After nearly a month with no sales all of a sudden a couple sales came through on my 3D store that once again cleared out my inventory. Now it’s not very hard to do that since I typically carry less than 5 stands on hand nowadays but regardless, it’s time to get back to printing. I packed and shipped the orders last night as I always try to expedite the process whenever possible.
My newest paddle purchase arrived the other day, the Joola Perseus 3. This paddle has borderline illegal performance and joins an already ridiculously large collection of paddles in my bag. Do I need to stop buying paddles? Yes. Will I? Ummmmm….
When Enrique was over he made a comment about the neighborhood I live in saying it was so nice it reminded him of a commercial. I thanked him for the compliment but as I was walking Elsa last night after work I thought about it as I walked the street. It really is that nice. All of the houses are different yet well maintained. The diverse lots are all landscaped uniquely unlike the cookie cutter and compressed layout many modern developments utilize for maximum density. The area is safe and quiet.
I remember growing up seeing commercials on TV for household products and they normally took place in these angelic looking homes and neighborhoods. That is basically where I am now. The only major component of those pie in the sky TV commercial scenarios I am missing is the happy, beautiful and loving housewife that just loved the shit out of doing laundry with Tide.
Last night I hit the wall, presumably from a very busy weekend that included less than ideal amounts of sleep. I was watching the 5 part OJ documentary on Netflix and dozed off on the sofa for nearly an hour and a half. By the time I woke up it was 9:45. I hit the shower and dove into bed. I slept pretty well considering I did so without Unisom. I have been experimenting with trying to sleep without an assist from a sleep aid a few times in the last couple weeks. It seems to be more possible than it was before.
For a good portion of last year I had such turmoil in my relationships that if I woke up in the middle of the night to hit the bathroom or for any other reason my brain would not be able to quiet back down and instead would dwell mostly on that turmoil. Now that I have flushed that situation out of my life permanently it seems that I am mostly able to sleep normally without a Unisom kicker.
My lower body has been feeling beat up from the weekend as well. We rode probably 50-60 miles over those two days including a physically demanding full swamp loop. If I don’t feel significantly better I may skip volleyball this week to allow my body to heal up a little before I jump back into my what has become normal 7 day a week gym/sport schedule.
Friday I finally decided to partake in the happy hour at Bruninas. You may recall that weeks ago Meghan the bartender told me there was a woman that would come during this time period that she thought would be good for me to meet. Since then this woman has stopped coming so that was not a factor. I did have fun however just sitting there drinking Miller Lite for a couple hours. A 63 year old woman sat next to me and was talking to me. At some point she asked how old I was. When I told her my age she was in disbelief. She said I need to find myself a woman in her 30’s, I laughed and thanked her.
When I got home I got a hankering to live stream. I did the entire hour and 45 minutes on the lanai, just talking about both PEV and non-PEV topics.
Saturday morning I wanted to get tasks out of the way as George, Enrique and Adrian were coming to my house to meet up to ride. Enrique and George live on the east coast, Adrian lives up in the Fort Myers area. Adrian and I have been FB friends for awhile but I never met him in person. Enrique I have known for a few years as he came over to ride with me once before. I met George when I went to the east coast with Dawn.
Our plan was to go ride the swamp, even though I was just there the week before with the ET Max. We drove our vehicles out to the park near my old house and launched from there. I let Enrique borrow my Sherman S since it has suspension. He has an original Sherman that has no suspension. The terrain there would have punished him.
It didn’t take long until we sighted our first gator. We saw one just after leaving the boardwalk entrance. I was riding my Veteran Patton which is my favorite wheel for the swamp although it has one weakness. The street tire on the wheel is great on hard surfaces which I ride almost exclusively however in mud/sand conditions it quickly gets slippery. I came off the wheel a couple times. One of them resulted in my getting a small cut on the inside of my ankle as well as wrenching my right knee a bit.
We saw a BUNCH of gators. I did not do an official count but I am sure we saw at least 50 including this beast in the picture. The water hides his body but if you look closely you can see just how massive this guy is. We wound up riding the entire loop and doing so at probably the fastest pace ever. There were fewer mucky spots than when Wayne, Dawn and I did the ride in March. The guys all seemed to enjoy the ride.
