Archives September 2024

Before I address what happened Saturday, which needs to be last, let me talk about a couple mundane things from the weekend that have nothing to do with my own mortality.

Over the weekend I addressed two issues that have been bothering me for a very long time at the new house. My tub in the master bathroom has had dead ghost ants and other insects showing up for a long time. Several times I found small cracks in the caulk along a baseboard that appeared to be a point of entry although it still didn’t really explain how they would wind up in the tub. Finally last week I figured it out. The spigot for the tub had some cracked and dried out caulk on the top and the bottom basically had nothing sealing it off. I grabbed a tube of caulk at the local hardware store and applied a thick bead around the fixture, sealing it to the surrounding tile. So far it seems to have been effective as no more debris has been spotted in the tub since.

The other issue that has bothered me since I moved in was the light that is attached to my mailbox. That light is supposed to be controlled by an optical sensor on the house but for whatever reason it is on all the time. I tried to troubleshoot it several times in the past unsuccessfully. I decided to take another approach.

One of the remedies I tried in the past was to put a Hue smart bulb out there that could be controlled independently. The issue was my wifi signal did not reach out to the street so the bulb was unreachable. My approach this time was two fold. I bought one of those Xfi pod wifi extenders and placed it in an outlet by the front window. I then bought an Amazon Basics smart bulb which integrates easily with Alexa and placed it out front. This time the wifi was available, allowing the bulb to be configured and communicate with the rest of my smart home set up. I set the light to go off and on a schedule which should hopefully solve this issue. As a bonus if I am feeling festive the light is full RGB compatible, allowing me to change the color to whatever I want.

The last mundane topic was the Eagles game against the Bucs which was awful and not really as close as the 33-16 score. With each shitty performance I find myself more and more annoyed with Jalen Hurts emotionless attitude. Yes he is talented but he also has the slowest average ball release time in the league. He just is unable to consistently make a decision and get the ball out quickly. Whether they score a TD or he just made yet another turnover his expression is the same. I’m sort of over it. The defense was a joke, special teams was a mess and I turned the game off mid-third quarter.

Ok, so Saturday afternoon I decided I wanted to do a range test on my Master V4, something I had been meaning to do for awhile. The weather forecast was not favorable with potential rain in the area but I rolled the dice anyway and rolled craps. Within the first 11 minutes the rain already started but I pushed forward, being the stubborn individual that I am. Soon I was riding through steady rain and on very wet roads but both myself and the wheel were doing ok.

I was hoping to get out to my old house and back but I realized I was not going to have enough battery to do so. I decided to ride up Immokalee Road until I hit 20 miles on my GPS and then reverse direction, a solid plan. I hit 20 miles and headed back west along a road I had literally ridden at least 100 times over the years, maybe more.

There was a mixture of both wet and dry sections of the road due to spotty rain. I had my GoPro out and had just mentioned I was traveling at 36MPH according to my GPS when it happened. All of a sudden it felt like I had rolled onto a patch of ice, the wheel fish tailed under me and then headed towards the three lanes of traffic, with me on it. I had checked my rear view mirror briefly before the fall so I knew there was appreciable traffic on the road.

The next thing I know I am on the ground, sliding on my protective gear. I see the wheel in front of me. I know I am in the middle of the road and I also know I am about to get run over by a vehicle and potentially die. I was bracing for whatever that feeling was going to be but it never came. Instead I stopped sliding, looked back and saw a white dump truck that had stopped roughly 10 feet behind me. I couldn’t believe it.

Despite being somewhat in shock I sprung up quickly to collect the wheel and get off the side of the road as all three lanes of traffic had stopped. One of the vehicles stopped and asked if I was ok and/or needed anything. My quick physical inventory revealed I was ok albeit with a bloody left elbow. Everything else felt like it worked. A fire chief also stopped to ask if I needed anything and I again assured him I was ok, which I was physically, mentally, not so much.

So the wheel appeared ok, it had some physical damage but turned on and balanced. My plan was to suck it up and just ride home. However when I stepped on the wheel it again felt like I was on ice, I was convinced the road had some oil or something on it that was the reason I lost control. However after walking with the wheel a bit and trying again it still felt all screwed up so I just resigned myself to walking until someone could come get me. That someone was Michelle, one of my employees that lives nearby. Thankfully her and her husband could come get me.

