I have little time today. I finally got to talk to my dad on the phone last night, the first time I have done so since Maggie passed away. Even though a week has passed the pain from loss is still very present, as expected. Dad broke up a few times talking about Maggie and how hard it was to see her go downhill. He said he had her remains cremated which I expected. What I didn’t expect was dad’s plans for the remains. He is going to drive cross country to spread some of her ashes at each place she lived, meaning Flying Hills, Marienville, and the two places in New Mexico.
I appreciated the thoughtfulness of the plan. Although to most it would seem like a very large endeavor to pay tribute to the passing of their dog, I hope a side benefit will be the journey helps dad come to grip with the loss. I told him on the phone I knows how he feels as I have had similar crushing emotional reactions to the loss of pets. Hell I get wrecked when one of our chickens die. Only time helps dull those wounds.
We have a jam packed weekend ahead. Tomorrow we need to pick up more supplies for Cindy to finish pond scaping. While we are out I also want to stop at Lowe’s to order my new tractor. I am mowing on borrowed time on my old Craftsman YT4000. I am going to buy a Husqvarna TS 242XD, the most upscale tractor I have ever had. It has a bunch of nice features but the biggest thing I wanted in my next tractor was a welded deck which is made of much thicker and more durable steel than the shitty stamped decks lower priced tractors come with.
The three mowers I have had since owning the home all had stamped decks and all three of them have fallen apart. They rust easily, develop holes and just suck all the way around if you are using your tractor is a pretty serious way as we do. We have a lot of property to mow. With the 242XD the deck should last the life of the tractor. It will by far the most I ever have spent on a tractor, hopefully it’s worth it in the long run. I have replaced a BUNCH of parts on my Craftsman over the years and I am trying to unload it before a full deck replacement is required.
On Sunday Cindy and I are driving over to the east coast to pick up the demo EUC that I will be evaluating from Mickey, who currently has it. I then have taken off from work through Wednesday to give me time to thoroughly test the wheel on a compressed timeline. I did something similar once before with the Ninebot Z10. It was tiring but fun and gratifying at the same time. I am hoping for a similar experience this time around.
I had a long live stream last night where we talked about a number of subjects, especially the recent rash of EUC fires. The most dramatic case was one rider on a modified Gotway Monster where it burst into flames as he was riding and then went off like a bomb. That ride also unfortunately broke his leg as dove off the wheel awkwardly as it combusted. The other two cases appeared to be the system boards failing while the rider was in motion, once again causing injuries. I generally don’t try to focus on wheel failure possibility that much but it is a big reason I have focused more and more on wearing proper safety gear over the years. The stream was another three hour marathon but I enjoyed it.
I am looking to take a few days off next week to facilitate my reviewing another demo EUC that I will hopefully be picking up this weekend. It is one of the new wheels that includes an active suspension which should be really interesting to test out.
So once again Miguel has decided to ignore my request for him to contact me to arrange to finish up the work he agreed to do. I have had enough and finally decided I would call up his father who has done work for our neighbor for years and years. It was his dad that connected me to Miguel. I asked if there was something going on with Miguel that I didn’t know about as I have not been able to get responses from him. I told him about the bizarre drop off of the roller on Saturday only for it to be picked back up on Monday without the work being done.
Jesus is pretty hard to understand person to person because of his accent, it was even tougher for me to understand clearly over the phone. What I made out was he would talk to him to find out what was going on. He said something about Miguel spending a lot of time with his girlfriend which is something he mentioned before when I had a problem. Evidently the girlfriend seems to get priority over anything else it seems. Who knows if my call will result in anything changing or happening. I’ll just be holding onto the check I wrote out on Saturday, when I foolishly assumed he was actually going to do the work then. I just can’t believe this kid is running his own business. There is absolutely no way he could keep customers if this is how he normally handles communication.
The sales on the 3D store have continued to skyrocket. Last month set a new record in sales with over $1500. This month I am already over $1000 only 9 days in. It’s crazy. The new rear bumper model has been selling quickly, I literally can’t keep certain items in stock. It’s a good problem to have.
Last night I had a normal nights sleep which was a good thing. I was walking around most of the day and evening in a zombie-like state after only getting a couple hours of sleep the night before. I wouldn’t say I feel well rested today but I feel at least human.
So the sod roller had been sitting at the house since Saturday when it was dropped off and used briefly by Miguel. I had been waiting for him to come and finish the work and sent him a couple messages asking when that would happen which again went unanswered. Yesterday afternoon I got a message from Cindy that a guy was there loading the roller back up on a truck when she got home. I asked if it looked like the sod was rolled and she said no. What the f?
