Loaded, 30 miles, F’ing Frustrating, WTF Gordon
My weekend got off to a late start Friday, I stayed at the office until 6PM hoping for the DB upgrade part of an application server upgrade to complete. It did not complete and actually failed altogether 24 hours later, something I had to monitor and work on throughout the weekend. The late departure meant I wasn’t going to run, not that I planned to anyway with my chronic fatigue thing going on.
Despite that fatigue, I dug into my Saturday morning work immediately. I told Cindy my goal was to have ALL of the grass/property maintenance knocked out Saturday morning. When I say something out loud, that means I will move mountains to get it done. Because of my low energy it almost felt like I was moving mountains but we got the weeding, weed whacking, and mowing done more or less as predicted. The standing water that had plagued us all week long had just receded below ground level, allowing me to mow more or less normally.
On Saturday afternoon I was anxious to take my newly returned/repaired KingSong 18L for a long road test to see how the new battery performs. The answer was, great. On the ride out I was pushing against a steady and stiff headwind but that same wind pushed me back, making the return trip incredibly efficient battery wise. By the time I got home my battery numbers were outstanding. After an almost 30 mile ride I was showing 43% battery remaining. To be honest those numbers almost sound a little too good to be true. I will be doing a 20 mile DD ride this morning to see if I get similar results.
Saturday night we watched our latest Netflix rental, Jumanji. I don’t think I ever saw the original with Robin Williams but Cindy did. I found this reboot to be funny and entertaining, a solid B rental all day long.
Sunday morning Cindy and I went over to the school parking lot for a little while with the Meepo and One Wheel. Now that Cindy is past her competition she is more willing to get on my two newest devices which both excite her more than EUCs. She made some good improvements on both. Cindy is very fearful of falling which is understandable but once she gets past that roadblock her natural athletic nature takes over.
We have Sadie this weekend so we took her and Sadie out for some errands, something that is always fun. When we got home Sunday afternoon I decided to do a repair on the Prius, something that is rarely fun. I was tasked with replacing the coolant control valve, a common failure in the Prius but not a catastrophic one. It throws a P1121 error that triggers a check engine light. I have cleared this light several times and it remains off for weeks at a time. I actually have had the replacement part sitting on my workbench since the end of March, yes MARCH. That is how much I was not interested in doing the work. But hey I have a four day weekend, now was the time to finally jump in.
I had watched a couple videos on the replacement and it looked challenging because of space restrictions but doable. In addition to the part I bought some hose clamps to close off the three hoses that run to the valve. This was to prevent a huge loss of antifreeze during the job. I quickly realized the clamps I bought were too small for the hoses. I attached them but they didn’t fit right. One came off halfway through the work and the other only slowed the flow of coolant but didn’t stop it. I didn’t even bother clamping to bottom hose because I had no space to do it.
This job went from bad to worse. The video does a pretty good job of depicting my frustration level with the job, which was off the charts at certain points. Trying to manipulate tools in small, greasy, wet spaces just sucks. I struggled for over two hours, standing in a puddle of antifreeze for most of it. Eventually I slogged my way through it and got the new valve in but man did it suck…
On Sunday night I was beat but I still had to put on a happy face to do my bi-weekly EUC Live Stream with Marty. It went pretty well but I had to end it rather abruptly when I had to get on a conference call regarding the application server upgrade with the vendor. Sure it isn’t fun dealing with work items at 10PM on a Sunday night but it goes with the territory. The good news was the call resulted in us being able to bypass the issue we were having and complete the upgrade.
So Monday morning as I was out doing the chicken work I noticed how it felt noticeable cooler than normal. As I panned the back yard I realized that the standing water back there had soaked in as well. I then looked to the east and saw very menacing skies. When I came in I told Cindy how it looked like rain. She said, yea tropical storm Gordon is supposed to come through. Huh? I had not looked at any weather since I was off. I hopped on the computer and saw a HUGE red area of rain coming across the state on radar. That was all that it took. I announced to Cindy that I had to get out there and try to mow the rear of the yard before the rain arrives.
So even though it was only a little after 8am I fired up the mower and headed back into high grassy plain of the back yard and got busy. The skies looked foreboding and I was very skeptical of being able to finish. However I got lucky and knocked everything down with about an hour to spare until the steady rain began. That rain intensified and lasted all day long, turning the yard into a bog once again.
The rain made for a pretty depressing Labor Day. We took the dogs for a Rural King ride but after that we were resorted to indoor only activities. Cindy had plenty to keep her busy. We sold the bed in the guest bedroom to make space for Cindy to use that room for her interests. We plan to buy a nice inflatable king size bed that can be used for guests as needed. The room sits unused 98% of the year so we figured we may as well put it to use. Cindy has always had a thing about wanting her own designated space so this was a convenient way to do so without requiring purchase of external buildings or vehicles.
I used the rain as an excuse to dive deeply into WoW, something I hadn’t had a chance to do all weekend. With a newly released expansion there are endless things in game to keep my attention. I bet I got 5 hours plus of play time in which is a rarity nowadays.
Today for my last day off I plan to get another EUC ride in as well as some One Wheel testing. I have two fender related things to try. I used FlexSeal on the inside of my original fender to deaden the sound of rocks and debris banging around inside it. I also 3D printed two partial fenders for the board. I want to see how effective they are at blocking shrapnel from hitting my legs.
It’s been a very busy extended weekend but enjoyable, with an adequate list of accomplishments in the ledger.