After we left the swamp Enrique wanted us to ride to the original Dunkin Donuts that I used to go to. This was his one week belated birthday ride so I couldn’t say no. The 9 mile ride there was fast as we had a strong tailwind pushing us. I crossed 40MPH a few times. However we paid for it on the way back. The tailwind became an absolutely oppressive headwind, making it difficult to keep the wheel in the bike lane at times as it smashed relentlessly into us at an angle. That part of the ride was definitely unfun.
After the ride Adrian had to head home but George and Enrique followed me back to my place. The plan was for them to charge their wheels and then the three of us would ride around Naples later. We wound up hanging at my place for awhile before we headed out, not leaving my place until 8:30 or so.
I took Enrique and George to the Cabana where I hang out pretty regularly. We all drank a beer and then the plan was to grab dinner. Unfortunately all of the restaurants in the area close their kitchens around 9:30 so we couldn’t eat there. Instead we rode around some more before heading home where I just made us a frozen pizza instead which they were fine with.
Originally their plan was to drive back to the east coast Saturday night but by the time we ate it was getting very late. I told them I didn’t care if they stayed the night but they would have to fight over sleeping arrangements since I only have one queen size bed. George surprisingly offered to sleep on the sofa on the lanai. He said he would actually prefer sleeping out there as I also have an indoor sofa. He said he didn’t need a blanket or conventional pillow either. I brought out an oversized beach blanket just in case. It was late by the time we went to sleep, approaching 2 AM.
Sunday I woke up around 7:30. Enrique was still asleep but George had been up for awhile. We drank coffee and chatted for awhile. Once Enrique woke up we decided to do one more group ride over to the nearby DD to grab breakfast. Once we returned they packed up their stuff to head East. Both of them thanked me for the rides and hospitality. They both seemed to really enjoy themselves which I was happy for. It was a pretty packed 24 hours.
During the afternoon I was doing some video editing before I headed out to go pick up Elsa who spent a long weekend with Ali and Shuggs. As usual she was a perfect angel for them and they were sad to see her go. I don’t think Elsa was thrilled to leave either.
When I got back I finished up the editing. In total I posted three videos this weekend. I managed to stay awake long enough to catch the finale of Shogun but felt exhausted while doing so. I am hoping to rebound this week. My knees took a beating from the riding, replacing the abuse they take during pickleball. I am hoping to get on a more solid platform physically in the upcoming weeks. It would be nice to not feel like I am being held together with rubber bands and scotch tape.
Last night I played volleyball. Luckily it was a better experience than last week. I played ok. I didn’t miss a single serve, I passed accurately more often than not and made some nice saves on defense. However I am still struggling with hitting. My knees have been especially creaky the last month or so and it is making it tough for me to jump with any sort of effectiveness. Hitting the ball with authority has always been the most satisfying part of volleyball for me. Not being able to do it consistently frustrates me. Of course the fact that I am out there still swinging away at 56 should be enough but I always am pushing to keep my expectations ahead/above of me. It can be a good and bad thing at the same time.
On Saturday I have two and possibly three of the guys I rode with on the east coast coming over to ride with me. We are going to do the swamp ride and then ride around Naples. I have a feeling it could be a long evening as I am thinking alcohol may be consumed as well.
Last night was my first one at home without Elsa. I definitely felt her absence. Sure I am used to not seeing her when I go away on a trip but to have it just be a normal Thursday night and not have her around impacted me more than I anticipated. The house felt very empty. You always hear that sometimes you don’t appreciate presence until it is absent. That was definitely how I was feeling.
Of course I have had scenarios where the absence of someone is more appreciated than their presence too. You know, those situations where you thank the powers that be for allowing you to finally rid yourself of a presence that caused you to be absent in more ways than one. I still beat myself up on a regular basis for not removing my presence from the scenarios I encountered last year, time and again.
Last year I was referring to a new profile picture I posted that was a photoshop of me ascending a treacherous rock formation and the symbolism it represented. I can affirm that I have moved less than I would like towards the summit and still have a difficult climb ahead of me, although I have shed a heavy imagined backpack to at least make my progress easier…
Yesterday we only had three people from our group available to play pickleball so when we got there I asked if anyone wanted to join us. An old man said he would play which at first seemed less than ideal. When he came on the court he asked who the best player was, the other two guys pointed at me. He said he would play with me then since he is 80 years old! However he wasn’t just any 80 year old.
