Waited 3 years, 5 hours, Fast and swampy, A simple notification

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.