All posts by Duf

Saturday was on the light side as far as outdoor chores go.  I only weeded and mowed the new bahia grass areas that seem to grow faster than everything else.  I did have things to do inside that helped fill the day as well.  During the day the headlines had both good and bad news.  The bad news was tropical storm ETA which is ridiculously late in the year and has had a crazy zig zag path so far was going to definitely impact south Florida.  The good news was the election was officially called for Joe Biden, an outcome that was expected for days. The networks were very careful to make sure it was a certainty before making the declaration, because of the lunatic sitting in the White House.  Well, technically he was on the golf course, again, when the news broke.

Cindy and I, along with millions of other Americans were thrilled with the election officially being called.  With it dragging on all week I almost felt like I do when the Eagles have a two touchdown lead going into the fourth quarter and drop into a prevent defense.  I just did not trust a win could really happen until it finally did.  Trump’s reaction was what you would expect, pestilent, childish, and defiant.  The irony of him being proven to be what he loves calling countless others, a loser, was precious.  Cindy and I watched Biden’s speech Saturday night and I thought it came off well, focusing on non-partisanship, addressing issues head on, and moving away from divisive speech and actions that only fosters conflict instead of resolution.  For the first time in a long time, I actually feel hopeful about the future.

On Saturday night we picked up food from another local restaurant.  When I went inside there was not a mask to be seen except on the face of waitresses.  There was no attempt to socially distance the tables either.  I guess since the governor declared “Phase 3” it basically opened the doors to restaurants not giving a fck about covid preventative measures, which is a mistake IMO, just look at the steady rise in the spread. We enjoyed our food while watching the new Borat movie.  It had the same raunchy humor as the original which was cringe worthy at times but I still lol’d quite a bit.  I’d give it a B.

On Sunday ETA’s forecast path remained threatening to our area as it was forecast to cross just south of the Keys before hooking back towards Florida later in the week.  The main impact for us looked to be rain but they were talking about the winds touching hurricane cat 1 force potentially so we wanted to take some precautions.  We moved a lot of plants out of the landscape and lanai.  We also pulled down the solar sail off the pergola and secured stuff in the chicken area as well.  It wasn’t a huge task, only taking maybe 90 minutes or so. As we got later into the day the winds picked up as did the rain squalls but it wasn’t anything eclipsing some of strong storms we get routinely during the summer.

Later in the afternoon I shot a video inside since riding was out of the question.  In it I talked about how I just sold another one of my wheels to make room for the Veteran Sherman which is supposed to arrive late this month.  I also talked about the approaching storm and a recurring issue that people are seeing with their new “hollow motor” type wheels.

So before bed I glanced at my phone and saw a number of missed text messages.  Surprisingly to me, they decided to close our office today.  I don’t think it was because it would have been that difficult to get to work.  It more likely was because Collier decided to close school today so that would have became a baby sitting nightmare for a number of staff.  I welcome the day off of course, even if I think it wasn’t really necessary.  Hell we are off on Wednesday for Veterans Day as well so this will be a light week of work for sure.

So I got my estimate from the tree guy.  When I first talked to him he quoted me $26 to trim each cabbage palm tree.  When he was out looking at the work we also talked about him cleaning up the two oak trees in the front of the house.  We did not talk about the cost of doing so but in my mind I assumed it would be a similar cost to trim the oaks as well.  I got an email with the estimate and had some sticker shock with a quote of $185 to trim up the big oak and $135 to do the smaller one.  My reflex reaction was to email him back and say that we can drop the oak trees from the scope of work.  However after sleeping on it I decided to have them do the oaks as well.  The oak trimming will be much more involved where they will be lifting and shaping the tree which takes time.  The oaks have never been professionally trimmed so I feel ok laying out the chunk of money to have it done right.

Today once the rain slows down I plan to take advantage of the mostly clear pool deck by getting out the pressure washer and give it a quick descuzz cleaning.  Did you think I was going to sit around and eat bon bons all day?

So as is the case with most of the country I have been watching the excruciating slow election results come in.  The march towards Biden’s victory has continued with him actually taking the lead in Georgia overnight which is a minor miracle.  The vote there is still not 100% and it’s too close to call but man, that would be great if Georgia turned on Trump.  Pennsylvania likewise has been slowly moving Biden’s way.  What was initially a 12 point gap is now a fraction of a point.  The experts expect that state to flip as well. Nevada is all but assured to go to Biden and Arizona is likely too as well although the numbers will be tight.

Trump made his first public appearance last night since calling himself the winner on election night.  He was composed, logical, and said he respected the process and was patiently waiting the results like everyone else.  Hah, who I am kidding?  Of course he didn’t act like an adult, instead he threw unfounded allegations out machine gun style.  He said he won with all of the legal votes.  Does that mean if you voted for Biden by mail it was an illegal vote?  He rambled on just further digging the outhouse style hole he was already standing in, whining like a child, making excuses and lying like his life depended on it.  I will absolutely cherish the moment when he will be finally forced to accept the outcome of the election, live with the embarrassment of being voted out after one term, and worry about the the removal of the presidential shield that to this point has protected him from prosecution.

I am happy that a number of republican politicians have called out Trump’s election result facade as bullshit.  There has never been a president that called for votes to not be counted, ever.  Hopefully we never have another one again.

This has been an absolutely ridiculous storm season which officially ended November 1st.  Of course Mother Nature doesn’t care about our calendar as she has created yet another tropical system that is forecast to impact our area.  It should only be a tropical storm as it approaches but that still will bring major wind and potentially buckets of rain.  Since I have lived in Florida we have never had this many storms or one target us this late in the year.  I am sure the increase in severe weather has nothing to do with climate change, nothing to see here, right President Big League? Science is for losers.

For my part I will be busy around the property.  I made arrangements to have my tall trees trimmed next week.  If it all works out it would happen Wednesday which is perfect because I am off for Veterans Day.  I could knock out the smaller trees while the crew handles the big stuff.

It’s amazing what a difference 24 hours can make.  Yesterday I was feeling very angry, frustrated and defeated about the presidential election.  The idea that Florida went harder for Trump, courtesy of non-stop radio ads in spanish making Cubans think Biden was the next coming of Castro, made me feel very pessimistic about how the rest of the outstanding swing states would go.  Trump was ahead in almost all of them and based on how Florida accelerated towards Trump as more votes were counted made me feel like all hope was lost.  However, the reverse has happened.

What I hadn’t really thought about was how Florida handled the mail in vote logistically compared to the rest of the swing states.  Florida for once is proactive and allows mail in ballots to be tabulated before election day.  This meant that the results were front loaded with mail in votes that had already been tabulated, the majority of which are democratic.  This is why the numbers slipped for Biden in Florida as the day of voters were more in the Trump camp.

However in other states the rules restrict mail in votes from being counted until election day and in dumb PA’s case, not until the polls close.  The end result of this has been the walk up vote, which was more Trump based got counted first and what we now have been seeing is the tabulation of all of the mail in votes which have been trending much more heavily towards Biden. When the day started yesterday Biden was getting crushed by 12 points in PA.  By the time I went to bed it was down to a couple point deficit with over 10% of the vote yet to be counted.

I won’t recap all of the scenarios for you as there are millions of other places doing that already but the cliff notes version is Biden should actually win this election when it is all said and done.  If he manages to take PA it would be sweet as the margin of victory would be better but even if he just gets Arizona and Nevada he can seal the deal.  I bet Trump regrets talking so much shit about John McCain now. Hell Biden could even grab Georgia, which would be a huge upset.

The path to closure on this is going to be a long one.  Trump is already trying to get lawyers involved to challenge the close races but I am confident it is all just dog and pony show to support his fabricated narrative of the election being rigged.  I think the most telling thing was President Big League was almost silent all day yesterday which was a wonderful preview of what life without a cartoon character as President could be in a couple months.  If Trump’s defeat does indeed come to be, it will be difficult for me to hide the joy I will feel to have the self proclaimed greatest President since Lincoln get booted out after one term, something that has not happened in nearly 30 years.  Adios to the extremely stable genius.

Last night after work I met up with the guy I contacted about trimming my trees several weeks ago.  The reason there has been such lag in getting him to the house is he contracted covid.  He had no idea how he got it and he said when he first tested positive he was not feeling all that bad.  However a few days later it hit him like a truck.  He is an ex-smoker which made things worse.  He was in the hospital for a total of three days.  He said it was the worst he had ever felt in his life, a description I have heard echoed from several people I know that have had Covid 19.  He seemed like a good guy and said he thinks he can get the work done next Wednesday.  I’m not having him trim the trees that I can still easily do myself, I’m not that lazy.  Getting him involved will cut the job from an all day affair with multiple very dangerous moments to a couple hours that should be very easy in comparison.

So like most of America Cindy and I watched election coverage for a good chunk of the night.  When we went to bed there was still a lot of uncertainty although it did seem pretty clear that Trump was going to win Florida, again.  When I got up this morning I saw this was indeed the case.  When I discovered that he actually won Florida by a wider margin than he did in 2016 it made me sick to my stomach.  Sure, in 2016 some people thought they would take a flyer on Trump, with it being more of a vote against Hilary than anything else.  But after witnessing the events of the last four years, to see that support in the state bolstered instead of eroded is beyond logical explanation for someone like me that assumes that bad behavior is supposed to have consequences.

