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.
Last night I did my first real ride on the Inmotion P6 that I picked up on Sunday for testing. It took very little time for me to feel why this wheel has gotten the amount of accolades that it has. Despite being a very heavy wheel at 112 pounds it feels light on it’s feet once you start moving. It feels like a high end sports car with the best feeling suspension I have ever experienced on an EUC. The video will tell the story. The great thing is I am off work until after Thanksgiving so I will have a lot of opportunities to ride the wheel and get a true sense of what it is about. My only concern is I will love it so much that I will feel compelled to buy one for myself.
I had yet another 3D printer impulse buy yesterday, buying the new Bambu Lab P2S that became available. It is the upgrade to the P1S which I currently own. It has a bunch of improvements over it’s predecessor yet costs the same. My plan is to sell the P1S to offset some of the expense while upgrading my 3D printer farm at the same time.
As I mentioned I am off until the Monday after Thanksgiving. I have no worries about having a multitude of things to keep me busy, entertained and content. I may pop in here a couple times during that hiatus, I may not. If not have a great Thanksgiving!!
Yesterday the last component of my kitchen repurposing arrived, a cabinet to place on the wall under the newly installed TV. This came in a box and required a little less than two hours of assembly. It will add a nice chunk of storage to the kitchen and helps fill that wall under the TV. The TV itself might get upgraded to something bigger if I see a sweet Black Friday deal.
I had the TV on while working on the cabinet last night watching ABC programming via the new antenna I installed in the attic. I even saw some of Dancing With the Stars. I had no idea that show was still on. I think I last tuned in a decade ago. I like this revised version of the large kitchen area. It’s more warm, functional and homey, in my opinion.
I did a very brief ride around the neighborhood on the P6 last night. It was brief because I had no gear on. I quickly zipped above 30 MPH without any effort. The wheel feels like a one wheeled luxury sports car to me.
The weather this weekend was simply great. I took advantage of it Saturday morning getting a pickleball session in that was close to three hours. Despite the long session I could have played again Sunday but chose to not push it physically.
My kitchen has had a lot of unused space in it since I moved in. It’s a space that would normally be used for a small table and chairs. Instead I have had a workmate in the space which has been used for various wheel projects. I never really cared about the odd use of space. Well the space has been rearranged over the weekend.
I now have a small table in that space. There also has been a rearranging of cabinets in the area. I have the free standing pantry and other high cabinet from the old house side by side. The old cabinet was in front of an existing kitchen wall mount tv hook up the old owners utilized. I am now utilizing it as well. It works out well because that is also the coax segment I have the HDTV antenna connected to so I get OTA content as well as all of my streaming options on that set. Things are setting up to be a little different around my household in the upcoming year.
Sunday afternoon I embarked on a three hour drive north. I was offered the opportunity to pick up and test the new ultra-high performance wheel from Inmotion. They had done two days of open testing on the wheel and said I could have it afterward. Even though it’s a long drive it’s an opportunity I felt I should take advantage of.
I didn’t get up there until a little after 6PM. There were still a number of guys hanging out. Some I knew, some I didn’t. I got to meet Albert, someone I have communicated with repeatedly over the years but never met in person. He was the one that reached out to me to see if I wanted to test the wheel. It was cool to meet him in person.
I hung out there for around an hour and a half. They were going to go to dinner but I couldn’t join them since I had to drive all the way home and charge for 45 minutes before doing so. While I was up there I did take the P6 up and down the street a couple times. I immediately fell in love with the suspension. It was the most plush and comfortable I have ever felt in a wheel. I plan to be doing a lot of testing and content on the wheel over the next couple weeks. My head did not hit the pillow until close to midnight.
It was a a great weekend. Based on this sunrise I am hoping this upcoming week follows a similar trajectory.
Oh yea, the Eagles won another defensive struggle against the Lions. I did not see/hear the game but was happy for the outcome. All of a sudden their defense which was rather porous during much of the season suddenly has become a strength of the team instead of weakness.
Last night I had a few simple things to do/fix. I have a small salt lamp in my bedroom. The E12 bulbs it uses burn out stupidly quick. On Amazon I found LED replacements which should last much longer. In addition I addressed the smart switch it was connected to which lost it’s configuration. The end result is the lamp will now work day in and day out as originally intended.
My Bambu Lab A1 had been sitting dormant for awhile. It had an issue feeding filament which I did not dig into until last night. I was able to use my unclogger tool to clear the filament path in the hot end and then printed a speed benchy to verify all was well. Getting these two small wins made the entire night feel better for some reason.
