Archives April 2024

On Friday after work I met up with Clay at Brookside Market to hang. The place was an absolute zoo because everyone wanted a burger from the burger tent. Evidently this guy recently won the best burger in Naples award and the word is out. The line was at least 50 people long.

I got there before Clay so I went in and grabbed a beer. I was surprised when my neighbor and his wife that live a couple doors down from me said hi. Evidently they are frequent patrons of the place and come a couple times a week. When Clay and his One Wheel buddy Cam got there they hopped right in the burger line. I talked to them as they waited and then threw Clay a couple bucks to grab me a grilled cheese when he finally got to order. I rode the ET Max there and got the customary looks of bewilderment. It makes me laugh.

I both played and watched pickleball on Saturday and Sunday. I played with the woman I am friends with at Talis Park just like I have for almost a year. I’m not quite sure what that is going to look like going forward since she sold her place and is moving out this week. The other residents there we play with all know, like, and enjoy playing with me so I might still show up if invited.

I also rode an EUC over to the US Open both days to watch some of the tournament. It was packed. I grabbed myself some nice pickleball shirts to play in, lunch on Sunday and answered a dozen questions about EUCs while I was there.

On Sunday afternoon I made arrangements to meet up with Jason to do some riding. I suggested he just meet me at my house and we can leave from there. Although I have ridden with him a number of times he never had been to my home yet. As usual Elsa was timid but after awhile allowed Jason to pet her, a little.

Before we headed out I let him try the various wheels I have obtained since I last saw him a couple months ago, the Mten Mini, V13, V8S, and the demo ET Max. He couldn’t ride the Mini but he liked the other three wheels. For the main ride I was on the ET Max and Jason was on his Veteran Patton.

We rode to the beach via the Greenway. I took him on some routes he had not been on before, including a brief stop at the Cabana for a beer. By the time we got back my ET Max was getting low on battery. I encouraged Jason to try the ET Max some more, just inside my development since it is closed off to traffic. He agreed to try it some more.

He did a number of loops up and down the road. I eventually hopped on my V13 to follow him and see how he was liking it. I was about 100 feet behind him when I saw it happen, a speed wobble. Wobbles are a thing while riding EUCs where the wheel can start oscillating back and forth and can amplify. If they are not controlled they can result in a rider coming off the wheel. Well all of a sudden I see Jason wobbling and within a second or two he fell off the wheel backwards, ass first. The wheel tumbled end over end as he came to a stop. Geezus.

I rode up and checked on him. I think he was embarrassed and angry that he fell. He almost immediately got back up and hopped back on the wheel. I think he didn’t want to let the crash deter him. He did a few more slower laps as I waited in the driveway. When he finally stopped riding I could tell he was a bit freaked out. He said that was the worst crash he ever had. I told him I thought he was doing at least 20 when he went down. He said he was doing closer to 30 based on the wheel speedometer.

He said the wheel started to wobble and he just could not bring it under control. The ET Max is 20 pounds heavier than his Veteran Patton and has a much taller profile. Jason is not a big/tall guy and only weighs around 135lbs so I think it was physically difficult for him to control the wobble. When he came back I got to do a quick inspection of the wheel. It seemed at first that it just took some scrapes on the front metal frame which was good news. Jason hung for a little bit and drank a Cayman Jack with me as we talked about the crash and other things.

After he headed home I gave the wheel another once over. This time I realized there was more damage than I initially thought. The rear top frame took a shot that bent the metal in and down, misaligning it with the top cover, ugh. I needed to try to fix that. Demo wheels routinely get beaten up but I typically am not the one that does it. Sunday night I did charge the wheel to full as I intended to do a range test on Monday, the day I took off.

After playing pickleball I stopped and got myself a deadblow hammer on the way home, the tool I hoped to use to fix the bent frame. These type of hammers have no rebound and generate a lot more impact force. It took some patience but after a lot of Forged in Fire style hammering I got the bent metal close to it’s original shape which made me feel better. I didn’t wind up pushing off for my range test until almost 2PM, later than I hoped.

