All posts by Duf

Today was not a good day.  The vet went ahead with the X-rays that I authorized.  The results seemed to rule out water belly as the issue although we already sort of knew that since neither of us were able to extract fluid.  What the vet did see is what looked like possible egg fragments floating around which is a sign of egg peritonitis.  Basically what can happen is an egg ruptures inside the bird and the contents floating around inside quickly cause infection which can cause among other things, swelling in the abdomen.

For Cupcakes swelling to be as big as it was this probably was going on for awhile.  The vet said that a bird can still lay eggs with this condition, something that didn’t make sense to me at first, since Cupcake popped one out yesterday.  So with this information in hand I asked for options, none of which were good.

She said she could try to operate on the bird and clean her out but she said the odds of success were not good.  She then said we could try oral antibiotics for two weeks to see if it knocks back the infection which was already clearly well advanced.  If we did that she said we should keep Cupcake isolated and under a heat lamp full time which sounded logistically impossible.  We didn’t talk about option 3 yet, putting Cupcake down.

I thought out loud to the vet, saying that none of the treatment options she was providing me sounded like they had a probable outcome of success.  Despite that I hung up the phone after telling her we would try the antibiotics.  In the moment sentencing Cupcake to death, who still was alert, eating, and even gave us an egg the previous day, seemed like too harsh and too hasty of a decision.  Of course dollars and cents were factored into this as well since just getting to this point cost a few hundred dollars in diagnostics.

So after hanging up I texted Cindy what was up.  She was firmly in the camp that the humane thing to do was to put Cupcake down.  Obviously the bird was suffering but still, it is/was very hard for me to be ok with putting a pet to sleep that seemed totally fine only a handful of days ago.  However as I thought about it more and asking Cupcake to endure isolation and more misery for a treatment plan that had a very low probability of ultimate success just didn’t make a lot of sense if I stepped out of the circle of strong emotion I was feeling about the situation.  I told Cindy I would make the call.

I called the vet back and told her after some more consideration we felt it was best to put Cupcake to sleep.  I repeated back to her that it seemed like any option she had was not likely to succeed.  Later when I looked up egg peritonitis I saw it is almost always fatal, unless caught very early.  This obviously was not caught early.  The vet said she would follow my directive.  As I hung up the phone I again felt like an executioner, like I gave up on giving Cupcake a chance, no matter how small it was.  I tried to keep my mind busy as possible to keep from thinking about what I just set in motion.

I left work early to pick up Cupcake’s body before the vet closed.  I had a hard time thanking the staff for offering their condolences without my voice cracking.  Part of me felt silly for getting so emotional about the loss of a chicken but it is a track record that has been well established.  Once I got her still body out to the truck I lost it for a few minutes, crying in waves.  I just felt terrible for my part in all of this. Now yes I do realize in the big picture that Cupcake enjoyed a pretty stellar existence by chicken standards her entire life.  But even with all that I do/have done for the birds, I still felt responsible, like I failed her.  That feeling of failure is something I just don’t deal with well.

When I got home Cindy did her best to console me which I appreciated.  When I buried Cupcake in far rear reaches of the property the tears once again flowed freely.  It’s such an act of finality.  With as many birds as I have buried at this point you would think I would have built up more of an emotional callous but nope, every time, it just wrecks me.

I am going to miss seeing Cupcake running up to be first in line for any attention I was providing.  She was a beautiful bird with a personality.  She was always the most broody of our hens, sitting on eggs for hours because her instinct to want to have babies was so strong.  She was still doing this, despite her age.  We just had to separate her a few weeks ago during a broody episode.

I just have to do my best to focus on the good life she enjoyed, the good feelings and smiles she brought into our lives and the fact that her sudden but serious suffering is now at an end.  As I tamped the soil with one final pat of the shovel I told Cupcake one last time that Daddy loved her…..

So the last thing I had on my to do list from my long weekend was get the Tacoma aligned.  When I did my last front to back tire rotation I noticed the front tires had some wear that was indicative of bad alignment.  My plan was to take it to the nearby Tuffy Service Center who I have had do several things on my vehicles over the years.  I first called them on Friday.  When I said I needed an alignment they told me their alignment machine was broken and needed a part which was supposed to arrive on Saturday.  They advised me call back on Monday to verify it was working again, so I did.

