Archives 2025

I just returned from a three day work conference in Orlando. I took the Tesla and turned on full self driving for the trip. The car literally drove me from my house to the venue without intervention, it’s that good. It almost feels like you are in an Uber.

I have been to this hotel in Orlando a number of times, it’s huge and beautiful. The content of the conference did little to get my excitement level up but it was still nice to hang out with staff from other offices to get ideas from. They really hammer you with food at these things. Although the food choices are on the healthier side it is still available in great abundance. I did a decent job of limiting my intake most meals. Drinking was a big part of the activities as well. I downed a number of Miller Lites over the time period although I never felt significantly drunk as a result.

I had a surprise embarrassing moment during one of the presentations in front of all 500 attendees. The presentation was almost over and the speaker all of a sudden asks if Shawn Duffey can come join him on the stage. I did a double take in disbelief but got out of my chair and headed that direction. As I was walking I realized what was happening. I recently just had my 25 year anniversary at work and my boss thought it would be cool to present the 25 year pin to me in front of the entire audience.

I was embarrassed of course but I appreciated the thought behind recognizing the accomplishment in front of the group. The rest of the conference I had a couple dozen people I don’t know randomly congratulate me over the rest of my time there on the 25 years, it was funny but appreciated.

I did try to keep my activity up. The logistics of the conference aided in that as I had very long walks back and forth from my room to the meeting areas that I would traverse back and forth repeatedly. I also utilized the gym there twice, going at 6AM. I haven’t worked out that early in the morning in decades but it wasn’t as miserable as I thought it might be. It was nice having your workout checked off the to do list bright and early.

I left Orlando early afternoon and once again had the car drive me almost the entire way back. Even though you spend most of your time at these events sitting, eating and drinking I felt sort of drained when I got home. Being out of my normal day to day routine f’s with me a bit.

I had a follow up appointment with the dermatologist to look at the wound on my head where normally a closed incision should be. I just finished a second round or oral antibiotics. He seems to feel that this area never closed correctly because of the infection. He said that although there is the open area that it should heal and fill as long as we can keep it from becoming infected. He said it should look more or less normal once this occurs but if for some reason it doesn’t it could always be fixed with another cut and stitch which I would like to avoid.

They cleaned up the wound and applied a scarier looking bandage than what I had applied. I have a follow up appointment in a week to check on it. I am really tiring of having this gross looking wound on my forehead. I have been playing pickleball a few times since the surgery which makes me extremely sweaty, creating a lot of opportunity for bacteria to enter the wound. I have been washing the area with soap and water and reapplying the ointment after those sessions but perhaps it’s not enough. I’m going to try to not play until my next appointment to see the result.

I have an AC guy coming later today. I noticed within the last few weeks the system not being able to hold temperature as you get later in the day. I then received an electric bill that was my highest ever. The cherry on top was the monthly report I got from my smart thermostat that indicated that compared to the same 30 day time period last year my AC ran 100 hours more, despite the average daily temperature being 1 degree less. Hopefully addressing whatever the root cause is is not horribly expensive.

I got a call from the doctors office early yesterday that said they were prescribing an antibiotic ointment to use on the wound in case it is infected. They still did not get back the lab results. She said the doctor saw my pictures and said it is ok and I should just keep doing the wound care. I asked her if he saw the pictures I sent the day before that makes it look like part of the area that was stitched had opened up. She said he saw that as well.

At this point I am not sure if there is infection or not. The wound is actually behaving like a recovering brush burn does. A couple nights I have let it go uncovered. When I wake up there is no more yellow, it’s more like it scabs over. Then once it gets wet after a shower the slimy appearance returns which is just what a brush burn does in my life experience. So I am now using the new ointment during the day and am taking a wait and see attitude although I am not enjoying sporting a head injury look for who knows how long.

Last night I was quite busy. I had to pick up my prescription but the doctor sent it to the wrong location so I had to wait an extra 20 minutes to get it. During that time I ran to a nearby Publix to pick up some snacks that will be spread around the room for tonight’s fantasy football draft which I will be hosting for something like the 20th year in a row.

