So yesterday after four tries I finally got the mask portion of my Iron Man helmet to print. It took some modified settings and some painters tape to ensure the part did not break free from the print surface. Last night I then printed the “lips” as well, leaving only the small eye sections to go. I will then turn the project over to Cindy who will have the task of putting all of the parts together and making the final product look pretty. The project has been a test of determination and patience. If you lack both of these, 3D printing is probably not a great hobby for you.
I have totally neglected to mention that I sold our Concept 2 rower last week. I bought the rower from one of our old running club co-workers years ago who has since unfriended me because I didn’t share his feelings about Donald Trump. I thought Cindy and I could use the rower to supplement our fitness program. Cindy only tried it once or twice before declaring it was too difficult for her to grip the handle. I used the rower sparingly during times when running was off the menu due to injury.
Since running is now permanently off the menu you would think the rower would have seen more use but I have found I enjoy the more interactive workout I am getting on Cindy’s Echelon bike to be more fun so the rower has just been collecting dust. I sold the rower on FB Marketplace with minimal issue. I don’t quite remember what I paid for the rower years ago but I am pretty sure that I sold it for more than I laid out, a rarity.
The weekend list is not huge but I may throw a pressure washing session in there if time/motivation allows. I also made an inquiry to someone regarding doing some of the hated tree trimming project. He has not gotten back to me but I am definitely open to paying someone to trim the trees that require ladder work, if it is not back breaking expensive.
Cindy and I watched the VP debate last night. It had it’s share of the candidates talking over the moderator but overall was more “standard” in it’s execution. Depending on the camera angle Mike Pence looked like a mannequin or the prior pope, you know, the one that basically looked like the devil reincarnated into human form. He is one creepy dude. Now of course looks may provide entertainment and commentary but it isn’t what a debate should be about.
Pence utilized similar talking points as Big Don but to his credit did not include the interrupting and yelling every 8 seconds as his boss did. Repeatedly when asked direct questions that he did not want to answer he pivoted to one of his rehearsed talking points. He was forced to do this quite a few times as there are a lot of issues in the Trump presidency that are open sores which they don’t want to not talk about. I thought Kamela did well, the only question she didn’t want to answer was if the democrats planned to “stuff” the Supreme Court if the republicans ram through their nominee for RBG’s seat.
But the star of the show was the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head and remained there for at least 5 minutes. His hair must have had so much product in it that he could not feel the fly walking around. I kept wondering if the moderator or Kamela would tell Mike about the fly but they did not. There was something magically symbolic about a fly sitting on the VP’s head during a debate, a scene we are unlikely to see repeated anytime soon.
I heard they want to make the next debate virtual since President Big League got the rona and can’t be trusted to use solid safety precautions. As expected his immediate reaction was more tantruming with threats to not participate. That would not bother me or the majority of Americans in the least.
When Don contracted covid I had a similar reaction to the 65% of the country that is not under his spell, karma is a bitch. The irony of the president contracting the disease that he has basically cultivated and nurtured via his ignorance was classic. Of course the second he had symptoms, our brave and courageous leader was lightning quick to suddenly embrace science, receiving extensive treatment and meds that the general public will never get, again, ironic.
So when this started, me, one of the biggest pessimists around actually had the thought briefly in my head that maybe this experience would actually knock some sense into Trump. Possibly he would now see the error in his ways and would tone down his public disdain for medical experts and set a tone of more care and responsibility. That thought evaporated when the Very Stable Big League Genius President Tweety sent out “Don’t be afraid of Covid” from his Twitter account yesterday. THAT, is what he learned from this.
As I said, I should know better than to think Trump would have anything resembling a deep thought or self reflection. I internally chastised myself for thinking even for a millisecond he would perhaps admit his lying, ignorance and deliberate misleading of the public was a mistake. Trump is the ultimate paper tiger, the classic bully. The second something real gets in his face he runs for assistance. His behavior is what parents grew up telling their kids to not be, yet those same children mutated into adults that suckle at the teet of this carnival performer like their lips had superglue on them.
It’s just another item to throw onto the pile of disgrace. That disgrace pile is getting so big I heard they are going to ship it over to China for recycling.
As predicted, I kept the list down to single digits this weekend. I hit things hard on Saturday. My weed whacking session, despite it being what I normally do felt like it went on forever. Forever was probably closer to two hours which is a long time to be holding a vibrating and spinning stick in your hands. I even got my indoor work pretty complete including replacing the hot end on my one Prusa MK3S. That was the last outstanding repair I had in there meaning all 9 printers in the room are again functional, a rarity.
I have been struggling to get all 9 parts of the Iron Man mask successfully completed. At this point all of the red pieces are done, all that remains is the front mask and chin piece. I have had the mask print fail 3 times so far. I need to tweak some print settings and give it another go tonight.