Yesterday there were reports of ICE being active in our area stopping work vans and buses transporting farm workers. The effort resulted in a number of immigrants being detained where they may or may not be offered due process. I think this is ridiculous. Targeting these individuals that are doing jobs that are undesirable, grueling and low paying as deportation priorities makes zero sense. They threaten no one.
You hear these bullshit talking points that these people are costing the country a fortune as they get free health care and other entitlements. All it takes is a 5 second Google search to disprove this lie. Illegal immigrants are not entitled or eligible for federal benefits. The same applies at a state level, for Florida at least. However an illegal immigrant IS providing cheap labor to many industries which benefits all of us with lower cost of goods. In addition everything these people buy is subject to taxes which adds to the coffers as well. The truth is most illegal immigrants have a net positive impact on our society from a financial perspective. If you believe anything other than that you simply aren’t willing to look at actual numbers instead of accepting talking head speaking points as gospel.
Sure, target the bad guys. Nobody wants criminals, drug dealers or other nefarious characters here illegally. We have plenty of legal citizens already to fill those roles. But leave the hard working people that are trying to carve out an existence for themselves or their families alone.
The most significant cold front of the fall rolled through during my long weekend that dropped the lows into the upper 40s in my area. The cool weather felt good but it also meant it was time for me to finally take on a project I was waiting for such temperatures to complete. The area where I have the raised garden had a border that was made out of landscape timbers which were rotting severely. It’s something I had mentally noted as a to do since I moved in and has gotten progressively worse over the last couple years.
The prior owner didn’t install the timbers in a way that kept them all that secure or connected together. I have a decent amount of experience building these type of borders as I made a few at the old house. I utilized my heavy iron post bar to pop out the old border. The old owner also never totally closed off the old border in the back corner for some reason that I did not know until Tuesday. There was a large rock in that corner so instead of removing it he just stopped the border there. Through a combination of the post bar and lifting the heavy rock out atlas stone style I cleared the way to build a complete enclosure.
The project was not hard but was laborious, probably the most work I have done since repairing the fence. Even with the high temperatures in the 60s I still worked up a sweat when it came time to throw 30 bags of mulch into the back of the truck and then unload/spread it around. I pounded two foot rebar into each side and connected each section with metal straps to keep it secure. Wooden borders definitely have a shelf life in Florida. I am hoping my efforts will hold up until I reach retirement age.
I played pickleball twice during my five day weekend, getting out on Monday and again yesterday. The weather has been glorious to do so. Since I started recording a lot of our lunch time games I have picked up on a lot of bad habits I am doing on the court that I am trying to correct, an added benefit.
I took the time to produce a promotional video for Inmotion during my time off to promote the great discounts they are running for Black Friday. I shot tons of footage for what turned out to be a 4 minutes video.
The Eagles played Monday night and I totally forgot to watch/listen to it. They managed to squeak out a 10-7 win against the Packers in Green Bay, a nice accomplishment.
Ever since I dropped Comcast I have been messing around with using an antenna to get over the air network channels. You can get a surprising amount of stations, if you have good signal. I bought two different indoor antennas and had disappointing results. I only pulled a couple channels and the reception was awful. I knew I needed better solution. I came up with an idea, how about mounting it in the attic?
So yesterday I attached the indoor amplified antenna to a roof support in the attic, orienting to face the north where most of the towers are. I then connected the antenna to one of the coax lines which I connected to a tv. To be quite honest I did not think this would work either as I am at least 40 miles from the transmitters. Imagine my surprise when I saw 47 channels pop up when I did a scan, sweet. Now the issue is the coax lines I have identified in the attic are one that goes to the kitchen and my office, neither of which is ideal. My goal is to identify the line that goes to the master bedroom and get the signal pumped in there. I love when a plan comes together.
Yesterday we had another lunch pickleball session and I again used the Swing Vision system to record it. This time I kept score utilizing the integration of my Apple Watch with Swing Vision. After each play I quickly swiped up or down to indicate who won the point. The app then takes that information to create a real time scoreboard in the final footage, it’s great.
This morning I had yet another MOHS skin cancer procedure to remove the small spot at the base of my neck that tested positive for basal cell. Compared to the big and troublesome area I had last cut out on my forehead, this spot was a piece of cake. I don’t even need to come back to get the stitches removed and he said if I wanted I could resume playing pickleball as early as Saturday if I wanted. I was in and out of there in roughly an hour which may be a MOHS speed record for me.
