All posts by Duf

I had my weekend list all ready to go.  It wasn’t overbearing considering I had an extended three day weekend to accomplish my tasks.  The problem was the list evidently wasn’t enough for me.  Saturday morning after I got the weeding done Cindy, Elsa and I went to my office.  I had some after hours work to get done.  Cindy spent that time cleaning my office which was nice.  Elsa seems to like going to my office as well as she repeatedly ran excitedly up and down the halls, it was very cute.  We also hung a shelf in my office to give me a better spot to display stuff like some of my cars and 3D prints which de-cluttered some other surfaces in the office which I liked.

After the office visit we went to Home Depot and picked up three 2 x 6 x 16 pressure treated boards.  Getting those home in the Tacoma that has a six foot bed was a delicate operation since the boards extended a full 10 feet beyond the bed of the truck.  When we got home Cindy and I worked on getting the boards hung across the orchard.  I did this to add some more rigidity to the structure.  This took awhile and this was the first of two rather large non-list items we did over the weekend.  On Sunday I bought some more 2 x 6 to put in the intermediate supports you see in the picture.

Saturday afternoon it started to seriously look like rain but I started to mow anyway as it was one of the larger list items.  I had some light rain drop on me for periods of time but nothing strong enough to make me stop.  The new bahia sod we put in grows like weeds, in one weeks time it is already 7-8 inches high at spots.

Sunday was again a busy day.  As I continued tending to my to do’s Cindy was tirelessly out in the orchard working on stuff, it is a very large area.  She has been working on landscaping the spot for now going on three weeks.  Sunday evening I finally got out to ride the demo Veteran Sherman wheel I was sent, the EUC with the biggest battery pack on the planet.  All those batteries also make it the heaviest wheel around, tipping the scales at more than 80 pounds.  I was immediately impressed and just how stable at speed the wheel felt.

I was originally hoping that by Labor Day I would have the list items mostly done, and I did, so I came up with other stuff to do.  I did get to go out on an early ride to DD first thing which was the quickest round trip I ever had.  The top speed I recorded was 36.5 MPH and the wheel felt like it had plenty more to give if I asked it to.

During the afternoon, with my list pretty complete I looked at the pool cage and was disgusted by how green the rails looked.  I grabbed the electric pressure washer and did a speed pressure washing session.  This was not one of my full sessions which takes hours when I use the gas pressure washer, I didn’t pull anything off the deck, I just moved stuff around.  I also could not reach the highest parts of the pool cage as the electric washer doesn’t work well with extensions and is also about 1000 PSI less than the gas model.  The “speed” run still took two hours.  It was good enough to buy me a few months until I do a full session once the temperatures finally start to drop.  My aching lower back did not approve of the task.

After I got done Cindy and I headed for an afternoon run to DD.  As we did we drove through some hard rain.  However when we returned a deluge event began, dumping at least 3-4 inches of rain on the property in a couple hours.  The familiar standing water spots returned instantly and the pool was filled to the brim.  It’s crazy how intense yet isolated these rain events in Florida can be.  When I checked with some co-workers today they said they hadn’t seen a single drop.

I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming three day weekend.  Many people would be focusing on what sort of recreational activities they are planning for the holiday weekend.  I find myself first focusing on what I would like to get done over the three days, with a focus on completing those things as quickly as possible so I can then start thinking about recreational activities.  Part of the weekend will include a trip into the office to get a few after hour tasks done.  It’s never fun working after hours but I plan on having Cindy and Elsa with me so that always makes it feel less like work.

Yesterday the county commissioners voted to extend the mask wearing mandate which was due to expire.  The order has now been extended to October 22.  The general feeling is the mask mandate has coincided with a steady decline in infection numbers so it should be continued to perpetuate that trend.  I personally don’t have a problem with it but there is definitely a very vocal minority that acts like you are asking them for some supreme sacrifice to wear a mask.

I get it that people don’t like being told what to do but hell you can no longer smoke wherever you please, you can’t get service at many establishments with no shirt or shoes, and seat belts have been the law for decades.  I expect that more people wearing masks in the US will from this point forward will be a thing.  It won’t get to the point it is in some Asian countries but I don’t think it is ever completely going away.  Hell if the Rock and his family can get Covid 19, anyone can.

With eight printers in my hobby room it feels like there is always one or two that are in need of some sort of attention and/or repair.  I just got my one Prusa Mini working again and one of my others developed a problem yesterday.  It’s like being a hamster on an exercise wheel, it never stops spinning.

Evidently I was really tired last night.  I somehow slept through my alarm this morning.  We use one of our Alexa devices as an alarm clock so to turn off the alarm requires me to give it a voice command.  I must have given it the command to shut up and immediately fallen back asleep.  I have no recollection however of my doing so.  I didn’t awake until a couple minutes after 7.  Cindy and I sprung out of bed and put our morning routine on fast forward.

