What I thought was the annual HOA meeting last night turned out to only be an annual budget meeting due to stipulations in our by laws we did not realize. It was not well attended but the good news was we approved using a property management company to assist in HOA duties in 2026. Ironically I had another issue yesterday after work with one of the individuals that was the reason we started considering a property management company in the first place. Their role will be to make sure everything is done by the book while ensuring that if there is a problem household in the neighborhood they will be the initial point of contact and will hopefully shut down some of the ridiculous behavior the board has had to deal with in 2025. I repeatedly have had to subdue my desires to respond strongly to what has happened this year. I would have a field day picking it apart, yet I won’t. Letting someone scream incomprehensibly into a vacuum sometimes is the best response there is. It took awhile for me to learn that.
Last night I finally finished my tallest 3D print ever, a Christmas lamp. If I didn’t tell you it was 3D printed you probably would not know, the model is that good. I put it in the small covered area by my front door as I did with my Spidey pumpkin. It’s a nice addition to my Xmas decorations.
This weekend has no big to do’s on it. I am about 75% done with my Christmas shopping list, I hope by this time next week I am in the 90 percentile range. I do need to do my annual Christmas card ritual as well sometime soon since the USPS is slower than a snail nowadays.
Somehow I went through the last decade without ever watching a single episode of Stranger Things. That changed recently when I watched the first four episodes of season 5 with my girlfriend. As you can imagine, not seeing the previous four seasons made me more than a little lost as to what the hell was going on. The final four episodes are supposed to release on Christmas.
I have been going back and watching the show from season one to get some context and appreciation for the show that so many people have talked about over the years. Right now I am on episode 3 of season two. I have a ways to go yet.
Even harder than not knowing anything about Stranger Things is not being aware of the awful, awful state of us politics in 2025. Trumps first term set the bar for inflammatory, insane headlines coming from him or something he had done. It seemed like it would be nearly impossible to ever have such a four year term ever again in US politics. Well so far in his first year of term two the bar has definitely been raised. The flow of lunacy has gone from a steady stream to a raging river, ready to crest the shores.
The end result of this has been the numbing of reason, accountability, decency, critical thought and outrage. I mean just how outraged can one actually be when every single day there is a new thing that is beyond belief to digest? Childish, immature, and ignorant behavior has now become ingrained in US politics thanks to the rise of Trump. Hell it has infected society itself.
When you watch the congressional panels that seek to hold some of Trump’s disciples accountable for the circus going on like Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, or Kash Patel it is maddening. The default strategy it seems when asked a question is to never attempt to answer it, instead pivoting to a list of attacks they have prepared for the people asking the questions. Nothing gets accomplished or answered, ever, keeping the public in the dark just as intended. This strategy of answering hard questions with attacks was again something popularized by Trump. Let me give you an example.
Imagine I saw you take $50 out of a cash register. I stop you and tell you I saw you take the money and ask you why you did it. After denying what I just saw, your reply to me is that you heard everyone is saying that I can’t get a girlfriend because I am fat and ugly. There then is a group of zombies near by that start clapping enthusiastically for your reply. That is US politics. This occurs within both parties to be clear but is especially core to the MAGA clan.
Sure there are a few people that have snapped out of the trance and stopped taking every word out Trump’s mouth as gospel as if Jesus Christ himself spoke. But there are so many still that just refuse to divert from Trumpism because they are more afraid of being wrong than looking at the big picture. He truly is the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain and all that remains is an old, insecure, immature man-child screaming into a megaphone. He closely follows the Joseph Stalin playbook where “a lie, told often enough, eventually becomes the truth”.
It’s been a long time since I have addressed the madness and I don’t intend to continue doing so as it is a fruitless endeavor. I just hope we make it to 2028 without a complete implosion of anything and everything that we once held as core values. Maybe AI will take over by then.
Last night I dropped off the P6 to UPS for it to travel to the next reviewer. Lifting the 130+lb huge box into the back of my truck solo took significant effort. Luckily I have a small hand truck that made wheeling the box into the UPS store much easier than hoisting it into the truck. Part of me is sad to see the best wheel in the world leave, part of me is relieved. I spent a lot of time and effort reviewing the wheel and as I mentioned, all that riding had a negative impact on my body as well.
I have started the process of checking off my Christmas gift buying list. I’m probably only a third done so far. I am hoping by a week from now I will be basically done. Just as I am normally when faced with most tasks that require action, I would rather get them done sooner rather than later. The advent of gift cards and the accessibility of online shopping has made Christmas shopping much more manageable than it once was.
