Ever since Monday morning my solar system stopped reporting it’s status to the internet. I contacted the installers and they referred me to Enphase, the company that produces the brains of the solar system to help me troubleshoot it. Last night I was out by the control panel in the dark with their support on the line. They had me remove a cover panel to access the cellular modem. After shutting down the system I disconnected the modem, removed the sim card, wiped it off and put everything back together. After a few minutes the system came back online and the cellular system was communicating.
While I had the tech on the phone he mentioned how the system can also be connected to wi-fi. Doing so allows the monitoring data to be updated every 15 minutes instead of every 6 hours. I remember asking the installers about this and they indicated it wasn’t feasible for some reason. Well I had the tech send me the instructions on how to set it up that way in email, I will take a shot at it this weekend.
So my EUC buddy Marty posted a video the other day talking positively about the EUC stands I sell as well as talking about our history together. I didn’t know he was going to do this but I appreciated it. He linked the video to one of the EUC Facebook groups as well which I saw yesterday. As I looked at the comments I found myself getting annoyed by one particular individual. He said that he bought some stands from me and he thought that they were weak. Well for emphasis he actually said WEAK!! I told him that I have had wheels on these stands for over three years. I continued, saying that if he had some issue with his stands he never contacted me about them and I didn’t appreciate that the time he felt was appropriate to complain was on a post that was saying they were good. I referred to his action as “trolling” which anyone that spends any appreciable time on the internet is familiar with. It’s basically another name for antagonist.
So the guy didn’t react well to my calling him out and said that I can’t take criticism and I shouldn’t be selling stuff if that is the case. I corrected him again, stating criticism is fine, it was his choice to post his complaint without ever addressing it with me, on a post praising the stands no less. I hastily threw together a video demonstrating just how “weak” the stands are by standing on one of them. My body weight is over double that of the heaviest EUC in production. After I did this the guy deleted his original post, perhaps seeing the error in his judgement. Normally I ignore or joke at/with people that do such things but for whatever reason I felt last night further remediation was needed.
I watched the longest SpaceX Starship test flight to date yesterday where it shot up about 12 KM, belly flopped downward using it’s fins for control and then reignited the rockets for landing. Everything worked great except the landing part, the rocket evidently had inadequate fuel pressure to generate enough thrust to slow it down sufficiently, causing a massive fireball on landing. Despite the crash and burn at then end, overall the test was a huge success in proof of concept.
Elon said something crazy like he thinks there will be a manned mission to Mars within 6 years. He is infamous for inaccurate timeline predictions but hopefully he isn’t too far off. I have always hoped that before I die or become senile that I would see the day we go to Mars, rooted in my lifelong fascination with space and all things associated with it.
This morning the temperatures at the house were in the low to mid-40’s which I enjoy, in short bursts. Elsa LOVES the cool temps. She runs around outside like a maniac when it is like this. She also enjoys when we put her sweater on her. She stood there very patiently while I put it on her this morning before taking her outside.
I have been handling my Xmas shopping at a more casual pace this year. Most of the time as soon as Thanksgiving hits I go full force and try to knock out the vast majority of my shopping within a 48 hour time period. Now more than 10 days past that time period I have a good amount done but still a few boxes remain to be checked before I can call it good.
Last night after work I did something that I feared would be awful, go to Costco. Typically heading into Costco anytime during snowbird season is a clogged mess of humanity that provides more frustration than anything else. I did leave work a little early to increase my chances of less misery and it seemingly paid off. The store was busy but manageable. I circled the aisles looking for some Xmas gift inspiration but didn’t find a lot. A couple times I picked up items that I returned to the shelf after having a quick internal discussion about the need and/or value of a potential gift. I waited less than 5 minutes to check out and had no one ahead of me at the receipt checker station at the exit.
I know in the blink of an eye Christmas will come and go so I am doing my best to enjoy this brief moment of the year where I feel a little better about the world.
My list for the three day weekend was very light although I had a lot of smaller mental projects that I did not bother to put on there. Late Saturday afternoon I got out on my new Veteran Sherman for a quick ride to DD. I wanted to see how the street tire I got unexpectedly with the wheel felt doing high speed open road cruising. The Sherman makes it stupid easy to go fast, probably a little too easy. My top speed on the ride topped out at over 35 MPH and I spent most of the trip cruising close to 30.
