Archives October 2022

Friday after work I got my 10 mile ride in.  It went well but this may be one of the last rides I can do after work without using lights.  Once the time change hits it is totally dark by the time I get home.

On Saturday morning after getting home from grocery shopping I had two things I decided I wanted to accomplish, rotate the tires on the Tesla and do the tree trimming that I am not paying the tree service company to do for me.  The tire rotation was no big deal, consuming a half hour maybe.  The trimming session was another story.  In total I spent six hours in the yard.  I had hoped to be done in half that time.  It was one of those situations where I would be trimming one thing and see something else to trim that I had not planned on doing and then another and another.  For example I trimmed back the areca palms around the pond.  Those things are like weeds, I bet I took 100 branches off that area alone.  I trimmed the invasive brazillian peppers along the fence line, the pygmy palms as well as the cabbage palms I don’t currently have the tree service do.  I think in the future I will be having them trim anything that takes a ladder.

I used the sawz-all and the my new Ryobi power pruner for the work.  Both of them held up well, despite my putting them through some harsh conditions.  After knocking everything down I had to pick it all up, throw in the Tacoma and dump it in the fill pit out back.  My body was totally spent by the end of it.  It left me wondering how many grind myself into the dirt yard sessions I have left in me.

The idea of preparing food sounded like far too much work so instead I drove down to Brooks Burgers and sat at the bar while I watched the Phillies game.  There was a cute female bartender that I had friendly conversation with which was unexpected.  Speaking of the Phillies, despite their amazing playoff success so far this year I have not watched a single game until the World Series.  Talk about a bandwagon fan, pretty pathetic.

I was moving pretty slow Sunday after the intense labor the day before.  Surprisingly my right hand was in the worst shape of all. Because of all of the vibration of the sawz-all I could hardly close it.  I had zero grip strength.  As the day went on it got a little better thankfully as it is my pickle ball hand! After lunch I did a quick ride on my EX20S.  During the ride I revealed I had put a deposit down on yet another wheel, the Sherman S.  This is a suspension version of what may be one of my favorite wheels of all time, the Sherman.  The deposit escalates my motivation to sell at least three of my current inventory of wheels to bring more fiscal sanity into my life.

Last night I picked up Monique.  We went to Coconut Point to walk around, eat dinner, and see Black Adam.  I have not been there for YEARS.  Coconut Point used to be the place Cindy and I would go to see movies early in our relationship, we went every week or two.  We had dinner at Olive Garden, another place I had not patronized for years.  We both liked our food and enjoyed the meal.

The movie theater was nearly empty, I guess Sunday nights are not busy.  We were literally the only customers in the lobby when we walked in 10 minutes before the movie we were seeing, Black Adam, was scheduled to start.  The movie wasn’t bad but I found myself cringing when I realized the ultimate bad guy in it was a demon-like figure.  I knew Monique was not a big fan of that sort of stuff so I felt badly for sitting her in front of it.  After the movie I apologized and told her I had no idea that the story would involve that stuff.  She was fine and said it was no big deal but I still felt like I wish I knew the plot going in.  If I did I never would have suggested she go with me.  I’d give the flick a B+.

I got home very late after driving in to Naples to drop her off and then all they way back home.  I had my dentist appointment this morning where the hygienist and I exchanged stories about the joys of being over 50, comparing ailment and injury stories.  I got out of there with no cavities which is always the report card I am hoping to hear.

For the past few weeks my Thursday evenings have included playing pickleball at the new park with some other friends from the county government.  I thought that was the plan last night until I heard one of the guys was out of town, freeing up my evening.  At first I had ideas of it being a f off evening but then the task master got in my ear. I realized if I did the weeding Thursday night I could then do my road bike session tonight.  I was combining the two things but it just gets dark too early now to do it easily.

