What you see pictured is an Atala butterfly. I had never seen these before until a few months ago on my daily walks to the gym. There were dozens of them flying around a bunch of a type of plant which I now know is called coontie. Every day I would see the insects darting happily around the area and it made me happy for some reason.
Starting a couple weeks ago that happiness began to turn to sadness as I started seeing many if these beautiful insects on the sidewalk, either dead or dying. I wasn’t sure what was going on that would cause this. Well last week as I walked back from the gym there was a woman that was very closely monitoring the bushes and the butterflies around them. She pointed to the leaves and showed me a number of pods clinging to the underside of the plant leaves.
Those pods are what eventually evolves from the large orange pouch you see in the picture. The butterflies grow this caterpillar pouch over their short lifetime, stick it to a leaf of ONLY this plant, and then die shortly thereafter. Evidently this species almost went extinct when coontie was being harvested for other uses but they have made a strong comeback in Florida with more coontie being planted in natural landscapes. When the caterpillars hatch, they only want to eat coontie leaves.
Anyway, I thought this was little ecosystem was sort of amazing. The butterflies act of procreation being also an act of suicide has some deep symbolic imagery that I haven’t been able to verbalize satisfactorily.
Last night we updated another branch to the updated customer queuing system. The entire process only took 15-20 minutes which was nice. We have four more to complete so hopefully the time needed shrinks with each subsequent upgrade.
I made my token $25 donation to Joe’s presidential campaign yesterday. To be quite clear, it isn’t because I think Joe is a superb candidate for the job. He comes with his own set of baggage, not to mention being older than dirt. However it’s the only option we have unless we want to endure four more years in the armpit of modern American history.
I was at the office for an extra hour last night to migrate our customer queuing solution to a new version. The work only took about an hour but we have five more that need the same procedure done to them over the next couple weeks. When combined with the swap out of the majority of our workstations at our branches we have a lot of balls in the air right now.
When I heard over the weekend that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died I cringed inside, knowing this was going to add one final toxic pile of diarrhea on top of an already disgusting 2020 presidential election. She had been in poor health for quite awhile and I always got the sense that the GOP was circling like buzzards just waiting for an opportunity to further retard the Supreme Court back into the 20th century. As expected Mitch McConell and the very stable genius announced plans to try to ram through picking a replacement before the election which at this point is 6-7 weeks away. The hypocrisy of this is amazing but unfortunately predictable.
If you are typical Trump supporter that has a memory that does not extend past the last 15 minutes of time, you may not recall prior to the 2016 election the GOP senate REFUSED to confirm Obama’s selection for the court. Through a bunch of dirty tricks and stall tactics they put off the confirmation for almost an entire year, saying they felt it was only fair to wait until after the election for this decision to be made, since after all it is a lifetime appointment with ramifications that can last decades.
Now suddenly this selection needs to be ram rodded through according to the GOP, not a fck is to be had about the election. When the hypocrisy of the situation was pointed out to Mitch his response was more or less, “too bad, so sad”. I have said for a long time that the lifetime appointment of supreme court justices is moronic, at the same level as the lack of term limits in the US senate which allows boot lickers like McConnell to fester and grow over decades. Of course I can’t change whatever the eventual outcome is, I can only hope that it is simply one more example on top of the hundreds of prior ones, just how corrupt this big league administration has been which will hopefully lead to it’s ousting in a few weeks. I would love to be able to finally move past this point in history that will clearly be defined as the most embarrassing and ridiculous presidency in the history of the United States.
After work on Friday I again got on the Echelon bike, which has replaced running as my Friday night cardio before eating pizza. It’s a tough workout and on a calorie burned basis it feels like I am getting higher numbers than I would running. I almost hit 400 calories on the 30 minute ride which left me drenched in sweat despite being in air conditioning.