Tomorrow we have another HOA meeting on the docket where a number of things are supposed to be decided/approved. I am not quite sure how it’s going to go as both the president and vice-president plan to resign with no heir apparent visible. In addition we are supposed to vote on bringing on a property management company to help run things. To me, enlisting them is absolutely necessary since there is not a lot of interest in other residents to perform these duties. I got recruited to the board not realizing most of the current members were planning to jump ship. It’s going to be an interesting meeting.
Here are random thoughts about the 9 days that have transpired since I last posted. The following does not follow any chronological order or defined structure.
I really dug into the Inmotion P6 that I have had to demo for the last couple weeks producing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 videos during that time period. The highlights included me covering 77 miles during the range test and topping out just under 50 MPH on my speed testing. I really love the wheel and it proved why it’s the best wheel available by a large margin right now. I may find one in my garage down the road if I can offset the big cost through sale of other wheels I own.
On Black Friday I took some time to replace a few fence boards that were broken and/or badly warped. I could not find picket fencing of this size at Home Depot or Lowes so I had to just buy the lumber and cut them to size and shape. I may wind up doing that entire front section of the fence eventually for uniformity sake.
I had a major change in my great room. I have had the same couch/loveseat for somewhere around 10 years, if not longer. They made the move with me to the new house.
The imitation leather was badly worn and I had ideas of replacing them for awhile now. Well I replaced them but how it happened was unexpected. I was browsing couches on FB and saw someone listed what you see here for $200. It was basically brand new. When I met the sellers they explained they bought the couch but then realized it did not fit the space they had available well so they bought something else.
The couch is not high end obviously but it was comfortable enough and I was able to get it all in the back of my Tacoma in one trip. I like the chaise style seating it offers and Elsa does as well. The new sofa takes up much less space than the old two piece arrangement and I kind of like it that way.
I tried selling the two old couches dirt cheap but got no offers so over the weekend I drug them both out to the curb and listed them for free. One of the two pieces was picked up, the other may be destined for the landfill. The sofa is just part of the changes in the house lately which also includes a proper kitchen dining table as well as utilizing the kitchen wall mounted TV set up that was pre-existing.
I also upgraded the OTA antenna that the TV is connected to. The compact indoor antenna I mounted in the attic worked pretty well but was not powerful enough to pull in the NBC and Fox signals because of distance. I bought and installed a bigger legit antenna in the attic which corrected that issue allowing me to now pull in signal from those towers which are over 50 miles away.
I had the displeasure of watching the Eagles suck not once but twice. Blowing the game with the Cowboys after exploding to a 21-0 second quarter lead was embarrassing. It was like once the other team makes a few adjustments the offense has zero ability to counter.
The Bears game was even worse. The game did not reflect just how badly the Eagles were outplayed based on the 24-15 score. The defense was porous and allowed not one but two of the Bears running backs to gain over 100 yards while Saquon Barkley once again just could not get anything going. With the two ugly losses there are a lot of people pointing the finger at Jalen. I think this was always lurking under the surface as there are aspects of Jalen’s game and personality that a lot of fans don’t love.
He isn’t a fiery leader. Most of the time he has the same stoic expression whether things are going good or bad which is not what Philly fans like. They want a QB that lives and dies on the field and expresses that emotion. With Barkley not being able to run consistently this year it has exposed more of the flaws in Jalen’s game, namely holding onto the ball forever (slowest average release of any QB in the league), and a style of play that seems to be more focused on not making mistakes instead of making plays.
Surely he is far from the only problem. In the Cowboys game they committed something like 14 penalties which clearly impacted the outcome of the game. The offensive line seems to no longer be able to run block. The defense was bad against the Bears and even the tush push seems to have lost it’s magic. I can only hope we are not seeing the beginning of a monumental collapse like 2023.
I played a decent amount of pickleball during my time off. I have had some knee issues as a result of riding over 100 miles on the P6. Getting on and off the 112 pound wheel again and again is rough on me. That translated into me not feeling great while playing although I did still play both Saturday and Sunday this weekend.
I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner that my girlfriend prepared with way more food than I could imagine. Overall it was a great extended holiday break where I repeatedly felt thankful for how 2025 has worked out for me thus far. I’m looking to focusing on making being happy the new normal going forward.
