Archives June 2025

I had a very full weekend. After getting up early to go for a walk on the beach Saturday morning I headed to the pickleball courts for my third play session of the week. I didn’t get there until after 9AM so the heat and humidity was already ramping up. I played 7 or 8 games back to back and was absolutely drenched by the end of it. I once again played pretty well. Not having the significant nagging pain in the right leg/hip definitely helps me play better.

Saturday afternoon I started and completed an unconventional construction project. I wanted to build a stand to put the A1 printer under the bench, making room for the PS1 up top. I took a couple measurements but as is almost always the case the plan for building the shelf was very much formed on the fly.

I utilized two 8 foot sections of 2″ x 12″ lumber for the build. I wound up using almost every inch of it to make the three foot long unit. I also was able to use some of the lumber that was left over from the fence work. The end result was a very heavy and sturdy shelf that could probably support 500 pounds easily. The weight is a good thing since the printer throws a lot of back and forth energy that would shake something thinner/lighter apart.

On Sunday the work continued. The A1 printer fit nicely on the new shelf, clearing a spot for me to put the new P1S. Bambu does an amazing job packaging their printers, utilizing space in a very smart way. Setting up the P1S was very straightforward. I had it up and printing in roughly 30 minutes. I did several prints on it during the day and they all turned out great. Later in the evening I had all three printers running at once. I was pleased with how it turned out.

I did a live stream Friday night where I unboxed the new V12S that was sent to me. The wheel has a lot of cool features along with a different modern look that I really like.

On Sunday I got out for my first ride on the wheel. Even though it is a 16 inch wheel it rides like something bigger due to the large size of the shell. I have a lot of testing to do on it with the video production that accompanies all of it.

By the time Sunday was winding down I was tired. I had documented and posted a ton of content about both the 3D printer work and the Inmotion V12S. When I make content it doesn’t necessarily just go to YouTube, many times it also needs to be curated for Tik Tok, Instagram and/or Facebook. Even on YouTube it goes to multiple channels as I have my main one and then sub-channels that deal only with certain aspects like 3D printing and PEVs. It was all part of my plan to make content creation a viable side gig. Things haven’t gone quite as planned although I do make enough to pay for my monthly Dunkin Donuts bill.

I made it through another volleyball night. Two hours of moving through the sand in warm and humid conditions takes a toll on my 57 year old body but I survived with only minor aches and pains. My team split every two game series we had, winding up 3-3. We had a disadvantage as we only had three players where as everyone else had four. I played decent.

On our team we had a woman that I have played against before but never with. She is the type of person that likes to give unsolicited advice, a large annoyance for me. If I made a mistake she would often like to chirp in advice which quickly became tiresome as of course I already knew what I did wrong. She made plenty of mistakes on her own including missing a bunch of serves. I did not miss one the entire night. My inner smart ass wanted to give her a tip that it’s better to get your serves in but I kept my mouth shut. I was a sweaty and sandy mess by the end of the night. There is no shower during the week that feels better than the one that occurs after playing sand volleyball.

This weekend I may have a new wheel to play with. I also have a new printer to play with which is going to require a minor construction project in my hobby room so I can accommodate everything. I might also get some pickleball time in as well as whatever else needs to get done around the homestead. Oh there could be a live stream wedged in there as well, should be an active weekend.

Last night after work I went to get my hair cut. I last had it done before the trip to Texas so I felt ready. When I got home I finally got around to making a video comparing two of my wheels, the Inmotion V9 and the Nosfet Aero. It was something I had been wanting to do for at least two weeks so it felt good to get it off my plate. My plate feels pretty full of should do’s but far less must do’s than I once had.

I had an impulse buy of another Bambu printer yesterday. They are running a pretty significant sale that started yesterday. I bought a P1S with an AMS unit which was more than 25% off it’s normal pricing. I now need to put some serious thought into how I want my office/hobby/3D printing room laid out to make this all work. As is often the case, getting rid of things that I don’t really need anymore is step one.

