All posts by Duf

Yesterday after work I stopped at Sam’s Club.  After a smooth trip I stopped at Dunkin Donuts to grab coffee for Cindy and myself.   As I approached the store I saw the drive thru line was empty, except for one car that turned in just ahead of me.  So as I sat there I slowly found myself getting more and more aggravated by the woman in the SUV in front of me.  She first asked if they had a good selection of donuts left.  When she was told they did she began a painfully slow order where she ordered one by one after asking the DD employee to list every type of donut they had available.  As the employee listed the donuts the woman asked for some feedback about certain varieties. It was maddening.  In total she was ordering for at least 5 minutes.

By the end of it I had lost control of my ability to restrain myself from making loud commentary on this woman’s life choices out my rolled down window.  By the end of her marathon session there were half a dozen cars behind me. I have had a life long frustration with people that don’t understand the issue with doing long and/or complex orders through the drive thru window at Dunkin Donuts.  I always felt that a drive thru was designed for quick in and out orders and if I needed something more involved like picking out what dozens I want, it makes sense to walk my fat ass inside and pick them out 1st person, instead of having the employee rattle off everything over an intercom.  Yes it’s a first world problem that means absolutely zero in the grand scheme of things but in that moment in time, it annoyed me greatly, all the same.

Last few days I have been hobbling around like a nursing home resident.  I did squats at the gym Wednesday.  There is no squat rack there so in order for me to barbell squat I have to clean the weight up to my chest, press it over my head, lower it onto my shoulders and then do my reps.  I then reverse the process at the end of the set.  There is normally a lot of cracking and crunching sounds in my back when doing this but this time the sounds were accompanied by bad lower back pain that evening.  That has now teamed up with soreness in my lower body from the deep squats so I feel like a rusty old wheelbarrow right about now.  The joys of aging can not be overstated.

This weekend the weather is supposed to be fantastic.  We hope to take advantage of it on Sunday with a trip to the Zoo with Katie and DJ.  It should be a fun little family outing.  I’ve only been to the zoo down here a few times.  I love animals so the zoo is a good fit for me but I now find myself feeling much more guilt and sadness about animals being forced to live in captivity.  Walking around with my little buddy will be fun regardless of my feelings about the animals situation.

I was happy to see the inauguration went down without any notable violence in DC or anywhere else like was feared.  It seems taking away Donald’s bullhorn has dulled the edge of the lunatic fringe a bit, which is good.  I thought Biden’s speech was really good, focusing on the big picture and repeatedly encouraging the dissolving of the acid filled rhetoric that has become commonplace.    It was a higher road sort of speech that I thought was the right message.  It’s a disservice to all of us to continue to participate in constant political conflict that distracts us all from how the super rich have been quietly influencing legislation to pad their pockets while we peons throw tomatoes at each other.

When I was at the gym on the treadmill warming up Biden was making his speech that I could not hear, only read via closed captioning.  At a certain moment out of nowhere I felt a wave of emotion smack me hard.  For some reason it just hit me that Trump and all of the negativity he fostered is no longer in command.  Biden may be old and a career politician but at least I can take assurance that he is an empathetic and decent human being, something distinctly missing from the office since 2016.  The realization on the the cardio machine that better days are ahead made my normally dark and pessimistic outlook a little brighter in that split second.

Last night in bed I slapped the VR headset on to hang out in Big Screen.  It’s an app where you are inserted with other VR people in rooms or theaters where you can watch TV shows, movies, or even content streamed from someone’s computer.  Last night I saw a theater named Biden Inauguration party.  I stepped into the virtual theater with 11 other people.  On the screen was a massive CNN rebroadcast of Biden’s speech.  As it played the others in the audience talked freely amongst themselves, all sharing in the happiness of leaving the Trump era in the rear view mirror.  I am encouraging Katie and Cindy to get the app for their headsets as well so we can hang out even when geographically separated.

I printed this last night for Cindy.  I spend so much time cranking out parts for EUC accessories I sometimes forget to embrace the simple joy of making something really cool and fun, just for the hell of it.

Yesterday I had one of those dream days for solar production.  The entire day was bright and sunny resulting in the big output curve graph you see to the left.  This type of production happens a lot for the next 3-4 months so hopefully we can start digging into the overall power deficit that exists so far.

Last night I shot a quick video based on a suggestion from a 3D store customer.  They suggested that I demonstrate how the stands should be assembled, something I took for granted because it honestly is pretty simple.  However I decided it couldn’t hurt and put together this roughly 8 minute how to.