Saturday night we watched Ford vs Ferrari which tells the real life story of the rivalry of the two companies back in the 60s. If you aren’t a car person you won’t enjoy the film as much as Cindy and I did but you still will like it. We both felt it was A level entertainment.
The entire weekend was overcast but the second half of Saturday and all of Sunday was especially that way with a few periods of pounding rain for good measure. My Sunday was as chore free as they can be for me. Outside of a few small things I spent the day doing mostly what I wanted, which was nice for a change. Part of that included going on another PEV ride with Cindy. We stayed close to the house due to the threatening skies surrounding us.
The Eagles didn’t play until Sunday night against the 49ers, yes the team that went to the Super Bowl last year. I had already assumed it would be another loss and was not excited at all to watch the latest under-performance. I did not realize that if there was one team that could possibly go head to head with the Eagles in terms of being decimated by injuries, it’s the Niners. Like the Birds their line up was missing at least 25% of the normal starters.
I felt very fortunate and surprised to see the Eagles come away with a win. Don’t worry, the Eagles did their best to give it away at the end letting the Niners 3rd string QB come up just short of scoring two TD’s in three minutes. The victory was only assured when the pass into the end zone was thankfully knocked away by Darius Slay. So what are my thoughts about the team now, since they have secured their first win? To be honest, not all that different.
Wentz was just ok, being the most effective when he was running with the ball instead of passing for a good portion of the game. The injuries on this team are debilitating. We have back ups to the backs ups taking snaps. These injuries specifically to the wide receivers has made Zac Ertz pretty much invisible so far this season. The lack of WR threat allows teams to lock down on Ertz. I still don’t see any bright future for this team in 2020 in the cards. The insane thing is with a record of 1-2-1, the Eagles are in first place in the NFC East. Yes the division has become the toilet division of the NFL, it’s sort of sad.
Covid 19 is already starting to create havoc in the league with multiple teams reporting outbreaks which are going to be a mess to work out. When NFL games get cancelled it isn’t like you can just play a double header later to make up for it. I’m also glad we decided to cancel our fantasy football league this year. Fantasy leagues are on the verge of being cancelled because of Covid. It creates roster uncertainty that makes it impossible to field a team in some situations.
Much of the news over the weekend was focused on Donald contracting covid 19. Evidently his symptoms worsened enough to require hospital admission. Just like every other aspect of the Trump administration, there has been an effort to obfiscuate the facts of the situation. One thing that was clear, despite having Covid, Don still has the intense desire to devour adulation from his devout acolytes. Despite being actively contagious he determined it was necessary to take a SUV ride around the hospital so he could wave to his fans, putting anyone in close contact with him at risk. There is also all sorts of collateral damage as the president appears to be a “super spreader” as a ton of people in his circle of existence now have tested positive for covid as well, including Chris Christy who was Trump’s “debate coach”. If he told Trump to act like that on stage it seems he should be happy to share in the covid joy.
There are all sorts of rumors circulating that Trump having covid is a false flag, that somehow it would garner him a pity vote in the election. I don’t buy it. I can see no scenario where Don’s getting covid as being anything but the cherry on top of his mountain of bullshit. Of course the hardcore Trumpers will never open their eyes or ears to any alternative course but I can not see how this covid positive test can be anything but the final damning act of this four year circus of insanity.
Last night while Cindy was making dinner I decided to take the Inmotion V11 out for a short ride. I wound up riding for a prolonged time on a sandy path along a canal that I had never explored before which was cool. I wound up the ride trying to set a new personal speed best on the V11, I have never had the wheel over 30MPH. After a couple attempts I hit 32.4MPH without the wheel feeling like it was struggling.
So I awoke this morning to the news that is rocketing around the world, The Extremely Stable Genius/(self proclaimed)Best President Since Abe Lincoln and Melania both have tested positive for Covid. This comes on the heels of a positive covid test from a symptomatic Trump staff member that accompanied him to the debates, mask free of course. Of course the irony of this is the type movies are made from.
The man that downplayed, misrepresented, bungled, ignored and flat out lied, repeatedly about Covid 19 now gets to enjoy the fruits of his own labor. The timing is pretty horrible from an election perspective as he now must enter a minimum of a 10 day quarantine just when he was getting ready to do his final “pump up the crazies” tour. Trump’s age and obesity are not working for him when it comes to Covid so it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I wish I was a better person and could say I wish him well.
This weekend I am hoping to keep the to do list to single digits. It’s a challenge to do so.
The other day I started to print an Iron Man helmet on one of my Prusa’s. It’s a print I had always thought was cool but never got around to making. This particular model is made up of 9 pieces. I was trying to print the largest part which is the main red helmet part. The part was predicted to take almost two days on the Prusa.