I decided to get the furniture relocation done last night as well instead of doing it the day of the party as I normally do to make party prep tonight less of a hassle. It took about a half hour to do so.

Elsa has a funny reaction when I move the furniture around. Instead of being scared like she is of most things, she finds it sort of fun to find new spots to hang out. She may remember that the furniture moving means all of these guys coming over which she is actually ok with. She spends a lot of time during the draft laying under the table around everyone’s feet.

When I get home tonight I only have to stop and grab ice for a couple coolers and make sure I order pizza to be delivered before the festivities begin at 7. I have really streamlined the process of hosting the party compared to what I did in the beginning. I also have tomorrow off which will make staying up late to clean up afterward much less impactful.

I am a couple days away from my 25 year anniversary at work which is kind of insane. To think I have been here for a quarter century seems impossible yet the calendar does not lie. In a way it feels like it has gone by quickly but at the same time when I catalog the immense amount of events that have taken place over that period of time it aligns the perspective.

I was 32 years old and married when I came down here. I had no job lined up, only confident that I had the skill set to find one. I actually saw the ad for my position in the want ads for the local Naples paper as I was driving south with Alison and our two cats. I have done well for myself since I have been here, far better that I would have imagined back in August of 2000. In five years I can retire fully and it can’t come soon enough. I am not thrilled in some ways how things have worked out for me but when it comes to my career I have no complaints. As a high school graduate with only a Lincoln Tech computer repair certification as my higher education I have done well for myself.

You likely will not hear from me for awhile as Sunday I head to Orlando for a three day work conference. See you on the other side.

When I took a shower last night I did my best to really clean the incision area, hoping doing so would perhaps clear out the wound and let me better assess the situation. After I was done there was still some puss in the area and the skin around that looks like bad too. To my non-medical professional eye it appears that the wound never fully closed. I never heard back from the doctors office yesterday so I called this morning.

The nurse I spoke to said the culture was sent out to see if it was infected but it can take up to three days. WTF. I told her that if there is an infection it doesn’t seem wise to wait days to address it. She said I should just keep covering it with vaseline until I hear back from the doctor. I then told her that I have had a ton of these types of surgeries and I never had one that looked like this after the stitches were removed. She offered the same advice to wait and see what the doctor says. I’m not going to wait and see very long as I can feel my frustration building with the prospect of requiring more surgery to correctly close the wound. I loaded up the area with neosporin this morning and placed a bandage over it to avoid grossing co-workers out.

Since I was fasting last night I tried to stay busy to avoid dwelling on hunger. I took the time to install a modification to my big V13, a pedal drop kit. The CNC part allows you to install the pedals two inches lower than normal. The main advantage is lower pedals equate to more stability at higher speed even though I haven’t ridden close to 40MPH since my crash last October. The other benefit I was more interested in was lower pedals making it easier for me to ride in the seated position.

Installation of the new hardware was pretty straightforward. When I went out on a test ride I felt very shaky at first, I had not ridden the 100+ pound wheel in months so I needed to re-acclimate to it, at least a little bit. Once I did I got my speed up into the low 30s which felt stable as I expected. Getting down into seated riding was easier although I did not feel confident in that position as it’s been quite awhile. I had to wear my old skater helmet as a full face would irritate the cut too much. It felt good to get out and ride, at least a little bit. It also felt good to make a “real” video compared to the series of Shorts I have been making on my phone recently.

I ended my fast this morning having lost 5lbs in the roughly 36 hours I went without food/calories. You don’t realize how much time you spend planning, making, eating and cleaning up after meals until you don’t have to do it. The fast was not easy but it wasn’t awful either. My least favorite part is forcing myself to drink black coffee, I really dislike it. So from here I plan to jump back on my mindful eating bandwagon, going to bed with a little hunger in my stomach to see where that lands me.

Despite having stitches still in my head I was having the urge play pickleball however the weather handled that for me with rain hanging around both Saturday and Sunday morning. I instead filled my day with a lot of tasks inside the house, mostly. I did another culling of my closets, filling two kitchen trash bags with clothing I donated to Goodwill. I have more in the house I need to reevaluate in regards to my need of it. Even though I slashed the amount of stuff I have dramatically when I moved, there is still more pruning that can be done. I always feel better once doing so.