On Saturday the main task I wanted to get done was putting another coat of white Flex Seal on the coop roof which was a holdover list item from the prior week. I had washed off the layer of grime last weekend so I could get right to it. The Flex Seal does not go on as easily as paint since it has a consistency more like liquid rubber. I applied it liberally and with little concern for neatness. The goal is to simply reflect heat so the coop doesn’t become an oven.
I decided to even paint over the skylights which were already badly discolored from sun exposure. I had them covered up from the inside anyway so it made sense to coat them permanently. I was sweating like I was in a sauna. The bright sun and high humidity make it a broiler by themselves but as I was up on the ladder I also was getting the heat reflected back at me off the white roof. It was rather intense. After a couple hours of work I had a thick coat applied which on top of what was already there should hopefully reflect heat without much help from me for the next year or two.
Late Saturday afternoon I wound up going to one of our branch offices for almost four hours. There was a hardware refresh going on that was being managed by one of my desktop support guys. He was having an issue getting the credit card readers functional with these new systems. I drove down confident I would be able to find the root cause and establish a reliable fix. I failed on both accounts.
The problem was inconsistent with no pattern I could identify. Out of the more than 20 workstations only five or six had functioning credit card readers. I dug on the internet looking for info, downloading updated drivers, and searching for similar situations. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t come up with the magic solution. I reached out to some other resources hoping they may have some proven remediation answers but for now it’s just one big frustrating situation.
On Sunday my to do list had two Tesla items on it. I am right around 20,000 miles on the car now so I wanted to rotate the tires again which I did once before at 10k. It’s one of the very few Tesla maintenance items there is. The tread on the tires still looks great, something I was worried about as I had read stories of owners blowing through tires in 25,000 miles or less.
I then replaced my cabin air filters and cleaned the evap coil on the car. I have had the parts to do this for months but I never got around to it. Model 3’s had an issue with the HVAC having a mildew smell when they first came out. Tesla actually fixed this issue via a software update where they had the fan on the car run longer once the AC stopped to better dry out the coils. The filter kit I got was an upgrade from what Tesla uses from the factory, including stuff like carbon inside for better odor absorption.
Getting access to where the filters are located was a pain in the ass, requiring me to wedge myself awkwardly into the footwell to reach the access door. I think the video does a good job at depicting the various struggles I encountered along the way.
During halftime of the awful Eagles/Rams game I shot a quick video update on our whole house solar system. In it I talk about the realities of summer in Florida where daily thunderstorms cut back on power output while the brutal temps and humidity drive up electricity consumption by the AC system. The end result has been my using more than I have been producing for at least the last four months. I can’t give a full opinion until a complete year has passed to see the numbers. Regardless I am still glad we took the leap, even if it isn’t quite the savings I imagined.
So the Eagles/Rams game was bad. Believe it or not I don’t think it was as close as 37-19 final score. The Eagles defense is porous and seems to lack the ability to make any big plays. The offense was better but still had three turnovers, including Carson throwing a bad one in the end zone. It’s funny I recall last year feeling very down on Carson for a good portion of the season. I said how he seemed to lack the ability to come up big when the pressure was on. Surprisingly down the home stretch last year he did exactly that, delivering a streak of wins that required him to perform under pressure.
I don’t know why consistency is so elusive for Wentz but unless he manages to find a way to get there, we are going to be dealing with a lot of frustration. The team on paper has too much talent to struggle as it has.
The rest of Sunday I spent a lot of time in the hobby room, trying to clean up what was a mess from various repairs and projects going on simultaneously. I still have multiple printers in there that need attention and the entire room needs a thorough round of me going through everything to organize and throw out as needed.
When I got home last night I saw we had not had any additional rain for the second day in a row. I felt like I had no choice but to get on the tractor and try to knock out mowing the yard. Some areas were still mucky but mowable if I raised the deck. With days shortening I ran out of daylight and used the bright LED headlights to finish up the last 20 minutes of work. Getting the mowing done last night gives me one less thing to add to this weekends task list however it already has more things on it than I can likely accomplish, oh well.