I bypassed my my normal egg and toast breakfast and opted for a Pop Tart speed meal, something I do less and less often nowadays.  I didn’t shower or shave either, luckily my recently buzzed head doesn’t require a shower to be ready to go.  I was only about 10 minutes late getting to the office which isn’t bad, all things considered. I attribute my tiredness to playing some old school WoW Classic last night till almost 11PM.

I have been in tunnel vision mode at work lately.  I have been trying to get something implemented at work that is outside my area of expertise.  Because of my lack of knowledge and experience I am bumping into all sorts of challenges along the way.  I finally think I am onto a solution which should work thanks to getting some direction through various sources.  I am far from an IT genius, I think my strength is actually more as a troubleshooter.  In most situations I can dig through an issue until I finally come up with a resolution, even if it takes me a long time to get there. I don’t give up easily.

Last night I hoped to fix a problem with my one Prusa Mini which was the one list item I had not had a chance to cross off over the weekend.  My goal was to replace the heat break in the printer to solve heat creep issues I have seen now and then which results in filament jamming eventually.  I bought a new and improved part and ripped apart the hot end to install it.  The old part removed easily but the new part had much more resistance, so much so that I could not fully seat it.  When I tried to remove it to try again it was more or less stuck.  I eventually got it out through brute force where I grabbed the end with a pliers, destroying the new part in the process.  The failure left me frustrated and back on a web site to order another one to try again.

A common strategy I have seen in the Trump camp is to show clips of Biden misspeaking or looking/acting confused.  Don’t get me wrong, Joe does misspeak and act/sound confused at times but for Donald Trump, the most stable genius big league speaker of all time to use that as an attack vector is hilarious.  Without a doubt Don has the smallest vocabulary of any president in US history, to match his, sue you if you try to get my school records, IQ.  His collection of stupid and moronic statements is nearly limitless so for him to point out Joe’s gaffes in public speaking seems like pot calling the kettle black in spades. Joe has said many stupid things for sure but last time I checked he avoided publicly mocking reporters with disabilities, bragging about grabbing women by their genitalia, and other morally reprehensible statements.

Cindy has been working diligently over the last couple weeks converting the unproductive orchard into a big landscape feature.  I made the suggestion to her that if we added some 4 x 4’s we could hang the sun sail that we have in the shed to provide some shade.  Cindy loved the idea.  On Saturday we bought the wood and cement.  After I got done mowing the grass I jumped right into working on getting the posts mounted.

While I was mowing Cindy had been busy at work with the post hole digger, creating four two foot deep holes to sink the 10 foot long 4×4’s into.  Her doing that made my part of the job much easier.  I hoisted the posts into the holes and then backfilled with dirt and then concrete while Cindy held the post level.  We left the posts set overnight so the concrete could settle.

On Sunday the plan continued to evolve.  To add stability I screwed the base of the posts into the wooden 2×6 border around the orchard.  We then talked about how it would be cool to add cross supports between the two posts on each side to create sort of a pergola look.  We headed back to Lowes for the second time in as many days to get some 2x6x12 lumber.

The weather all weekend was melt your face hot but we just kept plugging away as we both donned our wide brim hats to provide at least some minimal relief.  I got done with my portion of the project about 4:30 Sunday afternoon.  We screwed in some eye hooks and strung up the solar shade.  It looked cool and provided a significant temperature drop when hanging out under there.  I think Cindy may be able to finish up the project this week.

After a weekend full of labor going on an EUC ride isn’t a great idea, at least for me as I was already feeling beat up before stepping on the wheel.  Even small bumps in the road sent bolts of pain into my lower body and back, it honestly was not a fun experience.  The biggest reason I wanted to ride was to test out my new Insta360 camera which shoots everything in a 360 field of view.  I was curious how it would look and how tedious it may be to edit my videos using this style of camera.

The footage came out cool, having the ability to spin the perspective around in whatever direction you desire is very powerful.  Unfortunately that power comes with a price, editing time.  The 17 minute video I made consumed 2-3 hours of editing time.  I had to first load all of the clips into the 360 software to set my camera angles.  Then I had to export all 25 of these clips into flat video files and then reload them into my normal video editor where I combine everything into one video.  To be quite honest, it’s tedious as hell which is what I was afraid of.  I will be researching to see if there is something I can do to reduce that editing time because I just can not be spending that much time to construct a video.  Take a look at the 360 effect below.

The list did not get completely crossed off yet, there are a couple items I will hopefully get to during the week.