So weeding it was.  I put in my air pods and had Elsa walking around with me for most of the work which I enjoy.  Elsa is now in love with the chicken coop.  For her entire life she was banned from the chicken area.  Now that the restriction has been lifted she LOVES to go into the coop for some reason.  The second I open the door she runs in and looks happy as can be, it’s very funny.

Speaking of sweet Elsa, she continues to enjoy plopping herself up at the head of the bed to dig in.  Cindy used to discourage this behavior but Elsa has learned that dad doesn’t care.  I wash the sheets every week anyway.  So last night I had to hit the bathroom before bed.  When I went in the bathroom Elsa was down on the floor on one of her dog beds.  When I came out, no more than 60 seconds later she had dug herself into the bed again.  I find it endearing.  She actually stayed up there with me all night.

My weekend plans are a bit fuzzy at the moment.  I have some yard clean up to do which could include trimming the trees I don’t pay the guy to do.  I have been trying to secure a guy I was talking to on Facebook to do my pressure washing of the pool deck but he appears to have ghosted me.  I have to see if I can find someone else or just bite the bullet and grind out the hated task myself once again.  I would like to get out to see Black Adam this weekend, Monique said she would be interested in tagging along.

Last night on the way home I picked up Monique once again.  She had agreed to show me how to make tortillas from scratch.  We had to make a pit stop on the way to the house to get maseca which is the corn meal base that tortillas are made from.  In the past I had asked Monique if she wanted to try driving the Tesla which she declined.  I asked her once again when we exited Walmart, she surprised me by saying she would give it a try.  She was very cautious but did a good job getting us back to the house safely.

I gave Monique a tour of the back of my property, she did not realize that I had built the fence myself.  She really likes my property and all of the open space it has.  The tortilla prep was interesting.  The most important thing was seeing what the consistency of the dough should look like and how long to have them in the pan to cook.  We wound up enjoying the meal as we finished up watching one of the Halloween baking shows that I can’t get enough of.

It’s very cute how Elsa has now warmed up to Monique.  At one point she jumped up on the sofa between us and was giving Monique kisses.  Monique loves animals like I do so it made her happy too to have Elsa accept her.  Elsa rode in the back of the Tesla when I took Monique back home after 9. It was a different and fun night.  I ordered myself a real tortilla press so I can make some respectable looking tortillas on my own in the future.

A week or so ago my brother Todd mentioned the idea of me going up to PA for Thanksgiving.  I hadn’t really thought about traveling for Thanksgiving since I am still hoping to get out to LA before the end of the year.  However as I looked at the calendar I realized that I could actually do both, more than likely.  I would once again drive my Tesla like I did last year on the trip to Texas.  What I would not do is constrain myself to as compressed of a timeline which made the driving part of the trip sort of miserable, especially going there.

After confirming with Todd that this sounded ok, I would leave early Monday morning and then arrive in PA sometime Tuesday evening.  I would have the day before and after Thanksgiving to enjoy and then push back south Saturday morning.  I only will use 4 days of vacation time for the trip (I would take the following Monday off as well) and the driving 1200 miles up and back should be at a much more relaxed pace.  With no chickens to care for any longer the only accommodations I had to make is to make sure Alison can watch Elsa and ask my neighbor to grab my mail, easy stuff. I think it will be a cool little adventure for me to look forward to.

It seems I am always fixing issues because things are always breaking or need attention otherwise.  The bathroom spare toilet paper holder in the guest bathroom has been obsolete for years.  It was designed for yesteryear before the widespread implementation of oversized rolls of toilet paper.  As a result it just sat in the corner with maybe one  roll haphazardly perched on top of it.  I had thought about the idea of designing and 3D printing some simple replacement for years as well but finally got around to doing it on Monday.  What you see here is the end result. The holder was actually supposed to be at least a third taller but the printer I was using died during the print job, yes something else to fix.  I’m still pleased with the end result.