It seems that a good chunk of Bloombergs 100 million is going on Biden tv ads in Florida. I swear every commercial break on local network tv has Joe’s face plastered all over it. Hey by default I want Joe to win too but I wonder if they ever think about diminishing returns when they oversaturate the public with this stuff. If anything, 2016 showed that people are fickle and have a difficult time thinking about anything outside of what is immediately in front of them. With that being the case, I would think hammering closer to the date of the election would be more effective. Man I can not wait until the election is over. I can only hope the outcome is a choice for sanity instead of blubbering incompetence, machine gun lies, and IQ in double digits.
Last night was my last one with the demo Sherman. We actually had a rain free day so after work I wanted to try to get out to attempt one more time to crack 40 mph on the wheel. The sound the big knobby tire makes at speed is un-apologetically loud and in your face. On my third attempt I hit 40.1 mph and then the attempt after that I topped out at 41.5 mph. Even with as stable as the 80+ pound wheel feels at speed, going that fast on a one wheel self balancing device is a white knuckle experience. I was up late last night packing up the wheel and editing the footage. Here is the result.
My original Prusa Mini has been one of the printers I have been fighting with for awhile. It kept having issues with poor quality prints and even complete jamming in some cases. I have taken the hot end apart multiple times trying to tweak things to resolve the issue without success. The other day I was doing a recollection of the timeline of the problem and I realized that the issues seemed to start when I began using a brand of PLA in the Mini that I had not used previously, even though I use this brand in all of my other printers, including the Prusa MK3s printers. The Mini uses a bowden tube set up instead of direct drive where filament is pushed instead of pulled for most of it’s journey to the hot end.
To test my theory I ordered some different filament that I have been using without issue on one of my other Minis. I threw that into the problem printer last night and got a clean print. I was a bit frustrated with myself that I didn’t come up with this simple resolution earlier and I still need to do a few more prints until I can officially declare it as fixed. I still have one more Mini to get working and then I can turn my attention to my CR10S Pro which has been sitting partially disassembled for at least a month.
After dinner last night I went out briefly on the Sherman to see how well the light worked. I was very surprised at just how bright it was, throwing a long beam of visibility in front of me. It’s simple mount on a hinge allows you to adjust it’s angle in seconds to accommodate riding situations as needed. It was yet another reason I am feeling an interest in swapping the Sherman into my EUC line up.
I started the long weekend out with a live stream on Thursday evening. I had received my two new suspension wheels during the day so I thought it would make for some good conversation. I had some tech issues that took some time to work out but overall I think it went ok.
On Friday I was productive. Right after cleaning the chicken coop I pulled out the ladder, a bucket, and a brush. I used it to scrub the layer of scuzz off the chicken roof that I covered with Flex Seal over a year ago. The product actually has held up well, much better than my prior painting attempts which were falling off in a year. I bought another gallon of Flex Seal to really seal the roof in so washing it first made sense for maximum adhesion. Unfortunately the entire four days following this it either looked like or was raining so I never got to actually apply the Flex Seal.
During the day I got to add one final cross support to the new orchard structure and also got to weed whack the property during the afternoon even as some light rain started to fall. It was a good start to my list. Sally made getting much else done outside a challenge for the rest of the weekend.
On Saturday morning I went out early to do a range test on the Sherman. Unlike recent range tests where I tried to keep my speed at a pretty steady 20mph, I did no such limiting on the Sherman, this wheel just wants to go fast. I commented during the ride how 30MPH on this wheel feels like 20MPH on other wheels due to it’s balanced battery pack and immense weight, checking in at over 80 pounds. Despite going over 30MPH for most of the 35 mile ride I still arrived home with almost half of the battery pack remaining. I also set a new personal speed record during the ride of 39.3 MPH, sheesh.
Because of the onset of over 24 hours of rain Saturday afternoon most of our activities were pushed indoors. I made a video regarding setting up my two suspension wheels, neither of which I have been able to actually get out on the road as of yet.