The ride out to my old house was long, totaling over three hours and windy, which is never fun. The cross wind made it difficult at times for me to stay in the bike lane and puts strain on my lower body which has to fight the wind pressure. When I rolled by my old house I didn’t see anything noticeably different other than a pile of mulch in the driveway. It always feels weird when I go by my old place. It’s not so much nostalgia as much as being thankful I am no longer chained to the self imposed constraints that living there placed upon me.

When I stopped and checked my roughly halfway stats I thought I should be in the clear to get home. It turned out to be much more challenging than expected. The wheel started to generate low battery beeps around 49 miles into the ride. The bad news was I had 3-4 miles remaining to get home. Those miles were long and slow as I had to reduce speed greatly to make sure I could get home without pushing the wheel. I was underwhelmed with the range I wound up getting, around 53 miles.

I was beat up and tired after the ride. I spent the remainder of the night working editing the video. I was so tired that I didn’t even to open the three boxes that came for me on Monday. One of those boxes was my new GoPro 12.

Yesterday the news that OJ died hit the news. I had not heard he was even sick but evidently he died from prostate cancer. I also did not realize he was 76 years old. I still remember quite clearly his murder trial in 92. I remember I was at the beach with my first wife and her family as we watched some of it on TV. His trial will go down as one of the most infamous in history which seemingly resulted in a man that clearly murdered two people walking free. I am not a subscriber to heaven and hell ideas but if there is a hell, OJ certainly would be roasting in it right now. Adios Juice.

Last night was volleyball night. The weather forecast was bad with high winds and rain predicted. Most of the people that were going to play canceled as a result. However we did still wind up with 8 hardcore players. We waited maybe a half hour until the steady rain stopped and then played in spotty drizzle from there on. Play was actually pretty fun and despite a wet ball I played decent, better than the prior week for sure. We played a little later than normal because of the late start.

One of the women that I played with shares the same name as my ex, although spelled differently. It felt weird calling out her name as well as congratulating her on good plays. (she is very good) It was a weird sort of deja vu.

Afterwards I decided to go to Carrabas to grab dinner. It was nearly empty with just myself and some rich old woman at the bar. She had a diamond on her finger that looked like a small satellite and she was talking about her Bentley. Helen was telling me about some commotion that happened there earlier when some clueless woman allowed her kid to watch a movie on an Ipad so loud that half of the restaurant could hear it. It turned into quite the fiasco when they asked her to turn it down. People are idiots.

So since my trip to the ER a few weeks ago with severe left side chest pains I of course have been monitoring how I feel. For awhile after the visit I continued to have pain in the area if I breathed deeply or suddenly. Later the pain moved to my shoulder blade on the same left side, it was very odd. However for the past several days I haven’t really felt anything unusual and I would like to keep it that way, knock on wood. I have been wondering if I would develop shingles as my buddy did after severe chest pains. Knock on wood again, nothing so far.

Just this morning I decided to give myself another extended weekend, taking Monday off. With the ET Max in hand I have a ton of riding and editing to do. I also like the idea of short work weeks, a lot.

Last year I was mulling over why it was going to cost so much to get gutters installed, along with a few other things. I also had just unloaded my second and final piece of property in Lehigh Acres, taking more than 60% loss and not giving a damn.

Yesterday my second mirrored visor for my LS2 helmet arrived. The first one I ordered was for the wrong model and would not quite fit. The new one on the other hand snapped right in with no tools in a matter of seconds. The mirrored finish just looks way cooler, IMO.

Last night I went out on my first official ride on the ET Max (meaning I recorded it). I zipped around the streets in my area and quickly found myself very comfortable on this big 100lb+ wheel. It’s powerful, good looking, and fun.