I received a new power pruner yesterday to replace the one that broke over the weekend.  I also received a new power supply for my year old spider inflatable that went dark over the weekend.  The break/fix cycle seems never ending although I admittedly get a little hit of dopamine for each issue I resolve.

Last night I dedicated to trying to plow through some of the backlog of recorded content I had at home.  I put a nice little dent in the pile but will need an episode of extended laziness to get completely caught up.

I forgot to mention I bought a used Macbook Pro off of FB Marketplace.  You may ask why?  There was no pressing reason other than a desire to get more in tune with the Mac UI.  I do also like the integration with my other Apple devices.  It does have a weird quirk I did not notice on the listing, it has a keyboard that includes arabic symbols.

It took me all of 30 minutes before I screwed it up when I tried to change the name of the admin account.  Because I did not research ahead of time how to do it I wound up stripping the account of admin rights.  I had to do a surprisingly easy backdoor hack to get an admin account back on the machine.

Saturday morning I set my alarm so I could get to the vet for Elsa’s appointment to have the raised mole/blood blister thing looked at.  The vet wasted little time getting her in.  She said I had two options, they could use a needle to test the cells of the growth and we could act from there or just have her cut it off and have it tested.  I wanted the growth gone so I immediately chose option two.  20 minutes later Elsa was back with a shaved spot on her shoulder with a stitch or two holding things closed.  She seemed surprisingly fine which I was glad to see.

On Saturday afternoon I headed down to help Monique with trimming some trees at their place.  Her dad is getting older and since I have all of the trimming tools I was happy to help.  Compared to what I used to deal with, what they needed done was not bad.  On the way to do the work I actually met up with Cindy to give her some mail that had some importance.  If I am not mistaken I think it was the first time I had seen her face to face since January, which seems crazy.  It was a good interaction which made me happy.

The trimming work turned out to be more involved than I first imagined.  I knocked down the stuff that required my 10 foot ladder but Monique was busy too.  I gave her my power pruner and she went to town with it.  I originally thought I would be able to get all the debris to fit in one load in the truck.  In reality it took three very full loads to get it all out of there, which I dumped in my fill pit at home.  Despite it being yard work it was not that bad since the two of us were doing it together. When I was done I got to hang with Monique’s niece some more which was so much fun.  She was showing me various toys, books and puzzles.  She can say my name and seems to genuinely like me now which warms my heart.

On Saturday night I had a last minute live stream that went on for close to three hours.  There was a lot of non-EUC talk, including a lot of discussion of male/female dynamics.

My Sunday was pretty chill.  Late in the morning I picked up the third and final load of trimmings from Monique’s place.  She was nice enough to prepare a breakfast plate for me.  As I loaded the trimmings into the truck she watched Elsa for me.  Monique and her mom really love Elsa.  The more Elsa is around them the less nervous she is becoming which is sweet.

Sunday night I planned to go ride around Victoria Park to check out Halloween decorations.  When I mentioned my plans to Monique she expressed interest so she wound up coming with me.  She rode her bike while I rode the wheel.  It was cool seeing the decorations which were quite extravagant in some cases.  The other good thing was there was hardly anyone there so we didn’t have to fight through tons of pedestrians and vehicles.  We almost had the entire place to ourselves.  Monique had seen the X-mas decorations there before but never Halloween, she seemed to enjoy it.

I was off work Monday.  I felt like I had a pretty great day.  I started it with getting an actual haircut, something I had not done in almost 10 years.  Instead I have always just shaved my head or tried to do a fade cut myself, which never turns out well. I went to Sport Clips and got the MVP treatment which was nice.  After the haircut you get your hair washed, a scalp and face massage and then they hit your shoulders with a percussion massager.  The woman did a much better job than I have ever managed myself.  I think I will add professional haircuts to my new normal rotation.

I went straight from there to meet my buddy to go play some pickleball in East Naples.  We played four very competitive games that I was lucky to win.  I can tell the snowbirds are returning as each week we have been playing there are more and more people over the lunch hour.