The morning after I started the print I peeked my head in the room to check on it and saw one side had already broken off the support structure so I stopped the print.
I had recently just gotten my large format CR10S-Pro printer working again so I decided to try doing the same model on it. Because I had more build volume available I was able to rotate the model into a more vertical orientation. Doing so made a dramatic difference in the predicted build time and filament consumption, cutting both numbers by roughly a third.
I fired up the print last night and as of this morning things are progressing along fine. I hope I can get the helmet built. In total I bet it will take about a week of print time.
Last night was our last upgrade of the customer queuing software at a branch. It broke ranks with the trend of each location taking less time than the prior to complete due to a hardware problem with the printer that dispenses tickets. We have a work around in place to let them continue to use the system until a new printer can be swapped in.
Failure is an integral part of true success. It’s a step that many people try to bypass but the end result of doing so rarely turns out well. If you rely on others to insulate you from failure you become as resilient as a pyramid of cards. Even the slightest of wind makes the entire structure come tumbling down.
That is the one word I would choose to describe how the American populace as a whole should feel that we elected Donald Trump as president. The debacle in the first debate last night was only the most recent of countless examples of how incapable he is of functioning as an adult, it was like Chris Wallace was trying to control a tantruming child. The absolute void of decorum was expected but vile nonetheless. Repeatedly Chris Wallace would carefully construct a question and pose it to Don. If it was one of those fever blister topics like his intentional misleading of the population regarding covid, his income tax evasion, or asking him to denounce the actions of white supremacist groups such as the “Proud Boys”, he would totally ignore the topic and spin off into another scattergun attack.
I heard a lot of people criticize Chris Wallace as the debate moderator which I really don’t agree with. Short of having the button for an oversized shock collar that would be around Big Don’s neck, I don’t think there was anyway to get Donald to stop interrupting, blurting, and stepping all over what Biden was saying. He simply refused to abide by the rules of the debate which was very symbolic of how he has approached nearly everything he has touched as president, the rules don’t apply to him.
Biden repeatedly tried to step out of the tsunami of insults to talk about actual issues and plans but overall I think at best he was average. To be quite honest the format is a joke, especially with Trump involved. Nothing of real substance can be gained by voters that are somehow undecided at this point. There has been a wave of opinon that after seeing that first debate they should cancel the remaining two. I would be happy with that decision as all it does is further embarrass the country while serving no practical benefit whatsoever. If you are a Proud Boy you are still voting for Trump and if you were voting for Biden you still would be after that debate as it just reenforced that when the choice is anyone but the raving orange lunatic on the other side of the stage, anyone has to win.
Joe did deliver some funny moments such as telling Trump to “Shut up, man.”, calling him a liar repeatedly as well as the worst president in US history, not that any of those statements are not already well established.
We actually watched the debate on BBC which was quite interesting. Once the fireworks ended their reaction to American politics was priceless, they were dumbfounded by what they just witnessed. They found it hard to believe that THIS was what American politics has mutated into. I agree wholeheartedly.
I forgot to mention that Florida’s governor without warning declared Florida was magically now in “Phase 3” last Friday which basically meant business as usual. The timing of this seems odd as the majority of regions in Florida still have mandatory mask orders in place till the end of October. The other contradictory item is the calendar which is about to flip into October which marks the beginning of typical flu season. There are numbers already escalating around the world and I have little doubt that trend will be seen here as well, it’s just a matter of to what degree.
I have the feeling Desantis did this for political reasons, likely pressure to use it as a campaign talking point. “Look, Florida is FULLY open, we beat Corona” Unfortunately I think the reality is the Desantis announcement will have the same trajectory as George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” proclamation on the deck of that aircraft carrier, prematurely signalling the end of the Afghan/Iran conflict. Of course we know how that all played out.
Tonight is the first presidential debate. I am sure it will be disgusting and depressing to witness. I have not decided if I want to see it live or just rely on recaps. The world is dark enough without seeing President Very Stable Big League Genius putting his lack of vocabulary, responsibility, and intelligence on display for the world to cringe at.
The weekend was another fast paced one with list items keeping us on point. Saturday was the busier of the two days including staples such as weeding and mowing the property. However we also set up our sizeable Halloween decorations which includes five yard inflatables and a LED projector. We finished up the day planting the poinciana tree I bought for Cindy a few months ago in the yard. That was an ass busting task as they recommend you create a hole 6 times the diameter and double the depth of the pot the tree is in. It felt like we were digging for days.
Saturday night we watched Knives Out, which was like a game of Clue in movie format. It was actually quite entertaining with a number of well known actors. We both liked it. B+
Sunday morning Cindy joined me for a proper PEV ride, something we had not done together in quite awhile. We went down to the Greenway and rode all the way through to the beach and back. Despite it being EXTREMELY hot and humid we both had a fun ride for sure which I think was captured on the video.