I got out a little later in the evening so I didn’t have a ton of time since I wanted to get the video edited as well before heading to bed. I’m looking forward to testing and enjoying this wheel. If things go well there is strong chance I may be adding one to my collection of wheels permanently.

Last year I finally came to the revelation of where my acute sciatic pain was originating from, my bed.

For my last day off I thought I would double up on my exercise by doing a lower body session followed by yoga. Before doing so I ran to the nearby Walmart/FedEx store to pick up the ET Max demo wheel that FedEx lied about the day prior. I was glad I brought my hand truck as this box was 130lbs plus.

Doing weight training on my legs prior to doing yoga was not the best idea. A lot of the holds we do require leg strength and I found a lot of them more difficult than normal after the workout. Oh well.

I’m not sure if it was the double workout but after lunch I felt extremely tired. I went and laid in my bed for maybe 20 minutes, never falling asleep but just feeling wiped. I rebounded and then got back to work.

I had to do some work on the ET Max before it was going to be ready for testing. The power distribution board had failed and a replacement was in the box. I never had replaced that particular component but it appeared straight forward. After less than an hour of work I had the repair completed and the wheel was ready to roll however I only did a very brief test ride just to verify functionality. The full testing will begin the remainder of this week and weekend.

I wound down my 4 day weekend chilling with Elsa. I really enjoyed the time and look forward to giving myself more extended weekends on a more regular basis.

Last year at this time I was keeping busy with new home related things and I hinted at 2023 becoming a very good year. I realized that what I was referring to was I had just started seeing Christine around this time last year and I was feeling hopeful about where that could go. Unfortunately for both her and I it became a soap opera because of a third party that had other ideas.

I’m now on the final day of my four day weekend. It has been quite a busy extended weekend so far, in a good way. I worked on getting the overhead light area that I installed in the guest bathroom last week trimmed off. I installed a small piece of molding along the leading edge, caulked the sides and filled the screw holes. It could probably still use some touch up paint work yet but it doesn’t look bad.

I also got to use my Dewalt power brad nailer for the first time. It is nice, allowing me to pop in the brad nails that hold the trim in place easily. I went around the fence line and popped some more brads into the boards that were a bit loose as well, it was sort of fun.

I played a lot of pickleball, surprise surprise. I played everyday since Friday, including yesterday. I met my work group to play after going to the gym prior. I got to use my new Proton paddle for the first time, I really like it. Yesterday I played pickleball straight through the eclipse. It was barely visible in Florida so it didn’t break my heart.

I also got to hang a bird feeder in the back yard. I have had a hook for one mounted since December but have neglected to get a feeder to hang on it. I picked out a nice blue feeder, filled it with bird food and hung it up.

Within a few hours I saw my first birds and squirrel utilize the feeder which made me smile. I may actually get a second feeder as the one I bought is more for small birds. I saw a blue jay struggling to stay on the perch. The squirrel is funny to watch as he hangs upside down from the fence while pulling out the seed.

On Saturday night I did a 3 hour plus live stream. During it I opened up the V13 that I traded for. I was a bit bummed to see the kickstand got smashed in during shipping somehow, getting pushed up against the tire to the point where it could not turn.

I have done a lot of video editing over the weekend posting three additional videos. I still have a bunch in my head that I want to get shot and edited. I was supposed to get ANOTHER wheel delivered on Monday, a demo wheel from a dealer. I worked my schedule so that I would be home all afternoon when it was supposed to arrive since it required a signature. All of a sudden I get an email from FedEx around 4:30 saying they could not deliver the package because nobody was home, WTF.

FedEx never was at my house and I double checked my Ring cameras to verify it. It annoyed the F out of me but I am used to FedEx pulling this shit. I went in and changed the delivery to go to the FedEx store at a nearby Walmart, I’ll just grab it there. I just love when FedEx lies.

I plan to get a weight session and yoga class in today and then will likely fill the rest of the day with messing with this new wheel and whatever else I feel like getting done. It’s been a very enjoyable extended weekend. I feel like I need to extend them more often. Here are the other videos I posted.

