Triple centered, 25 years, Venom, 2 for 1

I skipped happy hour on Friday and instead got Costco and my regular grocery shopping knocked out. By the time I got home it was around 7:30 and I was hungry. I threw one of my just purchased Costco frozen pizzas into the oven which was my meal.

Saturday morning I had another session of pickleball on my rusty knees. My knees held up ok, my IT band on the right side actually was the thing that hurt the most by the time I was done playing. It’s been aching ever since. I did play a couple more games with the Temu paddle. We were playing some people that were a few notches below skill-wise so I figured handicapping myself with the cheap paddle wasn’t a bad idea. I did an official review of the paddle later in the weekend.

Saturday afternoon I decided I would take on redoing the office. My original thought was I could just pull my desk out, slide the existing 6 foot workbench to the right and then slide my desk into the corner that was now open, at an angle. I did some rough measuring and thought this would work, it didn’t. My desk was crammed in with both benches partially blocking me on the side. It wasn’t viable. So, as is often the case I came up with a new plan on the spot.

I took the workbench and turned it 90 degrees, pushing it against the right wall. I then moved the left work bench as far away from that corner as I could while still allowing the closet door to open and close. Doing these things allowed me to get the desk positioned more or less where I wanted it. I now had to move onto phase two of the project, adding a third 32 inch monitor to my set up.

I bought the monitor at Costco on Friday and I had already ordered a special stand that is designed to hold three monitors. It didn’t take long until I encountered more roadblocks. The way the desk was designed the C clamp mount for the monitors would not work as is. My solution came in the form of a piece of scrap 2 x 10 I had in the garage. I attached it to the top shelf of my desk and then attached the monitor mount to that. It actually worked well and provided a strong base to support the screens.

Assembling the mount and positioning the screens took a lot of trial and error as I messed with different layouts. I eventually decided on doing three horizontal which gives me a nice cockpit feel. It was a lot of work but I’m happy with the end result. It will take a little getting used to. My new monitor which I have in the center is a 4K monitor so I have been running it at it’s native resolution which is twice that of my existing Samsung’s. It definitely allows me to get a lot more on the screen although good eyesight is required. I did a video that outlined the work.

Saturday night I went to go see Venom with a friend of mine at the Cinebistro. Before the movie I was at the bar testing out the margaritas, they appeared to be on the strong side as I was definitely feeling it when we went into the theater. The movie was good in classic Venom style. I would give it a B+. I did not stay until the post credit scene however.

Sunday I did not feel like digging into any significant tasks. I did some more minor tweaking in the office which will probably require some additional tweaking in the future. One of the tweaks I did was toss my Quest 2 VR headset. I loved that thing when I got it and did a lot of content on it. However it was a thing I used to do a lot with Cindy. When I was cleaning stuff up in the office I looked at the headset sitting on the bench and realized that I had not used it a single time since I moved. Into the trash it went without anything resembling remorse. These sort of sudden disposals of items is something new that has only developed in me over the last couple years. If it isn’t serving me it is far, far easier for me to dispose of something than it once was. It’s an attitude that would serve me well in other parts of my life if I applied it properly.

I watched the Eagles/Bengals game. This is hard to believe but the Eagles had not beaten the Bengals in 25 years. Now they don’t play that often but still, that is a hell of a streak, plus this game was in Cincinnati. During the first half the Bengals definitely were outplaying the Eagles but the second half was all Birds. They wound up walking away with an easy victory, a rarity nowadays, breaking the 25 year winless streak.

I did not feel like making dinner so I decided instead to go to Tacos N Tequila. As always I sat at the bar. Sundays are nice because house margaritas are two for one and I took advantage of it. I had a total of six margaritas to go with my two tacos, chips and salsa as I watched the Washington/Chicago game.

Towards the end of my time there the cute female bartender plopped a slushy looking drink in front of me with no words, I just looked at her confused and smiled. When she came back around I asked what it was, I didn’t know if someone bought me a drink or what? She said it was a mango margarita. She made one for someone else and had extra so she gave it to me. It was actually quite good. I know her name and she now knows mine, making it the third female bartender I am on a first name basis with in my area. I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing.