropical depression 9, slicing across Florida in our vicinity on Wednesday.  All it takes is one of these predictions, regardless of how unreliable they are this far in advance to start lemming madness.  Every single gas station I passed had long lines of vehicles, desperate to fill up, 6 days early.  Think about it, more than likely many would need to get gas again during that time period but seeing cars in line spurs something primal in human beings, also known as FOMO. (fear of missing out)  I heard reports of people raiding stores, desperate to hoard as much bottled water, toilet paper, and other food items as they can.  It’s the same thing that happens up north as soon as a substantial snowfall is predicted.  Panic mentality has always bothered me.

My Friday evening was busy again.  Despite playing pickleball at lunch on Friday, my third time in two days, I decided to jam my evening with more action.  I got on the road bike and put in my 10 mile course.  My time and overall average pace was better than I have logged in a long time, for some reason.  When I got home I immediately slapped cargo shorts over my biking pants and weeded the property.  With less and less daylight, doing this one-two combo on a Friday is getting more challenging.  Pizza prep only begun once I returned inside, sometime after 7:30.  I slept very soundly Friday night.

Thankfully on Saturday morning the revised storm path had shifted considerably west, making it pretty unlikely that we would receive a direct slap from Ian, although we will likely get some effects from the storm. The revised path showed immediate results at the gas stations and stores.  I did my grocery shopping at Walmart without major hassle.

Saturday morning when I went out to the coop Kathy’s energy and alertness had taken another turn for the worse.  The best I could do was get her to poke at some tomato I cut up for her but she had next to nothing left.  I moved the chicken tractor to the front of the chicken yard and put Kathy in a nesting box inside of it.  She basically did not move at all once I placed her there.  I knew the end was coming.

I kept busy throughout the day, weed whacking the yard wearing my boots to combat the mucky sections of the property.  It again was brutally warm and humid.  I was dying.  When I finished I jumped in the pool, fully clothed, turning it into a YouTube Short.  The short generated the most views of any so far, amassing, almost 30k views in a short time period.  Having an interesting title is crucial in Shorts performance.

I decided late in the day to do a live stream.  I had been texting Gladys’s sister Monique about Kathy’s decline, saying I would not be surprised if she passed during the night.  Monique suggested I bring her inside with me, an idea I rejected at first but then reconsidered.  Years ago we brought Lucy inside as she was dying but I have never done it since.  Every chicken that died did so out in the coop.  Well the more I thought about it the more I softened.  I had some concerns about Elsa being weird with Kathy inside but decided I would take the chance.  I laid down a big cover and brought Kathy in, still sitting in her nesting box.  She was very out of it, I’m not even sure she knew she was on the inside of the house she only knew exclusively from the outside her entire life.

I showed Kathy a couple times during the stream but did not want to talk about the situation much because I knew it would make me emotional.  Elsa was an angel, seemingly sensing Kathy’s illness, she never did anything threatening.  When I was done I brought Kathy into the bedroom with me.  Before I went to sleep I told her once again how I loved her and how it was ok to go.  I was almost positive that when I woke up Sunday morning she would be gone, she wasn’t.

I could hardly believe it when my groggy eyes focused and saw Kathy was still with us, barely.  At this point her head was hanging over the edge of the nesting box and she was breathing deep and slow.  When I got out of bed  I laid down on the floor by her for quite awhile, petting and talking to her.  I really thought she could pass at any moment, but she was still hanging on.  I started doing some of my Sunday morning things.  I was sitting on the computer paying bills when I heard a noise from the bedroom.  When I rushed in there I witnessed what is described as death throes, something I never had seen a chicken do and hope to never see again.  She was making these noises and at the same time her body was spasming.  I quickly reached down and tried to hold her still until they subsided, which they did. I watched her take her last breath, with tears streaming down my face.  Elsa was right there behind me sensing something was going on that made me very sad. It was a rough few moments.

I let Kathy be for a couple hours until I went about the task of deciding where I was going to bury her.  For years I have been burying the birds towards the back of the property to not attract predators that could try to dig up the remains into the chicken yard.  Well since there are no more chickens to threaten, I decided to bury Kathy in the chicken yard, right in front of the Kathy Mae plaque Cindy made for my mom years ago.  The plaque now has dual meaning.  Burying a hen has always been a gut wrenching thing for me but Kathy was especially tough because she was the last, it signified so many things to me.  It was an end of an era that stretched damn close to a decade.