Last night I had my weekly volleyball session. It was the first time since I started playing Thursdays that my team lost more than it won. We had one guy on our team that really did not have the skills he should have to play with this group. I played ok in all aspects of the game except hitting. I hit a number of balls into the net which frustrated the F out of me. My legs just were not getting me out of the sand as my knees felt a little extra creaky. I still had fun but losing always turns down the enjoyment a few notches.

After playing I treated myself to a dinner at Brunina’s with my favorite bartender Megan. Since Easter has passed a decent amount of snowbirds have flocked north making the bar less full. I found out Megan is friends with Deb who I dated briefly back in 2013. Deb is also good friends with Cindy. It’s a small world.

Out of the blue this morning I decided to give myself a long weekend, putting in to take both Monday and Tuesday off, providing me with a nice four day weekend. I’ll put it to good use. The V13 that I traded for is supposed to arrive tomorrow and I have no less than a half dozen video ideas in my pipeline that I would like to get out there. Of course there are tons of other things that will keep my attention along the way.

Last year I continued with my string of home improvements, this time getting my smart garage door opener installed. I wish I kept accurate track of just how much I have spent on home improvements since moving. I’m pretty confident it’s crossed the 50k mark.

Yesterday I mounted my suction cup GoPro mount to the glass roof of the Tesla to capture the new FSD in action. When I first got my Tesla years ago I did a LOT of Tesla content but that has pretty much dried up for the last couple years. I recorded both my drive to and from work.

On the way to work I intervened once to facilitate making a right turn out onto a busy roadway. The car was being cautious, I was being less so, relying on hard acceleration to get me merged in. On the way home the car did so with zero help from me. I did nothing but babysit the steering wheel and pedals, it was very impressive.

I ran to Costco last night and put FSD to it’s first night time test and it again passed with flying colors, taking me from the Costco parking lot to my house with zero interventions. I am very impressed with this latest iteration of full self driving and would love to have it on my car full time but I just can’t pay $200 a month for it, that’s stupid. If Tesla was smart they would drop the price by 50-75% and make up for it with a much a greater buy in rate. Here are the two videos of the trips, there will be more to come.

I got to remove the compression stocking this morning for hopefully the last time and take a normal shower. It’s now a wait and see to determine if the problem veins disappear as they should. I played pickleball yesterday with the compression stocking on which was technically outside what I should be doing but I got through it ok.

Last year I had two entries. The first one was a state of mind dump that was related to my ex. After reading this and realizing everything I allowed to happen after that point I just had to shake my head in disgust. I thought I had finally seen through the bullshit, seeing the error in my ways, or so it seemed. The second post was describing the whirlwind of improvements I had set in motion. The first few months at the new house were very, very busy.

Yesterday I had another vein appointment where they injected a substance into my shitty veins in my lower leg to cause them to close. I got some potentially good news that I could cancel my remaining appointment. The doctor said as long as these veins close as they should I won’t need to see him until June for a follow up ultrasound. I need to keep an eye on the treated areas to see if anything abnormal pops up. I am happy if I am indeed done with getting poked, prodded and burned, from the inside. I am now on another two day recovery cycle where I wear the stocking, restrict activity, and walk, a lot.

After work I loaded Elsa in the truck to go to Home Goods. I wanted to buy mats for the guest bathroom. Ever since I moved in I have had one mat in there, one from the old house. It was old, beige and didn’t really match the bathroom. When I have had guests I have had to throw a towel down as a bath mat. I picked up a set of two grey mats that are nothing fantastic but match color-wise and give a guest somewhere to step when they exit the tower/tub. All I really need to do in there yet is trim off the light install I did last week and that space should be done/done, in my book.

I did a video last night reviewing a fast charger I bought from my buddy Roger who lives in the LA area. The chargers he sells, aptly named Roger Charger, are high speed chargers that allow you to dramatically cut down on the time it takes to charge wheels with big batteries. Hopefully the video helps steer a couple more potential sales Roger’s way.