When I called Monday the story was the same, the part did not arrive Saturday but should be there today, call tomorrow.  So I did.  For the third time in a row I got the same song and dance, part didn’t come, machine still broken, call tomorrow.  Well since Tuesday was my last day off I really wanted to get the list item crossed off.

Cindy suggested taking the truck to Tire Choice near Sam’s.  I had also taken vehicles there in the past and stopped going there after a bad experience.  I have had a ton of bad experiences with auto mechanics since moving to Florida.  Even after two decades of living here I can’t say I have found one that I actually trust to do quality work without ripping me off.  So anyway, I decided to give Tire Choice another chance.  I called and they said they had openings to do the work so Cindy followed me there so I could drop the truck off.

A few hours later I got another call saying the truck was all done.  The $125 it cost was a little more than I was expecting but at least the job was complete.  Since I will be daily driving the truck for a couple months it made sense to get the alignment correct.  So I get back out on the road and notice a couple minutes into the drive that the steering wheel is not straight.  It was about 10 degrees off center.  I pulled off at a turn and called them, intending to take it right back.  I tell them I just got the truck back from an alignment and the steering wheel is crooked, how can that be?

“Jeff” at least was immediately apologetic.  He said this was the third call back they had gotten that day about crooked steering wheels after alignment.  He said their machine must need a calibration of some sort.  He told me to call back next Monday and they will get me back in to align it again. Ok great, that’s nice that they admit their screw up but it is ironic that after waiting all weekend for another place to get this done, the place I wind up going to screws it up anyway.  After I hung up I kicked myself for not asking Jeff why their alignment procedure doesn’t include a brief road test afterward to make sure everything is good.  I was frustrated as you can imagine.

So Cupcake was not improved yesterday, still carrying a large and uncomfortable sack between her legs.  I was amazed that somehow she managed to get up into a nesting box yesterday AND laid an egg.  She has really been the only chicken laying any eggs at all over the last several months.  To have her lay one in her current condition was unbelievable.

So when I woke up this morning I made the decision I was going to call the vet to have Cupcake looked at.  My hope was she would have success extracting the fluid where I failed, although this is only a temporary way to address the underlying issue which would likely kill her sooner or later.  Of course vet visits are never cheap either but I would feel badly if I didn’t at least try to help Cupcake.  She has been one of our most energetic, friendly and healthy chickens from day one.  Whenever I walk outside Cupcake is almost always the first one waiting at the gate for me to come in.

So I called the vet after they opened.  They said they were booked solid all day but asked what was up.  When I explained the situation they were nice enough to try to squeeze Cupcake into the schedule.  So once I got the green light to take her I had to quickly drive all the way home from work, corral Cupcake into the pet carrier and then drive her to the vet.  When I got home I just tossed my work clothes on the counter, put on shorts, t-shirt, and boots to do the deed and then changed back into my work duds once I had the hen in the truck.

She looks healthy in the face although you can tell she is not nearly as talkative as she is when she is feeling ok.  She just sat quietly during the truck ride.  It was the first time she had been in the truck since we picked her up as one week old chick from Rural King.  The front desk staff at the vet was very sweet when I dropped her off.  They said they actually had a rooster in the back to be looked at as well.  Not many would care enough about a farm animal to take them to the vet and not many vets even will look at farm animals. I am glad this one does.  We took Lola and Lucy both to her years ago.

So I got a call from the vet a couple hours later.  She was also unsuccessful in getting any appreciable amount of fluid out of Cupcake which was not the news I wanted to hear.  She had suspicions that she could be egg bound but I told her Cupcake just laid yesterday so that was unlikely.  They gave me two options, they could do X-rays which are expensive but will give them a better idea of what exactly is going on in there.  The second option was to just give her antibiotics as a hail mary that it will address whatever is going on in there.  A third option which I didn’t talk about yet was to just have her put down so she doesn’t suffer.  After some pause with spending a decent chunk of change for x-rays, I still opted to go that route in the hope that we can at least get an answer.  The way this came on seemingly out of nowhere is really, really strange.  She seemed absolutely fine Sunday and was sitting like a duck on Monday although it is possible it had been slowly growing and she had been able to function.

