Archives 2024

Yesterday I had a Facebook memory from 11 years ago pop up. It was me doing an extended one arm plank, a difficult move. 11 years ago I was still pretty seriously into calisthenics and was in good shape. Seeing this picture made me wonder if I still would be able to pull this move off today, at 56 years old. There was only one way to find out.

I tried to find those same Adidas track pants but I think I may have tossed them out. I did have my blue pair still so that had to do. I put my phone camera on a timer and had at it. The move puts a ton of stress on your shoulder and core. I heard disturbing pops in my lower back as I got into the hold.

It felt like I had the hold in good form but when I checked the picture I was too high. I wound up having to try the hold a number of times before I felt I was close to what I showed 11 years prior. My right shoulder was heavily fatigued by the end of it. I did give myself a little imaginary pat on the back for pulling it off, even today.

Last night I also hoped to install new pedals on my Veteran Patton. These were prototype pedals sent to me by a guy that makes a lot of EUC accessories. The install didn’t go as planned. The pedals had a couple issues that prevented me from getting them on there unfortunately. I might try to see if I can Jerry rig it somehow.

This morning I had my vein ablation process done. The procedure went well. I was sweating profusely at certain points as I could feel things up inside my thigh as the RF device super heated the inside of the defective veins to close them permanently. I then had to flip over so they could close a vein on the back of my leg as well. The good news is this is the worst of the procedures in this process. I now have a compression stocking on my right leg that has to stay there for two days. In addition I need to get out and walk at least 10 minutes every hour to prevent blood clots.

It feels good to have this procedure behind me. There are several more procedures to go but this one was the worst one. I have been and always will be the type of person that likes to get the most challenging or difficult things handled first, not last.

Troy and Jess flew in Thursday morning for their brief Naples visit, they were scheduled to fly back Saturday night. They were here for a work function for Jess. I worked Thursday but left the office early to go pick up Troy at their hotel.

This was the first time Troy had been in Florida in a very, very long time. We were trying to figure out the last time he came to visit and estimated it was damn close to 12 years ago, wow. I took him back to my place to see it, he liked it. Obviously it is a huge change compared to where I lived before.

I was playing volleyball Thursday night so Troy and I made plans for him to drop me off in my truck and he could grab dinner while I played. Play for me went well but I once again volunteered to play doubles all night. Playing doubles subjects my body to additional demands that just are not that easy to deal with nowadays. I played with Andrew, a great player whom I get along with well. Unfortunately he is moving out of the area this week. He also is literally half my age. Despite this he and I managed to win most of our games, including the games when it was us two against teams of three. I was beat up by the time Troy arrived to pick me up.

We went back to my place and promptly fired up a private livestream for the fantasy football league Troy runs. We run a funny tournament that loosely follows the format of the NCAA basketball tournament and had to go over all of the “teams” involved.

After we finished we made plans to meet up with Jess at a bar that was several miles from my house. She had a long day of entertaining people so she was already tired. This was combined with both of them getting up around 3AM to make their flight. We didn’t stay that long before I suggested I drive them back to their hotel so they could get some sleep.

I took Friday off and wound up spending most of the day getting things done around the house. Troy was invited to a couple events with Jess and spent most of the day with her which was fine. When Dawn was at my place she pointed out several oversights in my guest accommodations. Two of them got addressed when I installed a 24 inch towel bar in the guest bathroom as well as a full length mirror on the back of the guest bedroom door.

Friday evening I picked up Troy. I took him to Mercato, one of the “happening” places in Naples. We drank and had dinner at The Pub. It started out mildly crowded and then became packed and very loud once the DJ fired up. It made for some interesting people watching. Jess came out later and met us there. We wound up going somewhere else eventually and stayed until last call. After dropping them off I found myself driving home in the wee hours of the morning.

