All posts by Duf

I was in communication with my computer guy throughout the day as he kept me in the loop with his troubleshooting.  He tried a number of things but was still having the system randomly reset.  Later he did some research on the internet and stumbled across some information that the system board used in the build was very particular in regards to the type of memory that was used.  He put a different type of memory in which solved the problem.  He stress tested the system all afternoon without a single problem.  On my way home I again met up with Jason to pick up the box.  I thanked him for getting the problem resolved sooner rather than later.

When I got home I got to resume the work for migrating to the new system which still has a long way to go.  I hope that by the end of the weekend I am at least up and using the new system as my primary computer with my old system still on the wire to access and reference as needed.  Once I am confident I have everything I need I then have to do a similar process to get Cindy migrated to my old system.  Many hours will be consumed before I complete both tasks.

So I had a scheduling conflict with the Eagles/Giants game taking place during the last debate.  I decided to watch the game until the debate started at 9 and then would return to it after the debate ended about 10:30.  Let’s talk about both events separately. The Eagles injury situation is in a word awful.  It seems their entire offense became very frail, all at once.  Desean Jackson, who has been a huge bust due to non-stop injuries the last two seasons, was finally back last night and of course, got injured, again.  Lane Johnson who for some reason waited until training camp to get surgery on his ankle tries to play each week and has to come out after a few plays.  So for those keeping count, the Eagles offense is now missing both starting wide receivers, both starting tight ends, their starting running back, and two or three of their offensive lineman.  Roughly 2/3 of their offensive starters are hurt, it’s insane.

The good news was they were playing the 1-5 Giants so perhaps they had a shot since the Giants had one of the worst offenses in the league.  By the time I tuned back into the game after the debate the Giants were ahead 14-10.  The Eagles were at the three yard line and decided to go for it on fourth and goal.  This was going to be one of my points if the team lost, again.  Doug Pederson has always had the reputation of going for it on 4th and short, willing to gamble that his players were up to the test.  Hell during the Super Bowl year they converted more of those situations than they missed.  However recent history has not been so great with those decisions.

You could argue that his failed two point conversion attempt in the Ravens game cost them the chance to be able to tie the game with an extra point instead of being forced into another failed two point conversion.  Well the fourth and goal attempt was a fail as well.  That failure meant that instead of kicking a field goal to make it a one point game, the Eagles now were down four, meaning they had to get a TD to win.  Doug’s decision looked even worse when the Eagles defense inexcusably allowed the Giants to drive 97 yards, yes 97 yards, to go up by two scores with roughly 11 minutes left in the game.

After the Giants scored I was already mentally writing the blog, ranting about how this team can not beat anyone, how Carson is regressing, and how the season is basically a dumpster fire, already.  That script had to be rewritten however when the Eagles surprised me, scoring two unanswered touchdowns in the fourth quarter.  The skin of their teeth comeback win has at least kept the life support for their season intact.  The injuries on this team are so massive however I just do not see any way they can find their way to success this year.

Ok so let’s talk about the debate.  This was seen by Trump apologists as one of their final opportunities to slow down Biden.  When the two men walked on the stage I was dumbstruck by Donald’s appearance.  He appeared to ask his spray tanner to lay it on extra thick for the event.  It honestly looked like he was trying to change his ethnicity.  Instead of the normal orange skin color he sports he was an unnatural looking deep brown.  It was hilarious.

So the plan of attack I heard the Trump camp was going for was to have Trump be a “good boy” and allow Biden to talk more, since Trumps tantruming and bullying tactics from the first debate universally drew criticism.  He also was planning to go repeatedly to the well about the Hunter Biden thing, you know the thing he got impeached about?  He is trying to spin the narrative differently thanks to the extremely trusted and honest efforts of Rudy Guilliani who somehow went from being a beloved NYC mayor to one of Trump’s most insidious henchmen, unfortunately. His plan was unsuccessful.

Joe did a good job of talking policy while answering and rebuking Trump’s attacks pretty effectively.  As is normally the case with Don, he just kept regurgitating a few things over and over, some of which always make me laugh, especially his self comparison to Abraham Lincoln.  I thought Biden did a nice job of making sure people knew that the things that Trump says about Bidens plans for healthcare, social security, taxes, energy, and other subjects were just flat out lies.