Last night I did a very rare evening/night ride on my Nosfet Aero. As I left I was treated to a number of beautiful views of the sky as the sun had recently set. The Aero was a great wheel for the ride, able to comfortably roll me along at 25MPH without being overly big or heavy.

I have always said riding is a great way for me to clear my head and reset myself overall. There have been various stressors circling around me in recent months and I have done very little riding to help even that out. I have ANOTHER wheel coming my way in not too long which looks to be another design that checks a lot of my boxes. It is being sent for my evaluation. I’m looking forward to it

Saturday morning I attended the gun safety course that is mandatory in order to receive a concealed carry permit. The course was a bit dry, I caught my eyes closing several times. It is an interesting experience being in that environment which I assume hold some political and personal beliefs that don’t align with mine. I am ok with agreeing to disagree without feeling the need to assault someone’s character in the process. At the end of the class you fire two shots with special low power ammunition and you are handed your course certificate. In total it was two and a half hours. While I was there I picked up the Glock 19 knock off that I had sent there. Now I just need some 9MM ammo for it.

Saturday afternoon I decided to get the gutters cleaned. The recent heavy rains resulted in waterfalls spilling over the gutter edge so I knew the job was overdue. The task is not fun as I scooped out tons of debris with my gloved hands and then went back around with the hose to blast out whatever was left. Although it’s not fun it doesn’t take me much more than an hour to do it all. The benefits were noticed immediately as the intense Sunday storm was channeled as intended by the now clear gutter system.

Over the weekend the US got directly involved in the Iran/Israel conflict by bombing several nuclear production facilities in Iran. Although we have been told for many years that Iran did not have a nuclear weapon now supposedly they were close. Of course in my opinion, after 9-11 if you don’t have strong skepticism about anything the government tells you to excuse military action you are naive. What shrapnel comes from this is yet to be seen but I have a feeling Iran isn’t going to put it’s tail between it’s legs and run away. Since Afghanistan has dried up as a funding source for the massive military industrial complex we needed another feeding source I guess. The world and the people that run it are hell bent on destroying each other and themselves in the process, in my opinion.

Last night there were storms incoming but they still decided to try to get volleyball in. It started to ran lightly as we heard the lightning alarms by the nearby schools go off. We determined the lightning was miles away so we kept playing. I was just walking back from retrieving a ball when I saw a blinding flash in my peripheral vision. Without thinking I instantly crouched down and covered my ears, anticipating the booming crack that arrived almost immediately. We all scattered from the court area to a nearby shelter. The close strike brought torrential rain with it.

We stood around for maybe 20 minutes hoping it would relent but there was no such luck. Instead it intensified and was blowing sideways. I was already wet so I said f it and crossed the parking lot to my truck in the midst of the downpour. By the time I got behind the wheel I was dripping wet and still sandy, a wonderful combination. We only got about a game and a half in which honestly I was ok with. I forgot my pre-play dose of ibuprofen so it was not going to be a great time for me if it went the full two hours.

The drive home was downright treacherous with sheets of rain and flooded areas on the roads. I was glad I was in the truck. Elsa of course was petrified from the storms. I found her hiding in the guest bathtub when I got home.

This weekend I have my gun safety course on Saturday as a hard must do. There are a number of should do’s as well. The water spilling over the edge of the gutters was a strong visual reminder that I need to clean them out and install the leaf guards I bought.

I ended my two day fast last night. It felt good to eat. I drank so much coffee during the day I had a weird sensation of being overly awake yet tired at the same time. Getting through yoga class yesterday was not an easy task either. When I weighed myself before eating I basically had maintained the five and half pound weight loss I had in the morning. This was definitely a bit of a mental challenge but I could fast once a month.

This Saturday I am taking a gun safety course. I am taking it at the place my latest hand gun, a Dagger 19 was shipped. I did the paperwork last Friday but I can’t pick it up until this Friday due to the background check and 3 business day cool down. Taking this course will allow me to get a concealed weapons permit meaning I can carry a weapon on me if I wanted to, which I don’t.