I took a total of three walks when I got home, per doctors orders. The last one was around 8:30 when it was fully dark. It was so quiet and peaceful with only a couple cars and a guy on a One Wheel sighted along the way. I have always enjoyed the solitude that night can bring to me. I have done several night walks recently because of the walking requirements post procedure. Then there was that infamous night walk I took around midnight this last Christmas Eve, but that is a story that can only be shared in person, after a number of drinks have been consumed.

Last year at this time I pulled the trigger on the start of my kitchen and bathroom cabinet/countertop remodel. This was the most expensive improvement I have made since moving into the house but also my favorite.

Last night after work I hurried home to load up the two EUCs that I am trading which have been sitting boxed up in my kitchen for several days. I was shipping them via UPS. I had prepaid labels on them from my Stamps.com account. There is a UPS store less than a mile from my house.

I took the truck as I needed to also take my dolly as the one box was close to 100lbs. When I got in the door I was greeted with a long line which was less than ideal. However as I was standing there I got to observe the absolutely miserable personality the one clerk had. She was grumpy, condescending and just plain mean to the customers I saw her interacting with. She also was careless with the packages people were dropping off to ship, casually tossing them into a pile along the wall. Thankfully when it was my turn I got to interact with the second clerk that was missing her miserable attitude. The two boxes are now in the system and I am trusting that my partner in this barter deal does the same. (he will)

Yesterday my car woke up with an April Fools gift from Tesla, a free month of FSD (full self driving). FSD is an add on feature that can either be purchased up front for $12,000 (um yes) or paid on a month by month subscription for $200. Either choice is prohibitively expensive.

When I bought my first Tesla Model 3 in 2019 I actually bought FSD with it. At that time it was an additional $5000. I thought it was cool at the time but it was buggy and downright scary at times with some of the things it would do with sudden direction changes or even worse abrupt braking. When I bought my first Model Y I did not get FSD as a result and I did not buy it with my second Y either.

The last time I had experience with FSD was when I bought a one month subscription when I drove to Texas as it was helpful in long distance driving scenarios. Yesterday was the first time I got a look at the revised and updated FSD which I believe is now close to what has been in beta testing for a very long time. I was pretty amazed at how much better it has become.

The first thing I noticed was the greatly improved visualization of the cars surroundings. Without FSD you get a much more sparse representation of the environment around you. With the feature turned on you get a full appreciation of what the car actually is aware of around you and how quickly it recognizes it. I was very impressed.

As a test I allowed FSD to try to navigate me home from the office last night, turning it on in the office parking lot. It did surprisingly well, confidently navigating the rush hour traffic. I only had to briefly cancel FSD when it picked one of the two turning lanes that would have been a PIA to get out of since another left turn was coming up shortly afterward.

I allowed the car to take the multi-lane turns and it was rock solid. When I used to do this the car would be unsure of itself, slowing down and making scary direction changes as it tried to get it’s bearings. This did not happen once. This morning I allowed the car to once again handle the driving and again I only had to take over once when the Tesla was unwilling to make a right hand turn with intermittent traffic coming as it will always err on the side of safety. But once I was out in the flow the car again had zero issues, despite a high volume of traffic. I plan to do a video about how much better FSD is soon. Too bad it’s just too expensive because I would really like to have it day to day.

So last night I had an idea that just popped into my head, I was going to make an April Fools video. I rarely do anything related to April Fools but I thought this idea I had would be funny. I recorded a video announcing that after much thought I decided to move to California. This was done with one take and no script. Evidently a lot of people don’t bother looking at calendars or watching videos to the end (where I revealed the joke).

I had some serious replies from people shocked by my decision. It was entertaining to say the least.

Today I have yet another round of defective vein destruction, can’t wait.