I thought one of the best moments for Joe was after Trump did his normal rant about liberal state governors and mayors, using his some of his favorite words in his limited vocabulary  like “disaster” and “horrible”.  Joe fired back that although he was a Democrat he intends to be the American president, not only caring for one side of the political divide over the other.  You could see Trump wince when Joe said it in a “ouch, good one” sort of way.  I think the hope for Democrats was that Joe came out of the debate at least in the same position as he entered.  To me, I felt he did better than I expected.  We can all only hope November 3rd brings the end to the madness.

Speaking of madness, the county commissioners here voted to extend the public mask mandate until April, the end of snowbird season, which I am glad about.  However as I watched part of the meeting I could not help but draw parallels to Trump supporters, a clear but extremely vocal minority.  Most of the public speakers at the meeting were against the mandate.  If you went solely by what you saw/heard you would think everyone in Collier County is against masks.  However when the commissioners talked about their positions each one included the yay/nay counts of emails they received regarding the subject.

The numbers were the absolute reversal of what you heard from the public speakers, roughly 80-90% of the emails received were FOR the mandate to continue.  You see this every where in today’s society where a small amount of people make a disproportionate amount of noise.  Trump voters are some of the noisiest individuals around.  As I drive around our area I find myself wondering what all of these people think they are actually accomplishing with their Trump banners, flags, and signs decorating their house like it was a new holiday, Trump Day.

I mean do they think that an undecided voter will decide their vote because they see Trump cult members posting signs?  I never understood it.  I can expand on that and say much the same goes with my feelings about the rallies that Trump feels are so crucial.  All you are doing in that situation is preaching to the choir.  Sure it helps feed Trump’s ravenous ego but outside of that, what is the real benefit?

I know you are sick of hearing this, but it is no less true, I have a massive amount of shit to get done this weekend.  I want to mow EVERYTHING in addition to weed whacking.  I am estimating to do so will require 5-6 hours on Saturday.  Indoors I have the computer migration to keep me busy as well on top of normal weekly tasks.  I’d love to have the recreational time to do stuff like ride my PEVs or dig deeper into my VR headset.  We will see if I can cram it in.

After work last night I met the guy that was building my PC at a Dunkin Donuts parking lot which was convenient since I was getting coffee anyway.  He was a nice younger guy with either an Australian, New Zealand or South African accent.  After talking for a few minutes I loaded up the box in the Tesla and excitedly drove home, anxious to start digging into the large task of migrating the system.

When I got home I pulled out my portable table and positioned it next to my main desk.  After making all of the connections I hit the power button and got no response.  Surely I just have to perhaps hold it longer?  Nope, it won’t turn on.  I did some basic trouble shooting like verifying power, removing all peripherals and still, my new powerhouse system was dead as a door nail.

I contacted the guy.  He was dumbstruck as he had the system up and running for a couple hours during the day and had no issue.  He told me to verify a couple connectors inside the computer were firmly seated, which I did with no change in symptoms.  Jason was baffled by this but offered to drive out to our house to take a look immediately which I agreed to.

When he arrived and verified the systems mortality we did more looking inside.  He noticed one of the wires on the big connector that goes from the power supply to the motherboard was not seated into it’s hole.  He pressed it back in and the computer finally fired up.  We both thought the crisis was averted and he headed home after I thanked him for the quick response.

Well as I started to work on the system things once again started getting flaky.  The system started shutting itself off as I was in the middle of doing things, repeatedly.  It happened at least five or six times in the span of 15 minutes.  I contacted Jason again to give him the bad news.  I was frustrated but calm about it, it wasn’t like I didn’t have a perfectly good computer to use for now.  We agreed that the system should go back to him to get looked at in depth.  However eventually the system did stay up and I was able to start doing some configuration work on it for around an hour.  Although my roughly 30 years of experience made me know the issue was still likely there, maybe I’d get lucky.  To give the system more of a burn in I left it on all night.  When I came out in the morning the screen was again black and the system was unresponsive.

I let Jason know I would be dropping it off on my way to work.  I boxed the computer back up and did exactly that.  I told him to not be in a rush to get it back to me, I want to make sure the problems are gone.  I need to be able to trust this hardware to be rock solid.

Tonight there is a tv scheduling conflict.  The Eagles play the Giants in a Thursday night game that they desperately need to win and the last presidential debate will be on.  The Eagles have generated so little excitement for me this year that I am leaning towards watching the debate and then flipping over to the Eagles game.  I think it is hilarious that Donald is so unable to follow debate etiquette that they have had to give the moderator the ability to mute the mics to try to keep some level of control.  Regardless, it will be a shit show for sure.  Donald is desperate to distract voters from reality so he will be pulling out all stops to disrupt, avoid, and taunt.