When we got home the Eagles game was already in progress against the Bengals, another 0-2 team like the Eagles. Despite the identical records the general consensus was the Eagles were a much better team and this game should give them the opportunity to “get right”. Well instead they showed the same weaknesses and inconsistency that had them winless so far. Let me just scattergun talk about various red flags as I think of them.
Carson again was not good with more turnovers and numerous off target throws that had me shaking my head throughout the game. The only positive feeling I got was he actually got them in the end zone at the end of regulation to tie the game. However overall I continue to lose confidence that Wentz will be able to change what he is at his core, an inconsistent gambler. It’s a coin flip if him holding onto the ball is going to help or hurt the team play after play.
The injuries on this team are insane. Desean Jackson is hurt, again. He has been injured on and off the field more than he has played the last several years. Why the Eagles went into this season thinking they could count on him is a head scratcher. Same applies to Jeffries. The offensive line is a mess as well, Jason Peters was hurt again. He is practically playing on crutches at this point. They also lost Goddert and one of their DB’s in the game.
The penalties were inexcusable. Despite playing like garbage most of the game the Eagles had a chance to attempt a makeable field goal at the end of overtime to salvage a win. Instead one of the lineman jumps, pushing the Birds 5 yards back and out of field goal range. It was their 11th penalty of the game. The game wound up as a tie which is supposed to be better than a loss but it sure didn’t feel that way. The great news is the next three games are against top notch teams, two of which are on the road. There is a very realistic chance the team could be 0-5-1. Wouldn’t that just be special?
Over the weekend I was thinking about the Trump virus and how it has infected the minds of many of my peers. Everytime I find out someone I know is a Trump supporter I have felt remorse and sadness as I just can’t understand how these individuals that I know to be good and decent people would chose to support someone who is the antithesis of that. Back in 2016 I could almost excuse it, as a vote for Trump in many cases was more just a vote against Hilary as the DNC stepped all over Bernie to ensure Hilary was the nominee. However after all that has transpired since the man was sworn into office, if you still support him there is something much more serious and nefarious going on. His ability to fan the dark flames of hatred, me firstism, and bias is unmatched in presidential history.
So as I thought about this sadness and confusion over just how many people could get ensnared in Trump’s massive web of lies, fraud, and dictatorship I gave pause and realized that this behavior among human beings is actually commonplace. History is absolutely filled with populations following what are now seen as madmen with blind obedience. My mistake is thinking that as a society we had matured beyond allowing that to still happen.
This behavior is all around us. As I was talking to Cindy about this I compared observing Trump supporters invoking similar feelings in me as when I watched Leah Remini’s special on Scientology. It seemed impossible that a person would believe and go along with the things this utterly ridiculous “religion” demands of them yet thousands believe it hook, line, and sinker. This is a time tested and proven tactic to control people, speak loudly in an authoritative manner and a large portion of the populace will believe you, adore you, and follow you to their demise if necessary, regardless of the amount of truth in your words.
I feel fortunate that I was never indoctrinated into religion as a child, somewhat insulating me from the mindset that makes people fall into the trap of psychological manipulation for the benefit of someone other than themselves. Late this weekend some data from Trumps tax returns started to be released, finally. Shocker, Donald doesn’t pay a lot of taxes and surely utilized fraudulent reporting to ensure that outcome. But to Trump acolytes, regardless of indisputable data, facts, and even recordings of the very stable genius himself speaking incriminating words, none of it matters, because Don tells them it doesn’t. Please vote. I am filling out my mail in ballot today.
It seems every night of the week I try to get at least something done to reduce the workload of the weekend. This week I did more work on my printers and last night I got to make a few adjustments to my new KingSong S18 suspension wheel that I had been hoping to get to days prior. Despite my efforts the weekend still will be busy although I don’t have a big project like painting the coop roof on the list. Cindy wants to get the Halloween decorations out so that will be fun.
Yesterday we converted another branch over to the updated queue software but I was out of the office at nearly my normal time due to starting earlier and the process taking less time. We are going to try to knock another one out tonight using a similar strategy.
I don’t have a lot more I feel like talking about at the moment, the inspiration swells and fades like tides of the ocean. I could rail about the lunacy of the 2020 election forever but who wants to hear that? Anything I say will likely not reach the percentage of voters that need to be motivated to act. If turnout is high, democrats win, if it isn’t, republicans win. It really is that simple.
So yesterday after four tries I finally got the mask portion of my Iron Man helmet to print. It took some modified settings and some painters tape to ensure the part did not break free from the print surface. Last night I then printed the “lips” as well, leaving only the small eye sections to go. I will then turn the project over to Cindy who will have the task of putting all of the parts together and making the final product look pretty. The project has been a test of determination and patience. If you lack both of these, 3D printing is probably not a great hobby for you.