Friday evening I grabbed groceries shortly after getting home but I felt motivated to get out on a ride too. I grabbed my Patton and zipped over to the Cabana where I enjoyed a couple beers as I talked to a few people about the wheel. I didn’t stay all that long because I had not had dinner yet. By the time I got home it was after 8 but there was still frozen pizza to be made which I enjoyed, despite the late hour of the day.

Saturday I had a fun pickleball session in beautiful weather conditions. The woman I am friends with that has me on her permanent guest list there so I can play is moving soon so I am not sure if these weekend sessions will still be a thing or not once that happens. A lot of the residents there know me and enjoy playing with me so we will see.

Saturday afternoon I got into one of those get things done sort of moods. You may recall a couple weeks ago I bought 25 bags of mulch to freshen up the landscaped areas around the house. I wound up being short and had a good portion of unrefreshed mulch remaining. I made a rough estimate in my head that another 25 bags should get the job done. I was surprisingly accurate in that guess as the last bag just covered the remaining square in the backyard garden area. Miller Lite helped power the project.

So while I was at Home Depot I also was looking for ideas on how I was going to mount the new softer LED panel I bought for the guest bathroom. When Dawn was here she correctly identified that the light I had in there over the sink was too bright and too harsh. When I moved in the light that was there was weak and shitty, so I overcompensated, evidently.

The smaller LED panel I bought had adjustable brightness and color. It’s a surface mount fixture, the problem was the existing space had no surface as the light was up behind a piece of diffuser plastic, which looked shitty. I took some measurements of the spot above the sink and started wandering around Home Depot.

I have this weird ability/defect (depending on your point of view) to ad lib projects where they twist, turn and mutate in my head which is the only place the plan resides, I rarely make any formal plans. So as I was walking down the lumber aisle I spot some white shelf boarding that is 2′ x 4′, almost exactly the size I need for that space. It’s thick enough to be able attach the light panel too as well, I think I can make this work.

When I got home I cut about 6 inches off the 4 foot side to make the piece fit snugly. I then dropped a 2 inch wood screw in each corner to secure it. I drilled a hole in the center of the board to fish the wires through and then attached the mounting plate. I made the electrical connections and tried the different light brightness/color options until I found one that seemed warm but not too bright. After sliding the panel onto it’s base I flipped the power back on and smiled as the final lighting was just about perfect, in my book at least.

I will need to put some sort of trim piece around the edge of the board I installed to clean up the appearance but that should not be a huge problem. I took pride in yet another improvised project that had a positive outcome. I have had countless examples of this over the years.

I took care of a couple little annoying things that have lingered for awhile as well like sanding the corner of the front door where a small amount of rust was and painted it. It took in total maybe 5 minutes yet I had not got around to doing it for the year that I have lived here already, baffling.

Sunday morning I had another good pickleball session playing a full two hours. During the afternoon I met up with Ira who I met when I rode on the east coast with Dawn a month or so ago. He lives on the east coast so he had close to a two hour drive to get over to Naples. I took him on a long and winding ride through various parts of Naples. I stopped at two places, one of them being DD to hopefully grab some refreshments. They were both closed due to Easter. We did luck out and was able to grab something at Starbucks.

For part of the ride Ira and I switched wheels. I never rode a Begode Extreme and he never rode a Veteran Patton so it was interesting to be able to contrast the two. The Extreme had good power but the suspension felt like shit compared to the Patton. I also preferred the tire on the Patton. We rode enough that the Extreme started giving off low battery beeps.

When we got back to my house we hooked up Ira’s wheel to the new fast charger I bought a couple weeks prior. It was able to bring his wheel back up to full charge in roughly an hour and a half, impressive. We hung around and talked for awhile before Ira pushed back east. Hopefully the next time he comes he will bring his girlfriend who also rides.

I finished off the rest of my weekend finishing up the video that I shot from the day. Sure, it was a unconventional Easter weekend for me that was devoid of any formal celebration with family or significant others. I however enjoyed it all the same, which is all that really matters in my book.