If I think about all of the time, effort, energy, emotion, and money that I have invested into the hens over the years it is staggering.  I couldn’t even begin to list how many things I did on their behalf, just because I felt responsible for making sure they had a good existence.  Every direction I turn in the chicken yard there is a different story about this thing or that thing, it has been a very, very long saga.  Initially this was seen as primarily as a cool way to get fresh eggs and little more.  It morphed into something much more consuming.

Kathy’s death is bittersweet.  As horrible as it was to watch her finally succumb, it also signifies the end to a responsibility that quite honestly has had considerable negative impact on my life.  Ever since becoming a chicken owner I have felt extremely hesitant to do anything that would take me away from their care because of some hard to explain sense of responsibility for them and a hesitancy to saddle somebody else with their well being, as it could be not fun.  When Cindy moved out I had to swing my schedule even earlier to take care of the birds before leaving work which was difficult.  All of that has now come to an end.

I have a bunch of things to undo in the chicken yard.  I’m going to be selling or giving away pretty much anything that was hen related.  I have a bunch of things I did exclusively for their protection from rain/sun/predators which will be taken down.  I have a half a dozen Ring cameras out there for surveillance which aren’t needed.  I will repurpose as many as I can.  Of course the solar system and some other tech will remain in place out there but the vast majority is no longer needed.  I fully expect this process to be filled with sad thoughts as well, as removal of something makes you think of the memories of when you installed it in the first place.  I don’t have any immediate plans to repurpose the chicken yard/run/coop.  Having an area like that ready to go might be attractive to a potential buyer down the road, maybe.

Sunday afternoon I listened to the Eagles/Washington game while mowing.  Carson Wentz had a dreadful first half, taking a ton of sacks, fumbling and basically being inept.  It made me remember why he frustrated me so much when he was our QB.  The Eagles did all of their scoring in the second quarter and won 24-8 but the game wasn’t really that close.  Jalen Hurts had another big day.  It’s been a pretty perfect 3-0 start to the season so far. I had some ideas about doing a tire change on one of my EUCs but decided later Sunday afternoon was not the time to do it.  Instead I took Elsa with me to grab some coffee  and then do the mile loop around the park.  Both her and I were quite bothered by the heat and humidity which was oppressive, again.

This week we will have to see what sort of collateral damage we get from Ian.  Otherwise I am going to be slowly working on getting a number of things out in the chicken area as they will be going forward.  I have my CT scan this week so I am hoping to get the final answers I am looking for in that area of concern.

Yesterday I did something that I paid dearly for several weeks ago, played pickleball twice in the same day.  I played at lunch, some singles with Kerri, who improves every time we play. After work I rushed home, did the chores and then went to the next door park to play 4 or 5 games of mixed doubles with the crew I have been playing with for a few weeks.  It was good fun.  The last time I pulled this stunt I paid a pretty steep price physically as I also played the following Friday at lunch. (which I am doing again today)  I could hardly move at that point.  Knock on wood, my soreness and pain this time around is much more manageable. Heck I even have ideas in my head of doing the 10 mile bike tonight AND weeding the property, crazy.

So Kathy is still hanging in there.  When I got home from pickleball last night she had once again made her way up into the coop and was sitting in the nesting box I have on the floor.  She is weak, frail, and light.  However up until recently she was still talking.  With many of my chickens when I would talk to them they would respond with their own unique noises.  Kathy has always been one of the chattiest, especially when I present food or say her name.  The sounds have stopped, which again based on my unfortunately extensive experience with chickens means there isn’t much gas left in the tank.  Regardless when I am out there I pet her a bunch which she still seems to like.  Every time I leave her I tell her she is a good girl and that I love her.  I never know if it will be my final opportunity to do so.

We have had two days of minimal rain.  As a result I hope to be able to get something accomplished in the mucky yard this weekend.  I also may be going on a shopping trip to Sam’s with Monique and some of her family.  Evidently they have not been to Sam’s in a few years so I figured since I am a long standing member I could give them a fresh tour.  I have a number of other things on my radar that are swirling around with no particular priority order.

Last night I actually pulled into a dry driveway for the first time all week.  It isn’t just my imagination that the amount of rain and standing water we are experiencing right now are among the worst of the last two decades.  I happened to get a notification of a NextDoor thread of dozens of people in my area complaining about the same thing.  There were multiple long time residents saying this is about as bad as they can remember.

The problem lies in the half assed drainage system out where I live which basically does nothing.  All properties are supposed to have drainage ditches in front of them which are the lowest point in the yard.  If there is a house on a property there are culverts that allow the water to pass under the driveway.  This network of ditches are all supposed to drain into the canals the Army Corp of Engineers created in the 60’s to drain the area.  Well they don’t work for various reasons, mostly because they are not maintained by the county.  The end result is water piling up to insane levels.