I had to get Troy and Jess to the airport later Saturday afternoon. I made the suggestion that I pick them up from the hotel and then we could go to the Miromar outlets which is on the way to the airport. Jess likes Lululemon who recently opened an outlet there so I thought she might like to see it. We also decided to grab lunch there. As we were waiting for our food Troy and Jess got a text that their flight was delayed a couple hours. Evidently there were some bad storms covering much of the northeast. Within a half hour a second text came in saying their flight was canceled, oh shit.

This set off a mad scramble of Jess and Troy trying to find alternatives which were slim because a ton of people were in the same boat. They wound up booking a flight for Sunday evening. I told them it was no big deal, they were welcome to stay at my place. Jess felt bad about it but I assured her it was no big deal. I had already freed up my weekend so it was not a big inconvenience to me.

I took them down to Tin City where we had dinner at Riverwalk, a nice establishment on the river that I had been to before with Christine. They both seemed to enjoy the chill experience. We then walked over to the Cabana, the outdoor bar that I frequent regularly on EUC rides. We had more alcohol and people watched for a while.

When we finally got back to my place we found ourselves out on the lanai, drinking left over plum wine from Dawn’s visit. We just hung out there and talked, using that space as I originally hoped it would be utilized for, a great hang location. Before I knew it it was once again early morning and I had a 6:30 alarm set to play pickleball on Sunday. This alarm became my arch enemy when I realized the clock change cut an additional hour from my potential sleep. I had to peel myself out of bed, I was exhausted.

I had a good pickleball session and met Troy and Jess back at the house shortly after they returned from a Dunkin Donuts run. We had no hard plans for the day. Early in the afternoon I took them to Seed to Table, a place they were told about at their hotel. Seed to Table is a grocery store/restaurant/entertainment center that is run by Alfie Oaks who is a Trump cultist, normally grounds for me to avoid an establishment. However the place is unique so I didn’t mind taking Troy and Jess there to bear witness.

They got a good taste immediately as I had to circle the parking lot for 10 minutes just to find a place to park. The place was jam packed, Troy had never seen anything like it. We walked the floor and wound up having lunch upstairs, overlooking the sea of humanity. We all enjoyed our meals. I think it was the first meal I had during their visit that did not include alcohol. I drank a LOT over these 4 days.

I also got a random text from a person that identified themselves as Rose. Normally I would just block this as it was an obvious scam attempt but since Troy and Jess were there it provided some entertainment. Rose told me she was looking for a friend and sent me a picture of herself, a beautiful asian woman.

She asked me about myself. I sent her a fake picture and a fake name, playing her game as all three of us laughed at the interaction. The goal was to figure out the end game of her contact. She was very interested in moving the conversation to Telegram which I played dumb about for a long time before agreeing to message her there. She then revealed her goal, to get me to provide her with information about any cryptocurrency holdings I had. I did a good job wasting as much of her time as I could before I told her I knew she was trying to scam me. Once I revealed that “Rose” became very belligerent, calling me an asshole among other things before I blocked her. It was mildly entertaining, if nothing else. It makes you wonder how many people actually fall for this shit.

Troy and Jess were getting a case of deja vu when they got a text that their flight was delayed an hour in the afternoon. Luckily that delay was the only bad news. I dropped them off at the airport around 7:30 last night. They did not get back to their place in Lancaster until after 3AM, ouch.

It was a welcomed visit for me. Having my friends in my own environment is not something that happens all that often in my world. To have it happen on two consecutive weekends is a solar eclipse sort of thing in terms of rarity. This week has no visitors on the schedule, instead it is the start of my vein procedures to collapse the defective varicose veins in my right leg. I am not looking forward to the procedure but I am looking forward to the end result. One of the drawbacks is it could be a crimp on my normal level of physical activities I jam into a typical week.

Finally, I received some good news on my income taxes. I had scenarios of me having to write a fat check to the IRS because of potential capital gains on my home sale. Instead I am getting a refund which is a huge relief. That potential tax liability has been floating in the back of my mind for the last year or so. The sky has now cleared.