Cindy talked to the guy. He said he was just there to pick up the roller he didn’t know anything else. I sent another text message to Miguel asking him to call me ASAP. Of course, I got no response. At this point I just have no idea what is wrong with this guy. He goes through the trouble of getting the roller there, let’s it sit three days and then it gets picked up with no work being done. I guess he really doesn’t want to get paid. Today I plan to call his father and ask what the hell is going on with his son. I just want the work he agreed to do completed so I never have to speak with him again.
As I was out doing chicken duties bright and early on Saturday morning I heard the sound of a running motor. I looked up and saw Miguel on his sod roller pressing down some of the grass in front of the fence. I continued finishing up my work, I planned to check in on him when I was finished. As I was still working I realized I no longer heard the motor running. I once again look the same direction and still see the sod roller, this time parked, turned off, with nobody on it. When I was done in the chicken area I walked over there.
Miguel was gone. It looks like he rolled about a 20×40 area and then took off. I figured he had to do something and would be back. Nope, the roller has sat in the same spot all weekend. I texted him yesterday asking when he was going to finish up. Of course I got no response, unreal. Maybe I’ll fire up the roller and do the work myself.
On Saturday we started work on ripping out the old disgusting pond. I filled two wheel barrows with sludge I shoveled out of the old dry rotted pond liner. Standing in there was treacherous as the sludge felt like ice. After sufficient sludge was removed I was able to rip up the old liner with whatever organic material was still in it.
The pond is two tier design. The upper part is a plastic molded pond. The lower part used to a plastic mold too until a mini-tornado ripped it out of the ground somewhere around 15 years ago. After that happened was when I bought a pond liner and threw it in there instead.
When I pulled out the old liner much of it cracked in my hands from years of exposure to the brutal Florida sun. The shape underneath the liner still more or less had the shape of the original plastic pond which had an uneven surface. I decided I would like to dig out the bottom a bit to make it equal depth. Well that was easier said than done.
The overgrown areca palms that started out as three foot high potted trees have filled every square inch of ground around there, including under the pond, with roots. Just digging out the relatively small section so it was equal depth took way more effort than I first anticipated.
Next up I had some pond liner blanket ready to go in the shed. By putting this down first you protect the liner from getting holes poked into it from below. I then drug out the new liner. The piece I bought was big enough that I could fold it over in half and still have enough material to cover the pond, another nice bonus to increase life and durability of the reborn pond. After giving the liner a rough trim we pinned it along it’s edge with the big heavy castle stones we already had. After another trip to Home Depot we loaded up on large, round river rocks to cover the bottom along with smaller pond pebbles to be used along the edges.
I set up the new fountain pump I bought a few weeks ago to circulate water from the bottom to the top tier where it waterfalls back below. At that point the majority of my work on the project is complete. Cindy is planning to do some cool landscaping around the pond. The end result will be us having a water feature that we actually enjoy looking at instead of wet, muddy, black hole that we ignore.
So when we came back from one of our Home Depot runs on Saturday Cindy and Deb walked into diarrhea which evidently came from Sadie. I had forgotten to walk her before we left so it was my fault ultimately. However ever since we picked her up on Thursday she had been acting like she had the runs. Instead of looking to poop a couple times a day, every single time we would go outside she would go shuffle off in poop position. If there was anything coming out it had to be minor because I could not see much of anything from a distance.
Well this behavior continued throughout the day on Sunday as well. She was just acting like she constantly felt unsettled in her gut. Sadie has had GI issues her entire life but this was abnormal, even for her. So last night I took her out right before bed. She actually only pee’d at that point so I thought that maybe the feeling of poop urgency was finally waning for her. Boy was I wrong.
My first wake up came at 12:30 when she was sitting by the bed making noises at me. At least she lets us know. I took her outside and I heard some wet farts but nothing else really going on. She circled around for awhile before feeling safe enough to come back in. Ok now I can finally get some sleep, not. I got another wake up at 2AM and the same thing occurred outside, circling, some noises, but nothing much I could make out under the light of a full moon. I was very conscious of not wanting to wake up Cindy so I made a command decision to stay out in the main living area with Sadie.