As I was walking down the sidewalk I stopped and looked at the wheel again and realized that the tire was completely flat. Suddenly I realized what had happened. My inner tube had catastrophically failed, more than likely ripping at the valve stem causing the instant loss of pressure and subsequent loss of control. That is why it felt like I was on ice. Identifying the cause was a small victory but didn’t change my state of mind where I was trying to process the idea that I literally just escaped death. It wasn’t until I watched the video that I realized I actually escaped it twice.

Evidently there was a red truck in the right lane that I never even saw. When I went down I was ridiculously close to him. My forward speed and angle across the lane was just enough to get my body past his moving vehicle, which never stopped. I had no idea that I JUST missed getting clipped by this person, probably by inches.

This realization just added additional weight to what already was a heavy mental load. How did I get so lucky? Why did I get so lucky? I don’t know the answer. Saturday night I put the video together and then bandaged up my bloody elbow which was missing quite a few layers of skin. My gear for the most part saved me, protecting me from further harm and allowing me to slide instead of tumble to a stop.

Once the video was posted there was a tidal wave of response from the internet, too much for me to keep up with. There were theories about why it happened as well as criticism for me even being willing to ride with three lanes of high speed traffic in a bike lane. However most of the comments were very positive and reinforcing that it was sort of a miracle that I got up and walked away from that, I had to agree.

On Sunday I had a very low key day. You would think my mood would have been better having sort of escaped death the day before and being grateful for doing so.. However I found myself feeling almost depressed in some ways, it is sort of hard to explain or make sense of. I was thinking about taking a wheel to DD but thought better of it due to time and the complications of trying to get elbow guards onto my raw left arm.

I did a live stream Sunday night where I went in depth about the incident, my feelings about it and how it may affect me going forward. This will be one of those bookmarks in life where you relate to things before and after they happen. It will be interesting to see what the next chapters for me will be as a result.

Yesterday I had my first physical in two years as required by our insurance qualifiers. I put this one off until right before the deadline which is unusual for me. Normally I like to knock unpleasant things off my list first, procrastination isn’t my thing. I think the reason was the last time I had a physical they said I had a “borderline” EKG that resulted in sending me to a cardiologist which turned into a lot of money and testing to just tell me that I was fine. The other thing about physicals that I dislike is the DRE of course. Look it up if you don’t know what that is.

It was interesting, they apparently now try to make this both a mental and physical check up. I had to fill out a questionnaire that asked things related to my mental wellness. The only negative I acknowledged was issues sleeping. There were other things I could have acknowledged on the list that I chose not to.

The physical itself went ok. I had another EKG done and was told it was actually better than two years ago which I was happy about. However the thing that made me the most happy was I escaped without a DRE being performed. I’m not sure if she forgot or decided I didn’t need one since they took blood for a PSA retest. Whatever the reason I certainly was not going to remind her.

Yesterday in the morning the weather around here seemed almost nice with some blue sky popping out. However in the afternoon and evening we started getting some significant wind from Helene. A couple of the other government offices closed due to them. Even Dunkin was closed, preventing me from obtaining some much needed afternoon coffee. My yard has a substantial amount of small oak tree branches scattered around from the winds. The wind sounded ominous from inside the house at times, blowing hard enough to push air past the sliding glass doors more than once. We were lucky.

Volleyball was cancelled of course so instead I decided to go visit Helen at Carrabbas, something I have not done in months. I have lost a few pounds again and I thought a big meal would be a good head start to at least getting back to 185lbs. Helen was glad to see me. I was there early enough to actually snag happy hour specials which I have never had before.

Last night I passed out early, very tired from staying up too late the night before. I managed to sleep pretty soundly through the night without a sleeping aid, an indicator of my level of exhaustion.

This weekend my plans are loose and fluid. I will likely dive deeper into making some internet content over the two days. I find that when my mind feels unsettled, embracing my creativity is a way to take the sharp edge off of whatever may be bothering me.

Last night the bands of rain from Helene started up on a more consistent basis. Right now the storm is about eye to eye with Naples albeit a couple hundred miles or more off shore, a good thing for us. Despite the distance the public schools and court system closed today preemptively. My phone has been blowing up with storm surge, flood and cyclone warnings for a good portion of the last 24 hours but overall I think the impact to our area will be pretty minimal.

Almost as soon as I got around to mentioning how Dawn and I were going to dip our toes into seeing if we could make a long distance relationship work last week those plans sort of came off the rails. In the big picture it’s probably the best decision for both of us at this point in time. As is always the case lessons have been learned.