I am hoping for a resolution to Cupcake’s ailment but I certainly am not optimistic about it happening.  Regardless, to me she at least deserves the effort after being such a long standing and bright spot in the flock for so many years.  If you don’t understand why I feel attachment, affection and responsibility for my chickens, you are not alone.

Friday I deemed my mowing day and I am glad I did so as a couple torrential rain episodes since then have left standing water in areas around the yard.  I made a video Friday morning about the Tesla transaction.  All that remained was for the payment to be sent to the bank for the loan and the remainder to my bank account.  Well one of those thing happened, a big fat 11k plus deposit hit my bank late Friday afternoon, great!  However when I checked the Fedex number for the bank loan payment that was sent to my email on Wednesday night there was no activity other than the label being generated.  This was like a bad version of Groundhog Day.

Those of you that have been following this story closely will know that I had a similar issue when it came to Vroom sending me the paperwork I needed to sign.  I got a tracking number but no activity, it appeared to have never been picked up and I had to have them resend the paperwork.  Well this was the exact same deal, someone at Vroom is really bad at making sure their Fedex envelopes get in the right hands.  As of today, Monday there still has been absolutely no status change on the bank payoff check.  I called the Indian help desk once again and got a shoulder shrug as to why this is.  The guy said that sometimes Fedex doesn’t update the status.  That has never been the case  for me, ever.  Supposedly the original check will be cancelled and a new one sent out along with a fresh tracking number for me.  I just want this 100% done.  Sure it’s great I have my money but paying off the bank loan is a detail that I can not ignore.

My big task for Saturday was pressure washing.  I did both sheds and all of the castle stones.  The castle stones are the biggest pain in the ass as they get coated with black slime that winds up covering me from head to toe as I clean them.  The process was made worse by all of the fire ants that have retreated to higher elevation.  Repeatedly I would wind up blowing fire ants onto my legs which I couldn’t see because they were coated with the black slime.  The way I handled it was with quick pressurized water blasts to my body to blow the ants off, while being careful to have the wand far enough away that it doesn’t start peeling off flesh.  I was about 15 minutes away from finishing the four hour task when the sky opened up with close lightning, forcing me indoors.  However the second there was a brief break I was back out there to finish the aggravating and dirty as hell chore up.  Holding a high PSI hose all day will wear you out.

Saturday night we watched The Way Back, starring Ben Affleck.  Ben plays a former high school basketball star that turned into a raving alcoholic after his daughters death.  For some reason the plot felt disjointed to me.  I would only give it a B but your mileage may vary.  Cindy liked it more than I did.

I had been making steady progress on my list and I even did some other non-list items like cleaning the bathrooms and changing the oil in the Tacoma.  The list item I wanted to cross off yesterday was fixing the one robot vacuum.  It had one wheel that was locked in place.  I found a replacement wheel assembly on Ebay for a little less than $40.  It’s been awhile since I ripped into a robovac, the last thing I recall fixing was the laser scan motor in one of my Neatos.  Years ago I used to rip apart/fix Roomba’s like crazy.  I had 7 or 8 of them both working and for parts.

I couldn’t find an exact tear down guide for my model.  The one I did find had some key differences to mine but to my surprise I was able to fill in the blanks and get the vacuum operational again.  It turns out the “bad” motor actually just had hair bound up around the pinion gear.  Once I removed the hair it spun freely so I kept it as a spare, just in case.

I played BTD6 with Griffin multiple times over my staycation so far.  Last night we discovered we can do voice communications through the Steam client, making game play even more fun.  It’s crazy how well he knows every last detail about that game.  I know enough to do basic game play but most of my decisions are just best guesses.

Today when I went out to tend to the chickens Cupcake was by the fence waiting for me, just like she normally is.  She has always been one of the most energetic birds we have and has never had any sort of serious ailment, until now….  So I immediately noticed she was sitting in an odd way.  Once I got closer I saw that it looked like she was sitting on a balloon, her belly was all blown up.  I am pretty dialed into the chickens and notice very quickly if something is wrong, however prior to today I saw absolutely no abnormal behavior from Cupcake.  To go from seemingly normal to this in one day was insane.