When I got home I decided to finally do my range test on the Begode T4.  This was a range test I was nervous about as I was not quite sure how well the wheel would do taking me out to Ave Maria and back.  It turned out to not be an issue as I got back easily.  Unfortunately as I was taking the picture you see here my camera got blown over and damaged the mic cable which unknowing to me trashed the audio for the rest of the ride.

There was a hilarious moment I caught on video where this flat bed truck was driving through a flooded out pathway.  The visual was pretty amazing.  I also tried out the newest Nobleman gear that was sent to me to evaluate, a set of gloves and a vest with tons of storage and a reflective back.  I thought the gloves would be uncomfortable in the heat but they had ventilation that made them quite comfortable.  I will be using them more often.  The ride went well, wrapping up what was overall an enjoyable and satisfying three days.

Yesterday I got another call from Wyoming.  My heart fills with love whenever I see a call coming from the 307 area code.  Luckily this time it was not the grumpy paralegal I spoke to last week.  Instead it was the actual assistant district attorney named Jasmine.  Immediately I could tell I was dealing with a more sunny disposition.  Dare I say she even sounded cute.  She called to tell me that they received my bank statement and that everything was all good now.  She explained why the letter was sent and how it was not specifically targeting me, which I never thought in the first place.

I pointed out to her that contacting people so many years after a citation took place isn’t great, especially if proof of payment is required as banks only retain record for so long.  She said if proof can’t be obtained usually there will be a phone conversation to talk about it.  I thought to myself how that was exactly what I was trying to do with the other woman, which she had no interest in listening to.  But knowing that I was in the clear made proving my point less important.

Jasmine was very pleasant throughout the entire conversation which further disarmed me.  It just goes to prove that sugar is always better than shit when it comes to accomplishing your goal.  I do have another letter coming to me today which should be my final proof of payment.  This ridiculous, anger and anxiety inducing event that started way back on Christmas Eve of 2015 has finally come to a conclusion.

Yesterday I had a pickleball double header, playing both at lunch and last night.  The first time I tried doubling up sessions in one day a couple months ago I was in bad, bad shape afterward. I feel pretty unaffected today which is awesome.  I think it’s a combination of playing more and my back hurting less.  Since my chiropractor appointment the pain has definitely improved.  I try to do some of the stretches and exercises he showed me when I can, it seems to help, knock on wood. It’s a good thing because I am supposed to play today at lunch as well. I rode one of my electric unicycles to the courts last night to play, adding additional fun to the session.

Tonight I am going to skip the bike ride so I can get the weeding done.  The reason is I have an appointment at the vet for Elsa early tomorrow morning.  The other day when I was petting her I felt a small bump.  At first I thought it was a hitchhiker or burr that she picked up outside but I couldn’t pull it off with my fingers.  I then was concerned it could be a tick but it really didn’t look like one.  I soaked it with alcohol to make sure.  So I’m not sure if it is a raised mole, blood blister or something else but I would rather be safe than sorry so I want it checked out.

During the afternoon I offered to help Monique and her dad trim some of the palm trees they have behind their house.  I have all the tools to make the job go relatively quickly. After that my 3 day weekend opens up.  I of course have things to keep me going around the household for the weekend but I want to make room for fun, as always.

Last night I decided I wanted to get the mowing done to make my upcoming 3 day weekend less chore filled.  With the amount of daylight in the evenings in mid-October this is becoming less and less viable.  I wound up completing roughly the last half of the mowing via headlights and floodlights.  In addition to it being dark it was chilly.  Our first real cold front of the season has blown in which I love, however the temperatures around 60 combined with a steady wind had me quite cold, even with wearing a hoodie.  The warm shower last night was welcomed.  I dont think weeknight mowing is going be a thing for much longer.  Luckily this colder weather should also put the brakes on the growth rate of the yard. The picture is from the seat of the tractor.