Although I had not planned this during the day, when I got home last night I got on the Husqvarna to mow the back part of the property which gets done once a month or so during wet season.  The fact that it was currently not that wet made me eager to take advantage of the situation and get this weekend list item crossed off early. It takes less time to mow the back so I finished up slightly before the sun dropped below the horizon.

As I drove around the perimeter of the yard I was reminded how a number of the fence posts are starting to show pretty significant rot/decay where they meet the ground.  As I mowed I thought about various scenarios to replace them, weighing in the effort/cost with each possible solution.  I need to to do a test run of popping out a rotting post and putting a new one in it’s place to see how arduous it is.  The results of that test will affect my strategy going forward.

Yesterday I had my first dermatologist office visit since the pandemic began.  I was masked for all but 30 seconds of the visit where he cut off two chunks of skin on my back and neck for testing.  They are likely more basal cell cancer but surprisingly he suggested if they test positive he recommended I use the topical cream to dissolve the bad cells instead of his normal template of having me come in to get them scraped/burned.  My only guess was he was trying to cut back on the number of patients requiring office visits which is fine for me but surprising because it equates to less dollars in his pocket.

This weekend will likely follow the standard template of working in high heat and humidity with small breaks in between where hopefully enjoyable things can be enjoyed.

So Hurricane Laura, which was originally forecast to impact Florida instead smashed into the northern gulf overnight.  Having been through several hurricanes now I am familiar with the fear and anxiety a strong hurricane brings before it even arrives, the terrifying sound of 130mph winds battering your property, and the zombie-like state when you finally step outside to see the carnage the storm has left behind.  I’m curious if the storm surge numbers were the crazy 15-20 feet they predicted or not.  Residents of that area have a long road ahead of them.

I haven’t talked about the latest case of police violence on here.  To be quite honest the depth of my disgust of what American society has morphed into makes not even want to discuss it.  As everyone else, I saw the video of Blake trying to get into his vehicle while an officer was holding onto his shirt with one hand while having a gun drawn in his other hand.  My assumption was the officer for some reason thought Blake was reaching for a weapon, despite knowing he had multiple armed officers around him.  The end result was not one but seven shots being fired at point blank range into the guys back.

I’m surprised Blake survived but at this point he is paralyzed from the waist down from his injuries.  His shooting sparked a fresh wave of protests that had it’s own disgusting outcome when a 17 year old armed with an AR-15 shot three protestors, killing two of them.

I remember when I was younger thinking about atrocities throughout history and feeling relieved that we as human beings had evolved into more rational, intelligent, accepting, and peaceful individuals for the most part.  The new reality is the de-evolution of American society that has been fostered and cuddled by the most divisive president in US history.  When I try to recall just how many horrible, racist, ignorant, fraudulent, and flat out dangerous situations have come out of the self appointed Stable Genius’s mouth/actions, I lose count quickly.  Every single day he gives us something fresh to be ashamed of.

Last night after work I climbed back on the Echelon bike to do a half hour ride.  The class was designated as a “recovery ride” yet by the end of it I was still a sweaty mess and had burned over 300 calories.  I think I really have found my cardio replacement for running which doesn’t come with the same potential pain penalty in my knees, hips or lower back.

I seem to be in one of those patterns where I can’t find any free time to just sit down and veg out in WoW for awhile.  It feels like other things are always commanding my attention.  Hell as soon as I get up each morning my ritual has become immediately heading into the hobby room to feed the printers and address any issues that could have popped up overnight.  Sometimes as I am eating my breakfast at my desk I am packing up a stand for an order at the same time so I can get it turned around and shipped out asap.  I realize that all of the stuff that commands my attention are decisions I make.  Maybe I am just yearning for less decisions.

For the last few weeks our street has been getting these monster sized metal utility poles which will be replacing the conventional wood poles that are on the other side of the street, I assume.  The wood poles are not all that hurricane resistant as after Irma there were a bunch of poles leaning at steep angles.  Even so, usually massive poles like the new ones are normally relegated to major roadways, not side streets.  I’m not exactly thrilled with their addition from a visual standpoint but if the end result is more stable and reliable power in our area I am ok with it.

We did luck out in one way, we don’t actually have a pole on our property.  Both of our neighbors on either side were not quite as lucky as one of them got poled yesterday and by the time I get home today I expect a matching pole will be erected on the other side.  It’s amazing thinking how much things have changed in our area now.  When I first moved out there in 2001 we couldn’t even get cable TV.  Now the amount of homes off our street have at least doubled with more and more being started every month.