So as I looked at the tallies for the states that have not been called yet, which I see as seven right now, Biden is ahead in three and Trump is ahead in four. The margin in most of those states is very close. Ever since 2000 when Bush was elected I have been disappointed repeatedly when the election results are tight so my gut reaction is to assume the pain train is on it’s way again.

My home state of PA is going to be key.  The state has taken the mantle from Florida as being the most inept when it comes to the voting process.  Thanks to illogical rules that don’t allow them to start counting mail in ballots until the polls close, 25% of the states votes are yet to be tallied.  However the current numbers give Trump a big lead in the state.  The fact that the election is even close is damning enough of American society.  It’s a clear indication that a huge portion of the population adore being lied to.  As long as it is what they want to hear, they just don’t care if it’s the truth or not.  Joseph Stalin would be proud.  I’ll continue to assume the worst about the election results and be happy to call myself an eternal pessimist if I am proven to be wrong.

So the day we have been waiting for has finally arrived.  I recall after the shocking and sobering election result in 2016 I tried to have an open mind and expressed some degree of hope that Trump would not be as awful as the lead up to the election revealed him to be.  I clung to a faint idea that maybe he would actually be grounded by the massive responsibility that was being entrusted to his care.  I thought perhaps this reality would sink in and he would at least try to act like a President.  Instead Don decided to double down on his super power, feasting on the ignorance of others.  Every single day since he stepped foot in the White House there has been something he said/did or tweeted that was an embarrassment to the office of the president.  That is sadly not an exaggeration.

I remember growing up and being taught about world history.  I recall hearing about the stories of Nazi Germany and saw the video of a man that by the outside world was seen as nothing but pure evil yet to his supporters, he was a deity that they chanted madly and blindly for at every opportunity.  I recall wondering just how human beings could support such a man but felt comfort that it was long ago and society had progressed to the point where this sort of extremism was no longer possible and certainly never in America.  Well these last four years have smashed that theory into a million tiny pieces.

The embracing of racism, greed, environmental sabotage, fear mongering, stupidity and infinite lying over the last four years has been sad and disgusting.  I see people that I interact with routinely fall into the net of the false prophet, which angers and frustrates me time and time again.  The amount of hypocrisy on display in our world is staggering.  Somehow it has now become cool to call people losers.  The way to handle facts is to redirect the narrative.  The way to hide the truth is to try to disparage those that are reporting it.  It’s a full blown circus in Washington DC and needs to end.

We can only hope today we wake up to a brand new day in America, a world where the President doesn’t get aroused from seeing his name on every media outlet day in and day out.  I fear that even if the outcome of the election is favorable, the damage inflicted upon this country by Donald Trump will be a long lasting wound that will not heal anytime soon.  His zealots will never accept any reality that doesn’t include his visage at the head of it.  The rest of the world is right there with us, hoping America wakes up from this awful spell it has been under.  Well the rest of the world outside of Putin of course.  He loves a good American shit show.  If you haven’t already done so, please vote.

I was hoping to be able to skip mowing the grass this weekend but as I surveyed the property on Saturday morning I knew the chore needed to be done.  I mowed and got done a number of other things while Cindy was working.  During the afternoon Cindy worked on finalizing the prep for our Halloween live stream.  She dressed me up as Joe Exotic from Tiger King while she was Carol Baskin.  We even had DJ on camera for awhile in his baby tiger outfit which was cute.  It was a mostly silly 90 minutes of streaming but we had fun.

One thing that was talked about on stream was the possibility of me doing a virtual reality EUC ride, meaning shooting and publishing a ride in native 360 degree format like the Insta360 One R supports.  With a VR headset it could almost feel like you are the one riding the wheel.   I decided I wanted to see if I could make it happen.

I combined a number of short GoPro extensions to elevate the camera off the helmet to allow for the best perspective. I tightened up my chin strap to minimize movement and then headed out on my KingSong S18 for the swamp, which I thought would create an interesting environment for a VR ride.

Overall the experiment worked pretty well.  I had planned to make two videos out of it, one on the ride in and one on the ride out.  Unfortunately the camera locked up and I lost the footage from the ride in.  I was able to save the footage from the ride out at least.