He told us he just played in the 80+ division in the US Open and took a bronze medal. He said he even played singles at the Open. I could not believe 80 year olds even played singles. His name was Jerry. Jerry was surprisingly agile for his age and had good dexterity. I had fun playing with him and we actually did well, beating the other guys pretty easily three straight games. My one buddy was pretty upset about getting his ass handed to him by a team that included an 80 year old. I enjoyed the end result , of course.
I made the more than two hour round trip last night up to Babcock Ranch to drop off Elsa for her four day visit with Ali and Shugs. When we pulled up Elsa made her normal noises of excitement and almost wagged her tail off as she came in the door. It was cute. This time I was more thoughtful and brought not only one of her beds but also one of her favorite toys and her nylobone to chew on. She almost immediately was up on their couch chewing away, funny.
I hung out and caught up with Ali and Shugs for a little while as I had not seen them since mid-January. I stayed until around 8:30 which was late enough since it was a school night. Even though I was hauling ass most of the way it still took a full hour to get home.
Last year I was shining in the glow of fresh gutters being installed on the house in only a couple of hours. I also was mentioning Christine regularly as things were looking and feeling good at that time.
When I moved to the new house one of the early things I bought was a cheap Workmate knock off that Harbor Freight sells. I had an original Workmate at my old house that I left for the new owners. I have used the Harbor Freight table a few times but have not been impressed. It’s too small to be used for bigger wheels and is weakly constructed. I have bent several metal parts of it already.
I decided last week I was going to spend the money for a real Workmate. I opted for the beefier one that can support over 500LBS. The box had arrived Friday but I had not taken the time to put it together until last night. It took maybe 20 minutes to complete the rather simple assembly.
After I got it together I wasted little time giving it a test run with the ET Max. The wheel fit well and the 110 lb weight didn’t make the table break a sweat. The Harbor Freight table will likely hit the curb this weekend.
As I was working I got a knock on my door. It was a neighbor from across the street. She rarely talks to or acknowledges me. I think she thinks that I am very strange since I film myself riding one wheeled things. I was curious what would bring her to my front door. She asked if I knew if my next door neighbor was home. I told her I wasn’t sure. She said their garage door was open all last night and all day. I guess she was concerned maybe they were away and forgot to close it.
I walked next door with her. One car was in the garage but it didn’t seem like anyone was home. She thought we should just close the garage just to be safe. They didn’t have an external keypad to close it so the across the street neighbor, who is probably in her 70s suggested I just hit the button on the far wall and just run out before the door closes, um ok. So I hit the button and did the mad dash for the door as it descended, managing to skip over the electric eyes while doing so. When I was out putting something away in the garage shortly afterward I saw the across the street neighbor again. She said my next door neighbor was actually home after all, weird. Maybe I was too helpful.
I got an email from one of my channel subscribers. He used AI to created four songs that are about my well established tradition of drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee on my wheels. It’s pretty funny and creative. Here is one example.
I have been watching 3 Body Problem on Netflix and enjoying it. I already mentioned how end of world scenarios fascinate me. When you give it an aliens/sci fi spin it’s even better. I only have an episode and a half left in the series.
Tonight I am running Elsa out to Babcock Ranch to stay with Ali and Shugs for a long weekend. I know she will have fun out there but it will be weird/sad for me walking around the house without her. She has not been up there to visit since I went to PA in mid-January. Having her away while I am out of town is not a big deal but doing it when I am here is a different scenario. All three of them will have fun for sure.
Last year I was mired in a too slow for me moving cabinet project. I also had the gutter installation happening.
Yesterday I received my bill from my ER visit which was around a month prior. I knew based on my visit to the ER 5-6 years ago the number would be big, despite my only being there for roughly 3 hours. I did not expect it to be 5 digits big. The total charges for the visit came to $10,366.
There was no itemized breakdown of charges which I am going to request to identify how this number came to be. My portion of this came to around $1300. It is a testament to just how f’d up the US healthcare system is. It of course reaffirms my resolve to try to avoid interacting with the medical profession as much as humanly possible. The issue is insurance and medical lobbyists are dug in so deep in Washington that appreciable change just will never happen, IMO.