In fact in Florida a concealed weapons permit is no longer required to carry a weapon. The reason I want one is once I have it I am able to pick up a gun the same day without the cool down period because they fingerprint and do a background check on you. I can’t imagine a scenario where I would need/want to carry a gun although keeping one in the glove box could be a possibility at some point. Almost every person I know has at least one gun. With the world teetering on edge nowadays you just never know how crazy things could get.

I now have a stack of paper hundreds of pages high of HOA documentation to drop on the requesting home owners lap. I hope they have a lot of time to read.

A little over a month ago I did a 32 hour or so fast, the first time I did one for non-medical reasons. Weight loss wasn’t the primary goal it’s more about the health benefits of your body going into a state of ketosis where it starts consuming it’s reserves to maintain itself. Supposedly in this process potentially harmful cells are cleared out first which sounds like a good thing to me. It’s not exactly fun not eating but I got through it.

Well I am again fasting but this time I am extending to two full days. The last time I ate was Sunday evening. Since then I have been relying on coffee and small bits of sea salt to curb hunger issues. To be honest this morning I don’t even have real significant hunger right now. Where I can really feel the fast is trying to exercise. At the gym yesterday I felt an energy deficit which is to be expected. Today I will be doing yoga so it will be interesting to see how that goes. I weighed myself this morning and I have lost about 5.5 lbs since Sunday night. I’m not positive if I am going to eat immediately when 48 hours are up or push it until tomorrow morning with breakfast being my first meal.

Last night I worked on gathering HOA historical documentation to fulfill a request from a neighborhood resident who is clearly looking for a conflict. I only got on the HOA board towards the end of last year. It’s been more eventful than I would have hoped. When I moved to my house one of the big appeals was it is a neighborhood filled with nice people with an inexpensive HOA where basically only common sense rules are asked to be followed. I never would have expected to find myself in the situation that has been presented to me now where common courtesy is absent, replaced by deception and dishonesty. As unfortunate as it is, I will deal with it. There are no other options.

I got a pickleball session in Saturday morning. Once I got home I didn’t waste much time before heading into the office to do the planned server work on our primary domain controller. We got new hardware to migrate to and this should have been a pretty straightforward task. It wasn’t. For some reason the old domain controller had an issue that would not allow us to demote it or make any change whatsoever in it’s roles/features. The plan was to decommission the old one and then bring up the new one with the same name. Instead we wound up just bringing up the new server with a different name and moving all of the primary roles to it while leaving the old server online for now until we figure out why it won’t allow for any changes. The end result was what I thought might be an hour in the office turned into an entire afternoon.

One thing that did go as planned was installing the new AMS 2 onto my X1C printer. Installation went smoothly and the new unit worked well in my first multi-color print. I am looking forward to a lot of successful printing in the future. I also had to deal with a similar issue as I did before on my A1 where I got an extruder jam message. This time I took a different, easier approach where as before I just ripped into things unnecessarily which resulted in my screwing up the printer. I had the jam cleared in less than 5 minutes.

I called my dad on Father’s Day where we caught up on the latest and greatest. I filled him in on my personal conflict in my neighborhood as it reminded me of some of the conflicts he has had over the years. My approach however is definitely different than what he would normally do. I am basically documenting and collecting whatever needed to address the issue if it comes to a head. Documentation is a liar’s mortal enemy.

Last night I played sand volleyball. It’s been close to a month since I played last and this is only the third time I have played in 7 months plus. Things went surprisingly well. My team went 5-1 and my play was solid all around. Although I was tired by the end of the night overall my endurance felt improved over the last time I played. Most importantly other than some mild soreness I feel pretty unaffected physically from two plus hours of sand volleyball, a big positive in my mind.

My weekend is looking pretty full. I hope to play pickleball tomorrow morning and then have to go into the office Saturday afternoon to get some server work completed. I would love to get the gutters cleaned and the leaf guards installed. I also have the new AMS 2 system that I want to install on my X1C printer to address load errors I am getting from one of the slots. I will make sure to allocate some time to just chill, hopefully.