As expected the size of the video files from 360 footage is massive.  The 20 minute video was almost 30 gig in size.  It took forever to process and upload to YouTube.  The main file is still not even viewable on YouTube because it is not done processing. I did shoot a brief intro to the ride which you can check out now to see the 360 effect.

Later in the afternoon Katie and DJ came back with Cindy for a visit.  I had wanted Katie to try out the Quest 2 to see what she thought of it.  Once we got her strapped in she had a similar reaction as I did, her mind was blown.  I had her try out various titles but when I got her into Super Hot VR she really got to experience VR.  The game is a simple physics encounter where you battle very generic looking mannequins that are coming after you with various weapons from bare fists to machine guns.

To succeed in the game requires all sorts of movement.  Katie really liked it and got further in the game than I managed myself.  It was cool because you have the ability to stream the video the person in VR is seeing to your phone/tablet, so I could see what she was seeing.  By the time she pulled the headset off she was in a full blown sweat, VR can be quite the workout.  I look forward to having her try some of the other games.

The Eagles/Cowboys game was Sunday evening.  It may have been the least excited I have ever been for a Cowboys game.  I just don’t feel like the Eagles are going anywhere this year and the same can be said about the Cowboys.  The game was basically a mess.  The Eagles turned the ball over four or five times.  Wentz threw two more interceptions and fumbled.  Despite all of this the Eagles won 23-9 but the game was actually much closer than the score indicated, despite the Cowboys being forced to start a rookie QB that was not very good.  So the Eagles are now perched on top of the NFC East with a 3-4-1 record, fantastic.

Today is the eve of the biggest election of my adult life.  By all indicators the turn out is huge, possibly the largest in history.  Historically that means good things for democrats.  The tidal wave of misinformation is still hammering away on social media.  Just this morning I had to correct an ex-coworker that was sharinging flat out lies about Biden’s tax plan, she stated he planned to tax all homeowners a 3% “federal property tax”.  It took me all of 20 seconds to disprove her claim which I did with the following qualifier.  “This is why Facebook and social media in general is so dangerous, lack of due diligence.”  If I was the praying type I’d be on my knees from now until the results are final.  The madness needs to end.

My back which was pretty wrecked since Tuesday has been slowly improving.  The 45 minute drives to and from work have been with the Tesla seat heater on full blast to hopefully promote healing in the area.  There has been some slow but steady improvement since Tuesday, I just need to make sure I don’t do something dumb to re-aggravate it.

Yesterday I received a different head strap to use with my Quest 2 VR goggles.  The strap is actually designed for a different type of VR googles but with a 3D printed adapter it can be used easily with the Quest 2.  The comfort with this set up is night and day compared to the simple elastic strap they ship with the Quest.  The weight is more balanced on your head and exact adjustment is so simple thanks to a rotary knob located in the back.  The other awesome bonus is the strap includes built in headphones which helps with the feeling of immersion.

Cindy, who really struggled wearing the Quest 2 with the elastic really noticed the improvement with the DAS (digital audio strap)  She jumped in and played a few minutes of VR ping pong and really had a good time.  I look forward to digging deeper into the Quest 2 fun this weekend.

Tomorrow is Halloween which for us is a non-event in years where covid 19 wasn’t a thing.  However we are going to create our own little event on a live stream.  Cindy is going to be dressing up both of us for the occassion which I think will should be fun for sure.  Tune in Saturday night at 7PM EST to see the silliness.

I don’t have a heavy labor schedule in mind for the weekend, partly due to my back, partly because I could use a break.

My lower back has been really problematic for the last several months.  The consistent problems started when my left knee was screwed up due to parking garage running.  Well yesterday at the gym I did lower body and noticed no specific moment where I reinjured myself but I definitely did something.  The rest of the day and all of last night my back was just awful, I can’t bend at the waist at all currently.  In retrospect I assume the leg press machine was the culprit.

So I figured instead of coming up with new stuff to say about American politics I would include some commentary I have been making on Facebook recently.  Generally speaking I avoid political posts on FB as I have learned a long time ago they typically serve no real purpose.  People that share your political feelings will “atta boy” you and those that don’t will castrate you.  No real opinions are normally changed.

However with the most important election of my lifetime now on our doorstep I have dipped my toe into a few discussions which I will include here.

One of my friends posted a link to this article that talks about the psychological factors that turn someone that you may normally like and respect into a Trump supporter.  I found the article pretty fascinating and shared it on my feed.

One of my ex-running club associates who is sadly a Trump voter questioned the article and one of the questions he asked was what determines a Biden supporter.  My response was below.