When I got home last night I got inspired to give the Tesla a quick bath. The car was cruddy. After roughly 30 minutes of work it was looking much better. I also have been enjoying the free month of the full self driving software that Tesla has made available. Last night I decided to use some of my Tesla spiff points I received for referrals to buy 3 months of FSD. It was a good use of those points. I am kicking myself that I wasted several thousand of them allowing my ex to buy stuff, one of the many, many things I regret in that arena. Anyway, doing this removes the urgency for having to get more videos done on FSD in only a week.
Last night I also went out for a quick ride once it got dark to shoot a video about the ET Max at night, specifically how it looks and how the headlight performs. It was a quick ride that didn’t take that long to edit. I am expecting to be done with the demo wheel within a week.
This was a weekend that deviated from my norms in a number of ways. My normal Saturday and Sunday morning pickleball sessions were both missing as a result of my friend moving out of Talis Park and having other stuff to do. I also did not go out to eat at a restaurant/bar all weekend either. But I definitely DID do a number of things that filled up my time, and then some.
Friday evening I headed over to the pickleball facility to watch some of the US open on center court, once again taking an EUC to get there. My buddy works for the county and was able to get us into the venue. For somewhere around 3 years I have wanted to catch center court matches at the Open but have been unable to do so. Tickets are very expensive and hard to obtain. It felt awesome to finally get to see the center court action.
After the matches finished I was able to go play a handful of games with my buddy on some of the outside courts. We played two different teams, one of them had competed in the tournament in mixed doubles. We lost but were competitive at least. It was fun to get to play a little bit.
Saturday morning I tended to whatever needed to get done around the house so I could clear out the rest of it for stuff I wanted to do. One of those things was to do my speed runs on the ET Max. Going really fast on an electric unicycle is never one of my favorite experiences but it needed to be done as a tester. I squeezed out a top speed of 49MPH which is a mile or two mph more than my prior best. This wheel is capable of going much faster as some riders have approached 65 mph on it.
For me the amount of wind pressure that is hitting my body at near 50mph makes it feel difficult and unsettling to try to push for more, regardless of the wheel I am on. I also had someone pick up the GoPro camera I had filming on the ground, the fourth time this has happened. I stopped the guy and got it back. He said he thought someone lost it. I pointed out it was actively recording as I took it back from him. People frustrate me.
Saturday evening I went back over to the Open. This was the final day when all the big pro matches take place. My buddy already warned me that the place was sold out and it was unlikely he could get me in. I told him it was no big deal and that I was happy watching matches on the outside courts while I drank. However once I got there he told me he thought he could squeeze me in, awesome.
The stands were indeed packed but I got to watch the finals of the mixed, women’s and men’s pro division. It was very cool seeing some players that up until this point I only have seen play online. The amount of skill and and speed these players possess is crazy. The games were fun to watch. I originally planned to be there an hour or two but instead wound up hanging out more than four hours.
When I got home it was after 8:30 PM but I had wanted to get a live stream in talking about a new wheel that was announced earlier in the day. I wound up not starting the stream until a very late for me 10PM.
The stream was going fine and I surprisingly was not feeling as tired as I would expect when a little after midnight Dawn signed on and then asked to come on the stream with me. As is normally the case when her and I interact things got funny/silly and continued on and on and on. Somehow I kept going until after 3:15 AM making this the latest and longest live stream I ever produced at a ridiculous five hours, give or take a few minutes. The weirdest part of it all was I did not find myself getting tired like I would normally expect. I probably did not fall asleep until close to 4AM and expected to sleep until late morning.
That expectation was dismantled when I heard the sound of Elsa getting ready to puke at 8:30 AM. I rocketed out of bed and got her onto the hard flooring to avoid the headache of a carpet clean up. I then realized that even though I only had four and a half hours of sleep I felt fine. This was not usual, at all, but I figured I may as well get my Sunday rolling. I went through the rest of the weekend not feeling any significant side effects from that stupid late Saturday night.
