All posts by Duf

I had a busy but enjoyable weekend.  Since the grass tasks were already handled it freed me up to do other things.  One of those other things was making my mom’s chocolate cake recipe for Cindy’s birthday.  I bought the ingredients I didn’t have during my errand run and then started making the cake mid-afternoon.

Cake prep went smoothly.  I would up using my big Kitchen Aid stand mixer for the main cake mix which probably resulted in the ingredients getting better mixing than typical.  However with this cake the icing is the star of the show.  I bought a new double boiler just for the icing.  It too worked well, I would say the end product was one of the top 10% of the cakes I have made.

Saturday evening I took the V11 to Dunkin Donuts.  On the way back I rode through the nearby developments checking out the Halloween decorations.  There weren’t a ton to see but I enjoyed the ride regardless.

On Sunday morning it felt like I was spinning in circles trying to get small tasks done so I could get out the door.  I finally got down to Marco to do a hill test with my two Inmotion wheels, the V11 and the V12.  I parked by Indian Hill, the steepest and longest hill in Marco Island.  It was very interesting contrasting how both wheels felt going back and forth over the hill 10 times.  Part of the test was also monitoring wheel temperature during the stress test.  Both wheels passed the test but the V12 was clearly the winner with much more speed over the hills as well as having a top temperature 20 degrees cooler than the V11.

Late in the afternoon Cindy stopped over.  She had spent most of the day with Katie and DJ which was a fun way to spend her birthday.  We picked up food from Brooks Burgers, one of her favorites and enjoyed it at at the house.  Afterward we each had a piece of the cake after I sung a solo version of happy birthday to Cindy, something I am not sure I ever did as normally at least Katie would also be part of the process.  The cake tasted quite good, although both Cindy and I felt the side effects of the caloric bomb we ingested.  Despite the major change in our dynamic since her last birthday, I think overall Cindy had a good day which I was happy about.

The Eagles/Buccaneers game went sort of like I expected with Tampa winning convincingly.  The game was not as close as the 28-22 final score.  Tom Brady was surgical in his dissection of the Eagles defense, which returned to seeming pretty hapless.  Again the run/pass balance was woeful and statistically Jalen Hurts had an awful game, making very few throws, instead relying on his legs to to keep anything going.

To be fair this is only his 10th start but I certainly have not seen anything so far that makes me think that the team has made anything better than a lateral move at QB and more than likely, a downgrade. The more he plays, the less promising his future appears, to me at least.  After the Patriots scored to go ahead 28-7 I flipped over and watched another episode of Titans before flipping back to see the post mortem.

Man, getting up during the week to the 5:40AM alarm is brutal nowadays.  I mean before the alarm was set for 5:55 AM so it’s only 15 minutes earlier.  However before if I wanted to lay there a few minutes to catch my bearings I could.  There is no time for that anymore.  Within 15 seconds of that alarm going off I need to eject myself from bed whether I am ready or not, because I have to.  To get everything done around the house before leaving for work requires that I hit the accelerator the instant my eyes open. It gets a bit rough, especially when you are up late watching the Eagles under performing.  I really need to try to get more than 6 hours of sleep during the week.  I spend most days feeling alert only during the coffee induced waves of artificial energy I experience twice a day.

This will be a bit of an odd weekend, it’s Cindy’s birthday. Normally this was something that we celebrated consistently and enthusiastically over the years with family dinners, nice presents and even the cruise for her 50th birthday which was one of my favorite memories of recent times.  Going into this birthday not together is certainly going to feel foreign and unhappy, for me at least.   I am going to make my mom’ chocolate cake for her, I need to make sure my cake baking skills don’t get too rusty.

Since I got the mowing done during the week and the Eagles game went down last night I should have some extra time this weekend to do other things, besides baking a cake.  What exactly those other things will be is not determined as of yet.

Last night I shot a quick video regarding my Anycubic Chiron, the largest 3D print I own.  The printer has sat mostly unused for months and months because of random lockups during prints.  As a last ditch effort I spent $50 on an upgraded wiring harness for the printer, the stock harness has a long history of being low quality and unreliable.  I have since done a number of prints successfully, including a very long 44 hour print over the weekend.  The video reports on the results.

Last night I finished up season two of Titans on HBO Max.  I am really enjoying the show except for one complaint.  In both season one and season two they put tons of work developing the super villain story and depicting how insurmountable it would be to defeat him.  Then in the last episodes, the bad guy is defeated somewhat routinely.  I have one more season to go, I am curious if they do better at coming up with the final outcome this time.  For those of you keeping score at home, finishing season 1 and 2 in the span of around 10 days means 26 episodes have been watched.  I guess I do have some free time after all.

We had a couple days of minimal rain so I decided during the afternoon that I wanted to try to get the grass mowed last night.  I even asked to leave a little early to make the task more doable.  As I drove home I became increasingly annoyed as the commute that was sunny, turned into dark and full clouds in the direction of the house.  I was really pissed.  When I got home it still wasn’t raining but it looked like it could at anytime.

Well that time came about 60 seconds before I was ready to head out and get started, it started to rain somewhat heavily but it stopped after less than 10 minutes so I decided I was still going to press forward with the plan.  As I fired up the mower I could hear the rain ramping up again, hitting the roof of the shed.  I didn’t care, I was now officially committed.

I kept my ass planted on that seat through multiple outbursts of rain, at least a half dozen, soaking my t-shirt in the process.  The wet grass made clogging a thing and spinning wheels a common outcome.  Once again aided by the multiple floodlights I have in the backyard I plowed forward, completing the task at about 7:45 PM, again in complete darkness.  Despite being wet and covered with grass clippings, it felt like an effort well spent.