I heard Trump already has vacated the White House, abandoning the presidency and the tradition that existed since 1869 where the outgoing president participated in the inauguration ceremony of the incoming president as part of the smooth and peaceful transition of power.  As ridiculous and appropriately childish Trump’s decision to take his ball and go home is, in the big picture it’s better not having him there.  It’s one less reminder of the utter insanity he has cultivated the last four years among his indoctrinated following that somehow have been programmed to abandon common decency, values, and respect in exchange for blindly following every ridiculous work out of president Big League’s mouth.

Like everyone that doesn’t have a MAGA hat in their closet, I am hoping the inauguration takes place without another round of violence.  It appears more appropriate precautions are being taken this time.  Tomorrow will finally be a bright new day without an orange spray tanned buffoon making policy decisions based on what feeds his ravenous ego while benefiting the rich and powerful that kiss the ring.

Goodbye Donald Trump.  Your four years in office made racism rise again, greed good again, and ignorance in vogue.  We never had a president like you and hopefully we never will again.

Yesterday I made my best effort to not do any significant work or chores outside of the required  chicken clean up.  The clean up was a little more involved as it looked like Popcorn had an egg that broke as it came out so her rear end was a mess.  Cindy helped me as I dunked the hen’s butt in soapy water to get the residue loose. Outside of that my day was pretty chore free.

The rest of my day was spent doing what I wanted like messing around with the Quest 2, playing a lot of WoW, and taking a short ride and then editing the video from it.

There is a weird dilemma in my brain when I have a day that has more rest than play.  Despite having a weekend up until that point that was busy and filled with many minor project completions, a lack of accomplishments, even for one day makes me feel lazy.  It’s always been the case with me and I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

It’s funny how YouTube works, a thumbnail with a catchy title makes such a difference in the likelihood of someone clicking “PLAY”.   My video regarding Gotway EUC fires with a big picture of a burned up EUC in thumbnail has outperformed my recent videos by leaps and bounds.  Now you know why 24 hour news channels play the same game using big impact works like “RIPS”, “FEAR”, “DESTROYED” in so many of their titles, it gets eyeballs.

I thought I would drop an entry in here despite there being one day remaining on my three day weekend.  On Saturday morning I was out at the coop early.  Early enough that I had to take the hens off their perch.  I had a list prepared the night before and I wanted to start working on it.  After doing chicken chores and the weeding Cindy and I headed out for errands.  The first stop on our journey was Dunkin Donuts.

We placed a to go order as we always do.  You place your order on the app a few miles away and by the time you get there it should be ready to go, you just walk in and grab it.  So I parked the truck and Cindy walked in to get it like she always does but there was an issue, the door was locked.  There was a long line of cars at the drive thru and staff inside working yet the front door was locked.  There was no sign on the front doors explaining it either.  The staff appeared to ignore Cindy at the door so we instead had to enter the drive thru line to get our stuff.

When we got to the window we asked why the door was locked. “Short staffed” was the only explanation.  Huh?  In the thousands of trips I have made to DD in my life, never has a location decided the way to handle someone calling in sick was to lock the front door.  It was utterly ridiculous.  When we went on Sunday it was the same deal, door locked.  That time Cindy stayed at the door with other confused/angry patrons until our order was brought out to us.  Initially she was given a dismissive hand signal to indicate we should get in the drive thru line which was literally at least 15 cars deep.  I complained on the DD Twitter account about the lack of common sense.  Today, the lobby was open.

After the DD debacle Saturday we went to my office, I needed to do some network work that took about an hour.  It gives Cindy a chance to clean my office and Elsa for some reason LOVES running around in there, it’s very cute.  After finishing up we made a Tractor Supply stop and then ate lunch outdoors at Burger Fi, one of the very few times we have patronized restaurants in the last 10 months.

During the afternoon I worked on more list items including washing the Tesla and the Tacoma while Cindy was at Katie’s place.  She returned with the Prius so I could do a job I hoped I never had to do again, replacing the headlights in the car.  I had last done the task around three years ago when I put LED lights in because I was tired of having halogens burn out every few months.   The low beams on one of the lights had gone bad so I figured I needed to replace them for safety. The job sucks plain and simple as it requires a lot of working blind as your hand is shoved inside the engine bay.  Of course I shot a video which depicts how aggravating it was.