Last night Cindy told me that was she able to check the status of her mail in ballot online which I didn’t know was a thing.  We all know how the prospect of mail in voting has been one of the various false flags Donald has planted in order to lay the groundwork of misinformation that his campaign relies upon.  Some states evidently had not had robust or established mail in ballot systems in place so they have been scrambling to do so in our new covid era reality.  Florida, which has an infamous history of bungling elections for the last 20 years at least has had a well established mail in voting system in place.

I was able to log into our county election web site and verify that my ballot was not only received but already counted.  That is one of the hang ups with some states, they have some dumb rule that they can’t count mail in ballots until the day of the election, which makes no sense.  Why create an artificial log jam when it’s not necessary?  Anyway, I was happy to see I at least did my minuscule part to help bump the needle towards sanity in 2021.  The early voting lines have been long down here as they have been at many places across the country.  High turnout is normally the formula for democrats to win, let’s hope that trend continues.

Last night I filmed my first video regarding the Oculus Quest 2.  I tried to combine my normal footage with video streamed from the headset to my phone.  It was only mildly successful but at least I think I got some of my excitement for the device documented.

The new high power custom PC I am having built should be ready today or tomorrow.  I look forward to it but not the process of migrating all of my stuff over to new hardware which is always an arduous task.

Last night after work I got to spend some more time in my new world of virtual reality courtesy of the Oculus Quest 2.  I did some of the same stuff as I did previously including watching some movie, hanging out in virtual chat, and browsing the library for more experiences to download and try.  However the most interesting and fun thing I did was install and play the table tennis title.

The realism is mind blowing.  The physics of the ball is perfect and I really felt like I was playing real games.  I practiced against the AI for awhile and then wound up playing a few matches against another person.  The integrated A/V system allows for seamless, clear and easy conversation.  The guy was from up in the Florida panhandle.  I definitely need to practice more but it was a lot of fun.  I do need to be careful with my reach, a few times I felt like I was dangerously close to hitting the TV.

So far I love most things about the Quest 2. Really the only two complaints I have is the headset is the not most comfortable thing to wear and I chew up battery pretty quickly.  I am addressing the first complaint with the upgraded strap that Oculus sells.  It’s clearly a superior design and also clearly a money grab.  They should have included this strap from the get go.  The battery issue could be addressed by adding a head strap that incorporates an extra battery into it or, I can just plug it into a power source to do extended seated VR things.

I ordered some new stickers to include with my 3D printed stand orders.  I put some time into adding some more flair to the stickers this time.  Instead of just the graphic and words on a white background I added a camo backing and tweaked the graphic to better match the color scheme.  Cindy gave me some suggestions that I incorporated into the final outcome.  I like the end result and I think people that get them will as well.

I was not looking forward to having to work again for the second weekend in a row on a much bigger project at our main office.  I got word that the install had been postponed due to a lack of equipment.  It would have been nice to have the work over and done with but to be honest I was happy to hear of the delay.

Last night on the way home I got a call from my dad.  You may recall that Maggie, his beloved dog of nearly 16 years died earlier this year.  My dad took her death very hard.  He even took a cross country drive with her ashes, spreading them at the various places he and my stepmom lived.  It was his way of trying to deal with the loss.

So anyway, he told me that they now found out that Clara, their other dog has non-operable, fast spreading cancer that will likely be her demise sooner rather than later.  The timing, right on the heels of losing Maggie is awful.  When I was up in PA in June Clara still seemed to be doing fine albeit slower due to being around 14 years old.  To hear that she was this ill was a shock.  He said she is still eating and getting around ok but has some symptoms like weird shaking at times.  I was somewhat relieved to hear that dad was at least amenable to putting her down if she appeared to be really suffering, although my stepmom would be the one that would have to do it.

Dad also told me that they recently lost a sheep to bloat which is a weird but deadly condition where the animal gets excess gas in one of their stomachs that they can’t release.  The end result is an inability to eat and eventual death.  It can be caused by something as simple as the sheep consuming too much of something that produces gas in the digestive system.

