I got the word that the buyers for my house have now dropped the financing contingency meaning there should be no obstacles between now and closing on the sale in a month. That is good news indeed. I had my realtor check to see if there was any change with the house I am buying, hoping to get an earlier closing date. The best they could do was move it up one day, oh well.
Last night I spent a good chunk of time ripping apart ANOTHER wheel, the brand new V13 I am testing. It developed a weird tapping noise over the weekend and I was hoping I could find the cause by pulling the motor out. This wheel is massive and heavy, weighing in at over 110lbs. This made flipping it around for disassembly tedious and less than ideal for someone that has a big incision on his head. Taking it apart was not horrible but far from fun. Unfortunately all that work did not reveal anything obvious that could have been causing the noise. Now I wait for direction from the dealer. After the fiasco I had ripping apart the T4 a week ago, I have had my fill of EUC repairs/maintenance for awhile.
Last night was another rough one in the sleep department. The incision is just in a really bad place when it comes to sleeping. I fall asleep but if I turn in a way that applies pressure to the incision it causes enough pain to wake me up. The pain is less each day so I am hoping by the end of the weekend I can sleep normally once again.
This weekend I may start going through more stuff in the out buildings, resuming the parade to the curb to get rid of whatever I don’t want. It feels strange that I will probably only have to mow the grass at the house maybe once more before I am out of there, very, very strange.
Lately I have noticed a tad more aggression in my everyday existence, especially in driving. I seem to have very little patience on the road which has not been the norm the last 10 years or so. Since getting Tesla’s I used to be content to turn on Autopilot and stay in one lane, allowing the car to maintain the lane, speed and distance. Now I am feeling quickly frustrated if I am behind a vehicle that is going the speed limit or only barely above it. I instantly am looking for pathways around them. Now I am not doing stupid aggressive behavior like tailgating or cutting vehicles off with a foot to spare but for me, there is a definite change. To break down exactly why that is would probably take more time than I am willing to commit here.
Last night I shot a quick update video outlining how my path has progressed since I shot a video on New Years Day announcing that I was selling my house. It would be very difficult to document all of the twists and turns that have taken place since then but the 10,000 foot version is, a lot of shit has gotten done. With as fast as time flies nowadays I will be moving into my new place before you know it. Speaking of moving I got my first quote from a moving company and it was just to move all of the significant furniture. It was not cheap but I may decide to go that route while I can focus on moving smaller things and boxes myself. I have a bit of time before I have to commit.
It seems like my gluttony has been paying off. Last night the scale read 179lbs and change which is right around where I would like to be. Now I need to taper back the eating to a level where I can hold this body weight. It will be a bit of a trial and error thing requiring regular visits to the scale.
Yesterday I had yet another skin cancer surgery, this time removing a basal cell spot behind the right ear. I have had so many skin surgeries it’s old hat. I now have a long stitch line behind the ear, much longer than the spot of cancer, which is normal. That area of your head does not have a lot of loose skin so it had to be pulled pretty tight. Once the numbing injections wore off it started stinging. I took Tylenol during the night to take the edge off the pain.
Because of the location it made sleeping challenging as I sleep on my back. Despite taking two Unisom tablets I had a very restless night of sleep as any pressure on the incision area was painful. Today I have the bandages off and am just tasked with keeping the stitches well lubricated with Neosporin, allowing the rest of the world to see my Frankenstein-like stitches.
Today I again participated in sand volleyball after work marking the 3rd week in a row I have played, which is promising. There were not many people so we played triples versus four and then 3 on 3 later. I played with two new people who unlike a bunch of people that play, had solid volleyball fundamental skills. All night we were pretty consistent, winning 5 of the 7 games we played. What I was excited about was I had my first clean hits since I started playing. I was able to approach, jump and strike the ball cleanly for a point two or three times. In addition I had several good hustle plays where I saved balls with diving stabs. I also continued my serving hot streak, not hitting a ball out or into the net for the third week in a row.