I forgot, on Friday night I did some experimenting with capturing mixed reality content. MRC is when you mesh together VR footage with live footage of a person in VR. I had some crude success doing so. I just wanted to test the basic concept, I need to do a lot of logistical changes if I want it to look clean. It’s still funny.
On Sunday I had made plans to meet up with Dan, who last visited in March. Dan is a fellow EUC rider who visits Florida occasionally. He said he was down with taking a ride into the swamp which is always interesting. Well I had no clue just how interesting it was going to be.
The last time I went to the swamp a couple months ago there were a lot of wet spots but it wasn’t too bad. During that ride I only went a few miles before reversing directions. When we started the ride Sunday there was more water/muck in the beginning but not anything too horrible. I said repeatedly I was surprised it was still that wet because we had not had significant rain in a long time at that point. We also only saw a couple of gators during the first half of the ride. Well both things were going to change a lot.
When we hit the second half of the trail loop things got bad, really bad. The muck sections were replaced with long sections of the trail that were completely underwater. There were also sections where the trail was washed out and a small river was flowing across. We had no choice but to carry our wheels across these sections. My V11 weighs almost 60 pounds so this got pretty challenging pretty quickly.
The gator sightings increased in number and proximity. Several times we had to ride by full size adult gators with only a couple feet to spare. Dan normally let me go first since I had experience with gator riding. I told him that they will normally stay still like a statue or dash into the water, we had gators that did both. The most ridiculous part of the adventure came at another submerged section where we had to carry our wheels past another full sized gator, again with only a couple feet to spare. Even I had never had to do that before and was a bit nervous.
The video of the ride is over 40 minutes long but it is well worth it IMO. It did a good job of capturing just how ridiculous conditions got.
I was exhausted by the time we got back. I spent most of the evening editing the footage.
I awoke Monday morning and did a double take when I looked outside. It looked like we just experienced a tropical storm, the yard was completely flooded. Evidently the cold front that came through overnight dumped inches of rain. Cindy said she heard the rain all night, I was so exhausted I must have slept through it. I was in shock that I had to put on my boots to walk out to the chickens. I am pretty sure that I never have had standing water on the property in December during the nearly 20 years I have lived there.
Katie and DJ were over for a good portion of the day yesterday. As is normally the case, DJ wanted to spend most of his time with me which is cute. I did try to buzz around getting what seems like countless small indoor to do’s done throughout the day since the weather outside was not great. Before I knew it my three day weekend was over but it certainly was filled to the brim with adventure, love, and fun which is all you can ask for.
I took Monday off to give myself a three day weekend. It was initiated because Dan, who also visited us last year is coming down on Sunday. We plan to do another joint EUC ride, this time into the swamp. I figured extending my weekend through Monday would help balance things out. With the cold front and less rain weekly grass maintenance should not be required for a few months which is always nice. I am looking forward to getting out on the Sherman for some extended ride time as well. It feels like I have so many little things that I would like to have time to do recreationally that I just don’t manage to pull off.
The news is reporting that Donald Trump has raised an obscene amount of money since the election as part of his “Election Defense Fund”. The number they were throwing around was something like 200 million dollars was scammed from Trump lovers that gobbled up the bullshit that was being fed to them. The same article said if you count the money that came in in late October the total dollar amount approaches a half BILLION dollars.
This fleecing of individuals financially to this degree is something you normally would associate with TV preacher congregations who much like Trump speak loudly to gain influence, regardless of the amount of truth in their words. I can hardly wait until the state of New York district attorney gets his opportunity to prosecute Big Don on his numerous criminal acts the day after inauguration. Never in my lifetime have I felt like an individual was more deserving of any and all retribution against them than Mr Big League. I can only hope it happens.
The last two days the temps have been simply delightful with below average number and abundant amounts of sunshine. When you have 7-8 months of heat and humidity every year this type of weather is something I really cherish. Elsa loves it even more, when she is outside she runs around like a maniac when the weather is like this. This is the time to knock out any projects that require a lot of time outdoors.
Cindy has been learning some of the video editing process that I use to start making some of her own content. Since she now has my old computer she has all the tools needed to make it happen. Her latest video covered the daily chicken chores, I think it turned out well.
