Archives July 2025

Those of you paying attention will remember that I had spent the greater part of three weeks 3D printing and constructing a sliding drawer shelf to allow me to hook multiple AMS units up to one of my 3D printers. I spent over $75 on filament and associated hardware for the project. However when it was complete I realized that it did not fit on top of the printer as I hoped. Instead I jammed it into the precious little space I have on that workbench which made everything seem very crowded and difficult to work on a printer if need be.

Ironically as I was finishing up that project a well known Bambu accessory maker announced their Panda Perch which allows you to put two AMS units side by side on top of a P1S or X1C printer. So despite all of the effort and expense I had already put into building the shelf, I bought the perch as it will logistically work out better for me.

Assembling the unit took some time and the instructions left something to be desired. However the finished product felt very sturdy and fit on top of the printer perfectly. The second AMS unit that came with the used X1C I bought does not work 100%. In my initial testing two of the four spool locations seem to not detect when filament is loaded. Down the road I will probably buy another AMS 2 unit to address the issue. Bottom line is the new set up does what I want it to do while allowing me to regain some bench space in the process. Now I just have to figure out where/how I can utilize the shelf I built.

Today I had yet another skin cancer surgery. This area was on the large side, resulting in a two and a half inch incision. The area is big because I was putting it off. I first noticed the problem area at least 9 months ago and just didn’t feel like getting it addressed. Truth is if I would have acted sooner the carnage could have been much less as skin cancer will just continue to spread if left alone.

I have about a week of not doing anything that resembles exertion as well as needing to complete a cycle of antibiotics. It’s hard to describe the sensation of having your skin pulled tight and laced up. I guess feeling like a football might be the closest imagery I can offer. If you can avoid it, you should.

I received an email notification from FPL about my upcoming power bill this month. It was the highest it’s ever been, just under $300. Sure it’s been a very hot July but still, this was significantly more than I expected. Last night I was adjusting the curtains that cover the slider in my bedroom. As I did so I glanced at the opening and noticed a gap of at least 1/4″. I tried closing the door but the lock was stopping it from closing. Further investigation revealed the door was not on the track correctly which was causing the misalignment.

I aligned the door correctly on the track and then was able to close it fully. I realized that more than likely this opening has been present since the house was cleaned over two weeks ago resulting in a constant stream of cooled air flowing out of the house during that time period. The high electricity bill suddenly made a lot more sense. When the cleaning ladies visit I often have to set certain things back as they were afterward. I now added make sure the doors are closed correctly to that list.

I saw Fantastic Four last night. I heard more positive reviews of it than Superman which is a good thing. I found the movie not bad but on the Marvel scale it was middle of the pack, at best, for me. I found myself walking out of there genuinely aggravated when I stayed all the way to the end to view the post credit scene. I heard it was a big deal. Unless I missed something it was just fluff that revealed nothing significant. I’d give the movie a B+ or B. At least it’s better than Superman.

I started the weekend with a nice two mile walk on the beach Saturday morning. Getting out of bed relatively early is the difficult part of that activity. Once your feet are out walking by the water’s edge and you are immersed in the sounds and sensations that effort feels well worth it.

Later Saturday I had my yard guy knock down a bunch of low hanging branches on a couple of my oak trees. It was so hot and humid I felt bad for even requesting that he do the task for me although of course I am paying him extra to do so. I thought to myself how if the clock was turned back 10 years I would have been out there struggling to find a way to do the work myself.

I had a few things around the house I worked on during the afternoon. I ran a new 50 foot ethernet cable around the perimeter of the office to connect to my cable modem. Since a surge went through the old cable and the retaining clips were broken on it as well it seemed like a fresh CAT 6 cable made sense. I also did some minor organizing and straightening of the room while I had it sort of pulled apart, an effort that will continue over the upcoming weeks. That room just has a bunch of stuff in it that I really do not need anymore.

My Sunday involved a lot of time behind the wheel of the Tesla driving up to Brooksville Florida and back, a trip that takes between six and seven hours. When I got home I felt like I wanted to get some movement in so I went to the fitness center at my work to get 30 minutes of cross trainer cardio in. It felt good to sweat but when I got home later and cooled down my right leg/knee was not feeling like it enjoyed the activity with pain and stiffness being my reward.

