Fast, Feeling, Frustrating
Friday after work I decided to go out and weed the property before doing the pizza thing. It was a an odd feeling as I walked around doing one of the many tasks that I don’t enjoy, I won’t be doing it for much longer. In a little more than a month all of these self imposed chains of must do’s are going to be cut free and it’s going to feel weird. Now of course there will be lots to keep my focus moving into a new house. There will surely be a long list of things that I at least initially am going to want to do but my goal is my new normal is a much less task focused existence with more focus on enjoying life more.
On Saturday morning I changed the oil in the tractor. The tractor is actually part of the sale so you may wonder why I did it. The simple answer is, it was time to do so. It’s one less thing the new owners will need to handle. I anticipate some sort of interaction with the owners where I give them the lay of the land as far as how everything around here functions. There is a lot that would be helpful to know.
I also received a new test wheel on Saturday, the Inmotion V13. This wheel is huge, fast and expensive, checking in at around $4500. A couple years ago I used to get new wheels sent to me to evaluate but it had not happened in awhile, I was glad to get included this time around. In the morning I got motivated to do something funny, jump my EUCs. For around a year I have had a ramp in a box that I ordered with the intent of doing just that. I never did, until yesterday.
Later on in the day I took the V13 on a ride to the DD that is 10 miles away. I was blown away by just how easy it was to go fast on this wheel. At one point I was cruising at 40MPH without even realizing it. I think this may be the first wheel that I could legit hit 50MPH on.
If my Saturday was not already full enough I went to dinner at the new South Street Bar that opened recently. It’s about 9 miles from my house. The place was stupid full because the Ben Allen band was performing there later. They wanted a $20 cover charge just to walk in the door which I was not going to do. Luckily I spotted an empty seat at an outdoor facing bar there so I snagged it. I slammed a couple beers quickly and had a veggie enchilada which was ok. The bar had a powerful air curtain above it which kept what felt like tropical force winds in my face the entire time which was not all that enjoyable.
When I got home I had one more thing planned, a live stream to talk about the V13. The stream did not start until 9PM and I didn’t shut it off till 11:30 or so. The first 20 minutes were plagued by mic problems that I finally got figured out.
On Sunday I went to an afternoon matinee to see Avatar 2 with Monique. The first Avatar was mind blowing, I clearly recall leaving the theater amazed at the time. Avatar 2 took so long to come out I really had no major excitement about it. I recall seeing the previews and shoulder shrugging a bit. We saw the film in 3D, something else I had not experienced in a very long time. It enhances the film but I could have been fine without it. We saw the movie at the Naples 20 theater, a place I pretty much abandoned 10 years ago. Since then it has been totally renovated and is nicer than I recalled.
My experience started with frustration over the 25 minutes of commercials and previews that were shown after the posted 11:55 start time. It was ridiculous. The movie was very long with a run time of well over 3 hours. But you know what? It was worth it. The movie was great. It managed to capture a lot of the magic from the first film. The visuals were nothing short of amazing and the story was deep and touching. Both Monique and I really enjoyed it. It gets an A. I’m glad I got to see it in the theaters before it went away.
When I got home I became motivated to complete a motor swap on my Begode T4. I have had the parts to do it for a couple months but I have been putting it off. I knew that my life was only going to get more instead of less busy over the next couple months so I talked myself into tackling the project now. As is often the case with these sort of tasks, it turned out to take way more time than expected with several annoying roadblocks along the way. The cherry on top is once it was all back together and I took a test ride I realized the suspension was seized. So I now need to tear it back down to see why this is. I also plan to do a range test on the V13 today so it will be another full plate. It’s ok, right now I will take as many things to keep my mind as occupied as possible. It plays tricks on me otherwise.