So of course I was very concerned.  When I went inside I looked up the condition and quickly came up with a condition called Water Belly, also known as Ascites.  In a nutshell it happens when there is some sort of serious health issue with the birds organs which produces all of this fluid.  What I didn’t get was it seemed to be something that happened over a period of time, not overnight.  It’s possible this was going on for a little while and perhaps she just didn’t show it.

The news with this condition was not good.  If nothing at all is done the bird is likely to die however some chicken owners have had success draining the fluid periodically to prolong the birds life.  I immediately felt compelled to look into this, hell I already had my finger up a chickens rear end twice, this can’t be much worse.

So I watched a video of a women doing this to her hen.  She slowly drew out a bunch of yellowish fluid.  They say you want to drain a good amount but not all of it as it could cause the hen to go into shock.  I got the specs on the syringe and the needle that was used and picked one up on my home from dropping off Sadie.  I needed to ask Cindy to hold Cupcake still as I would try to pull fluid.  I did not have the success I was hoping for.  I got a little bit of clear fluid but mostly nothing at all when I would draw back on the plunger which was bizarre.  I poked her several times in the area that was advised but it really did nothing except made her bleed a bit from the injection spots.  I couldn’t draw any appreciable amount of fluid.

I was very frustrated and told Cindy to let her go.  With the return of standing water we have had the return of the chickens preferring to drink filthy ground water instead of clean water we have placed around their coop.  Who knows if this is related to Cupcake’s problem but it certainly isn’t a good thing.  Later I soaked Cupcake in an epsom salt solution for a little bit just to clean her up a bit.  At this point my game plan is to see how she is tomorrow and I may try to pull fluid one more time since I have all the tools to do it.  It sounds bad I know but in a way I will feel a sense of relief when our last chickens pass.  I look at them as one of the pet family and having to go through all of the suffering, illness and loss with the birds again and again carries too much emotional weight to be offset by some free eggs.

The only remaining list item I have is to get the Tacoma aligned.  I hope to do that tomorrow but the place I normally have do my work has had their alignment machine broken for the last several days.

After repeated delays, the Model Y has finally been picked up.  Yesterday had it’s share of frustrations as well as the driver didn’t arrive until almost 45 minutes after the promised arrival window closed.  We had storms all day so I was hoping we could send the Model Y off during a break in the precipitation.  When he arrived we had one of those breaks, by the time we were loading the car rain had resumed in earnest.

It became instantly clear that this guy had never picked up a Tesla before, he had no clue how to start it with the key card.  I walked him through the process.  I also had to hop on the car trailer to verify the car was properly in park.  I told him I needed a bill of lading to send to Vroom to verify the car was picked up.  He handed me a hand scribbled form with very minimal info.  I later got a more detailed form emailed to me.

It felt weird seeing the car I was so excited to pick up in February getting hauled away less than 5 months later.  I just reminded myself of the sweet payoff that awaits in August or September, a brand new, faster and longer range equipped car.  Now all that remains is making sure the cash is transferred both to the bank and myself in a timely fashion, the most important detail of all.

It didn’t take long for me to verify that my Apple Air Tag was functioning properly.  I have been tracking the car’s progress, right now it is a little north of the Orlando area.  For me sacrificing one $30 air tag is worth the fun of being able to see exactly where the car winds up.

Today is the last day of my my 3 day work week.  I have off Friday, Monday and Tuesday.  I have several small projects/large chores on the docket for that time period.  I also hope the huge influx of rain water that has reintroduced standing water on the property dries out a bit.

So yesterday after lunch I sent a text message to the auto transport company verifying that we were still good to go for pick up.  Well it was a good thing I checked.  The woman from the company called me and said now the driver that was supposed to do my pick up was out sick and went to the doctor.  She vaulted past the TMI line to let me know that the ailment was diarrhea.  Ok then.  She said the car should definitely be picked up today by either diarrhea boy or another driver.  So far I have been patient and calm with the repeated instances of over promising/underdelivering by this company.  However if they again fail to deliver today it’s strike three and they will get the full court press from me.

I heard some very sad news yesterday. Mark McGarity who I knew from my affiliation with the running club for around a decade passed away yesterday from cancer.  Mark was a teacher and cross country coach at a local high school for decades.  He was the type of person that you had no choice but to like.  He had a smile for everyone and really cared about anything and anyone he was involved with.  There were three events per year that he and I worked together closely on and it was that involvement that endeared the man to me.