I last minute decided to do a live stream Sunday night, the first one in exactly a month. It was primarily about a new huge wheel that was announced with an equally huge price of $5000. There was a time where I would have felt very excited and motivated to try to buy a wheel like this but that time has come and gone. Still it was fun to talk about it and other things for roughly two hours.

This week I have another MOHS skin cancer procedure done on a spot on my right forehead up by the hair line. I had a similar spot cut out on the left side several years ago. I can’t wait…

I was surprised when the Xfinity tech showed up in the first 15 minutes of the two hour arrival window to address my lack of internet connectivity. He was a very nice young guy named Matt. I took him into my office to show him the cable modem. He stopped as he entered the room, impressed with everything that was going on in there. He said it was one of the coolest set ups he has seen. He asked if I was a streamer. I told him I sort of was. I gave him my EUC Army YouTube channel to peruse if he wanted to.

He said there was no signal coming into the house. He said the port on the block coming into the house was bad as well as the buried coax cable. He attached me to a different port, ran a temporary above ground cable and replaced the grounding block on the house as well. My modem showed an all is well white light afterward. Matt said a bury crew will be back in 3-5 days to install a new buried line inside of conduit.

When I went back inside the various wi-fi connected devices had returned to life however my computer which is hard wired did not connect to the internet. Upon investigation it appears that the USB 3.0 ethernet adapter I was using was damaged during the spike. I ran to Walmart to try to grab another one but all they had were USB wifi adapters so I grabbed one of those instead as well as a new 50 foot ethernet cable. I used the wifi adapter to get me back online but I ordered a new USB Ethernet adapter on Amazon. My plan is to replace the existing ethernet cable to get my hard wired connection reestablished which provides the most consistent speed. It felt good to be plugged back in.

Last night at home I was working on my computer. Some storms were rolling through but any thunder I heard sounded like it was pretty far off. Then it happened. Out the window facing the back yard there was an intense white flash coinciding instantly with deafening sound. Two of my three computer screens went black. The one that remained on had a distorted version of my desktop background on it.

Elsa immediately freaked out and started to try to wedge herself past my legs/feet and behind the desk which I told her repeatedly NO. She ignored me and continued to try. I wound up having to grab her by the waist and pull her out, she refused to listen. The area behind my desk has a lot of wires for the various equipment I have there, it is not a dog safe environment. Her refusal to listen to me really got me angry, despite knowing she was just scared. She wound up going into the guest bathroom tub, another safe zone.

So I look at my cable modem and see it flashing amber, indicating it was not connected. I power cycled it but I did so knowing it would not help. It seemed clear that the strike got into the coax cable and either damaged the modem or something upstream of it. When I checked it appeared the outage was local to me so I have a tech scheduled to come out this afternoon to hopefully get me reconnected. I am hoping the surge did not damage components in my computer as it is hard wired to the cable modem.

Spending the rest of the night without internet was a reminder of just how integrated it has become into life although I was able to flip my phone to cellular data to stay in the loop somewhat. My home which is filled with various “smart” devices suddenly became very, very dumb. I did some 3D printing projects and read some 6 year old Make magazines I had in the nightstand until I fell asleep. It was fine. Just like with food, internet fasting now and then is probably not a bad thing.

Saturday morning I heading out to the range for my second shooting session. I brought my Dagger 19 9MM handgun that I bought since the last time I shot. My good buddy Juan came this time which added to the fun.

I enjoy shooting rifles with a scope much more the handguns. My accuracy with hand guns is not good. With a rifle I can hit targets from 100 meters away. It was once again very warm and humid but a fun couple hours. Last week I ordered a Panzer 12 gauge shotgun to round out my collection, I should be good to go with my arsenal for the foreseeable future.

My right knee that I aggravated playing volleyball is slowly improving. I didn’t play any pickleball this weekend which was probably a good idea. I will have to see how it is by Wednesday when my weekly athletic activities normally begin.

I almost am done with my AMS rack project. I have it fully assembled after roughly three weeks of off and on printing. The rack uses threaded brass inserts that are melted into the structure, the first time I have ever tried such a thing. There are soft close drawer slides installed as well.