Last night I tended to small odds and ends around the house. I got a stand put together and listed on my 3D store. I had zero inventory so I figured I needed to get something up there. I remember the days when I would have 20 stands made and ready to go. Now I just make them here and there. The stands I now sell are bigger and thicker, taking a lot more time to make. The total print time for one stand is close to 3 days of continuous printing.

I was messing around in Capcut and again found myself in the AI section. I discovered just how easy it is for AI to duplicate your voice. I read a short paragraph into the app and in a matter of seconds it generated an AI version of my voice that was pretty believable. It’s crazy and scary.

Troy and Jess arrive today. Since she is here for a work function we will have to be flexible as far as what the series of events is, which is fine with me. I took tomorrow off to hang with Troy and who knows what the weekend will bring. Regardless it will be good to see them.

Last year at this time I was doing the final walk through prior to the purchase of my new home. What a crazy time that was.

Late morning yesterday I was doing work and I noticed that suddenly noticed on my second screen that I had been forcibly logged out of my Facebook account. At the same time I saw I was logged out of Messenger on my phone. Instantly my thought was something was up. When I tried to log back in it said my password was incorrect. Now my thoughts were that somehow my account was just hacked and taken over, great. I use unique, complex passwords as well as 2FA so although I thought it would be tough for my account to be compromised the symptoms all pointed to it.

My feelings strengthened as all of my attempts to change my password failed as well. It would look like it was working and then just time out or throw a vague error. I was having visions in my head of some hacker running wild in my account, sending out malicious messages to my FB friends and doing whatever else they felt like.

Only after all of these failed attempts did it occur to me to take a look at downdetector.com, a site that will let you know if a site is having widespread issues. When I did this I saw a huge red spike in Facebook down reports. Well at least I knew I was not in the boat alone. When I tried to log back in an hour or two later all was fine once again, crisis averted. I changed my password, just in case.

I spent a good portion of last night editing the swamp ride footage, there was a bunch of it. The final video was on the long side, clocking in at a little more than a half hour. We rode past so many gators it’s crazy. It was a great ride that Dawn enjoyed very much. Check it out yourself.

I didn’t get to bed until close to 11. I have only a brief pause until Troy and Jess roll into town tomorrow. We have not really laid out a solid agenda yet. They are staying at a hotel so I don’t have to go crazy resetting the house for another guest. Jess is here for a work function so her availability is going to be limited.

Last year I was still throwing shit out and came up with the idea of giving a lot of furniture and other items to the new owners to cut down on what I had to move. I wound up giving them thousands of dollars of stuff, and didn’t care.

My friend Dawn was originally scheduled to fly into town late afternoon on Thursday. Due to some plane issues her arrival got bumped back all the way until around 10 PM which was bad for her. For me it meant I had an opportunity to jump in and play with my Thursday night VB group. I wound up playing doubles all night. It was tough on my body. I played pretty well but walked out of there with a slight limp after I bent my knee further than it normally will go on it’s own.

I ran home, took a shower and then rolled back out to the airport to pick up Dawn. She was tired from the long day but still carried the same smile and high energy she normally does. She told me about the trip on the drive home which included her plane in California having to quickly get a fuel pump issue fixed and then her missing her connecting flight in Denver by mere minutes.

When we got to the house she unpacked as we continued to talk about the latest and greatest. I did not go to sleep until close to 1 AM. I left my 6:30 alarm intact for some dumb reason. Dawn was already awake as she is not a big sleeper. She was excited to get out there and start seeing things as she had never been to Florida before. The plan for Friday was to ride in the morning and then take her to the airboats in the Everglades during the afternoon.

The ride was fun and funny. For whatever reason Dawn and I bounce off each other well. I took her around one of the local routes I ride often. The video captures most of the silliness, which there was a lot of.

The airboat ride was fun as well. I took Dawn to Wootens, where I take all visitors. I have not been to the airboats in a number of years as I have had very few out of town guests in that time span. The ride was windy, loud and a little wet, just as I remembered. Dawn seemed to enjoy the experience. Later that night we grabbed dinner before hitting bed late, once again.