The most memorable races were the cross country events where I got to see Mark wearing his coach hat.  He was so upbeat and supportive of his kids.  You could tell the kids appreciated Mark immensely, it was touching to see first hand.  I also know Mark’s wife, a very sweet woman.  The loss for her has to be crushing.  Mark was not an old man, I believe he was 69 when he passed.

Since I left the running club I had only seen Mark a handful times, the most recent within the last year or two.  I heard about his illness at that time but I got the sense he was doing well.  He still had a smile, firm handshake and a slap on the arm for me, just like he always did.  My grandfather used to always do the same thing, perhaps part of the reason I found Mark so endearing as well.

It was a painful reminder of how we are all running around on borrowed time.  Hopefully more of us can be like Mark and use that time cultivating warm feelings, smiles, and good energy.  Rest in peace buddy.

So if things go as currently planned my Tesla Model Y will get picked up today by a car carrier.  Once it is loaded up I need to take a picture of the paperwork the driver has as well as my car on the back of the truck to get Vroom to start the process of electronic payment for the vehicle, both to the bank and myself.  Until that payment occurs I will still be suffering from mild anxiety.  The whole situation still feels rather surreal.

I have a lot to cram into this three day work week.

This four day weekend has chugged by quite quickly.  On Friday and Saturday I got the majority of my tasks completed the biggest of which was mowing the entire property as well as weed whacking.  If done back to back it can take close to 6 hours.  I also got the Tesla prepped for pick up by a Vroom carrier.  As I was doing some of the prep I shot a video talking more about the less than perfect process so far.

Friday night Deb came over for us to watch the new release of Black Widow courtesy of Disney Plus Premier.  The $29.99 price tag struck me as a little steep initially but when compared to the nearly double I would spend on a typical movie theater trip I was less salty about it.  This was the first post Covid Marvel movie that has been released.  I liked the movie.  It had good action and told the Black Widow back story which is a bit ironic because she is currently officially dead in the MCU.  It was a good flick but if I am judging it on a Marvel scale it would be in the lower half as far as my favorites go. I’d go B+  I think going in depth into a dead character let some air out of the balloon for me.

Saturday evening we watched Dark Waters, a movie about Dupont and the horrible things they did in the name of non-stick surfaces, also known as Teflon.  They not only knowingly poisoned employees, landfills, and water supplies, they also have been poisoning the world with Teflon which utilizes PFOA’s which have a laundry list of terrible health side effects.  I recall in the last decade or so hearing negative news about Teflon and I have made efforts to avoid it since but all I recalled was the surface could flake off and only then was a problem.  No it’s a problem, all the time.  It’s crazy to me that there are still a ton of non-stick surfaces sold under the Teflon brand.  Supposedly they haven’t used PFOA’s since 2013 but I have no doubt whatever is being used today is not significantly better.

Cindy of course was freaked out by this.  After the movie she did a full audit of our cooking pots and pans, pulling out anything with a teflon-like coating.  We went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond yesterday and got a couple cast iron pans and another set that supposedly had none of the chemicals Teflon was infamous for.  The movie painted a very dark picture of just how gigantic companies have immense power.  They were able to stall prosecutors for well over a decade and even when they did pay out it didn’t change their core business process based on profit first, public safety a distant second.  If you aren’t afraid to have your eyes opened you should watch the movie.  It’s an A.

Yesterday I took out my little Mten3 into the driveway for a little putz around session.  As I mindlessly rode in circles and both directions I rambled about various topics, just because.

Over the past two days I have been playing a game my nephew loves called BTD6.  It’s a tower defense game, something I used to enjoy years ago.  Tower defense games have gotten much crazier and complicated over time.  After playing a few games solo to get a basic understanding of the game I played several co-op games with Griffin, which he seems to really enjoy.  It’s a fun way to connect even though we are far away.