I did a lot of 3D printing as well over the weekend as well as one fix where I had to disassemble the AMS on one of the printers to get a broken piece of filament out. Below are the shorts I made about the projects/work.

This morning I got the stitches removed from my head. This wound has not healed ideally as there is a section where it still looks yellow/gross, perhaps because of just how big the area was which was closed. The office nurse took a sample of the questionable area to have it tested so they can advise me how to proceed however they still pulled the stitches. This is the first time I have treated one of these wounds with only vaseline which is what the doctor recommended. I always have used Neosporin in the past to promote healing. The fact that I did not do that this time and the wound is still messy makes me likely to not deviate from my Neosporin use in the future. I plan to continue treating the stitch free scar with Neosporin from here on out.

I am doing another fast today with the plan currently being to not eat until tomorrow’s breakfast which will wind up being close to a 36 hour fast. I was 185.6 lbs last night after the shower. The only stuff I plan to consume during this time period is water, black coffee, and some sea salt. There is a chance I could extend the fast longer but right now I am mentally committed to 36 hours and calling it good.

Yesterday I pushed it a bit more at the gym, adding pull ups and push ups back into my workout. It felt ok as I did not experience any sensation of there being pressure on the healing incision. I followed up doing some weight work slightly below what I would normally do but that felt good as well. I decided to not try pickleball however until the stitches are removed on Monday.

Last night I had a variety of things that kept my attention. I had a large pile of laundry to chip away at but I also had my latest 3D printed project to assemble, a sweet looking lamp. I bought a hanging light socket off Amazon to provide the electrical connection needed for the bulb. I think it turned out great and looks even better. Even though I have been in the 3D printing hobby for 8 years plus, Bambu Lab printers have revitalized my interest because they can do simply amazing things.

I even found some time to play some more WoW, leveling my hunter another two levels to 73. Since I am starting so late in this expansion most players are like gods compared to me as far as their power goes. I was doing a 5 man dungeon and I was doing numbers that were anemic compared to everyone else. Every enemy I attacked was dead in a couple seconds as everyone else mowed them down, oh well. Doing dungeons is the fastest way to level but I think I should probably do more solo questing on my first couple characters so I at least get a feel for what the expansion is about.

My weekend doesn’t have rigid requirements in place. Pickleball will still be off the menu but I have a bunch of things floating around in my head that will keep me occupied. Oh, one thing, the new War of the Worlds movie on Prime is absolutely awful. It appears to be one long commercial for Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon and is the worst version of the film ever produced, by far. Don’t waste one second of your life watching it. Getting through the entire thing was only fueled by car wreck mentality. It sucks.

I have been wanting to lose the same three or four pounds for most of this year and haven’t been successful in doing so. Although I am still pretty active with going to the gym three times a week, playing pickleball several times a week and even volleyball if my body allows it, I still have not been able to keep my weight around 180lbs like I would prefer. It’s funny/odd, last year I had an issue keeping my weight up above 180.

I have done three fasting sessions so far and although they have a number of benefits, lasting weight loss hasn’t been one of them. I used to do at least one hard cardio session per week that ran 30-60 minutes. That used to be running and then later it became road biking but since I moved that fell off my routine. Although my heart rate can get up there playing pickleball or volleyball, it’s not the same.

Then of course we have the logical cause that I normally try to avoid thinking about, I’m just getting older. As you age your metabolism slows, it becomes harder to maintain muscle and weight gain is a pretty common side effect. However if you know me, you know I am not the type to just accept that.

One of the things I am trying to do is make sure I am going to bed with a little twinge of hunger in my stomach. Going to bed after still feeling the effects of a dinner that was too much is not a good thing. I realized that I was either eating more than I should or later than I should so I am trying to modify that. My other historical weakness has been a sweet tooth. It’s well documented the negative impacts excessive sugar has on your body in a number of ways. I have been making an effort to be more aware of my sugar consumption and moderate it.

I’m down a couple pounds since I started trying to enforce these modifications to my routine. As is the case in most things, consistency is the most vital part of any health and wellness plan.

