Mixing, 85 boards, Going to the well, Live election

I hustled home Friday because I was invited to go to my buddy Juan’s birthday party. The birthday party was just his family members. I was the only non-family member in attendance which meant something to me. It did not take long until I had the first drink of the night which was handed to me be one of Juan’s brothers, an espresso martini. Juan had told me how good they were, I had never had one. The drink was good indeed and went down easily. I had another one or two of them as the night went on.

Juan is hispanic and I was immediately struck by just how loving and sweet they were to one another. The entire night was nothing but fun, laughter, and drinking, lots of drinking. In addition to the martinis Juan kept a steady flow of red wine coming my way. If that wasn’t enough I also had a Modelo and a couple seltzer drinks as well. I was obviously drunk.

During the second seltzer drink I felt it, the “if you don’t stop you are going to throw up” feeling. To be honest I am surprised it took that long to arrive with how much I had to drink already. I immediately stopped and switched to drinking water. I hung out with Juan until after the rest of his family had already left. He wanted me to just stay over but I told him I couldn’t because of Elsa.

I wound up leaving his house after 11:30 and did not get home until 12:30 or so. To be safe I utilized full self driving on the Tesla. It did an outstanding job, taking me the entire way without me having to intervene at all. It’s a good thing because I was exhausted. When I got home I brushed my teeth and collapsed into bed. I had not drank like that in a long time.

Despite not getting to bed until very late I kept my alarm set to get up and play pickleball with Sue in the morning. I was very tired when I awoke but not hungover like I would have expected. The first couple games I played like I was hungover but things improved as the morning went on. Saturday evening I went out to dinner with a friend and had three margaritas. Normally I won’t drink back to back but I I broke that rule.

My big task on Sunday was to work on repairing the fence. Since I have lived there I have made several lesser attempts to repair loose fence boards by adding additional fasteners. The problem is the board that was being fastened to was rotting. It seems that areas of the fence that receive over spray from the sprinklers are in the worst shape.

I decided to address that problem by purchasing sections of 1 1/2 x 2 1/2 pressure treated lumber and use them to face the rotting board. I would cut each section to length, use a hammer to drive them into place and then sink a couple 3 inch screws on each side at an angle that attached to the 4×4 post. I then drove an additional 3 inch wood screw through the back of the fence board and into the new piece of lumber, locking it in place.

Attaching the top support was easy, doing the lower section sucked. It required me to wedge myself between the fence and the hedge while bending over awkwardly to drive in the screws. It aggravated my back and knees. In total I did 85 boards over the seven sections of fencing. The end result is those boards are now secured for the foreseeable future. The bad news is I really need to this for the entire remaining fence line, ugh.

I watched the Eagles almost blow a game to the Jaguars. Once again Siranni was aggressive when he didn’t have to be and almost cost the team the game as a result, leaving 8 or 9 points off the board that they could have had. Only a very late interception by the Eagles in their own end zone saved them from what would have been an absolutely crushing defeat.

Last night I did a live stream. I wanted to utilize my cool new RGB accent lights. I had to change the angle of the camera so they are more visible. It was also the first time I streamed since rearranging my office. Even though it had only been two weeks since my last stream a bunch of things had happened during that time period that kept me talking. During the last hour or so of the nearly three and a half hours the topic turned to politics which I typically avoid discussing publicly, however with the election being a couple days away it was hard to avoid I guess. I did my best to be the voice of reason during the discussion. Once again my bedtime extended past midnight, a habit that I would be best served to get away from.