When I started this it was with the idea that I would mount this rack on top of either my P1S or X1C printer to save bench space. When I went to place the rack on top of the P1S I immediately realized it was too big to go there. When I went back and reviewed the plans I did see a picture of it on top of a Bambu printer, however it was the the new large format H2D which is significantly bigger. I could only laugh at my stupidity but I was able to accommodate the rack next to the printer instead of on top. I need a couple components to successfully connect both AMS units to the printer which I hope to receive this week. Once I do printing a model with up to 8 colors will be a reality.

Last night playing sand volleyball I injured my right knee. We were the only three person team after one of our players pulled a muscle in his leg. About halfway through the night was when I hurt myself. It’s too bad because I was playing pretty well prior to hurting myself. I struggled but made it through the rest of the night, limping to my Tacoma afterward.

When I went home I iced my knee and took a couple Advil. When I woke up this morning it still hurt but not in a way that makes me feel like I did something really serious. Plus the knee was not all blown up and swollen which is another good thing. I’m hoping it’s just one of those situations were something in my meniscus was floating around and got pinched in a bad way. I have had that happen many, many times over the years and normally I am better pretty quick.

This weekend I am supposed to go to the gun range with my buddy once again. It will give me a chance to shoot my Dagger 19 for the first time, a Glock 19 knock off. It should be a fun time. I am hoping my buddy Juan is going to join us as well.

I have a number of loose ends of projects hanging out there that I would like to get buttoned up. My hobby room/office has been in mild disarray for close to three weeks while I try to get the rack printed to stack my two AMS units. Once that is completed things will be much better in there although I do need to do a thorough sweep in the room to discard things I no longer need.

Speaking of things I no longer need, I neglected to mention that I sold my Mten3 earlier this week. This was the oldest wheel I had in my collection. The Mten3 is unique as it is extremely small yet has decent power. It’s small size allowed me to do things I am not comfortable doing on other wheels. I used to have a lot of fun on it. However the reality is I have not ridden the wheel hardly at all in the last four to five years.

I wasn’t actually actively trying to sell it. A guy that I have sold other wheels to and a 3D printer just reached out to me and said he was looking for one and he knew I had one so he asked if I wanted to sell it. After a very quick internal discussion I said sure why not. There is no reason for me to keep it around if I am not getting solid use of the wheel. In the past I would have held onto the wheel for sentimental reasons. I am much less sentimental than I once was.

Looks like Big Don has a rather large mess on his hands. Grab your popcorn.

I cut my fast from 36 hours to 24, eating last night. It wasn’t a very fun day, especially playing pickleball in the hot July sun with no fuel in the tank. I felt bad about not hitting the original target but it sure felt good when I got some food back in my stomach. Over the 24 hour period I lost between four and five pounds. I’m looking to maintain that loss through some changes in what I am putting into that hole in my head.

Today I am doing my third fast. I had dinner last night around 7:30 and I won’t eat again until around 7 tomorrow morning so the fast will be around 36 hours as opposed to the 48 hours I did last time. I will be drinking black coffee periodically throughout the day to keep my hunger issues down but I really dislike black coffee. I’m normally a cream and sugar guy. I was 188 pounds last night before my shower. It will be interesting to see where I am at tomorrow morning. Fasting is one of those things that isn’t fun but the benefit outweighs the discomfort IMO. I am planning to play pickleball at lunch while fasting, something I have never attempted before.

Another thing I have been going without for roughly a week is unisom. Ever since early 2023 I have relied on unisom more often than not to knock me out to sleep. It originally started because of issues in my personal life that were cluttering my mind. I would wake up and then not be able to turn my brain off to fall back asleep. Unisom deadened that response so I stuck with it as getting sleep, even drug assisted sleep is important. The downside was getting out of bed is difficult and when you do it still leaves you in a groggy haze for a period of time.

So anyway my sleep has not been bad going all natural. If I wake up during the night I have been able to fall back asleep. I don’t do it as quickly as I do while taking unisom but because my mind is more at peace now I can resume sleep without the major struggle I once had. I am hoping to continue sleeping without aid for as much as I can.