It was very humid out so I was pretty tired after 7 games of triples. The other two weeks we had four or five on a side. Still, my body feels ok and I am definitely feeling better on the court. My passing and setting is much more consistent than it was week one. I am cautiously optimistic that I may be able to resume playing volleyball on a regular basis.
Tomorrow I go in for yet another skin cancer surgery. I am getting a little suspicious however about the care plan I have been getting. For some reason my doctor seems to feel that every spot of basal cell I have requires expensive MOHS surgery to address instead of trying to freeze or burn spots off instead. After this round of cut and stitch I may go somewhere else to get a second opinion.
The surgery will likely curtail my ability to play pickleball this week which is annoying.
I dug into my T4 yesterday to figure out why the suspension was sticking after I reassembled it. Luckily before I did I thought about one portion of the repair video I watched where they mentioned a detail that I did not really pay attention to. When I checked that detail I immediately found the problem. I was fortunate that to correct it I only had to take the pedals off so it was fixed in less than 15 minutes. After re pressurizing the shock a quick road test verified I once again had working suspension.
Late morning I headed out to do a range test on the V13. As usual I headed towards Ave Maria. What was not usual was a tapping sound I started to hear on the ride back. There have been several reports of this wheel having issues with the motor bolts coming loose and eventually shearing so that immediately went through my head. I kept my speed down the ride back, hoping nothing catastrophic happened along the way. Now the wheel is in the pits until I get direction from the dealer as far as what they want me to do. I already investigated what is involved in pulling the motor from this wheel, I could do it if need be.
The rest of my day was uneventful as I binged a few more Jack Ryan episodes. I now finished season two and have moved on to season 3. I spent some time as well thinking about the reality shift that is coming my way. In three weeks I’ll be closing on my new house and a little more than a month from now I will be closing on the sale of mine. It seems a bit surreal. I already have a lot of stuff packed from the painting project but I have not decided when I want to start packing what remains, or how I want to tackle the move in general logistically. I do need to get a quote from a moving company to see how painful that option might be.
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.
Late in the day yesterday I received the building inspection report on my home that was performed earlier in the week. It was EXTREMELY detailed with more than 70 pages in the report. In got into the minutia, if an outlet felt a little loose it was noted, if there was a a rusty bolt it was noted, it was nuts. No wonder the guy was there so long. Of course the two bigger issues of possible minor termite activity and a heat stressed wire to the hot water heater was also noted. Along with the report was the buyers request to get a credit for these potential remediations. We did the same thing on the house I am buying.
When I saw the amount they were asking as a credit it was pretty minor, less than a half a percent of the overall price of the home. I talked to my realtor on the phone to see if we had any official back up offers that could give me leverage, we did not. So I told her I would just agree to the credit instead of countering back to save $1000 or so which seemed petty to me. This absolves me from having to worry about anything that was noted, it’s their choice what do at this point. I like that.
Last night I shot two videos, one reviewing a stick vacuum that was sent to me for free and another on a new accessory for my Sherman S. Doing two videos on a Thursday night made for a late evening.
This morning I had two people show up shortly after 8AM at the house. One was an appraiser for the buyer’s mortgage company and the other was someone from my pest control company. When I first heard about the minor termite evidence my knee jerk reaction was to call them. Now that I agreed to the credit it’s no longer my problem but I still had them take a look. He agreed it was very minor. He told me that drywood termites take years to cause substantial damage, it’s the subterranean variety that are very destructive. I got the quote for treatment but like I said, it’s not really my problem now although I will pass along the info if they want it.
I have a three day weekend ahead of me. It’s a little bizarre how I find myself already sort of detaching from the house. The importance of doing what I have always done to maintain the property is fading away as it soon will not be my property any longer. It’s a strange feeling. I still will find plenty of things to keep me busy. I have been waiting for the final contingency on the sale to be met before I go full speed ahead with packing anything further. Life sure has felt weird in 2023.