I did my best to console my dad but there wasn’t much I could do other than listen.  Loving animals is one the core things of my being.  Unfortunately that love also makes the loss of them a very painful side effect that affects me deeply.  It seems that trait is something I got from my dad as my mom never seemed to be attached to any animal in our family in a significant way that I can remember.

I had quite the busy weekend.  I wound up working at our one branch until around 10:30PM Friday night.  We ran into several roadblocks during the install which took time to unravel.  I was back there at 8:30 the next morning and plugged away until about noon.  The office only has six computers and it consumed that much time.  It makes me nervous because this weekend we are doing the same thing at our main office which has somewhere around 25 machines, it’s going to be a real slog.  The only good thing is there will be more hands on deck to handle the additional machines.

Saturday was Cindy’s birthday so I felt bad having to work half of it but she was working at the nursery anyway until 2PM so it was less impactful.  When I got home after eating lunch I dug into tasks, getting the weeding done outside and then making the icing for Cindy’s birthday cake.  By the time she got home the cake was in the fridge and I was buzzing around trying to make sure she did not have any tasks to do on her bday.

Katie and DJ came over shortly after Cindy got home.  As has become customary DJ immediately came to me and grabbed onto my hand to start walking me around the house.  This was my primary function for the next several hours, walking around with DJ.  If Cindy or Katie tried to hold him for even a second DJ would instantly start to cry until I was by his side.  His connection with me is very strong.

So every year since I have been with Cindy I take her out for dinner on her birthday.  Just like so many things in 2020, covid-19 has changed that tradition as well.  Instead of a traditional restaurant experience we ordered take out from Outback.  All four of us went to pick it up in the Tesla which was fun.  When we got home Cindy got to enjoy the steak dinner she was craving under our own roof.  We finished up by enjoying the chocolate cake which turned out well.  It certainly wasn’t a traditional birthday but Cindy said she loved it all the same.

Sunday morning I did my normal tasks including a run to Home Depot with Cindy.  We got done just in time for the Eagles kick off against the Ravens.  For a good portion of the game the Ravens were walking all over the Eagles, I think near the end of the first half the Eagles had something like 5 yards of offense, it was pathetic.  At the same time the defense was a revolving door, allowing the Ravens to score at will, similar to the Steelers game.  Late in the game the Eagles did make a comeback and had a chance to tie the game with a two point conversion that failed.  The end result was 1-4-1 record.  If the Eagles were in any division but the NFC  East their season would be pretty much done by now.  It was the first home game where fans were allowed in the stadium, albeit a maximum of 7500 of them.

I finally got to dig into my new Oculus Quest 2 Sunday afternoon.  The last time I messed around with VR was years ago, I had no idea how far the technology had advanced, I do now.  Once I got into my virtual environment my mind was immediately blown.  The realism was off the charts.  I started to install some apps and went deeper into the world of VR.  I played a Star Wars game that made it feel like I was doing one of the simulators at Disney, only better.  I entered a virtual theater which showed me content on a massive screen with an amazingly detailed environment, it was just cool.

Oculus also has one click broadcasting to Facebook, I did just that for about 5 or 6 minutes of Star Wars play.  You can also broadcast the view from the headset to a local phone or tablet so people can see what you are seeing.  I had Cindy observing as I stumbled through a virtual chat room which was pretty bizarre and a bit creepy.  It will be interesting how well I will be able to juggle my normally slim amounts of free time to allow me to geek out on the Quest more.

This week promises to be busy again with the big after hours office project this weekend looming over everything.

My commute last night was frustrating.  As I approached the intersection of Immokalee Road and Collier Blvd I hit horrendous traffic.  I crawled along in it for nearly 25 minutes, looking for some sign of an accident that was causing the delay.  When I finally got to the light I saw there wasn’t an accident at all, the delay was caused by cones blocking off the one turning lane.  There was no work being performed in the lane, there was some workers doing shit for yet another new development on the side of Immokalee Road.  I could not control my frustration and anger at the moment.  I thought it was bullshit that they would be doing this during rush hour.  I rolled down my window and yelled IDIOTS, as I drove by the crew causing the quagmire.  It’s not a response I am proud of but it was a genuine response all the same.

My main task last night was to get the famous chocolate cake made for Cindy’s birthday on Saturday.  Last night was the target because I have to work late tonight and part of the day Saturday at our one branch.  Because of the timing, I just made the cake but not the icing.  The cake will live covered in the fridge until Saturday when I’ll make the icing to complete the project.