I went out and checked on Kathy.  It looked like she ate some of the berries and tomatoes I put down.  She wasn’t better but didn’t seem worse either so I guess that’s good. When I came out to put her to bed she had already made her way up into the coop and was laying in the nesting box.  So about 6:45 I looked at the sun outside and decided I needed to take Elsa over to the park and walk.  The flooded property has meant walking her around the backyard has been a no go for a week.

It’s amazing the amount of fear she has when we first get there.  When I am trying to put her leash on in the back of the truck she shakes uncontrollably, despite my taking her to the park dozens of time. She knows it’s no big deal yet this is her reaction every single time.  The other side effect is near instantaneous pooping when we get out of the truck.  Last night she pooped, I picked it up and threw it away and then 60 seconds later she pooped again, unreal.

Despite her initial fear we had a nice walk.  I stay on the very outside boundaries which gives Elsa long stretches of limited scary things like children or loud noises.  The park was very alive last night, there was softball, soccer, and football all going on simultaneously.  I feel very fortunate to have such a nice facility so close to the house.  I caught this pretty sky driving out of there.

I still have not booked my flight to LA for the EUC tour.  With the CT scan coming up I feel I need to know those results before booking any travel plans.  Kathy’s status also plays into my trigger finger being on the slow side.

So you all recall me complaining about just how saturated the property is after getting slammed with torrential rain repeatedly over the last week or so.  With that in mind you can imagine the joy that filled my heart when I pulled in the driveway and saw that another massive rain event went through during the afternoon, dumping even more water.  It feels like this is about as bad as it can get.  We would likely need a solid week of little to no precipitation in order for the standing water to subside.

This coinciding with Kathy’s health demise has made it equally frustrating.  I moved one of the shelters I built to a high spot in the chicken yard so she didn’t have to be in the coop all day.  I was surprised when I got home to see she actually had the energy to make her way back up into the coop and into the nesting box on the floor.  I feel so badly for her.  I brought out some small cherry tomatoes along with the blueberries last night.  She ate a small amount but nothing substantial.

Last night I edited a video that I actually shot Monday night during the Eagles game.  The video, which I shot entirely from my couch, talks about the latest wheel purchase I made as well as the wheel sales I am doing as a result.  I’m selling three wheels, one of which I dropped off already to get shipped out to Damon in Texas.  If I can sell the other two for the numbers I am thinking it will help greatly in offsetting the huge chunk of money I have spent on PEVs the last few months.

Last night I also shot a brief 13 second YouTube Short.  Shorts have sort of become the new Vine for me, a platform I was very much into in 2013.  It’s all brief quick hitting videos, meant to capture attention.  For some reason my brain will lock into random visuals, moments or sounds that sometimes work out perfectly for this sort of format.  I think last night’s was one of the best.  In less than 12 hours it has 11,000 plus views.

Despite the property already being inundated Mother Nature once again let loose with her fury last night, dumping another huge amount of rain in a short period of time.  The degree of frustration I feel when I walk out into the lake which was once my back yard is immense.  Once the rain stopped I was able to go out and check on Kathy.  Evidently she did not have the energy to get up into the coop for shelter.  Instead I found her standing in the run, soaked.  I felt terrible.  I put her in the coop where she immediately went and laid down in her nesting box that I filled with fresh shavings.  She is getting very weak and feels incredibly light compared to how she used to be.  I keep trying to pamper her any way I can, surrounding her with treats she has always loved.  Unfortunately her interest or ability to eat them is severely limited.

Last night when I came back to shower during halftime of the Eagles game I found Elsa had dug herself into the pillow area of my bed.  At one point of her life she would have been scolded harshly and chased away.  I didn’t care and left her there, looking as cute as you can imagine.  She is back to flying solo as Don picked up Lucky yesterday.

Speaking of the Eagles game, they put on a hell of a performance last night.  Unlike week 1 where it was all offense and no defense, the Eagles held the Vikings in check, winning convincingly 24-7.  The team performance was a double positive for me as I have three Eagles on my fantasy roster.  Jalen Hurts pretty much single-handedly won my fantasy game for me, which I was trailing badly in at the start of the night.  It was a great win and hopefully is indicative of good things for the Birds this year.

So I got the results of my follow up blood test.  There was no mention of the PSA test this time, which I was glad based on the false alarm the prior results seemed to indicate.  However the CEA test clicked up 3 tenths from 3.5 to 3.8, not what I was looking for.  The fact that it went up made me agreeable to the proposed next course of action, having a chest and abdomen CT done in 10 days.  In the remote chance that there is something going on, I would be stupid to not have these relatively simple tests run to rule out anything nefarious going on.  I still feel confident I am fine and I am moving forward as if that is the case.