The end result is my once again standing upon a clear deck looking out over the horizon and trying to figure out which way to point my rudder.

For quite awhile I was wanting to post a video commemorating my YouTube channel having reached 2000 videos. I waited so long that I actually now have 2060 videos on the channel. Anyway as mentioned I have been messing around with AI tools to make those summaries of my live streams. I decided to dip into AI once again, this time to make a song, Rolling to Dunkin. I gave AI one sentence to describe what I wanted and it spit out what you see/hear below in a minute or less. I then took the song and paired it with various clips of myself riding while drinking DD and voila, my 2000 video celebration is complete. Thanks AI.

Last night I had some free time that I was thinking about what I could use it for. I could go for a ride, I could go play some pickleball or maybe jump back into WoW. Instead I did none of those things and instead laid in bed and took a nap. It’s an odd choice to take a nap so close to when I would normally go to bed anyway but that’s what I did. My brain was just feeling worn out from poor sleep recently combined with ineffective circular thinking that succeeds in only causing mental fatigue.

So hurricane Helene is still swirling to the south and west of us. It is moving very slowly right now but is forecast to accelerate rapidly once it gets up into the gulf. The good news for us is it is still forecast to be far west when it passes this area. We will still see significant rain bands and appreciable wind but it should not be anything awful. Unfortunately for people living in the panhandle of Florida they are looking at seeing the brunt of a CAT 3 storm or worse later in the day Thursday.

Last night after eating dinner I decided I wanted to head out on my V13 a bit to get some more practice in with seated riding. Like any skill if you don’t use it, you lose it, or at least get worse at it. I went out right around sunset which was pretty however as the light faded I found myself wishing I wore some sort of clear eye protection. I was getting pelted by gnats and had some large insect just miss my left eye, impacting right below it at high speed. The more distance I put in seated the more confident I became, topping out around 35MPH at one point.

When I got home I went on an AI blitz. First I made a video where I demonstrated the tools and technique I used to make the AI recap of my last live stream.

I then used the file I created in the demo video to create another recap of my number 99 live stream. There are a few bugs in the final AI created product but overall it is really good. If AI is this good at this point imagine where it will be in a few years, scary. You will not be able to know if you are listening or looking at real or AI generated content.

I have been once again struggling with my sleep pattern. The last few nights I have been waking up every couple of hours with inconsistent results when trying to fall back asleep. This morning I got out of bed at 5:45 AM, a full 45 minutes before the alarm goes off. I just said f it, might as well get up. If this continues I may need to go back to my days of being a Unisom addict.

We are now in the potential crosshairs for an upcoming hurricane. The current forecast track has it well west of the Naples area but even so there could be substantial wind, rain and surge since the east side of a hurricane is the bad side.

I also have had too many experiences where the hurricane trackers absolutely blow it and a storm shifts unexpectedly so although this current track looks like we would avoid the worst of it, you just never know. I expect the storm panic to likely start today with people rushing the gas stations, home improvement and grocery stores, just in case.

In a worst case scenario I did spend a big chunk of money to get complete hurricane protection for all of the openings of my house. In the span of an hour or two I can completely seal off the house and put it into bunker mode if need be. I am not anticipating having to do that. I did move my one generator with me as well as a small 5000 BTU window AC unit that could keep the house livable if power is lost. The one cool thing where I live now is all power lines are subterranean instead of being exposed up on poles like they were in the Estates.

I’m in one of those periods of time where a lot of self reflection is going on. During these segments of my life I think about how situations come to be, how I react to them and how my choices could have been different to lead to better outcomes. The frustrating thing is there are common behaviors in myself that often lead into these issues. The biggest red flag is not focusing enough on what I need and instead giving of myself exhaustively until only fumes are left.

Friday night I did something I had not done since the first week of July, a conventional live stream. The last one was when I was in California with my gang. I finally felt motivated enough to do one, again. The stream went well, running for more than two and a half hours. It felt good to get out there again.

Later in the weekend I let AI digest the live stream and spit out a 7 minute summary which was pretty accurate and interesting. You can check out both versions below.

Saturday morning I got up to play pickleball with my friend Sue. We had a good two hour session where I played well overall. During the afternoon I decided to take the Max 6 skateboard to the greenway to see how it would do in the varied terrain and longer distances. The answer is for the most part, great.