Cindy and I got to watch Savannah Guthrie, a former lawyer, host the Trump town hall.  Wow that was something to see.  She was like a police K-9 dog that would grab onto Trump’s arm and would absolutely not let go.  Every time Trump would throw out a lie Savannah was locked and loaded with Donald’s kryptonite, facts and his own words/actions, reflected back into his face.  She was great, pressing Trump in ways few have.  He was obviously angered and agitated through most of the one hour broadcast.  Cindy and I wondered how much the woman was paid that was in the background of each Trump shot who did nothing but shake her head up and down in agreement the entire time he was talking.  It was creepy.

Trump, as he always does when talking off a script said some really stupid and damning things.  I thought the most egregious was when Savannah asked him about something he recently retweeted that was proven to be categorically false.  His response was “well that was a retweet” as if that somehow absolves him from responsibility for it’s content.  He dug his hole further saying that his attitude was he would just get it out in front of the people and let them decide if it’s true or not.  What in the actual F is he talking about?  To imagine his thought processes are so dysfunctional that he would make such a statement is a little terrifying.  Savannah of course was all over it, reminding Don that he was the President of the United States, not some “crazy uncle”.  It was something to see.  When asked if he actually got a covid test prior to the last debate he said “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t”, yes that is your leader.

It was stupid that they had Biden and Trump doing their own town halls at the same time, the end result of Donald tantruming that he didn’t want a “virtual” town hall.  Big League Don was only on for an hour.  It looked like Bidens town hall actually went on for two hours although the network only broadcast an hour of it because of fairness rules.  There will be one final actual debate next week, I can only imagine what new ways Donald will find to further embarrass our country during the broadcast.

As mentioned I am working for a chunk of the weekend and with Cindy’s birthday being Saturday I am sure the time will fly by.  Cindy requested steak for her birthday dinner so I plan to be trying out Outback’s take out service for the first time.  Cindy is not comfortable with the idea of conventional restaurant dining yet and based on the way the covid numbers are boomeranging I can’t blame her.

When I got home yesterday I had a nice surprise, Katie and DJ were there.  For whatever reason the second I enter his space, no matter who else is there, he wants my attention.  If he is restrained from coming to me even briefly he starts to cry.  So after I got home last night I spent around an hour with DJ.  When he was smaller he wanted me to mostly just hold him and carry him around.  Now that he is bigger and more mobile he likes to hold my hand and lead me around the house and the yard.  It’s very cute.

I do see why Cindy has said that when she watches him for extended periods of time it can get exhausting.  If he is awake you have to constantly be on guard.  When we were out on the lanai I had to scoop him up multiple times as he was ready to walk right into the pool, without hesitation. He will walk right off of furniture as well, if not guarded.  His love of putting things in his mouth is also a constant danger that has to be monitored.

That being said, he is now big enough that the sense of fragility that existed when he was a smaller baby is lessened.  He loved as I tossed him into the pillows of our bed and wrapped him up in a blanket.  He was a sweaty, smiling bundle of joy at the end.  That smile is quickly replaced with tears and crying however when it is time for him to leave.  I feel so bad about it that I try to avoid being part of the process of taking him out to the car to avoid getting him more upset.  It’s funny just how strong of a connection that me and the little guy have developed.  I am grateful that I am getting to experience, albeit in small doses, the world of babies growing up.  It’s something that I thought I would do myself when I was younger man but something that I wrote off as life progressed.

I just bought a new PC a couple years ago, an HP Omen which was tagged as a serious gaming rig.  I have been less than thrilled with the purchase as the system had cooling issues which required me to install a liquid cooler as well as a flaky video card that has failed not once, but twice.  With adding the 360 camera to my arsenal the Omen’s ability to crunch video files, which is very CPU intensive, has been a bottleneck.  I’ve decided to relieve some of that pressure with a custom built PC by a local company.  For the first time I will not have an Intel CPU at the heart of my system.  I am going with the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, which when paired with 3600MHZ memory should chew up video editing significantly faster than my Omen does.  As has been the case in the past, my Omen will then get transformed into Cindy’s PC which will be a sweet upgrade for her.

For some reason I have found myself thinking about the state of America and specifically the state of people that steadfastly, unconditionally, and lustfully support Donald Trump.   I’m not sure why I even decided to think about it. At this point I have just written it off as a sad fact of life in today’s society, greedy, verbally aggressive liars are the new hot trend.