Cindy and I watched a Million Little Pieces Saturday night a movie about the horrors of drug addiction. It made me glad that I never considered myself to have an destructive addictive personality. If you are into seeing penis on screen you get that too. B+
Sunday just sucked. It rained all day long, absolutely drenching the property in the process. On both Saturday and Sunday I spent time on the phone with Directv trying to get my Sunday Ticket reactivated. Once again it was a huge hassle just like it is every year, despite my account having specific notes in it on how it is supposed to be handled. One Indian phone rep got me particularly mad when she refused to transfer me to to the department that handled the Sunday Ticket. She repeatedly kept telling me she had to add notes so she could do a “proper transfer”. She talked in circles for 15 minutes until I hung up on her after saying “thanks for nothing”.
I did eventually get the channels to work but I may have been better off if I didn’t. The Eagles game was very frustrating to watch as they jumped out to a 17-0 lead and proceeded to allow Washington to score the next 27 points, unanswered. The two biggest culprits were the offensive line and Carson himself. The line was porous and overmatched giving up 8 sacks during the game. However Carson compounded the issue by holding onto the ball way too long in many situations instead of just throwing the ball away. It’s a tendency he has had from day one and he just can’t seem to change it. The game left me feeling very blah about the Eagles outlook this year but luckily there is a lot of time for things to brighten.
On Monday the rain finally relented although it looked like it could resume at any time. I used the break to take the Sherman into the swamp. I figured all the precipitation would flood out areas of the swamp and it did. Luckily the big knobby tire on the Sherman allowed me to ride through several completely submerged areas. I didn’t want to push my luck too much so I only rode a few miles into the swamp but the wheel performed the best of any non-suspension EUC I have taken in there. The performance of the Sherman overall has got me considering buying one myself however doing so would only happen if I sold another wheel in my collection, I can’t justify the expense any other way.
The rest of Sunday was filled with various things keeping me busy. Cindy was babysitting DJ so I got to spend some quality time with my little buddy. He is so funny. I also spent a lot of time in the 3D room trying to fix printers which overall did not go great. I currently have three printers that are out of commission for one reason or another. Hopefully someday I have all machines running at 100%.
Despite the undeniably shitty weather I still enjoyed the long weekend overall. I feel amazed and somewhat jealous of people at times that I hear talking about “being bored” with nothing to do. My personal treadmill of tasks just never stops spinning.
We have hit one of those wet season stretches where there seems to be just no relenting on daily hard driven rain. The property has hit max flood stage where standing water will reside for days, in areas that we did not elevate this past year. The thousands we spent on raising ground level does indeed appear to be working as intended at least. The one area we didn’t address was a low spot between the house and chicken area, meaning every trip out there requires a pair of boots.
It’s going to be a busy day with deliveries at the house today. My two suspension wheels are due to arrive at the same time as well as a number of other items. Maybe I need to convert the garage into a loading dock. Today is my last day of work until next Tuesday. My head is already full of things I need/want to do during the 96 hours. If this precipitation dominant weather pattern continues it could make the list arduous to complete.
Since I have not one but two new wheels arriving Thursday and a demo Veteran Sherman already sitting in the house I decided to give myself a second consecutive long weekend. I put in to take Friday and Monday off. I figure the extra time will allow me to dig into the wheels as well as getting stuff on the fresh list checked off.
I also have yet another piece of camera tech that showed up, an Insta360 Go camera. Despite it’s name it does not record 360 videos however it is the tiniest motion stabilized camera out there weighing in at only 20 GRAMS. It’s a specialized use device that is used to capture short, unique perspective clips with it’s various mounting options that allow you to place the camera almost anywhere. It’s yet another thing I hope to play with over the four day weekend.
What you see pictured is an Atala butterfly. I had never seen these before until a few months ago on my daily walks to the gym. There were dozens of them flying around a bunch of a type of plant which I now know is called coontie. Every day I would see the insects darting happily around the area and it made me happy for some reason.