On Saturday Dawn had coordinated a ride with a group over on the east coast. We pulled out in the Tacoma with it loaded up with two wheels and all of the associated gear which there was a lot of. I knew a couple of guys involved in the ride as they had driven over to Naples years ago to ride with me. We had a hybrid plan for the day. The group wanted to ride all day and into the night. Because of Elsa that would not work for me so I was going to have to break away early and take a train back to our starting point. We met up with the group which totaled around 13 riders and rolled out.

Riding in the greater Miami area is a different type of experience. Most of the riders carried cameras as well as noise makers to alert drivers. Most traffic control devices were ignored. Evidently euc groups take on funeral procession rules where we would just roll past vehicles until our entire gang was past. Some drivers did take offense to the behavior. There was one really close call but luckily nothing bad happened. I tried to keep myself wedged in the middle of the pack wherever possible so I had bumpers in front and rear.

Late afternoon the group rode with me to a train terminal in Miami so I could get back. The group was filled with good and interesting people. I said my goodbyes and hopped on my train, with my wheel and gear. I received a number of side glances and double takes, as expected. Once I arrived at the Lauderdale station I had to ride another 8 miles to get the parking garage we started at. I was already tired but manged to complete the 1:45 hour drive back across. Dawn and some of the crew rode late into the night. Their ride in total exceeded 100 miles. Thank goodness Dawn was riding my Sherman S which has a big battery.

On Sunday morning Dawn came back across the alley with Wayne who was one of the leaders of the group ride. He was interested in doing the swamp ride. Dawn was extremely excited to try this. Recently the swamp has had flooding issues where you can only go so far reasonably. I was not really sure how this would go. It went long and crazy.

We manged to do the entire loop and saw a total of 78 gators along the way. A new record for me. Repeatedly we encountered gators on the path, some of which required riding right next to as you can see in the picture. Wayne was very freaked out by this at first. Dawn was not, she is rather fearless when it comes to these types of challenges. We did the entire 13 mile loop which takes a long time because you are riding so slow. Dawn LOVED the ride which I was happy about. I need to edit that video tonight.

Sunday night Dawn and I did a nearly 3 hour live stream. It was probably the most funny live stream I ever did, thanks to her. It was yet another late night.

Dawn was flying out Monday afternoon so we took it easy, sleeping in later than the other days and then having a late breakfast on the way to my returning her to the airport. I gave her a big hug and thanked her for coming. It was an action packed but fun visit for sure. Hopefully she comes back again someday to go again.

Monday after returning I had a whirlwind of things to do, including two of the ride videos. I didn’t get to bed until close to 11 and slept like a rock last night. I have another short week ahead as Troy and Jess arrive Thursday. Back to back visitors is something that never happens in my world, normally.

Last night I spent the majority of my effort getting the house picked and cleaned up for my guest Dawn who flies in this afternoon. My house is never all that messy anymore. Since the move I have thoroughly embraced a less is more mindset. One of the nice side effects is cleaning up the space is stupid easy to manage. I knocked out some laundry and even had time to jump into WoW for a bit.

Last week I sent out a stand that was ordered on my 3D store. I send all of my orders through USPS usually and this was no exception. The customer was in Florida so normally it would get to him in a day, maybe two. As I almost always do, I put the package in with our other mail at the office which gets picked up daily.

A few days later I get an email from the customer saying he still hasn’t received the order. I asked him if he got the shipped email from my store. He did. When I went into the tracking for the package there was no activity outside of the notice that a label was created. No scanning of the package happened at all. I was pissed.

I asked the customer to wait a couple days to see if anything shows up, it hasn’t. So I now am making him another stand on my dime. I am not sure if the post office staff in this situation are inept or thieves. The reason I am suspicious of the latter is the last order I sent arrived later than scheduled and when it did it had post office packing tape wrapped around it that I did not place there, almost like it was opened and then resealed. I am debating if I want to send the replacement stand via UPS instead, hoping they can be trusted more. I hate to not deliver what is promised, even if it is out of my control.