The two surfaces that were not much fun were sidewalks with significant joints and the boardwalk sections of the greenway which left my feet feeling a tingle. Other than that I had a great time on the Max 6. I am pleasantly surprised how much I have enjoyed getting back on an electric skateboard.

Saturday night I was invited to a birthday party of a guy I play volleyball with. He is a commercial airline pilot. He lives in a small development that has a private airport. He also has a plane hanger in his home, complete with plane.

The house is sort of the ultimate bachelor pad complete with pinball machines, a gym, a huge collection of tools, an elevator and even a disco ball. Before dinner I got to see a plane take off in the backyard, an experience I never had before.

I brought a collection of Cayman Jacks with me to the party to help relax my social interactions. I only knew a few people there from volleyball and mostly stuck to them but did manage to have some conversations with people I did not know, big for me. I was there for about three hours before heading home.

The Eagles were scheduled to play the Saints on Sunday. As of mid-morning I still had not renewed my Sunday Ticket and was pondering if I wanted to do so. The way the Birds crashed and burned last year really left a bad taste in my mouth plus I know that locking in every weekend 3-4 hours to watch the game, alone, isn’t necessarily something I want to do on a consistent basis. However I eventually decided I should renew, not wanting to break a 24 year tradition.

Going in the Saints looked nearly unstoppable as they pinned huge point totals on their opponents the first two games. Plus this game was in New Orleans. Instead most of the game was a defensive struggle with the score being 3-0 well into the second half. Again Siriani took risks that didn’t pay off, going for it on 4th down in chipshot field goal range and not getting it. Hurts also threw a bad interception into the Saints end zone as well as coughing up a fumble. Despite these miscues the Eagles were still in it although I thought they were going to blow it after allowing a late touchdown to the Saints, letting them pull ahead with only two minutes to go. The disappointment was already staged in my head.

Instead the Eagles got their own go ahead TD thanks to a huge pass to their tight end. However there was still enough time on the clock for the Saints to drive to get a game tying field goal. The idea of relying on the defense to make a stop is not something I have any confidence in. Instead of giving the game away as they did last week the defense came up big, getting pressure on the QB which resulted in a game ending interception. It was an unexpected win.

Despite the victory I feel less and less excited about Jalen Hurts. I don’t like how stoic he is. Philly fans love emotion, we want to see excitement when things go well and disappointment/anger when they don’t. Hurts has none of that. I also found it interesting when I noticed during a sideline conversation with the head coach, Jalen never looked directly at him, instead glancing back and forth. It just struck me as odd. It will be interesting to see how this season unfolds but I don’t think I am alone regarding my thoughts on Hurts.

The rest of my Sunday was pretty uneventful. In general I tried to keep myself busy and focused on things I can control. Focusing on things outside of that realm lends itself to feelings that are not welcomed.

Last night was my first time at volleyball for a couple weeks. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect although I knew that physically I was feeling better than normal. It reflected in my play which I would describe as confident. I made only a few unforced errors and as usual was the most sand covered player on the court. Despite being pleased with my play overall our team lost every game but one.

My team once again included the woman I described several weeks ago. The one that ignored three progressively louder OUT calls only to play and shank a ball out of bounds. She seems like a nice woman but that doesn’t translate into my wanting to play with her. Her skill level is not very good and confident is the last word I would use to describe her play. I found myself getting very frustrated by the end of the night to the point where I was having a difficult time masking a physical reaction to some of her mistakes.

Yesterday I had a rather emotionally full day. Once again I found myself scratching my head trying to make sense of things that simply defy rational explanation. That process leads nowhere positive and at this point in life if I am not doing things to steer myself towards positivity and happiness I am doing myself a disservice. Hell I even had my ex once again trying to get some sort of virtual foothold in my life yesterday which once again defies logic, to me.

I hope to have a fun weekend which includes pickleball and a party with some of my volleyball friends Saturday night. It will be the first weekend in awhile where I can refocus, aligning my priorities and goals where I concentrate more on what I need instead of what I give.

Last night I took my newly acquired Max 6 electric skateboard out for another run. This time I wanted to head to the nearby greenway to test the upper limits of the board safely, hopefully. I did up my level of protection for this ride wearing one of my full face helmets as well as my hip/ass pads under my shorts. The testing went well.