After eating breakfast, I completed my weekly bill paying/balancing session. I made a simple change recently that I don’t know why I did not do sooner, real time credit card use notifications. Part of my process has always been to go through my monthly credit card statement and match it up to my entries I post in Quicken to make sure nothing fraudulent is going on. It’s a long and tedious process with the amount of use my credit card gets. Sure it is a way to spot fraudulent charges but depending on when they occurred I would only know about it as much as a month afterwards because of statement cycle.
A week ago I went into the CC company app and set up push notifications for all credit card activity. This way I know instantly when a charge hits my card. If it is something I do not recognize I can respond appropriately and quickly. I have no idea why I did not set this up sooner as the capability to do so has been around for years. Better late than never.
Early Sunday afternoon I loaded up the ET Max in the back of the Tacoma to go ride in the swamp, another staple of my wheel testing gauntlet. It was a warm day as I rolled towards the destination. As I got near I saw a large gator sticking out of a culvert pipe. He was so large I was concerned that he may have been stuck, when I checked later he was gone. I had not been to the swamp since Wayne and Dawn joined me in early March. Things had changed.
Evidently they went over the trail with some sort of heavy equipment that was designed to widen and clear the path some. The path was clearly wider but it now was much more challenging to ride. It seemed like this was done when the ground was still soft and the end result was deep gulleys on either side along with bumpy/rocky areas in the middle. It made a ride that is already challenging, more so. The ET Max, despite it’s weight of 110lbs was fairly maneuverable in these slow conditions but by the time I left my legs were pretty beat from the average suspension this wheel has.
I only saw a couple baby gators out on the trail but I am sure I missed a bunch that I could not see because I had to focus too much on the difficult terrain I was riding over. After the ride I celebrated having my second boba tea, ever.
I spent the majority of what was left of my weekend editing the footage and getting myself prepped for the week ahead. Speaking of the week ahead, I originally was loosely planning to fly out to California for a few days next weekend but those plans unraveled. However I had also made arrangements for Ali and Shuggs to watch Elsa while I was away. I decided that despite my staying home I would still take her up there to spend the weekend. They miss seeing her and Elsa loves spending time there as well. I may have visitors from the east coast on Saturday so it may simplify things for me logistically to have her up there.
It will be nice to be able to get back on my more normal pickleball schedule this week. Playing only once all of last week felt foreign.
Last night was the least amount of fun I have had playing Thursday volleyball. I had a woman on my team that I used to play with on Tuesdays with the group that had a lot of low skill players. I really do not enjoy playing with her at all as she is wildly inconsistent. My frame of mind went south as soon as I found out she was on my team, which is a failure on my part. We only had three on our team so there was nowhere to hide.
My play was inconsistent and each unforced error that myself/our team committed just frustrated me more, making me play worse instead of better. We only won one game during the two hours of play. I am hoping to be able to avoid playing with her going forward. She is a nice person but just like anything in life there are people you like doing things with and people you dislike doing those same things with.
I feel like I have a large backlog of videos I need to get done this weekend. I need to come up with some sort of mental framework to get some of these knocked out. Not only do I have a limited time to shoot content with the ET Max, the Tesla FSD free month ends in 11 days so I have a handful of scenarios I wanted to make videos on. I’ll do my best to get what I can done. I should have a little more free time as going forward I will likely only be playing pickleball one morning a weekend instead of two.
I will have to mix video creation in with other things I would like to get done like catching more of the US Open as it ends on Saturday. Last night as I was having dinner after playing I was briefly talking to a table of women that had just played in the tournament during the day, it was cool.
I have found myself feeling a little emotionally numb recently. I feel callous and cynical towards women for a number of reasons both from first hand experiences and the culture in general. I think so many women have unrealistic expectations of the dynamics of a relationship which has been fostered by decades of female role definition mutation. Ironically the push for female equity has resulted in inequity with what men are expected to bring to the equation versus a woman.
When women get angry if a man says women and men are not equal it tells me they have been indoctrinated into this mindset. Men and women are not equal to each other, they both have different strengths and weaknesses that are meant to compliment one another, not be a source of contention. Venting here of course matters very little. Suffice it to say that my current outlook on finding a partner that compliments and enhances my quality of life is on the dimmer side of things.
Last year ironically I was proclaiming how great it was to have reversed my outlook in this same area in the span of a couple weeks. Could it happen again? Sure. Am I optimistic about that happening at this date and time? Nope.