As I have talked about repeatedly over the past year plus, my time being out of a relationship has given me a lot of opportunity to reflect, learn, and analyze some of my patterns, weaknesses and failures that have lead up to this point.   I have realized that in many cases my efforts to fix, please, and help were actually counter-productive in the overall scheme of things.  I think I failed repeatedly in maintaining a steady keel when others escalated arguments.  For arguments to escalate it requires two willing participants.  I should have not been willing to provide fuel for those fires.

I also have realized that there are certain personality traits in women that are absolutely a no go in terms of my ability to have a successful relationship with them.  I never really thought about these type of things in depth. It used to be, she’s attractive and seems nice, let’s roll with it without much more consideration.  There is much more I think about now as I don’t have the time or energy to invest in something that has basic incompatibility from the start.  I want to attract, not chase. The latter is a road to nowhere.

I had a fun Tuesday evening.  On my way home from work I picked up Monique.  We had plans to go play miniature golf, something she had NEVER done in her life.  I picked her up on my way home since the place we were going to play was relatively close to my house.  When we got to my place I took care of Elsa and walked the backyard a bit with Monique.  I showed her Kathy’s grave in the chicken yard.  Monique really liked Kathy and was sad when I told her she had passed.  I also showed her my garden area which has some healthy looking red and romaine lettuce in it right now.

On the way to play we decided to grab dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant that I had never eaten at before.  I didn’t know that Monique liked chinese food either.  We both got the same thing, shrimp and broccoli and enjoyed it.  This place was not designed for eat in dining.  There was literally one table with chairs in the customer area.  We saw a constant line of people walking in to pick up orders they took with them.  We both liked the food.

The mini-golf course we went to had recently opened so I didn’t really know what to expect.  The place was nearly empty with only one group of four on the course besides us.  Like I said, Monique had never played mini-golf before but I only gave her minimal instruction and let her have at it.  Her accuracy was surprising, her major issue was hitting the ball too hard at times but more often than not her shots were right on line.  As far as mini-golf courses go, the difficulty of this course was not extreme, which is good for someone new.  I had a lower score on the first 9 holes but on the second nine holes Monique actually did better than I did which was amazing, including a hole in one on the 18th hole which was a trick shot arrangement.  She really seemed to be having fun.

So as I was filling out the scorecard on some picnic benches after the game I noticed they had a corn hole set up. I asked Monique if she ever tried that before, she had not.  So we started tossing the bean bags back and forth.  They had a total of 5 bean bags so we alternated turns.  Once again, despite never doing it before Monique had some surprising success.  On one of her turns she got all five bags in the hole, something I could not replicate despite us playing for probably around a half hour.  We were the only people left on the property and wound up being there damn close to their 10PM closing time.

When I took Monique home I helped carry some stuff in.  Leilani, Monique’s adorable little niece came out.  I have been trying to slowly win her over for months, at first she was scared of me and would run away. However over time she has become less apprehensive but last night was the first time it felt like she truly trusted me.  She wanted me to play with her.  We looked at books, played with her cars, practiced counting to 10 and a bunch of other fun/silly things.  It was very cute. I felt truly grateful that she now trusted me.  I got home late and went to bed even later but woke up this morning not regretting the lack of sleep, it was a fun Tuesday evening.

Yesterday I finally got the April 2016 bank statement that clearly shows that Yellowstone Park received and cashed my $500 check.  I sent the proof of payment to the lovely woman that I interacted with last week.  I included a note of sarcasm dripping thanks with the attachment which you can see below.  I can only hope she takes a moment to reflect on how she handled our interaction and possibly be a little less rigid and more willing to listen going forward.

Hello Miss Unhelpful. Please refer to my attached bank statement from 4/16 that indicates the $500 check was cashed by Yellowstone on March 30^th 2016 as I indicated.  As I requested, can you please provide some sort of documentation that you acknowledge this fine was indeed paid and the case is now closed so I can keep it in the event it is ever needed again.  Thank you so much for your help in remediating this matter.