At first I thought I would just work on stuff and maybe play some WoW. I did get a couple stand orders processed but after I read my email I was utterly exhausted. I decided to try out my Secret Lab gaming chair as a sleeping apparatus. The high end chair is comfortable, fully reclines and has a substantial pillow. I turned off the screens to my PC and reclined the chair back. I closed my eyes and stayed there until a little before 6AM when Sadie had to go out again. I slept maybe an hour or two out there but it was miserable sleep if I got any at all. I was constantly listening for any signs of intestinal distress from Sadie who was laying on the floor next to me. I was also chilly as I was only in my boxers. My only “blanket” was crossing my arms over my chest. It wasn’t an experience I am looking to repeat anytime soon.
When I got up I looked up side effects of the NSAID based medicine Sadie has been on for a couple weeks. Of course the side effects are vomiting and diarrhea. Oh I forgot to mention I stepped in Sadie’s dinner which she threw up in the bedroom during the night. I told Ali about the listed side effects and said I don’t think she should keep taking it.
Cindy dropped Sadie off this morning. Hopefully after a couple days without the meds will get her feeling better. She looked absolutely miserable this morning before I left for work, I felt bad. I felt especially upset considering what happened with Maggie. Sadie is starting to slow down as well. Her back legs have been giving out now and then. I really want to make an effort to keep getting her out to the house as much as I can since she has much greater freedom of movement on the property.
As I mentioned briefly Deb came out to visit Saturday evening. As seems is always the case, the three of us had lots of fun and laughs along the way.
The weather all weekend was overcast with an abundance of rain, curtailing any formal EUC riding. The only content I posted was a brief test of the water shedding capabilities of the 3D printed mini-mudguard I started selling on the store last week.
This week there were two organized and pre-announced protests locally regarding the killing of George Floyd. These marches started at the county courthouse and went into downtown Naples. The police presence here was massive. Each night when I walked into the parking garage there were dozens of police on the upper decks just waiting to be called into action. In addition they had all entrances into the government complex blocked with cars to make congregating inconvenient I guess. What I thought was weird is this has continued every day this week, despite no organized protests being scheduled for the last two days. They are all just up there observing and waiting.
Pandemics aren’t a good thing for most businesses but evidently they are for 3D printed EUC accessories. May was my biggest month ever for sales, crossing the $1500 mark. I have been expanding what I have on the store from being just stands for EUCs to include other stuff like “bumpers”, kick stands, charger holders, and more. The end result has been pretty much every day having a good chunk of it consumed by fulfilling orders and keeping the assembly line of printers in the hobby room cranking out parts.
I even put an inquiry in with a place that does injection molding of plastic parts. I was curious what potential costs would be to have some of the parts created this way. The upfront tooling cost is very pricey so I don’t know how feasible it would be but I am curious to see what sort of numbers they throw at me.
This morning I had my last session of physical therapy for my shoulder. It was getting to be a hassle to go 2-3 times a week and my shoulder has progressed enough that I felt safe continuing onward on my own. At the gym and at home I have all the stuff I need to continue doing the exercises to build the small supportive muscles in the joint. I am still definitely not back to normal as push ups and pull ups are still off the menu and have felt uncomfortable when I have tried either, even in limited numbers. I just need to be more attentive to when something hurts and be patient with my goal of being able to return to bench pressing, some day.
This weekend I have some projects on my mind. The back of the property needs to be mowed at some point but the more immediate project will be our attempt to redo the small pond in the backyard. Since Cindy trimmed back the areca palms considerably it exposed just how badly the pond needs attention. The game plan is to use a shovel to remove as much sludge as possible and then pull out the dry rotted liner that has been in place for over 15 years. I will then probably pull the “blanket” under the liner and try to dig the hole out even deeper so the pond can hold more water. We then will put the new liner in and I will likely get new tubing and possible a new fountain for the upper tier. It should be dirty, smelly, sweaty work. Hopefully the end result is worth it.
Cindy has really been working hard around the house during her furlough. Yesterday was another example. She relocated the sod as I described in the post yesterday from a spot where it wasn’t really needed to a spot where it was. She had to pull up around 50 pieces of sod from the back yard and transport them via wheelbarrow to the front. It was ass busting work for sure. I appreciated her efforts as it saved me me from adding the task to my list for the weekend. The new bahia sod certainly doesn’t look pretty yet but it definitely will accomplish the goal of elevating former flood prone areas.
Miguel texted me yesterday saying he was going to roll the sod and asked if I could have the money ready. I said sure but I wouldn’t be home until 5:45. He wound up not coming out anyway (surprise, surprise). I could easily write a check and leave it at the house for Cindy to give to him to make it more convenient for Miguel. However after as much frustration as he has provided me for the last two months I really don’t feel obliged to be overly courteous or accommodating.
