Archives September 2025

Let’s start the blog with a normal update in my circle before moving to much heavier topics.

I believe I mentioned on here how they buried fiber optic cable in our neighborhood roughly a month ago. Well last night a sales rep came to my door asking if I would be interested in signing up for their high speed service. I have been pissed off at Comcast/Xfinity for years so I was very interested in hearing what they were offering. I currently pay roughly $225 a month for my existing service which includes basic TV and internet with download speeds of a gig and uploads of around 400MB.

Although the service normally performs well I hate the song and dance you play with Comcast where every year or so you have to renegotiate a new package to get your price back down. Even if you do, normally it means you are giving up something to keep the price near where it was. Even after those negotiations occur your bill seems to magically keep creeping upward every few months. I used to be more vigilant about fighting all of these phantom charges but to be quite honest I tired of it and just resigned myself to overpaying every month because I had no other alternatives. Well, now I do.

With Quantum Fiber which is associated with Lumen, a company I have dealt with for years at my job, I can get 3 gig of bandwidth up AND down for $105 a month. Not only am I more than tripling my speeds, there also is no installation charges, and that price is guaranteed for life. Yes that is not a typo, I will not have to pay more for my internet ever. There is also the possibility of even greater speeds being available to me in the future.

Fiber internet has a ton of advantages over cable internet. You aren’t sharing your pipe with neighbors so the performance should be consistent regardless of how many around you are using it. Fiber optic cables are not susceptible to lightning strikes like copper coax cable are which can result in equipment damage as I experienced myself a month or two ago. Cable internet always has different upload/download speeds, with fiber the pathway is the same both ways, something that is great for someone that uploads large videos to the internet on a regular basis. I’m hoping the service lives up to my expectations as it is scheduled to be installed Monday. I look forward to informing Comcast that I no longer will require their services.

With the wound on my head being closed finally I am trying to resume my normal activities which have been gimped for over a month. I played pickleball yesterday and plan to play volleyball tonight to see how that goes as well. I also have some projects I have been putting off since they involve a lot of sweat investment, those are back on the to do list.

I have my pest control guy coming today. Every two months they spray the property outside to curtail pests. Despite their efforts I have been having a lot of issue with ghost ants inside which are so tiny they can wiggle in through the smallest of cracks. I have been trying to battle them with bait traps that are supposed to eventually kill the colony as well as caulking various spots in the house where I have seen them enter/exit. Despite my efforts they keep showing up. I am hoping allowing the contractor inside to treat the trouble spots will get me back on the winning side of my insect war.

So I like most people saw the shooting of Charlie Kirk yesterday. I was not personally a fan of him as he was one of Trump’s loudest and most consistent supporters. He was very young and made a name for himself going around the country and debating people on various political, social, moral and economic points, a lot of which was on college campuses. His efforts to bring younger people into the sphere of caring about politics was without a doubt effective. Despite not agreeing with his stances on many things he was obviously an intelligent man that was guided by his beliefs. I respect intelligence as well as the right of people to believe what they want. My line comes when people try to enforce their beliefs onto others which happens in both directions.

Ironically it was at one of these big outdoor college Q&A’s where it went down. It appears that someone with a sniper rifle took him out from roughly 200 yards away while laying prone on a rooftop. He has not been caught. No matter where you stand politically, it was shocking and a dark day. The scariest part is in today’s world you just never know the true nature of the event. Was it an individual that just hated what Charlie Kirk represented or was it a third party that was tasked with a murder to cause further division, rage and distraction to serve a very small group of powerful individuals. It’s an awful truth in our world today that truly nothing is out of bounds in the realm of possibilities. I feel sad for Charlie’s family and friends and hope this does not lead to further escalation.

His murder is grabbing the headlines on 9/11, a tragedy that ironically opened my eyes to just how dark and deep the levels of deception the federal government can go to manipulate public opinion. Oh yea just for fun Putin flew drones over Poland, a NATO ally, that got shot down inspiring them to state this is the closest they have been to war since WW II. These are dark days we are living in, I’m just trying to keep my head down and avoid the shrapnel.