Should I be excited that today is Leap Day, a once every 4 years occurrence? If I should be, I’m failing the requirement. The last time I posted on Leap Day was 2016. I was sick as a dog. You might not hear from me until next week.

I have been doing rather well controlling my pickleball paddle addiction. I have not bought a new one in several months however that came to an end last night. I actually HAVE been trying to get this paddle, the Six Zero Ruby. It is a very popular paddle, so much so that every time it comes back in stock it is sold out in minutes. It has a kevlar face which is something new.

Well last night I decided to fall of the wagon in a big way. A lot of people that were lucky enough to buy these paddles have turned it into a money making opportunity, reselling the paddles on ebay. Well I bit the bullet and bought one, paying $100 more than retail. Yes, it’s a little crazy. Anyway, within a week or so my new paddle will arrive, hopefully it lives up to the hype.

Last night after tending to nightly responsibilities I settled in for a WoW session, something I still have not been playing much at all, despite more available free time. I only have two of my eleven characters at max level. I started working on a third last night. It was a nice way to disengage my brain for 90 minutes. I need to try to do more of that.

Tonight I need to do some cleaning/prep for my friend that is visiting tomorrow through the weekend. I have Friday and Monday off. A long weekend sounds pretty good right about now.

Last year I was wanting to get the move over and done with, enjoying my return to vball and talking about the advantages of not wearing knee braces.

As expected yesterday had me walking around slower than normal due to soreness in the majority of my body from my very physically active weekend. Even so I still got my ass to the gym for a workout. Some may say it’s a sickness, I say it’s a daily investment in my health that hopefully keeps paying dividends.

Last night I spared no expense in my dinner preparation I used not one but TWO burners on the stove simultaneously to prepare my Beyond Burger along with Kraft mac n cheese. It was hard work but worth it. Yes my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek.

I was considering talking about deeper subjects today but will instead only leave you with this quote I read the other day.

In every story a narcissist will be either the hero or the victim, but never the villain.

So true.

Last year I reversed the decision I made to not even post links to the blog on my personal Facebook. I also was in the final stages of throwing out anything and everything at the old house that did not have viable future in my new surroundings.

My weekend kept me moving. I decided to get my grocery shopping knocked out Friday evening as I knew my weekend was going to be rather busy. I wound up not throwing my Friday night pizza in the oven until after 7:30.

I also worked on going through my Quicken ledger, trying to find additional improvements that I made on the old house to help offset my capital gains exposure. I found a number of things that I missed the first time I went through it, finding another 30K plus of things. In total I have come up with around 220K of improvements/repairs I did on the old property over those roughly 23 years I lived there. I am hoping that it will be enough to negate capital gains on the sale and make my tax burden this year mild instead of extreme.

Saturday morning I had a bright and early pickleball session at 8AM. The weather was beautiful with cool air and sunny skies. One of the guys I played with just had a stent put in his artery earlier in the week. He is a very lucky man. He went to the ER with chest pain symptoms and discovered his main artery had a 95% blockage. He could have died at any time. Instead he was out there on the court smacking the ball around with us. He said the incident was impactful, as you can imagine. Nothing will make you appreciate each day on Earth more than knowing you narrowly escaped checking out unexpectedly.

Saturday afternoon I worked on a few small projects at the house. I ran to Home Depot and grabbed two items, a LED light bar and 25 bags of mulch. The light bar got installed on the huge ledge in the great room. The prior owners had a white rope light up there but it was too dim to be really noticed.

This light bar can be any color I want, runs a number of patterns, as well as being voice controlled. I like the way it adds a cool vibe to the space. I might grab one for my office as well down the road.

I have not laid mulch at this new place yet so I was not sure how far 25 bags would get me. The answer was, not far enough. What I placed looks good but I will likely need another 25 bags to complete the job. It was the first significant yard work I have done at the new house in 11 months. I also cleaned the outside of my windows, first time for that as well. Wow, my life is different now.