Yesterday I went home at noon because I had a home inspection scheduled for the buyer. I was told by my realtor it should take a couple hours so I planned for that mentally. I grabbed Elsa and first took her over to the park to get a walk in, a good use of time. However after that was complete I figured I would just hang in my truck until the inspector was done whom I was monitoring via my Ring cameras. I waited and waited, dozing off in my truck several times. When 4 o’clock hit I drove down to DD for coffee and texted my realtor letting her know he was still there.
She reached out to the buyers realtor who was also at the house. She told me he was almost done but I could go back to the house at this point. She did mention that the inspector saw evidence of termite damage in the attic which sent a wave of panic through me. She described it as “minor” but any time the word termite is in a sentence it’s a bad thing. I also told her I have had an annual subterranean termite treatment done since the house was built. I was now anxious to get home to talk to this inspector before he left.
When I pulled in the driveway the guy was running the sprinkler system through tests. I asked him about what he saw in the attic. He said there was very minor signs of termite activity on one truss. He didn’t see any evidence it was still active and the damage wasn’t anything that compromised the truss integrity but still should be spot treated. I mentioned how I have had the house treated for termite prevention but he said this would be from dry wood termites which fly and don’t enter from the ground level. He again said the damage was minimal but he just had to include it on his report.
The only other thing of note he mentioned was he saw evidence of heat distress on one wire going to the circuit breaker box. He said it was the line going to the hot water heater. This was a head scratcher but later I theorized at some point in time high current was inadvertently pumped through the circuit by either when a heating element in an old water heater failed or when I directly wired my generator to the breaker box after hurricane Wilma. I am relatively sure it’s fine, but again he had to report it. Otherwise he said the house seems pretty great which I was happy to hear.
I made last minute plans to go down and ride bike with Monique. We had done this a couple of times before and it sounded like a good mental break for me from all of the house sale things that have been spinning around. We actually headed out on the bikes with Susi and her boyfriend as well but they soon split off on their own route. It was good to catch up with Monique. It was the first time we had a chance to talk one on one since before the holidays. I got to hang with little Leilani for a bit as well which is always valuable time to me.
So the past couple days I have had friends of mine turn me onto something I never really did before, personality tests. I have always found the Zodiac signs interesting and more recently another friend told me about the Chinese Zodiac which not only is based on your birth month but also the year. The Fire Goat sign I fall under seems like a pretty accurate match for many of my traits. However a personality test doesn’t care when you are born, instead you answer a number of questions honestly on a scale system where you either agree or disagree to varying degrees to the question being asked. I am always interested in collecting data so I took both of these tests. One is here and the other is here.
With the 16 Personalities site I was identified as a ISFJA Defender on Ennegram I am a type 2, a Giver. When I read the breakdown of both tests they both more or less accurately described me with detail that I found both interesting and somewhat disturbing. In a nutshell at my core I feel like the way to get people to like/love me is to give of myself, sometimes to my detriment. I am so focused on doing for others yet I am normally uncomfortable receiving similar generosity. There are pages of break down about my traits both good and bad, and again they seemed pretty spot on.
One thing I found interesting was how these traits can mutate based on if an individual is “healthy”, “average”, or “unhealthy” in terms of their emotional wellness. I honestly can think of examples of me exhibiting all of the traits mentioned at one point or another. It also mentioned how this type of personality has a very strong desire to have a partner to share life with which is something I have expressed repeatedly. This hard wired desire is in constant conflict with my efforts to become a person that can be happy single, indefinitely. It’s a real tug of war mentally.
I also looked at how certain combinations of personalities match up which again is very interesting. I would be well served that before I embark on a perspective relationship with anyone I should have them take these tests to save both of us headaches down the road. There are certain combos that just will not work. These tests have helped to open my eyes even further to why I do what I do in certain situations, to my detriment unfortunately at times. I am hoping this awareness helps me in the future take a more balanced and healthy approach in a relationship.
One other thing that came up was how if a type 2 is not in a relationship they can seek getting that approval or validation in other ways. This instantly tied into my thoughts about my sharing on social media recently. I give content, I get “likes” or positive comments. It still all feeds the same beast.