My incision in my head is healing well although it still looks pretty nasty. The stitches come out Monday but I am feeling tempted to try a pickleball session tomorrow to see how it goes. I have been going to the gym this week but avoiding weight training which could potentially put pressure on the wound. I instead have been sticking to stretching, light calisthenics and light cardio. I may try a few push ups and/or pull ups today to see how it feels.

I took Elsa for her annual exam yesterday. While I was there I got a couple meds she takes as well but I still had sticker shock with the total bill of $800 plus. A lot of the costs are associated with labs that are done but my god, it’s sort of ridiculous. The good news is Elsa appears to be about as healthy as a 10 year old dog can be.

Last night I had to fix issues with all three of my printers. The A1 had an extruder jam that I was able to clear pretty easily by taking off the feed tubes, heating the hot end and then using my unclogger tool to force the filament through. When this happened the first time months ago that was how I broke the filament sensor. I now know how to address the issue without collateral damage, thankfully.

The X1C had a piece of filament that broke off inside the PTFE tube in the guts of the AMS 2. It was a bit of a pain getting that tube released to remove the filament but I got it. Finally the P1S was driving me nuts because the roll of white filament I was using was a non-Bambu spool. It would keep binding on me, requiring me to intervene. Once the print on it finished I was done using that spool in the AMS. The good news is I came up with three very cool dinosaur prints.

Last night I actually played some retail WoW for the first time in months. I had a small blitz of play a few months back where I got all of my characters to level 70, the starting level for the new expansion but I never played any of the expansion itself. It’s not really new anymore either as we are at the second major patch release. Anyway there have been a bunch of changes so the first 20 minutes was just me getting my hunter character playable again and figuring out how stuff now works. I am still in the dark about many things and my character felt pretty weak but I was able to at least gain a level. We will see how much time I have to invest in my 20 year old game.

I had a weekend where there was a goal of not doing activities that kept me out in the sun or caused a significant amount of exertion due to the large incision I have in my head. Well the sun avoidance is more of a side effect of the antibiotic they have me on which has a side effect of making me very reactive to sun exposure.

I knocked out a number of projects on Saturday including installing a Panda Status RGB indicator which mounts onto the heat bed of my P1S. It gives you information about a print with a quick glance. It’s a feature that is included with the H2D printer. The P1S now is in it’s final form as far as I am concerned. Even though the X1C is a higher end printer with more features I find myself printing more on the P1S currently.

I also got around to installing a new desktop mic on my computer. I bought it a couple weeks ago, a Steelseries Alias. The Yeti Blue mic I was using is 6-7 years old . I look forward to trying it out on my next live stream broadcast.

Sunday morning I did a quick 1 mile walk on the beach right around sunrise to avoid significant sun exposure. I attended to small things around my place during the day but it was a pretty lazy affair by my standards. I finally completed watching the four seasons of Last Ship, a show I never heard about during it’s original run that started in 2014. It ironically depicted almost a COVID like reality although it was a more deadly example that kills 5 billion people. I found it entertaining although things got increasingly silly as each season progressed. I now can see what else is out there as I felt obligated to see the series through to its completion.

So I went through the day yesterday taking a couple rounds of Advil to knock down the consistent pain in the area where the incision/stitches are on my head which grew as the numbing from the procedure wore off. However even a day later there are parts of my head that are numb. The top of my head on the side where the surgery occurred still feels completely numb. I am not sure if this is just the numbing solution moving to other areas temporarily or something else. I will give it a day or two before I have any significant concern. It was a rather large area that was cut out and they injected me with a lot of the numbing shots, probably the most I ever received.

Walking around last night and this morning I noticed something else. The pain I was feeling in my right leg/knee has vanished. Suddenly I feel fine where as prior to the surgery I was having consistent knee/leg pain for two weeks. Do I have any idea why having skin cancer surgery on my face would make my problematic knee suddenly feel better? Nope but I’m not complaining.

This weekend any athletic competition or hard physical labor is off the table but I have a list of other to do’s floating around in my head that should keep me busy enough.

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.