It’s one of those days when words aren’t necessary.

On Friday evening I again hit the road for my 10 mile bike session.  I wound up turning in very close to the best overall pace and time that I can recall since I added this to my routine back in early 2022.  With all of the negative health hurdles I have been dealing with this year it felt good to post numbers that showed all hope is not lost.  After getting back home I immediately headed outside to handle the weeding because daylight is an increasingly rare resource now.

This was my first time utilizing my new Apple Airpods.  Up until now I have been using a conventional over the ear headphones when listening to music out in the yard.  The problem with this is if I want to wear one of my wide brim hats, the headphones cause a significant issue.  The hat won’t fit over the headphones so I use the hat tether to try to cinch it down to my head.  It looks ridiculous, is uncomfortable, and doesn’t stay in place for long.

Up until now I have avoided getting air pods because in the past ear bud style headphones were painful to my ear, perhaps I have an odd shaped canal.  I hoped this was not the case with air pods.  Luckily, I felt no discomfort during the roughly hour I spent weeding the yard.  They will be a nice addition to my arsenal of tools to combat the misery of certain outdoor chores.

Saturday morning Elsa was confused why she wasn’t coming with me .  I had an appointment to get my new tires installed at Costco.  I arrived when the shop opened at 9:30, the time for my appointment.  I walked into the lobby and there was already a line of 8 people, wtf.  It turns out all of these people had no appointment and were just trying to do the first come first serve deal.  Luckily since I had an appointment I just skipped all these people and handed them my keys.

They estimated an hour and a half for the work.  I had some Costco shopping to do but it obviously would not take that long.  Instead I brought my T4 with to ride around to kill time.  It was a nice ride that reminded me of how I used to approach riding when I was early into the hobby, just explore.  I rode around for the full 90 minutes with no particular destination, it was enjoyable.

So I waited for the truck to be officially done before going in the store to shop.  It was a shit show.  When I entered they warned us that the credit cards were not working, you could only pay with cash or check.  Of course I don’t carry a checkbook so I did a quick inventory of my cash.  Luckily I was carrying more than normal so I figured I would be ok.  The lines to check out were staggering long when I went in, I dreaded checking out.  I caught a stroke of luck when leaving.  The cards started working and I somehow found a line that I was through in 10 minutes.  I never have that sort of luck typically. The new tires on the truck look really sharp, I am pleased with how it turned out.

On Saturday afternoon I spent 2-3 hours cleaning inside.  I did the bathrooms and counters but then also shampooed the rugs and steam cleaned the hard floors.  It had been too long since the floors had been cleaned thoroughly.  I was glad to get the task done, a clean house feels like a better house normally, to me.

On Sunday morning I was supposed to play pickleball with Kerri and two of her friends.  However Kerri called me early to say she had a flood in her place, something let loose overnight leaving an inch of water or more in certain areas.  I would up spending into the early afternoon trying to help her remediate with my floor drying fan and carpet cleaner which came in handy to pull water from a soaked area rug.  I got to meet her dog who was super sweet.  She reminded me of Nicki in a way.

When I got back home I wound up on a tech support call for an issue at work that popped up.  It took over an hour to get ironed out.  Of course the big event of Sunday was the Eagles/Cowboys game that went down Sunday night.  In the first half the Eagles dominated, at one point being up 20-0. However in the second half the Cowboys made adjustments and got the game tight at 20-17.  The Eagles needed to score again and eat up time.  They did both.  The had a long drive that had much more running than passing, scoring a late touchdown to seal the game, upping their record to a league best 6-0.  I’m not used to such success from the Eagles early in the season since the prime Donovan McNabb/Andy Reid years.  I’ll take it, happily.

You know back in 1650 the phrase “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame one me” was coined.  Despite the phrase being well over 300 years old it is no less valid now than it was then.  No one wants to be a fool.