With my house scenario I always imagined that I would move all or most of the equity I get out of the sale of my house and apply it to the new house, for two reasons. First I want to minimize the size of my mortgage since I am edging towards retirement. Second my thought was anything I applied towards the purchase of a new home would be exempt from capital gains taxes. Yesterday I got clarification on that from my accountant.
The maximum that can be exempt from capital gains on the sale of a home is 250K, period. When my accountant first told me that I was disappointed but then she gave me more information. She said that you can deduct the cost of any major improvements you made to the property while you owned it. So things like the pool, the roof, the windows and the solar system can all come off the top so in the end my tax exposure should not be too bad. It also means the scenarios I was thinking about where I need to apply every penny of equity to “recast” my mortgage once I am allowed to (150 days after closing), was not really valid.
Instead I will be able to set aside money for whatever improvements I want to do first without worrying about tax ramifications. I was thinking I should put all the equity on the new mortgage and then pull out a HELOC to cover the renovations. This will be a much simpler course to follow.
Yesterday at lunch I played singles pickleball which I was hesitant to do. I was hesitant because I had plans to play my second week of volleyball last night. Pickleball, especially the singles variety can be pretty punishing on my knees with all the stop and go that is involved. I tried to not go all out while playing. My knees were a bit sore but not debilitating. When I got home I popped two more Advil grabbed my gear and headed to the sand courts at Fleischman Park.
I played 4’s and then 3’s for the full two hours. I would say I played slightly better than last week which is all I can hope for at this point, incremental improvement. I had more decent plays but am still struggling for consistency in areas like bumping and setting. One thing surprisingly that I am not struggling with is serving. In two weeks of play I have not hit a single serve out or into the net. I actually am now serving confidently and had multiple games where I ran 5,6,or 7 points in a row on my serve which felt good.
The other good news is despite playing pickleball at lunch my body seemed to hold up ok. Yep I am sore today but it isn’t the “shit I tore something” sort of pain. It’s the type of soreness that should become less and less prevalent if I keep committing to play weekly. As of now that is my intent. Anything that gets me out into the world and engaging with people in a positive manner is good for me.
Today I work a half day as I need to go run home and grab Elsa. They are doing a building inspection of my place, just like I had done to the place I am buying. They are usually pretty detailed in the inspection so it will be interesting to see what they come up with. When I got a quote to address the things the inspection mentioned on the house I am buying of 4K I requested the buyers offer that credit off the price of the house. They refused which meant I could back out of the sale if I wanted to. (I didn’t) I would probably have done the same thing if I was in their position.
On my way home last night I again stopped at Don’s place to hang with him and Lucky for a bit. We talked about the Super Bowl, the sale of my house, the purchase of my new house and some other topics that revolve around life in general. I also got a picture yesterday from Ali of Sadie’s remains that she arranged. In addition to ashes she had a paw and nose print done. For whatever reason I am not real keen on keeping ashes but I know it means a lot to Ali. Seeing the picture brought a tear to my eye.
Last night was busy. I had a couple orders for the 3D store to pack and ship, a rarity nowadays. I also pulled out my old home documents again trying to find certain things that are being asked for by the title company. I am certain I kept anything and everything home purchase related but I can’t find an elevation survey in my collection. You have to figure this stuff is all more than 20 years old. My realtor said it isn’t the end of the world if I can’t find it. I also had to re-sign the sales contract to include a clause where I am taking my nifty Samsung washer/dryer with me and placing the units from the house I am buying in their place.
By the time I was done with everything it was almost 8:30 and I was hungry. I threw another Trader Joe’s pasta dish in the microwave and ate the entire bag for dinner, again. It seems pigging out is paying dividends. I was just under 177lbs last night on the scale.
Today is Valentine’s Day, yay. It’s been two full years since I have celebrated the day in a conventional manner. Hmm now that I think about it, it really has been three years when I recall the sequence of events from Valentine’s Day 2020. Enjoy your day with your special someone.