The last 48 hours have been pretty chill by my standards, not a lot of work has gotten done and I am trying to be ok with it. Today I was on my way to get coffee when I saw a call on my cell from Fort Myers.  I rarely pick up on a number I dont know but for some reason I picked this up.  It was a car carrier company saying they were supposed to pick up my car, today.  WTF.  The email I got made it seem like I would get a call and the pickup would be scheduled a couple days in advance.  I said ok, when are you coming?  “In about an hour…”  Um ok, doing the time calculation in my head I figured I had time to get coffee and do the couple remaining things I had to do on the car before releasing it.

So I haul ass home and just as I finished up the tasks I get a text from that same number asking if we can do it tomorrow….. WTF for the third time.  I asked what happened to picking it up in an hour?  She said the truck had some sort of problem so they can’t come until tomorrow.  I told her in that case it would need to be late in the day which she agreed to.  So, if things go as planned, which is not a certainty of course, the Model Y will be moving on to it’s new destination tomorrow afternoon.

I had a stressful and hectic day of work as I was trying to juggle burning fires on multiple fronts.  The most attention grabbing was getting a call from one of our vendors, telling us they received a phishing email from one of our employees.  After getting sent a copy of the email and investigating the employees access record I was able to quickly verify that their email account had been compromised.  It looks like several days ago someone successfully logged into this account outside of our area, waited a few days and then sent this spear phishing email to over 100 addresses in this persons contact list.  Not only did they send them, they were camped out in the account, answering emails sent back asking if this was legitimate, which they emailed back confirmation.

The email itself was easily identifiable as bogus with bad grammar and a premise that made little sense.  However I know at least one recipient blindly clicked the link which supposedly landed them on another page asking for private information.  This was the classic email compromise scenario.  Ironically, we had just started rolling out multi-factor authentication over the last couple weeks, requiring a secondary confirmation via SMS for access to Office 365 outside of our network.  MFA was not turned on for this user yet.

The user technically didn’t directly cause the breach, if what I was told was true.  I asked if the password was used in any variation on other internet sites.  The answer was no.  The password itself was not robust at all, a common word followed by a number.  The user said they had a hard time remembering complex passwords, I basically said “too bad”.  I did assure them that they were not alone in bad password practices, despite our repeated training we give employees about the importance of hardened, complex passwords.

The first thing I did was sign the user out of all authenticated Office 365 sessions.  The users password was then reset and MFA was turned on for that account.  Investigating this incident lead me to pour over access logs that revealed that there were a handful of other accounts that have been unsuccessful hack targets, with access attempts from countries all over the world, including China and Russia.  This hack also is leading us to fast track multi-factor authentication for all network users as well as my adding additional rules that will not allow access to IPs outside of the US. This is far from fool proof but will stop some of these attempts dead in their tracks.  I will now be watching the access attempts like a hawk so the hacker has lost their element of surprise.  However having someone with full access to a mailbox gives them access to a lot of information about an organization.  Paranoia will be running high for quite awhile.

Another step we are looking into is an office wide password management system like LastPass, which I have used for my personal PWs for years.  It is a rather pricey option but gives users a much easier and secure way to manage passwords while giving administrators the ability to keep an eye on password requirement compliance.

So at the same time I was working on that hack I was also dealing with continued bugs after upgrading our main file server to Windows Server 2019 last weekend.  Normally this upgrade is not a big deal, I have upgraded a number of other servers already without a hiccup.  However because of the role this server has, some of the annoying and sort of inexcusable issues of 2019 are coming out.  The biggest issue is network performance. Server 2019 has a bad habit of performing significantly worse than it’s two most recent predecessors, Server 2016 and Server 2012 R2.  Microsoft made some changes to networking that really have had a negative impact on it’s adopters.  If you look up “Windows Server 2019 network problems” you will be inundated with ME TOO pages of users complaining.

In our situation the problems manifested itself in several ways, print queues hanging up, issues with AD Sync with the cloud, remote control sessions needing to be reset often, and the most troublesome, corruption of files in our accounting app that runs off of this server.  I have been trying tweak after tweak which has resulted in some improvement but not a total disappearance of the issue.  Today I took the drastic step of moving these files to another server on the network so I can keep troubleshooting the problem without impacting the accounting department.

I finally received my FedEx package from Vroom today.  I plan to send it back to them tomorrow and see if things progress as they say.  The car should be scheduled for pickup and then 2-3 days after that the transaction should be completed with a payoff to the bank and the balance into my bank account.  I have read enough Vroom horror stories to make me nervous but I have everything documented as I need and the extra time if needed to make sure it all goes down as promised.