Doing the work confirmed what I had already warned Cindy and Katie about for 6 months or more, the Prius is on it’s last legs.  After 238,000 miles the car has a multitude of problems, like worn tires, struts, flaky hybrid battery, and the ABS actuator is on it’s way to failure.  None of those potential repairs make a lot of sense based on the age, mileage and worth of the car.  The situation needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Hopefully it happens proactively, I have been sounding the warning bells for a long time. By the time I came in from the work I was miserable.  My hands were ripped up from jamming them into tight spaces and my back was killing me from leaning over the engine bay for way too long.

On Sunday I started off the day with yet another successful palm rat live trapping, my second in as many weeks.  I try to keep them calm but most of the time by the time I release them into the remote area their noses are red and raw from trying to escape.  The weather was overcast and cool all day long.  I felt like I had a deep chill no matter what I did.  The day was busy enough.  Deb came over for a visit where we set up Cindy’s tabletop fire pit which the girls used to keep warm on the patio.

It just felt too chilly to ride but I did take some time and make a video regarding EUCs from a certain company catching on fire, not a good trend to have.

I did some more Prius work before Cindy returned it to Katie.  I replaced all three wiper blades on the car.  The front two were like rocks and the back blade was half torn off.  I finished up by vacuuming the car out and giving it a speed wash. To me maintaining cars for your significant other is a reflex, I guess I am unique in that way compared to some.

Towards the end of the day I was beat and wanted to just unwind with a long session in WoW.  I played until close to 11PM and enjoyed it.  Today we already did our DD run.  We had to do some extra chicken work as I gave Popcorn a “bath”, dunking her rear end in soapy water while Cindy tried to clean her up.  It looks like she had an egg break on the way out and things were pretty messy back there.

I may ride more today, play some more WoW or 360 but I definitely would like to keep the day work free as best as I am able.

One of the perks of a government job is the large amount of holidays we get paid, outside of the standard four or five most employers provide.  The end result is sometimes I totally forget about them and have surprise three day weekends.  This was one of those times as I only realized on Wednesday that we have next Monday off for MLK day.  It is like being given a surprise gift.

Last night Cindy, Katie and I got together again for some more VR fun.  The plan was for us to do some virtual bowling but Katie had an issue getting it to install so we wound up playing some more Beat Saber.  Both of the girls are far superior to me in the game but I enjoy it just the same.  Cindy also got to experience Bogo for the first time which is a must play if you are an animal lover.

I plan to put the three day weekend to good use, I already have my list written and ready to cross off. Just think the next time I am back at work will be the end of the Trump regime.  I have heard people offer up a very interesting hypothetical.  It is well established that Trump cultists absolutely refuse to believe anything unless it comes out of Donald’s mouth.  What do you think their reaction would be if Donald somehow grew a conscience and said “you know all that rigged election stuff, I made it up, my bad”

If this reality was thrown upon Trumps loyalists from the mouth of their God himself, what the hell would they do?  Would they break down into tears, huddle up in a little ball on the sidewalk, and languish in the reality that Donald Trump has been lying to them all along?  I really wonder how they would react if faced with such an ice cold reality.  Luckily the majority of the population is able to discern this for themselves.

I believe I mentioned I bought Katie a Quest 2 VR headset for Christmas which she has been loving.  What I didn’t mention was I also bought one for Cindy that arrived yesterday.  This may sound crazy to most but there are VR games/experiences that you can do with others in real time which we really wanted to try.  We did just that last night.  Cindy, Katie and I joined up in a virtual group which puts you into real time voice communications with anyone in your party, no matter what game you are playing which is cool. I was in the great room while Cindy was in the bedroom.

We decided to play Beat Saber which was hilarious, challenging, and tiring all at the same time.  As expected I finished third out of three every game except some strange level where the blocks are more or less invisible, for some reason I did ok there.  I bet in total we were grouped up together for close to two hours.  Cindy really likes the apps that transport you to magnificent virtual spaces where you can interact, change, or just relax inside of them.  On our next get together we plan to meet up for some virtual bowling which should be fun.  It’s crazy how we all wound up getting thrust into the VR experience but it really is a cool way to have shared fun and memorable experiences.