I really enjoyed my long weekend up in Cocoa Beach. Even though this was my fourth or fifth time to the Space Center I never tire of it. They do a good job of updating some of the content of the park to keep it current and fresh. The idea of just how vast space is and all that it contains is something that has always fascinated me all the way back to my childhood. It interested me so much that being an astronomer was the first thing I recall ever thinking I wanted to become, which was later supplanted by the desire to be a major league baseball player.

I love the old school beach town vibes of the Cocoa area. The place we stayed was a total throwback, built in 1987 with not a lot of updating. In a lot of cases that would be viewed negatively but it wasn’t. The place was clean, warm, homey and very unique. It was so old school that you opened the door to the room with a physical key, yes, a key. The room faced the water which was very cool. Ocean views when you wake up are pretty amazing. It was a great few days and I have no doubt I will be returning again in the future.

After my quick two day work week winds up today I will be packing for a long weekend road trip to Cocoa Beach. Not only is that spot close to the Kennedy Space Center, the beach itself is very much a throwback to what a beach town used to be. I have been there a few times and always enjoyed myself. I expect the same this time around. I will be taking the Tesla and utilizing the month long FSD subscription I activated a couple weeks ago. It makes extended driving sessions so much less of a hassle IMO.

It really is pretty crazy how much I have streamlined my life in the last 3-4 years. Most of it was initiated with my decision to sell and move out of the house that Alison and I built in 2001. That process more or less forced me to examine what I had and what I actually needed. It was something that was long overdue. Save it for a rainy day mentality and former relationships I was in created a stupid amount of things that I didn’t need in the big picture. I developed an ability to do a very fast mental calculation of something’s worth to me. If it failed that formula out it went to either Goodwill, the front curb or just thrown straight in the trash.

That calculation of worth has expanded over time to not only include things but also include situations, people, relationships, and activities I spend my time on. Friends of mine are often very surprised how streamlined my existence now is with the outsourcing of certain home maintenance activities that give me the freedom to do pretty much what I want. It’s a far cry from when my life was mired in chores and tasks that consumed so much of my energy and time.

I have tried to distance myself from people that take far more than they bring to my life. I have had a long pattern of getting entangled with such individuals and am happy to say for the first time in a long time I am free and clear of that scenario. I have run that calculation on many other things that I used to spend a lot of energy on, things that in the big picture I have zero control over. I simply stopped giving a F about a lot of things is the simple way to summarize it. I’ll take care of my circle, you take care of yours.

I was sort of bummed out that my four day weekend was still not going to include activities like pickleball or riding since my wound was in the final stages of closing. I did get lucky and had my new H2S printer show up early on Sunday. It was originally not going to arrive until Tuesday. I also got lucky earlier in the day when someone came and picked up my X1C. He drove all the way from Tampa to get it which was hard to believe. I didn’t get my asking price but close enough that I didn’t feel bad about the sale at all.

This printer was packaged immaculately, just like my A1 and P1S was. From the first second the printer oozed a sense of quality. Setting it up takes time as there a couple dozen screws to remove as well as large amounts of film/foam that are all over the place to ensure the printer arrives in perfect working condition. I would say in total I spent 45 minutes going from unboxing to the initial power calibration.

I did a couple speed benchy prints to verify everything was good, it was. Despite being huge, dwarfing the P1S that sits next to it, the printer is extremely quiet while being lightning fast. I simply love it. I look forward to making large and complex models in the future with it.

As I mentioned the wound on my head is basically closed at this point. It looks presentable enough that I am no longer walking around with a bandage on my head. I am still keeping it covered with anti-bacterial ointment just to be safe. One unfortunate side effect because of where the surgery is located is that I have a patch on my scalp where hair used to be that is no longer there. The surgeon said it should grow back but the process could take several months, yay. It could be a reason to keep the sides of my hair high and tight until regrowth occurs.

Yesterday I was dialed into the office on my day off as there is a yearly process that has to be completed this week. I have been working through various issues that needed to be addressed. I think we are almost in the clear at this point which is a good thing.

Last night I got the urge to live stream despite not riding a wheel for a single second since the last stream. I had a decent two hour stream where one of the primary subjects was drama in the EUC community which can be generated from irresponsible riders, odd decisions by manufacturers or created by content creators looking to maximize eyeballs by posting titles/thumbnails that are salacious in nature. I am not a big fan of EUC drama just like I dislike drama in my normal existence.

I have a quick two day work week with a lot to accomplish in that time.