Having a staff, Blown up, Not as planned
Friday night instead of riding I got the weeding done because I had a busy day planned for myself Saturday. This was the last time I would be able to weed or ride with any sort of daylight on a Friday evening since daylight savings kicked in this weekend. Saturday morning the kid I contacted to do the pressure washing showed up right on time at 9AM. From my electronic communications with him prior he seemed very polite and courteous. The in person interaction with him was the same, Alejandro was only 23 but trying to start his own business. He showed up in his dad’s work truck who has his own AC business.
So I was having Alejandro (goes by Alex) clean my gutters and the pool area. When I first mentioned to him about cleaning my gutters I though he was just going to pressure wash them to remove the dingy color that happens from the wet Florida climate. Well he exceeded my expectations going around the perimeter of the house foot by foot with his ladder scooping the shit out of the gutters by hand and putting it into garbage bags. THEN he hit the gutters with pressure after applying a bleach/Dawn/water solution. The gutters looked basically brand new when he was done. He used similar care when cleaning the pool cage/deck. He relied a lot of the cleaning solution to get the high areas of the cage where as I rely on pressure washer wand extensions to blast the crud off which is physically grueling.
As he was working I didn’t sit on my ass with my feet propped up. No instead I was out in the yard for at least four hours myself taking down Halloween decorations, cleaning the shed, and then weed whacking/mowing the property. I was out there long enough to run my air pods dead. It was a funny feeling being out there doing yard work while my pool cage was getting cleaned, it almost felt like I had a staff. I think obtaining help for some of the more grueling tasks is money well spent at this point.
So Alex was very thorough as mentioned. A side effect was the job took longer than I was anticipating. He was there ALL DAY, not finishing up until a little after 6PM. I really appreciated him taking his time to do things well and told him as much. I also paid him $100 more than his quote as a token of my appreciation. I won’t hesitate to use him in the future.
I had originally planned to ride bike with Monique Saturday evening. I pulled my lightly used mountain bike out of the shed and inflated the tires to 35 PSI in preparation. I was back inside on the computer when I heard a loud pop that got me out of my chair in a hurry. I went out to the garage and saw the mess you see in the picture. I guess due to age the tube had developed a weak spot and somehow resulted in this. What was really crazy was about 30 seconds after this picture the tube exploded, scaring the shit out of me. I ordered replacement tubes for the front and back, I’m not looking for blowouts while riding.
So instead I met Monique to walk which we did on the Greenway. Since I got there late because of the day long pressure washing it was already dark when we started. The lights were not working on certain sections of the path so we relied on the nearly full moon. In total we walked about three and a half miles. Afterward we wanted to grab some dinner. At this point it was getting close to 9PM. The first idea we had was Panera but when we pulled up I saw they closed at 9. Monique then suggested a Japanese place that was nearby which was indeed open.
I rarely eat Japanese so it was a nice change. I had a shrimp bowl along with miso soup. We both liked the meal. When I took Monique back home, despite it getting late I stopped inside to say hi to Leilani. She was the normal happy bundle of energy which I find endearing. I didn’t head out for home until after 10:30. I got home just in time to see the Phillies get eliminated from the World Series. Despite the losing effort, overall the Phillies had an amazing season considering they fired their manager after the first month.
Sunday morning I needed to get the grocery shopping done since it was pushed out of it’s normal Saturday time slot. When I got home I mentally committed to working on the KingSong S22. I had two significant projects on it I wanted to accomplish at the same time. I was replacing the knobby tire with a road tire which is supposedly a better fit for those that do primarily hard surface riding as I do. The other project was replacing the slider mechanism that allows the suspension to function. The stock design basically is shitty, requiring tons of upkeep. I had a roller bearing set sent to me from a dealer in Bulgaria to install which supposedly provides much better performance.
I have done a number of tire replacements on PEVs over the roughly six years of owning them. For whatever reason the tire swap on this wheel was far more difficult than most. I struggled mightily to get the old tire off and even more to get the new Michelin street tire on. It was ridiculous. I was bleeding from no less than three spots on my hands from all of the prying, pushing and bending on the tire/rim. So finally after close to an hour I had the new tire on. I hooked up my electric pump to pressurize the tube and felt my frustration level spike through the ceiling when it would not inflate beyond 5PSI. I immediately knew I had torn the tube while installing the tire, fantastic…
I took a 20 minute break. I was really pissed I damaged the tube. Unfortunately there was no quick providers of replacement tubes. Amazon did not have the size/style needed so I wound up ordering it from an EUC dealer in Canada, meaning I won’t get it for at least a week, great. I decided I wanted to at least get the slider modification part of the project completed.
Luckily this project hit less roadblocks than the tire change. Unfortunately however I now have a hobby room that is in chaos and will remain that way until the replacement tubes arrive. I ordered two, just in case. It was a very frustrating afternoon but should make for an interesting video when it’s all said and done.
For the second day in a row I met up with Monique, this time to go to Home Depot. I needed something from there and she had mentioned she wanted some mulch and a couple other things. Her family doesn’t have a truck so I was happy to use the Taco as the delivery vehicle. I brought Elsa with as well.
After grabbing the items we again stopped at Panera, this time well before their closing time. We sat outside so Elsa could be out there with us. Monique really likes Elsa and Elsa has become more comfortable around Monique which is nice to see. After dinner we went back to Monique’s house and unloaded the truck. I went inside a bit to talk to her mom who then came out to say hi to Elsa. I brought Elsa out of the truck and we just sat in their front yard talking a bit, it was nice. When I got home last night I felt like the weekend had flown by in the blink of an eye but when I tallied my register of completed tasks it made it feel worthwhile.