Budding, New Rubber, Water Remediation, 6-0, No fooling

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.