The rest of my Monday was very subdued.  Cindy did way more storm prep than I did as she pulled in the dozens upon dozens of plants she had around the outside of the house. She found a cool rat snake hiding out in one of her plants during the process. I did not feel much concern as the storm track and intensity seem that at least for our home, 17 miles inland, several inches of rain is going to be the driving force.

My day was pretty low energy for me, doing nothing of major consequence.  I did get to dig into the new WoW patch quite a bit which is cool so far. I also finished up printing my orange exo-armor and full face headlight helmet for my Sherman.

Today I took the truck to work because Elsa will be rolling through our area for the next 12 hours or so.  I would have taken it anyway because the Model Y is still parked, awaiting confirmation that Vroom has sent the paperwork needed to complete the deal.  I am just about done hounding them.  If I have to continue to push them to do what is supposed to be done, the idea of them getting me and my bank money in a timely fashion makes me nervous.

Today is going to be a wet one, see you on the other side.

My July 4th weekend started off with a Saturday of normal tasks including mowing the grass which is now a weekly requirement.  Mowing requires a bit more attention as I need to maneuver around the areas where the bahia sod was laid which wont be able to be mowed for weeks.  I also handled a few minor projects throughout the day as I did my spot checks of tropical storm Elsa predictions, which seemed pretty favorable for our area.

Katie and DJ came over later in the afternoon.  We had fun as always.  DJ and I spent a lot of pool time together. Towards the end of their visit Deb came over to hang out as well.  Saturday night we watched Tomorrow War on Amazon Prime with Chris Pratt. It was entertaining and lengthy with a final fight scene that made me laugh out loud, it was that silly.  I’d give it a B.

Sunday was the fourth of July, a holiday I sort of used to like when I was younger but now can’t stand.  The only good aspect of it is it is a work holiday.  The reason for my about face is dog ownership and specifically just how terrified most dogs are of fireworks.  Nicki was always terrified of fireworks and Sadie is scared too but Elsa may be the most scared of all of them.  She will cower, shake and hide in the tub for hours.  There is very little we can do to comfort her.

It doesn’t help that the neighbors are the type that like to have their own personal fireworks display, maximizing the noise for all around them.  It’s really frustrating but there is nothing I can really do about it, it’s legal to set off fireworks 3 days of the year if my memory is correct, New Years Eve, New Years Day, and Fourth of July.  The area we live is filled with people that set off their own fireworks.  I often wonder if these people have dogs and if so does their burning desire to see things blow up override any concern for their animals?  It’s one of the many things in the world that just don’t compute in my brain.  If fireworks are so exciting for you, go see one of the professional public displays, right?

Deb was over again yesterday for our BIG 4th celebration which included veggie dogs for me, Miller Lite, and macaroni salad.  I also took a long ride out to Ave Maria on the Sherman, my first real long trip on the wheel since I did all that work.

I have had a few frustrating phone conversations with Vroom support agents, trying to figure out where the paperwork is that was supposed to be Fed Ex’d to me.  I was not happy when i realized that it appears that Vroom has an outsourced Indian call center, one of my pet peeves that will immediately turn me off to a company.  The inability to get me a clear answer on when I will be receiving the documents was frustrating.  My latest call this morning ended with an assurance that the paperwork will be sent out tomorrow.  However my confidence in that going down is not very high.

A quick search on Vroom customer service paints a pretty scary picture of furious customers that have dealt with a variety of issues both with buying and selling vehicles.  None of it gave me a very warm feeling when it comes to doing a 50k transaction with them which requires them to both pay me and the lien holder.  I am still moving cautiously forward but if there are any more delays I am not afraid to pull the ripcord on the entire deal.

The rest of today should be pretty chill. Cindy spent time outside gathering up small plants vulnerable to the potentially strong tropical force winds Elsa could bring tomorrow.  My concern level for the storm still is relatively low, a feeling that seems shared by most in my area, there weren’t even lines at gas stations.  We have thunderstorms that can deliver the same if not more punch, just not potentially for as long.  Hopefully it is a non-event for us.