Last night after work I decided to roll on over to the US Open once again on my Patton. This time I had on a small backpack that had one pickleball paddle and ball in it, just in case…
There were a number of matches still going on. I watched a few of them while eating pizza and drinking a couple black cherry vodka seltzers. I had one woman that came up to me and talked to me for a little while about the wheel and other things. I got the sense that she was slightly drunk and slightly flirtatious.
If I wanted I probably could have played. As matches finished the courts were backfilled with players just playing pick up games. After drinking a few I didn’t really want to get out there and potentially embarrass myself. As usual I got asked about the wheel several times and stared at much, much more. The one guy that just came off losing his playoff game even asked me about it, funny. I will probably go over there at least one more time if not twice before the tournament ends Saturday evening.
Tonight I am signed up for another volleyball session. I have been feeling a little beat up lately so I am hoping a couple Advil will mask the pain so I can play up to par.
Here is what happens when I asked AI to come up with an abstract version of myself after I got my haircut. It is bizarre, to say the least.
Last year at this time my garage was filled with kitchen/bathroom cabinetry. I also went to dinner with Don who had recently lost his dog Lucky, whom I was very fond of.
After work last night I headed to go get my hair cut. I have extended a week or two longer than I normally do between cuts and I was feeling shaggy. I had Suzanne as my stylist whom I have had a number of times. She always seems happy to see me and does a good job on my hair, or at least I think she does.
By the time I got done it was 5:30, the heart of rush hour. I decided to give Tesla supervised full self driving a pretty significant test, to see if it could navigate the sea of vehicles cleanly and get me to my house, without intervention. It did it cleanly. This latest iteration of FSD truly acts more and more human in it’s reactions and responses to situations. There were multiple times I was thinking that if I was driving I would make this decision and just as the thought entered my head, the car did it. There is none of that startling braking or unexplained direction change. It basically just works. I need to make the time to shoot some more videos about it as well as test other features.
I did several things last night, one of them was install a new kickstand on my V13 to replace the unit that was bent and deformed from it’s journey with UPS. I got a sweet deal on the part, paying probably a fifth of what I normally would pay via a parts blowout one dealer was having. Installation took 5 minutes and I now have the ability to have the wheel standing on it’s own without being overly tipsy.
I have been plowing through episodes of Fallout, the new series on Amazon Prime based on a popular video game that I never played. Despite having no real game experience I have latched onto the series and have been enjoying it quite a bit. End of world as we know it scenarios always appeal to me, for some odd reason.
Last night as I was walking Elsa after work I found myself thinking about some of the changes I have made that I have sustained in the last few months. Walking Elsa was one of them. For most of her life formalized walks were not a thing, I would just let her outside to do her thing and she would almost immediately return once she does her business. However now the first thing we do when I get home is leash her up and walk her to the end of our development and back. It gives her a set time to poop, exercise and the walking on sidewalk also helps keep her nails in check. When we started she was very resistant but now I think she almost kind of likes and looks forward to it. It also gives me an opportunity to interact with any neighbors we see along the route.
I also have implemented my own daily walks during the work week where I walk the outer perimeter of the government complex which is about a mile, every afternoon. I put my air pods in and just let my mind wander as I stroll the pathway. It is a good way to break up the monotony of a job that has me sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day. There are other things that have recently shifted. I now try to shave several times a week instead of every week or two. I also pay more attention to what I am wearing. Looking good is tied in with feeling good.
I think one of the bigger things I have been trying to change is being more open to interacting with other people. I am an introvert by nature but I realize that especially with being single, that tendency can lead to isolation that just is not good for me. I am trying to keep that door open, sticking a two by four in there if necessary to keep it open.
Last year the cabinet/counter project had begun in earnest. I also had started mentioning Christine in the blog regularly as I was happy to have a fresh start with someone that was a genuine person. I’m not sure if that relationship would have continued on or not if other events had not unfolded. If I have learned anything in the last year it’s that I value my peace more than anything else. If I can not find that peace in a relationship with a person I would rather just be alone. That statement is a big one as I have spent years upon years doing exactly the opposite of that, sacrificing my peace for someone else.