Friday night I was thinking about doing my bike ride but the skies were menacing.  It was good as it started raining shortly afterward.  I also figured since Lucky was there it would be best if I hung around.  So instead I put on my boots and weeded the ridiculously wet yard.  It was miserable as you could imagine.  I am counting down the weeks until wet season officially ends.

So Kathy had a bit of a plateau.  She still is sleeping in a nesting box on the floor and not eating much.  For whatever reason she can’t hardly get the blueberries down, even after I cut them into quarters inside before bringing them out. I bought watermelon at the store which she still is able to eat.  So even though she is weak and not eating much her energy level seemed to take a little bit of an uptick.  However much like I have heard about humans, I have seen in my chickens brief bounces up on the way down.  This week will likely be the turning point one way or the other.

Saturday morning before I ran errands I took Elsa and Lucky to the park to walk around.  Don takes Lucky on walks every day so he is used to it.  I wish I could get Elsa out walking every day.  Having her walk next to Lucky made it even more apparent how I need to keep working to get extra chub off of Elsa.  Her days of nothing but sleep have packed on the pounds, despite my efforts to reduce her calorie intake.

I did not take the dogs with me to run errands which probably confused Elsa.  Lucky gets car sick so I did not want to push my luck.  One of my stops was Home Depot, a place I used to frequent almost weekly, nowadays if I get there once every other month I’m lucky.  I grabbed some bags of sand to pile on top of the really wet spots in the chicken run as well as some garden soil.  I intend to reboot using the garden as it is intended.  I got a few lettuce plants to fuel the renewed inclusion of salad with my dinners.

Later Saturday afternoon I picked up Monique, she asked if I wanted to go to the psychic fair with her, something I did once before.  I said sure why not?  While we were there we saw her sister Margaret and her mom who had gone right before us.  Monique went in first, I spent some time talking to her sister and mom. Margaret is Leilani’s mom who was along and cute as always.

So the reading this time was with someone different, her name was Andrea.  Within seconds I picked up on her high energy and good vibes, the type of person I normally enjoy hanging around.  I did not ask for anything specific when I sat down.  She told me she felt like my grandfather and mom were there.  She said she felt like I was like my grandfather in many ways, which I am to some degree.  When she talked about my mom some of the stuff was very similar to what the last median said which was bizarre, referring to her inability to speak at the end which was true as she never regained consciousness after the heart attack.

Monique said I could ask for a “scan” where the median tells you what they sense about your wellness.  I was interested in this especially considering the recent blood test results, which I still am very skeptical of.   When Andrea did this she homed in on my heart but not a physical ailment but an emotional one.  She said she could feel I was carrying a lot of sadness and weight.  She said I still need to release these feelings.  She told me an interesting story that had to do with a simple mantra that she has seen time and again provide surprising positive results.  The mantra only consists of four lines:

I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you

So when you see this your reflex reaction would make it seem like you are apologizing and I guess in a way you are but not specifically.  Andrea said putting this mantra out there, saying it and believing it, has a way of closing whatever emotional wounds you may still be feeling.  The 20 minutes I had with Andrea went quickly, she continued talking to me a good 10 minutes past the timer.  I like her.

After the session Monique and I stopped at Dunkin Donuts to grab coffee for ourselves as well as Margaret and their mom.  We took it back to their house and enjoyed it there while Leilani entertained us.  I 3D printed an owl bank for her which she liked. I felt useful as Margaret asked me if I could put together a potty training stand that arrived while I was there. I have finally reached a point where Leilani isn’t scared of me, she even gave me a high five when I left which made me smile.  She is such a cute little girl.

A good portion of my day on Sunday was spent traveling and filming spots for Xnito, the company that had me promote their helmet a couple months ago.  I did a mix of video, pictures, and drone footage for them.  It is supposed to be used in an upcoming ad campaign.  They are paying me for the footage but if I break it down by the amount of hours I spent I’m not going to get rich any time soon.  My hope is it results in more opportunities down the road.

I am now actively trying to sell some of my older electric unicycles.  I made another snap buy of a new model over the weekend.  I plan to sell three of my wheels to help take a large bite out of the big pile of money that has been spent.  I talked to my brother-in-law last night who I got into EUC’s during my Thanksgiving visit.  I asked if he wanted to buy my V11 for a good number.  He has had a deposit down on a new V11 for awhile but will be lucky to see it before October.  He said he was down with buying mine as long as he could get his deposit back.  One down, two to go.