I was laughing out loud repeatedly when Donald came on TV right after the house voted to impeach him for the second time, something no president has ever accomplished in history.  It’s nice he can add that to his resume of debauchery.  The speech was the polar opposite of everything that has been spewing from Trump’s mouth when he is allowed to choose his own words.  Obviously his handlers were trying to avoid what appears to be a possibility, the senate actually approving impeachment this time.  The speech was what should have been said the moment the election results were official and to hear Mr Big League read the hollow words now was utterly meaningless as the entire world knows he didn’t mean a single sentence.

Of course it is extremely self serving and transparent that some republican lawmakers are now willing to impeach Don since the Trump train is fully engulfed in flames but hey at the least the end result will be appropriate.  Mitch McConnell has to be loving this. He has a chance to give Don a large one finger salute as the walls close in on him.

Yesterday was a rough one at work.  One of the employees in our office was terminated abruptly.  Of course no details can be discussed publicly but the end result as impactful as it is for an employee that is fired, also resonates throughout the workplace.  Everyone wants to know what happened while the closer circle of co-workers deal with their daily work reality being flipped on it’s head in an instant.  I personally find it very difficult to wrap my brain around how I would handle having to fire someone as it can be such a disruptive event in a persons life.  When my buddy and boss retires in a few years I will be in a position where that possibility becomes more likely.  I certainly hope I am not needing to make that decision on somebody’s career.  I can’t shake the feeling of sadness for all parties involved.

Yesterday the House started impeachment proceedings for a SECOND time, a first in US history.  Well that’s cool Donald always does like being number 1 after all.  It may seem to most that it would be impossible to do this so quickly and so late into Trump’s term but as is always the case there are reasons behind it.  There is the actual possibility that it could pass this time as bandwagon Republicans frantically try to distance themselves from the off the rails Trump train.  Of course it would be utterly transparent but they might just cast an impeachment vote anyway.

The other benefit would be a successful impeachment bans Trump from holding any future political office which would be a big win for the sane part of the world.  Let Donald go die in peace at Mar-A-Lago or in jail, whichever works out.  It would be a minor miracle if the impeachment gets done before Donald is kicked out the door but we can always cross our fingers.

I’m still depressed a bit about Pederson being let go.  I saw a bit of the news conference by Jeff Lurie.  It seemed like the cliff notes version is Lurie said there were a lot of short term band aids that were done the last couple years in an attempt to get this core group of players back to the Super Bowl.  Those fixes obviously didn’t work out, mostly due to age and injury.  Lurie realizes the Eagles have an old roster with an overloaded salary cap that is going to have to be scrapped.  He basically said the team is going to be in rebuilding mode for the next couple years and it seemed like Doug wanted to try to still be good with what they have now.  It definitely seemed like an amenable parting of the ways.

Doug released his own classy goodbye message as well, as I would expect.  Doug Pederson and Nick Foles will always be burned into my memories as the two guys that finally got it done.

I neglected to mention yesterday I gave my dad a call wishing him happy 74th birthday.  It’s nuts, it feels like not very long ago at all we were just up in PA for his surprise 70th birthday party.  I wish I could say dad gave me an outlook on life after three quarters of a century on the planet that made me eager to experience it myself but I would be lying.  Regardless I think dad appreciated the call, despite his  well established dislike of most celebratory events like birthdays and holidays in general.

I just saw a headline I didn’t expect at this point.  After the Redskins game where Doug Pederson basically rolled over and gave up I thought there was a chance he could be fired.  Instead there was a story that despite the mess of a season Jeff Lurie decided he was going to give Doug a chance to turn it around.  After all, Pederson is the only coach to get the Eagles a Super Bowl victory so I guess he earned some leeway, or so I thought.

Evidently after some meetings between Lurie and Pederson recently things changed, culminating with the announced firing of Pederson less than an hour ago.  I am not sure of what was discussed in those meetings but it resulted in the exit door being thrown open.   I feel badly seeing Doug go, despite the train wreck of a season we just all experienced.  The historic amount of injuries on the roster certainly made his task extremely difficult.

There was already going to be a massive upheaval of the roster, having the head coach ousted is going to just pile on the huge amount of question marks for next year.  I always liked Doug’s approach as a coach when dealing with the media and public.  I thought he always tried to be thoughtful and honest wherever possible when answering questions as opposed to the robotic “I have to do a better job” responses of Andy Reid or the combative “My shit doesn’t stink” clownery of Chip Kelly.

Doug provided me with something I never really thought I would experience, a Super Bowl winning season that was filled with as much excitement as one could imagine.  For that I will be eternally grateful.