So after two and a half months my Veteran Sherman finally arrived, the most expensive PEV I have ever purchased. I unboxed the wheel on a live stream as that normally makes for somewhat interesting content. After unboxing it I noticed shortly thereafter that there had been a mistake, the wheel had the wrong tire installed. The Sherman normally comes with a large knobby tire but also can be ordered with a normal street tire if you desire. I selected the knobby tire with my order as that was what was on the demo unit I tested several months back, and I liked it. My frustration and disappointment in this discovery was captured on stream.
I emailed the dealer on stream as well, informing them of the mistake. Others watching the stream reported that this was not an issue just I was having, others reported the same deal, ordering a knobby tire and getting the street version. Jason from Ewheels emailed me back within a few minutes confirming the mistake not only with my wheel but with many others. Evidently they were told that all of the wheels from the manufacturer were the knobby tire variety. They assumed what they were told was true and shipped the units out without verifying. It turns out about 20% of the wheels had the wrong tire.
So Jason asked if I would be ok with them just sending me a knobby tire. I agreed, knowing that doing so meant I was signing up for the rather arduous process of tearing down the wheel to replace the rubber. It wasn’t a scenario that appealed to me but the idea of going through the hassle and additional delay of sending the entire wheel back and waiting for another was even less appealing. Plus swapping out the tire will make for good YouTube content so that is the route I am taking.
The stream went on for close to three hours somehow. It spun off into various tangents along the way like VR, old gaming consoles and a bunch of other stuff. After it wrapped up I did take the Sherman out for 5 minutes into the very chilly night air. We have our most significant cold front this year right now, temps this morning were in the low to mid-40s.
I thought it was hilarious as Don has continued to spew “rigged election” everywhere he can, William Barr, who has ruined his reputation backing up Trump’s various sideshows came out yesterday and said definitively that there was NO evidence of widespread fraud in the presidential election. I was rather surprised that a well established boot licker like Barr would make such a statement and I wonder how long it is until Trump calls him a loser too. I guess unlike Republicans that are still in congress who have to continue to act like they support Trump else face repercussions from the lunatic fringe diehards, Barr doesn’t really need to give two f’s if he appeases the lamest of duck President anymore. It really does sadden me that so many people continue to live in this hateful, ignorant, delusional world that Donald Trump has created.
So I stayed up till almost midnight watching the Eagles/Seahawks game which was not as close as the 23-17 final score thanks to a garbage TD late against a prevent defense. This game was awful in so many ways but let me first say I was surprised when I saw that they have once again started banning fans from home games, only cardboard cutouts were seen in the stands. Hell the Eagles are lucky, the 49ers have to play their home games in Arizona now because the city banned all contact sports because of the surging covid 19 numbers.
So let’s talk about the game itself. Coming in the Seahawks defense, specifically their pass defense has been absolutely atrocious, the worst in the league by far giving up on average 350 yards per game in the air. You would think it would be just what Carson Wentz would need to pull up the nose on his terrible season statistically. Instead Wentz had another stinker of a game, looking lost, frustrated, and angry. The commentators did a good job of piling on pointing out the various mistakes Wentz made throughout the game missing throws, not seeing wide open receivers, and holding onto the ball too long. All of it is true, Wentz has truly under performed but it isn’t like there are not a ton of reasons that contributed to it, the biggest of which are injuries.
The offense is destroyed with injuries, last night was the 10th different offensive line combination the team has had to use this year. Zac Ertz is hurt, Desean Jackson never really got going, and Alshon Jeffries is back but looks very old and slow all of a sudden. Carson is tough,a leader, and has the will to win, I just don’t know that he has the rare qualities needed to be an elite QB.
More and more I am pointing a finger at upper management that put this roster together. They put a lot of trust in aging players with known injury issues like Lane Johnson, Jason Peters, and Desean Jackson. They drafted three wide receivers that so far seem unable to make plays in the NFL as well as drafting Jalen Hurts in the second round which was a head scratcher for everyone. The announcers mentioned that since 2013 the Eagles have drafted only one player that was an All Pro, Wentz who obviously will not be that status this year. The front office since the Super Bowl year has not made a lot of great decisions.
The game gave me zero hope for this season, things only get worse from here as the team plays three more teams with winning records next. By Christmas 3-10-1 is a very real possibility.
Thanksgiving morning I flipped on the tv to see the mutated version of the Macy’s parade. I was quite curious what it would be like having the event in front of NO spectators. It turned out to be like the rest of 2020, very strange. They cut the parade down to bare bones. The normal two mile route jammed with millions of spectators was slashed to a single block where they basically did their thing in front of the TV cameras and that was it. The couple thousand balloon handlers normally used in the parade was reduced to 130. A lot of the segments were pre-recorded. I guess it was better than nothing and I understand wanting to continue the tradition but let’s be honest, that wasn’t really the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.