On Friday after work I got back out on the bike for a 10 mile ride.  My pace seems to be improving by tiny fractions each time I do it.  It’s nice to something improving instead of declining at this age. Friday night I did a nearly 3 hour live stream celebrating 50 live broadcasts.  I drank one of my handful of remaining Zimas during the stream, which at this point is 2-3 years old.  The Zima unfortunately did not taste normal, clearly it has a limited shelf life.

Saturday the property was still too sopping wet to consider mowing but I did wind up running the weed whacker as I hadn’t done it in at least three weeks.  I am hoping to mow the property tonight which will surely wind up in the dark.  Cindy stopped by as I was finishing up mowing for me to do a couple things to the laptop she has been using.

On Saturday night I did something out of the box for me, went to a comedy show.  Cindy’s younger brother who has been trying to establish himself in the local Miami comedy scene was one of the openers for a show in Fort Myers so I decided to go.  I was curious  what it would be like so I bought a ticket and showed up.  As I walked up to the front door I saw most of Cindy’s family by the door, many of which I had not seen for a couple years.  They were happy to see me and didn’t ask where Cindy was so I assumed they all knew the deal.

The show was funny with a total of 5 comedians doing their thing.  It was a bit weird sitting at the table with all of Cindy’s family without her actually being there.  Like I said they all were very friendly and nice to me which I appreciated.  The three light beers I had during the show helped keep me socially viable.  I enjoyed the show and if Cindy’s brother comes back to the west coast I would consider going again.

On Sunday morning I ran several errands which included meeting Cindy at Lowes to help her load up some stone.  She has a cast and a boot on one foot right now so it makes doing such things very problematic for her.  I carted the stuff over to the place where the work was being done and unloaded it there.

I watched the Eagles game against the Panthers. The offense looked dreadful for the majority of the game, but unlike the previous week, the defense actually made plays, coming up with three interceptions and a blocked punt, all of which was a big part of the scoring the team did.  During the first half I thought there was no way the Eagles were going to win the game, they did.  I was happy to be wrong but it didn’t do anything to change my overall pessimistic outlook for the season ahead.

After the game I decided to carve out some time for a quick ride on my V11, the only suspension EUC I currently own.  I had not ridden that wheel in a little while since I added the V12 and Z10 to my collection.  I immediately felt the difference suspension has on my body, it was great.  I need to get out on it more often.

After my ranting about the resumption of daily deluges of rain you can imagine the joy that filled my heart when a flood warning came across my Echo devices last night.  Another isolated area of hard rain decided to camp on top of our area last night burying the property in water.  I used to think that the ideal place to live was somewhere near the beach that was warm.  The last two decades have definitely modified my idea of ideals.  More and more the area of New Mexico my dad and step mom used to live in sounds more my style with more moderate temperatures, little rain and lots of sun.  Of course if I lived somewhere different in the Naples area that did not include my having to deal with the end result of all the rain it would be more tolerable as well.

I have some loose plans for the weekend including live streaming tonight and a task schedule that will be molded around the weather pattern and moisture level of the grounds.

Last week we had very minimal rain which let the ground finally dry out after weeks of it being more or less a swamp.  I felt happy that another wet season was soon to be behind us.  I thought I had seen the last of the standing water for the year.  Unfortunately the last couple days some more intense rain brought standing water back to the landscape and a grimace to my face.

There has been one positive about the return of hard rain.  Evidently wherever the air leak in the inflatable spider is, it gets plugged up when it’s wet.  The spider has been fully inflated the last couple nights.

I have been building a checklist of things around the house outdoors I would like to get done once temperatures and humidity drop consistently.  The list is growing because I have been less willing to do certain things in oppressive heat unless absolutely forced to.

I have been noticing a reduction of expenses since I started being a household of one.  The biggest difference has been in the electricity usage although I believe that is for several reasons, outside of less human beings in the house.  Last year I paid the electric company for about 5500 kilowatts of power, meaning power that was not provided by my huge 48 panel solar array.  I was somewhat disappointed in that outcome.

So far this year I have only paid for about 1500 kilowatts of power with three good production months ahead of me so I should finish up using even less.  Like I said having less people in the house means less power and less water usage, which is provided by the power hungry RO system.  However I think the other two factors were getting the AC fixed and my 3D store sales going down this year significantly.  With the leak in the AC it was running more and more to keep the house cool.  Less 3D sales means less printers going around the clock which each suck a significant amount of electricity usage.  I also was not charging a Tesla for the last two months at home.  I’m not sure which item saved the most consumption but I am glad to see the numbers working their way back towards break even. I have also been slowly going through other household expenses as I come across them, doing a case by case evaluation of how necessary or worthwhile they are now.  Things that had justification or reasons before, no longer do.

When I got home last night I had a number of normal Monday night chores to do in addition to washing the Model Y which was pretty dirty.  As I was doing so I was looking around the garage at things that were organized to be taken by Cindy eventually as well as things that have been designated to be thrown out.  As I surveyed both collections and thought about stuff that already has been discarded as a result of the split, a dark sense of waste and sadness came over me.  I just felt like so many things that at the time felt good, exciting, and appreciated now have found themselves discarded or pushed into a corner, never to be cared about again.

The feeling of waste is painful and depressing, not only when dealing with material objects but emotional ones as well.

It applies to so many aspects of one’s life.