During my adult lifetime there have been somewhere around six presidents.  Obviously I have liked some more than others.  Some of the negative words I have used in the past were unflattering for sure, ignorant, idiotic, puppet, and dishonest were applicable to many of them at one point or another.  However I was thinking to myself that I never would of characterized any of them as a tyrant, not until present day that is.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like tyrant was the perfect word to describe Donald.  For him it is nothing new, if you read accounts of his business dealings throughout his lifetime, the word tyrant would be thrown about generously.  What is sad and surprising is how quickly the boot lickers in the Republican party embraced this lunacy.  I can only hope when karma comes around it smacks them in the face, hard.  Hell even Kelley Ann-Conway is jumping ship, whose lips have super glued to Donald’s rear end this entire time.  I can only hope that more people are seeing the writing on the wall and want to get out of the way before our rotund, big league leader comes crashing to the ground.

Since my left knee got injured running two months ago I have mentally crossed that off the list of viable cardio activities for myself for the foreseeable future.  I have been using Cindy’s Echelon cycling bike a few times to get my cardio in and I like it more than I expected.  When paired with the app which allows you to do both recorded and live rides lead by a trainer I find myself pushing myself to levels near my exertion level while running.  I also like the element of the live scoreboard which ranks your overall watt output to other people that have done the same ride.  Despite my overall lack of cycling experience I almost always manage to get myself into the top 20% of riders.

On Saturday I knocked out a good chunk of the to do list before setting up to do another live stream at a very odd time, 3PM.  The time selection was intentional as I was streaming with Ulf who lives in Germany which is six hours ahead of us on the clock.  He has a broad technical knowledge of EUCs and I was talking about streaming with him way back in 2018 but we never got our schedules coordinated.  The two hour plus stream went well, people really seemed to enjoy having a more technical viewpoint on the stream.

After the live stream I was right back outside, this time modifying the chicken perch in reaction to us losing ANOTHER hen from a fall off the perch.  At this point we lost three or four hens this way, they lose their balance for some reason and break their neck during the fall.  When I was thinking about these scenarios, every time it occurred the hens were on the left edge of the perch, where the small round dowel is, that we now know is not well suited for chicken perching.

The first thing I did was rip the round dowels from either side of the perch.  On the one side I put a 2×4 with the wide side up to give them a nice flat surface to perch on.  On the other side I left the 2×4 which is on it’s side so it would be smaller if the hens preferred it but still flat so they could maintain balance easier.  The other change was I added two more 2x 4 to fill in space between the perches .  When we watched the video from Dot’s fall she lost balance on the round dowel and then fell back towards the middle of the perch.  When she fell it looked like her head hit one of the perches on the way down which likely broke her neck.  With the additional cross supports a chicken should not be able to fall through that spot which hopefully will prevent a similar scenario from happening again.

Saturday night Cindy and I watched Official Secrets, our latest Netflix rental.  It was a true story regarding the deception and arm twisting the US participated in to try to get the UN Security Council to approve a war resolution against Iraq.  It reinforced my already firm opinion of just how dark and slimy our government can be behind the curtain. We both found the movie very interesting, B+.

Around noon on Saturday Cindy and I did something we had not done for a long, long time, conventional brick and mortar shopping.  I wanted to hit the Jockey outlet at Miromar to refresh my undergarments which were getting pretty beat up.  Cindy needed some stuff too.  We even ate lunch there, albeit at the Subway at the food court.  Of course we wore our masks the entire time outside of eating but it wasn’t a big deal.  Cindy and I both commented how it felt nice to do something we had not done since Covid 19 became a household word.

I had been contacted maybe a month ago by one of my YouTube channel subscribers.  He was from the Philly area and was coming to Marco on vacation with his family.  He had asked me if I would be willing to go ride with him and his 9 year old son when they got here.  He emailed me Saturday night that they had arrived and we worked out that I would meet them down in Marco about 4PM.

I arrived a little before they did so I rolled around on my One Wheel until they showed up.  I parked in the Publix shopping center, my normal launch point for Marco rides.  I was quite surprised when I saw the Publix was no longer there, just a big fenced off construction area.  They evidently knocked down the building to build a new, modern Publix since I was last there, crazy.  I also noticed the old Burger King that was an out parcel in the same shopping center was now nothing but an empty patch of grass.

Igor’s son’s name was Landon who is only nine years old.  He and his dad only started learning EUCs back in May.  When I pulled out my MSX and 16X Landon was able to ride each of them stupidly easy, the gift of youth.  We rode around the mostly empty parking lot for awhile before heading onto a few of the small hilly regions nearby.  Igor really liked the MSX and I expect him to be buying one soon.  His family moved to the US in 1989 from the former USSR which I thought was interesting.

Landon was was a really cool little kid.  He even has a YouTube channel which I posted in the description of the video I made to hopefully get a few subscribers thrown his way.  I think they really had a good time which made me feel good in return.

When I got back Cindy was babysitting DJ for a bit which was a nice treat for me.  I always enjoy having the little guy around.