Last night I worked on assembling the AMS rack that I have been printing for close to two weeks. It is a ton of parts. The design of this model is pretty amazing, it is held together mostly by “bow ties” that are hammered in between the various sections. I have a bit more to go but I am in the home stretch. This is one of the biggest 3D printing projects I have ever done.

I was messaging with my buddy Jeremy last night a bit and I mentioned how I was loading up on protein prior to the fast as you are supposed to do. I told him I was doing so via eating a rather big piece of steak that my girlfriend prepared for me. This news shocked him because the last time he knew I was an active pescatarian (seafood only) which had been the case since sometime in 2014. It made me realize that I never actually talked about this shift publicly.

I started to introduce other types of meat back into my diet last summer. I think having more balance in my diet has helped me somewhat with my overall health and wellness. Do I have some conflict about doing so, sure. The entire reason I went pescatarian was because I love animals and I hate that they have to suffer to be a food source for human beings. However my diet change is kind of connected with other changes in my life like how I stopped caring about politics as much since it is all basically corrupted and I can do nothing about it personally. I realize that my dietary choices will not stop/affect the overall consumption of animals so I made the decision to eat more “normally”.

It’s sad in a way and feels like in some aspects of my existence I have sort of shoulder shrugged and given up. Over the past couple years I have made a conscious decision to focus my energy on things that directly impact my quality of life and abandon things I have no ability to change. Is it advice I would give to others? I think everyone needs to make their own decisions on how they wish to spend their energy, focus, and time. Just know it’s a limited resource so it should be spent wisely.

Sunday was my 5th consecutive day of doing athletic competition with four of them being pickleball with sand volleyball wedged in the middle. I have not asked my body to do that much in a very long time, probably dating back to 2023. It held up ok. My last two games of pickleball I played on Sunday were my most challenging of the 5 days. I played doubles with three guys, two of which were significantly better than me. I had to adjust my strategy quickly as things I could get away with playing lesser players were quickly exploited by the higher level competition. We lost the first game by two points but then won the second which felt like a nice little feather in my cap. Playing people better than you is how you improve the most, IMO.

If that wasn’t enough, on day six which was yesterday, I did a 5K walk on the beach. Walking the uneven surface is a challenge as well as being chill at the same time. The second half of the walk was into a constant gusting wind which made it even more of a workout. I do not believe I have ever walked three plus miles on the beach, ever.

Sunday evening I did my range test on the Inmotion V12S, not getting started until nearly 6:30PM which is highly unusual for me. It had the benefit of lower temperatures. It also had the side effect of finishing the 36 mile ride in darkness. The wheel performed well during the test.

IN the middle of the test I rode by a fenced in area with a black goat near the fence line. He was kneeling on his front legs as he was eating grass, it looked cute. I started to talk to him as he walked over. He started rubbing himself against a bristle brush the owner had attached to the fence post which was even cuter. He then stops and I see his penis start to emerge, it is almost completely parallel to the ground. Suddenly he starts to urinate. The stream is strong, strong enough to reach his mouth. The goat starts drinking his urine like he was at a water fountain. I was shocked at the abrupt change in tone from the goat being cute to disgusting in a matter of seconds. Yes I was filming the encounter.

Yesterday I saw the new Superman movie. If you want to see it, dont read this paragraph as it contains spoilers. I thought it was dumb, really dumb. I heard that this version of the film was a throwback to when the Superman in the comics was more sci-fi and silly. I’m glad I never saw those comics. The dialogue seemed like it was written for children and the addition of bowl cut Green Lantern, Hawk Girl, and Mr Terrific did nothing to elevate the level of maturity for the film. But to me the dumbest thing about the movie is the portrayal of Superman himself as someone who gets his ass kicked regularly. It seemed everyone was kicking his ass during the movie but then he would have sudden outbursts of being invincible/super strong only to get beaten up some more. To me, this is the worst Superman movie I ever saw. I like the Henry Cavil version much, much more. I’d give this a C. The best part of the movie is the dog.

I’m going to do another fast this week starting tonight after dinner, lasting until breakfast Thursday morning. Even though it’s not fun I think there is a clear benefit to forcing your body to go without for a period of time. I still have a a handful of pounds I wouldn’t mine disposing of as well. This is a good way to kick start it.