As I mentioned Friday I had 3 offers on the sale of my house. During the day the potential buyers submitted their “highest/best” offers as requested. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw them. Two of them were 5K OVER my listing price. After comparing the two I signed off on one of them which has a mortgage rate tie in that is likely to be satisfied, so bam, my house was tentatively sold after being on the market for something like 4 or 5 days. The one thing I did request in my counter was changing their proposed settle date two weeks later. By doing this is it should allow me a 10 day period after closing on my new place to make the magic happen, moving my life 22 miles closer to my office. I was happy about the sale of course but not ecstatic, something I will talk about more later.
I got requests for more showings on Friday for Saturday. I asked my realtor if I should accept them. She said it cant hurt as they could potentially wind up being back up offers. I shrugged my shoulders and hit the ACCEPT button on both, one was Saturday morning and the other Saturday afternoon. In between the showings I took my Sherman S out for a long ride from the house to North Collier Park and back. I have not done that route in a couple years at least. The primary intent was to gauge the comfort of the new pedals I installed on the Sherman last weekend. During the ride I talked about the house transaction and a number of other things.
On Saturday night I started watching Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. I have had a number of people recommend the series to me since it launched and I just never got around to it. I really like it so far, it almost reminds me of 24 in some ways or Homeland.
My Sunday was super, super lazy. It may have been the laziest day I have allowed myself to have in many, many months. I binge watched something like 5 or 6 Jack Ryan episodes. Since I have now become a short timer at my house it has shifted my perspective. For the last 21 years I had a revolving list of things that could/should be done at the house because I was going to be living there for a long, long time. Now that that time is finite, the list of must do’s sooner or later has dissolved for the most part. Part of this has also been due to a marked change in me where I sort of just don’t give a damn about a lot of things that I once did.
In some ways it ties in with my embrace of change in the last year. Things that once were a substantive part of my reality either are or will be gone. To make that mental shift has required me to deaden certain parts of my reality. The end result of this has been my saying in a lot more situations, “I don’t give a f…” In some ways it is freeing and in other regards it’s sort of sad, if I’m being honest.
Ali, Shugs, and Ferdie showed up for our small and cozy Super Bowl celebration. It was the first time they have seen the painted and depersonalized version of the house. The visual impact on both of them was significant Ali went out of her way to make my mom’s chocolate cake, complete with EAGLES written on the top of it. It had been probably 10 years since I had her version of the cake and she again did a great job with it. It was so good I got a second piece. My contribution to the “party” was making two Costco pizzas and providing chips, salsa, pretzels and alcohol. I drank maybe four or five beers along with some wine that was shared with both of them.
The game was exciting and close. The Eagles defense really had no answers though for the Chiefs who did not punt a single time in the second half. They couldn’t even register a sack on Mahomes, despite being the team with the most sacks in the league this year. The way the game ended was pretty disappointing where a penalty was called that allowed the Chiefs to run the clock down to basically zero before kicking the game winning field goal. Technically it was defensive holding but there are far more egregious violations where the flag would stay in the ref’s pocket. It changed the potential outcome of the game. You never want a ref’s call to do that, especially in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.
Of course I was disappointed in the result but I was not devastated or distraught like I would have been in prior years. I think the lack of having F’s to give was in play here as well. It was a great season and I think the team has a bright future, I’m good with that.
I thanked Ali and Shugs for making the long drive to hang with me for the game. It will likely be the last time the house will be used for entertainment. There are a lot of lasts coming up, along with a lot of firsts. I’ll try to focus more on the latter.
Last night I spent a good chunk of time ripping apart ANOTHER wheel, the brand new V13 I am testing. It developed a weird tapping noise over the weekend and I was hoping I could find the cause by pulling the motor out. This wheel is massive and heavy, weighing in at over 110lbs. This made flipping it around for disassembly tedious and less than ideal for someone that has a big incision on his head. Taking it apart was not horrible but far from fun. Unfortunately all that work did not reveal anything obvious that could have been causing the noise. Now I wait for direction from the dealer. After the fiasco I had ripping apart the T4 a week ago, I have had my fill of EUC repairs/maintenance for awhile.