Early Saturday evening I got the itch to go ride to the Cabana to grab a beer. I hopped on my Sherman S and rolled over there. It was less crowded than I expected and for the first time I didn’t have someone lock onto me to ask me about the wheel so I just chilled there and drank. I had three Miller Lites in a short period of time on a pretty empty stomach so they hit me a bit harder than normal. I felt less than rock solid when I got back on the wheel but I made it home without incident.

When I got home I wasted little time before heading out to Carrabas to do a late dinner. I only had one beer while there since I had the head start from earlier. I enjoyed my vegetable ravioli before heading home and crashing into bed shortly thereafter.

Sunday morning I woke up with some left hip pain that was radiating down the leg intermittently as I walked. I had not one but two sporting activities planned for the day so I downed my Advil and had it. I wound up playing pickleball even longer than the day before, nearly two and a half hours. My play was a bit inconsistent but still enjoyable none the less.

When I got home I ate lunch and then got ready to go to the afternoon life remembrance/picnic/volleyball event for the sweet woman that used to organize our weekly volleyball sessions. I packed water and Cayman Jacks in my normal water jug. Turn out for the event was great. I would guess around 100 people or so showed up. They had a player who is also a pastor say some words as well as a few other people that were very close to Jaime. It was emotional, my sunglasses hid my eyes that got wet a few times.

Among the group were some friends of my ex who I had become fond of during our relationship, spending time at their place a number of times. I was unsure of how they would react to me as I could only imagine the cover story that had been fed to them about me post break up. Instead they were happy to see me. I gave them both a hug and told them I missed them. They said the same. It’s sad that people I like had to become a casualty of the relationship. I also saw another couple I knew through her that I had played volleyball with before. They were glad to see me too. I played a few games with them later in the day but I was already running on fumes at that point.

I clearly overdid it. I have no idea exactly how many games I wound up playing but I would guess 12-14. My body at the end felt like it went through a wringer. Once the Advil wore off the aches and pains really settled in. The good news is although I definitely overdid it, I don’t think I injured myself significantly. I think after a couple days of soreness things should get back to normal. It was one of the most active weekends I can recall in a very long time.

I have a short week, only working until Wednesday as I have a guest flying in for a weekend visit. I am a big fan of three day work weeks.

Last night I played volleyball, the first time since the woman who organized the games passed away tragically this past weekend. We had a smaller than normal group of only 8 players, some of them had not heard about what happened. It definitely put a sad overtone over the group before we started playing.

With only 8 people we played 4’s on a side. My team was two men and two women, the other team had four men. Despite the gender inequity once again my team was victorious, losing only one game the entire night. The one woman on my team has the same name as my ex so it was a bit awkward calling her name all night. She is a great player though. I played consistently even without getting a lot of big hits. I am consistent on serving, passing and defense which in the big picture means more. Ever since I have joined this higher skilled group my play has elevated, because it had to.

On Sunday afternoon they are going to be doing a memorial/life remembrance/volleyball session which I think will be cool. I only knew Jaime from playing volleyball with her but many of the group were good friends with her outside of just playing. I think Sunday is going to be an emotional but memorable day for all involved. It’s hard when good people leave us unexpectedly.

After playing last night I headed to Bruninas to grab a couple beers and dinner with the bartender that is trying to get me to meet that woman. I will probably run into her at one point or another. If I am feeling motivated maybe I will shoot over for happy hour tonight when this woman typically frequents the place, maybe not.

On top of the Sunday volleyball I am scheduled to play pickleball both Saturday and Sunday mornings. If you told the version of me three years ago that I would be playing pickleball 3-4 times a week as well as weekly higher level sand volleyball I would have laughed in your face. I attest the change to a certain degree of luck as well as just my stubborn nature where I refuse to go quietly into the night of old age.

When I read last years post I talked about a change where my driving got more aggressive which I suspected was tied into anger and or frustration about the same thing that has caused me anger and frustration for most of 2023. Every time I read a post from last year that ties into that, it makes the series of events that I allowed to occur afterward seem more and more ridiculous. As of today I feel like I am continuing on a circling pattern, trying to figure out where a safe place is to land.