Katie and DJ came over mid-morning to do another family PEV ride, a fun thing to incorporate into the day. We went to the Pelican Bay park and explored some of the quiet residential areas surrounding it. Cindy again pushed DJ around in his stroller which is cool. It’s nice that we can incorporate him into the rides this way. More than once during the ride I thought back to how for a long time Thanksgiving morning was a stress filled event timing the holiday race. I felt grateful that I am no longer in that situation.
Katie and DJ stayed all day. Daniel showed up around 4PM. Both of them got to mess around with the Quest 2. Katie is very entertaining to watch when she plays in VR, she really throws herself into it. This was Daniel’s first time in VR and he was pretty impressed as well with how immersive and realistic the experience is.
As is always the case, we had way too much food for the small amount of people we had gathered. It tasted great of course and I am thankful Cindy likes to put in the effort for the meal. We finished up our last round of leftovers last night which despite them still being tasty, I was glad to be done with them. I feel like a fat blob from eating such calorie dense foods for four consecutive days.
In past years I felt the desire to throw myself into the Black Friday quagmire, doing in person shopping for at least part of the day. I felt no such desire to do so this year, due to covid and my inner dislike of crowds of human beings. Instead of being the one buying I was the one selling thanks to the Black Friday sale I was running on my store, offering a flat 15% off everything. The response was large, we dropped off a huge bag of packages to the post office during the day, it was my single largest day ever.
I also got busy on chores Friday, weeding and mowing the grass to make room to get other things done on the weekend. While I was doing that Cindy started busting ass on Xmas decorations, setting up the trees inside as well as getting out the inflatables for the front yard. We worked on setting up the outside decorations as the sun was setting. It was completely dark when we were finished but at least we got to immediately see the fruits of our labor.
Saturday was an absolute grind. It felt like we were on the go almost all day and that was because we basically were. I did a number of smaller projects outside. One of them was taking some 1 x 6’s to seal the gap under the platform the chicken coop sits on top of.
When we blocked the chickens from going under there I just haphazardly threw some boards across the opening and held them in place with concrete blocks. Well the seal was not tight and allowed palm rats to freely come and go from that spot as they wanted.
I now have the area boarded up tight meaning if they want access to the run they are going to work much harder to do so, via tunnels. As I find tunnels I will fill/block them as needed. I have been trying to catch more of the palm rats with my live trap but it seems some of them have caught on and won’t go into the trap even with peanut butter on the lever.
I also tackled another problem I have been putting off for awhile, ever since the dirt and sod was brought in during early summer, fixing sprinklers in that area. There was one sprinkler in particular that was now under a foot of dirt that I needed to adjust/fix. I kept putting it off because I knew it would be a pain in the ass plus we were in wet season so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to procrastinate.
The job was a huge pain in the ass as expected. I had to dig down through the rocky top soil that was added to not only expose the sprinkler head but also the flex pipe that ran to the PVC feed line. As I disconnected the old sprinkler and hose water ran out, filling the hole with mud that I needed to clear. I struggled to get the old flex out unsuccessfully so I had to turn out the adapter fitting on the PVC instead, replacing it and the flex pipe with a longer section needed to accommodate the higher ground level. By the time I was done I was a sweaty and muddy mess. It felt good to have it done though as this sprinkler is one of the two used to water the garden, without it trying to grow anything in the winter in there would be futile.
After a long day of outdoor labor we moved inside where we got around to decorating the Christmas trees. We have a lot of ornaments so it took a good chunk of time but by the time we got done the house felt primed for the holidays. Saturday night we watched our Netflix rental, Mr Rodgers. Mr Rodgers was a core part of my childhood, his show and Sesame Street were the two children shows everyone watched in a pre-cable TV world that had significantly less options.
I thought Tom Hanks did a fantastic job depicting Fred Rodgers and I thought the story, which is supposed to based on a real life encounter was surprising, touching, and emotional. Cindy felt the same way. If you are like me and grew up watching the show you will give it an A too.
Before I could blink it was already Sunday. During the morning I followed my normal Sunday routine which includes chicken clean up, doing my weekly bill reconciliation, and doing a Dunkin Donuts coffee run. After we got home Katie and DJ stopped over for another visit which was fun. DJ sticks to me like a magnet when I’m around, it’s very endearing.