There is duplicity for sure on that list regardless of the political party you support. The simplest way I describe a Biden supporter is someone more concerned with the greater good. In my own sphere, it may benefit me more financially for things to remain status quo. However I care about the environment, health care, science, and supporting men that have morals that I at least would not be embarrassed for children to emulate.

There was no further response.

This same person started his own thread about the election where he tried to justify why he supports Trump.  One of the reasons he gave was the familiar, Democrats want to spend money we don’t have to give everyone free stuff, line.  My response there was:

You do realize the federal budget deficit has smashed all prior records over the last 3 years? Governments spend excessively, it’s a matter of if that spending is for the greater good or for the narrowest of narrow elite subsets of American society. The disinformation and distraction used in modern US politics is staggering and carefully executed so the masses are too busy fighting each other to focus on the bought and paid for politicians that do their dirty work for them, happily.

Finally, this morning I posted a picture of this insanely ignorant sign that was posted in the Naples area, only a couple miles away from my work.  In the newspaper article the sign owner proudly boasted how he paid $750 to have this sign created.  There was no extensive additional commentary needed by me to accompany the picture of the sign.  It said all you need to know about the corrosive, hateful, and raging ignorance that has been incubated by our current president.  Even if the election does go Biden’s way, can you imagine the reaction from the MAGA hat wearing mob in a post-Trump world?  The backlash will be staggering.

Last night I got around to migrating Cindy onto my old computer.  Her migration is a lot simpler as she uses her computer for mostly basic tasks.  It only took me about an hour until she was logged in and working on the system.  There are still some things I will need to get off that system for me but at this point I feel pretty confident the migration was successful all the way around.

So we are now one week out from election day.  Like most of America I hope to wake up next Wednesday with the feeling of a huge weight being lifted off the back of the country.  Imagine a world where every single day is not polluted with something stupid Donald Trump did, said or tweeted.  I hunger for that reality and hope it comes to fruition.  I want a leader that is mindful of the greater good and that wants to take the steps necessary to ensure the world is not a toilet for the generations that follow instead of the f you, it’s only about here and now, me, me, and especially me that we have been dealing with since 2016.  Despite my overall pessimistic outlook on human beings, I hope that next Wednesday is the start of a brand new reality instead of stepping off the edge into four more years of darkness, ignorance, and unabated greed.

Oh yea the senate ram rodded Barret into the SCOTUS with unprecedented speed, hypocrisy and utter disregard for fairness.  Just another day in the Trump circus.

My list this weekend was deceptively short.  I say this because a couple of the items on there, weed whacking and mowing consumed around seven hours of time.  I shit you not.  I mowed both the front and back of the property and even the jungle-like border on the outside of the fence that has vegetation at spots exceeding three feet in height with high density.  It was the toughest test for my new Husqvarna tractor and it was up to the task.  The Kawasaki motor is rated for less horsepower than my old Craftsman but it sure doesn’t act that way, it just kept plowing ahead.  It was a ridiculous amount of time to spend mowing in one weekend but I hope it is the last time it’s necessary until spring.

On Saturday while I was mowing Cindy surprised me and washed all three vehicles which was a nice surprise.  That was something on my secondary to do list that I had not been getting around to.  Cindy also spent time over the weekend assembling the 3D printed Iron Man helmet which has been quite the task.  She made it so the front part is attached with magnets, making it easier to put on/take off although I’m not sure how comfortable the helmet would be to wear for a prolonged period of time.

I spent a lot of time over the weekend getting my new PC online and migrated enough that I could switch over to it as my primary system.  I got to that point later in the day Saturday.  My HP Omen got moved temporarily to a corner of the room but kept online so I could access it as needed.  The next step will be migrating Cindy to that machine.  So far my new PC is performing as well as I hoped.

Saturday night I was in VR on my Quest 2.  I was in another social app that also included various games.  I decided to try my hand at paintball.  The game itself was very realistic and immersive, maybe too much so.  Before long I became very motion sick and developed nausea that lasted the rest of the evening.  That didn’t stop me from being in VR though, I just watched a movie in a virtual theater instead.  Getting the Quest 2 has been a real cool experience.  Really the only thing I wish is that Cindy could be in there with me at the same time….

On Sunday it got to be almost 5PM and I realized I hadn’t done any PEV riding, for the second weekend in a row.  I decided I needed to shoot something so I grabbed five of my devices and did quick rides around the freshly mowed but still bumpy back yard.  I wanted to get a good feel for just how different devices with suspension feel to their traditional stiff counterparts.  I’m not sure how good of a video it turned out to be but it was better than nothing, I guess.

It’s sort of crazy, despite doing all of this work I somehow felt like I was lazy Sunday evening. It’s nuts.