On the first day I rode the board 15KMH as my initial speed and I felt unsure of myself even then. By the end of the session yesterday I topped out at 35KMH and was nervous at that number. Last night things were different. In the span of 24 hours my confidence had grown to the point where I surpassed 35KMH within the first couple minutes. The smooth and mostly straight sections of path were good for carrying speed. I topped out at 41KMH (just over 25MPH) which is only 1KMH below the listed top speed of the board, wow. That is also the fastest I have ever gone on an electric skateboard by a good 5MPH. Even at the upper limit the board felt very stable.

In addition to testing top speeds I did a couple full acceleration and braking tests, making sure to brace myself on the board prior to doing so. Once again I was impressed with the strong but linear results I got in both scenarios. It was a very fun session and makes me anxious to take the board to the Naples Greenway in the near future to see how I do in that varied terrain.

Throughout my life I have been a covert leader. What does that mean? I am not the type of person to get up and give a rah rah speech to try to motivate someone else. My leadership almost exclusively comes in the form of action and example. I set a bar for myself and others recognize it and decide to follow that direction. (or don’t)

Leading in this manner can cause inconsistent results. For example if I am working with someone on a project and I am “leading” by consistently doing the lion share of the work it’s possible others could see that as an opportunity to do less instead of raising up their efforts to match or at least approach mine. In my professional life my approach has been pretty successful. In my personal life the results have been much less consistent. Is this something good or bad in the big picture? It all depends on perspective, I guess.

Last night after work I got a haircut, the first one since early July. I have been trying to let my hair grow out a bit and still am but it was getting to look pretty unkempt. The stylist basically just evened things out, keeping most of the length instead of doing the skin fade, high and tight look I have been sporting for quite a long time. It felt good to get a little cleaned up.

I took the Max 6 skateboard out for it’s first road test last night. It had been probably at least 4 years since I stepped on an electric skateboard, probably longer, so I was very cautious at first. The board felt very stable even though I did not. I wound up taking it for a ride that was in the neighborhood of three to four miles including a stop at Wawa. The more time I rode the more speed I carried, topping out at just under 22mph which is the fastest I ever had gone on an EKS8.

The Max 6 has large “cloud” wheels that make rolling over small debris on the road more manageable and safer. The board has a lot of power which I only lightly tapped into during the ride. I wound up enjoying myself more than I expected and hope to get out on the long board more often. I spent the remaining part of the evening editing the footage which took a couple hours.

It was the kind of Tuesday evening I had not had in awhile and I enjoyed it.

I got to watch my first Eagles game of the season and wound up wishing I didn’t. The team snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, allowing the Falcons to beat them at home. It wasn’t the loss as much as the way they lost.

They basically had the game won. The Falcons were out of time outs with less than two minutes to go and the Eagles had a 3rd and short somewhere around the Falcons 10 yard line. However instead of doing a run play that at the very worst would not get the first down but still burn 40 seconds off the clock they decided to pass the ball to Barkley who dropped an easy catch that would have gotten the first down and sealed the game. It’s hard to be mad at Barkley who otherwise had a very strong game but damn, that was a choke, but, the choking was far from over.

So the clock is now stopped and the Eagles are forced to kick a field goal which gives them a 6 point lead. Once the Falcons got the ball with no timeouts the Birds flopped into the hated prevent defense which allowed Atlanta to march down the field and score a touchdown in less than a minute, it was utterly ridiculous. They scored so fast there was still 30 seconds left which the Eagles squandered with a game ending interception. What a choke.

The game left a very bad taste in my mouth, especially when I thought back to the decision in the first quarter to skip a chip shot field goal and instead go for it on fourth and four, which they failed. Those 3 points would have been the margin of victory. After the way the team collapsed at the end of last season a loss like this is not well received, by anyone.

Last night I unboxed and began shooting footage for a video with a new electric skateboard that was sent to me for evaluation, the Maxfind Max 6. I have had several electric skateboards in the past but not for several years. I also was never sent one for evaluation so I was sort of surprised when they reached out to me.

I didn’t actually get to ride the board, which I’ll probably do tonight. The board looks cool and spec-wise seems pretty impressive. Hopefully I can keep myself upright during the testing process.

Last night I had a very difficult time falling asleep. Surely the Eagles loss didn’t help things. I also realized we are on the eve of another super full moon which could be tweaking my moods and brain function. Whatever the root cause all I know is I am very, very tired this morning.