The Eagles did not play Sunday afternoon so I had some extra time. I decided to spend it doing another long ride out to Ave Maria on my S18. I wanted to do a higher speed ride to see how the wheel would perform. When I did this on my V11 I ran out of battery after 29 miles and had to be picked up by Cindy. Well I once again required a save by Cindy but the S18, which has a smaller battery actually carried me further, almost 32 miles before I had to call the cavalry. I am excited that my Veteran Sherman that I have been waiting nearly three months for is supposed to show up tomorrow.
Sunday evening was consumed mostly by editing the very long video as well as some work in the hobby room. I have a couple printers requiring my attention. I also was researching how to set up mixed reality recording for Quest 2 game play. I think inserting Cindy or Katie into the VR view would be pretty entertaining.
Tonight the Eagles play the Seahawks. I am already anticipating another loss as I think the 2020 team is pretty rudderless thanks to injuries and Carson Wentz regressing this year. Luckily I don’t feel emotionally invested enough in this team to care all that much.
If you needed any reassurance to just how broken of a human being Donald Trump is, his performance since he lost the election should eliminate all question. His refusal to live in reality is startling, terrifying, and par for the course.
The last several days have been a mess with all of the shrapnel from the 30 PC hardware refresh we did this past weekend. There are still some bugs yet to be squashed but the worst of it should be behind us. I am very much looking forward to having a four day weekend ahead of me to recover.
I watched some of the interview Joe Biden did for NBC News last night. I can’t explain how nice it was to have him not say something every other sentence that made me shake my head in disgust. I crave the a reality where I won’t be hearing about ridiculous/stupid things the president is doing every single day. I thought Joe came off very well in the interview, seeming prepared for the countless tasks and challenges ahead of him trying to unravel four years of lunacy.
I have a few tasks lined up for the four day weekend like mowing grass, starting my holiday shopping and putting out the Xmas decorations along with everyday assignments. I am hoping to get some more time to chill and relax, for real this time.
I bet I spent at least a couple hours last night putting stands together, building parts, and doing work on the store. It’s all in preparation for my first ever Black Friday sale where I plan to offer a straight 15% discount across the board on everything. I have no clue if this will be a big incentive for buyers or not but I am making sure I have a good amount of inventory in case it really hits home. As is with all of my costs my profit margin on the stands is not huge but I still think it will be fun to see if the little promo makes up for that in volume.
So it looks like Sidney Powell’s claims, you know the ones I had to refute to multiple people on Facebook about this massive vote flipping conspiracy courtesy of the Dominion voting hackers, has officially been debunked by the Trump administration itself. Yesterday the poster child for insanity, Rudy Guilliani had to admit that Powell was even more full of shit than he is and cut her and her conspiracy theory that so many Trump adorers were clinging to like their lives depended on it, loose.
Likely not coincidentally Trump finally relented and allowed the transition to Biden begin officially, without him actually admitting he lost, of course. I was thinking about the year or more Trump spent talking shit about Biden, calling him sleepy, creepy, do nothing, and of course, a loser. I recall at one of his cult rallies he said something to the effect that he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose to someone that is a loser like Biden which of course drew thundering applause and laughter. I guess Donald is finding what that scenario is like now.
Granted Trump has never been a deep thinker so I am sure when he saw red faced crowds cheering him on incessantly for the last four years he really believed that most of America loved him. Hell why wouldn’t they based on how much Donald already loved himself? To have the ice cold reality water thrown on his face seems to have shocked the man baby to his core, with his reaction being to go take his golf ball home with him while he hides on the golf course as the ridiculous charade about the election results continued on. It’s fitting that he is deciding to go out just like he governed, embarrassing the country to the very end.
When you have an ego the size of Trump’s, losing to someone you so vehemently attacked as being weak, senile and a disaster, is an insult of the most damaging sort. It seriously could not happen to a more deserving individual.
I watched the longest SpaceX Starship test flight to date yesterday where it shot up about 12 KM, belly flopped downward using it’s fins for control and then reignited the rockets for landing. Everything worked great except the landing part, the rocket evidently had inadequate fuel pressure to generate enough thrust to slow it down sufficiently, causing a massive fireball on landing. Despite the crash and burn at then end, overall the test was a huge success in proof of concept.