Still, I thought about this further.  To pretty much every single person in the United States, Kim Jong Un is viewed as a ruthless and evil dictator that has moved North Korea back into the dark ages.  His time in power has resulted in infinite amounts of misery for the population.  However despite all of this whenever he is seen in public he is surrounded by wild enthusiasm by the same people he loves to oppress. Sound familiar?

I have absolutely no doubt that the the majority of the civilized countries beyond our borders look at the current state of the United States with similar levels of confusion and concern. How in 2020 racism, suppression, division, bullying, and minuscule vocabularies has become the accepted status quo in America is bewildering to me.

To imagine that we have a sitting president that would send this out over social media is embarrassing yet not surprising based on the prior four years.  I would love to ask Trump supporters that are also parents a very simple question.  As you are raising/raised your child, would you have encouraged name calling, bullying, lying, sexual predator, racist, or egotistical behavior in them?  Of course you wouldn’t.  If that is the case, why would you support a man that exhibits all of these behaviors in spades, as your president?  It’s one of life’s mysteries to me.  I can only hope the book of horrors can be closed in a few weeks.

In my most recent edition of AARP magazine, (don’t laugh), they had Q&A with both candidates.  It was a crystal clear reflection on the mentality of Donald Trump, the ONLY thing he thinks that matters is a high stock market number.  No matter what question that was posed to him, even a question about the racial conflict that has blossomed under his leadership, his answer was basically the same. We had the strongest economy in history before the “China Virus”.  I kid you not, that was the gist of his answer.

I realize I don’t have much to say today. So, enjoy this little insight into the mind of our great leader instead…..

The list this weekend was short.  Cindy started a new job at a local nursery part time so she was working on Saturday from 9-2, giving me time to roam around the house solo to get stuff done, which I sort of like.  By the time she got done I had already finished most of my chores plus I got the property mowed.  I was inside for a little more than an hour when I proclaimed I was going back outside to run the pressure washer, a non-list item.  The sheds and castle stone boundaries around the house both were looking scuzzy.  My rough mental estimate was I could finish cleaning these things in a couple hours.  I walked back inside about 7PM, covered in filth, some four hours later.  It was a dirty, unfun job but I now should be in the clear with pressure washing those parts of the landscape for at least 6 months.  The high pressure makes everything look shiny and new.

I still have the tree trimming project looming in my future.  The person I contacted to do the work quoted me a reasonable number per tree but he is already demonstrating the lack of communication that I despise.  Responses to messages come not in minutes or even in hours, but days.  Hey I’m not in a rush to get the trees  done tomorrow but after my experience with Miguel, I am extra sensitive to people that don’t prioritize reasonable communication with their potential customers.

Sunday morning I took my Inmotion V11 for a range test out to Ave Maria.  I have done this ride before on the wheel but I did it while restricting my top end speed to about 20mph.  This time I wanted to not restrict my speed and see how well the wheel did.  Well I got my answer and it wasn’t good. I was kicked off the wheel with severe tilt back with over 6 miles remaining on my ride.  Luckily Cindy was available to come pick me up with the Tacoma.  I was pretty disappointed in the wheels range under these conditions, despite knowing that higher speed equals less range, dramatically so in this case.

I got home just as the Eagles/Steelers game was beginning.  The game was similar to most Eagles games this season, frustrating.  They allowed the Steelers to score the most points they have managed in something like two years.  The defense this year has been a doormat more often than not.  Wentz was his normal inconsistent self making some great throws offset by some terrible ones, adding two more interceptions to his tally.  I came away from the game realizing this years Eagles are not going to be providing me with a lot of happy emotions.

I spent a good chunk of time editing the video of the ride.  It took stupid long.  I tried the 4K mode for the 360 camera, not knowing how it worked.  My first mistake was allowing it to shoot in 4K which makes for ridiculously large files.  Second, the only way I could get the video stabilized is to run it through the Insta360 editor first which took forever.  With my GoPro the files that come off the camera are already stabilized.  It literally took me over an hour to simply export the files in a format that I could even use in my normal editor.  It also had a much narrower field of view which made much of the footage look dumb.  I now clearly know to never use the 4K mod on that camera again.

I have a busy week ahead with work projects and two birthdays, my sister and Cindy.  I committed to making the famous chocolate cake for Cindy’s birthday.  We are also planning to do an Outback dinner, at home.  I am sure they do take out delivery like most other chains and Cindy said she had a hankering for steak.