I’ve been trying to not think about my dad’s dog Maggie passing away yesterday. If I do I try to steer my mind towards all the happy memories she was a part of, like how she would like to take my dad for walks at the beach, so he could play in the water.
I got an email from my Dad today that brought instant waves of emotion over me. Maggie had died. Maggie was going on 16 years old and for the vast majority of her life she was an incredibly active dog which is a blessing. Dad and my stepmom didn’t adopt Maggie until after I moved to Florida so I didn’t get to spend as much time with her as I would have liked but even with those limits, I loved her a ton.
The times when Maggie, Clara, Nicki and Sadie got together either via western road trips in the van or when my dad and stepmom would visit Florida were just so special. Watching the four dogs interact and play was one of the purest and simplest enjoyments I could ask for.
Maggie was amazingly athletic, smart and seemed to have endless energy. She would play fetch with you until your arm was ready to fall off. She liked water, entertaining us by diving into the pool here repeatedly to retrieve a toy. She accompanied us on countless walks whether it was 90 degrees in Florida or 10 degrees in western PA. She didn’t care, she just wanted to be part of it.
She and my dad were inseparable. Despite her size she wanted to be a lap dog while dad was driving. It was always quite the funny visual seeing a full grown border collie jammed onto his lap on the road. I know this moment was something my dad dreaded for a long time and it sounds to me like he wasn’t dealing well with it as Maggie went downhill.
When I saw her in January I was shocked by just how much she was struggling. It had been a year or two since I saw her. It was difficult to see the dog I knew running around for hours now having to struggle mightily to simply stand and walk. During that visit I was pretty sure it was going to be the last time I saw sweet Maggie alive. I spent a lot of time on the floor just rubbing her during that visit. I told her I loved her as I gave her one last head rub before I left.
The sadness and remorse I feel I am sure is only a fraction of what my stepmom and dad are feeling. Despite my sorrow I do try to recognize that at least her suffering is at an end. In times like this it’s hard to focus on all of the great memories and loving relationship you had with your pet as they truly love you like no human being can.
The picture in the snow was taken during that last visit. I remember when I took it, the symbolism even then brought me to tears for a moment. We all will miss precious Maggie. She was a special one.
So the other day I got an email from Allstate about the first installment payment for my next 6 month policy period. When I saw the amount I realized it was over 10% more than the last policy period which instantly sparked an intense irritation which I got around to investigating yesterday. Several car insurance companies, including Allstate were very anxious to publicize how they were giving their customers a “rebate” since there has been significantly less driving, hence less claims since Covid 19 lock downs were enabled. I actually got my $30 rebate check a few days prior to this renewal which I thought was ironic. The more I thought about this the angrier it got me. Allstate just proclaimed how their costs were down so they were passing that along to the customer yet they follow up IMMEDIATELY with a 10% rate increase?? So they gave me $30 but in my case want to charge me almost an extra $300 for the year?? You son of a bitches.
So I called up my agent and started complaining. I minced no words in expressing how ridiculous and disingenuous the situation was, giving a rebate and then charging nearly 10 times more of that amount on the back end. I continued ranting about how annoying it is that even though I have a clean driving record and am an “older” person my rates seem to steadily increase with Allstate. I said the way it used to be as you got older your car insurance went down, not up.
The guy on the phone understood my frustration and agreed with me. He said everyone in their office cringed when they heard about the rate increase because they knew how ridiculous it looked after rebating money back just prior. When I asked for some sort of relief they had nothing for me other than the option to pay for the entire year in advance, as far as Allstate was concerned the price was the price. I told the guy how it seems like Allstate doesn’t give a shit about customer loyalty. I told him I had been with the company for more than 35 years. He sadly agreed with me, they don’t care.
So I asked him what my options were with other companies since they represented more than one insurance carrier. He said he would run my information through some other companies to see what sort of rates I could get. A short while later he called me back with some good news. He said I could get comparable coverage through Travelers for $83 a month less than what Allstate has been charging me, a HUGE difference. Travelers had similar savings for the million dollar liability policy that I had to get for the solar system.
Well that was all it took. In the span of 30 minutes I had severed my 35 year relationship with Allstate and signed on with Travelers. I made sure to send a tweet @allstate expressing how shitty I thought it was for them to pull this stunt. It’s too bad that companies nowadays don’t really care or emphasize taking care of customers that have remained loyal to them. It’s the cold reality of the world we live in.
So Miguel’s crew spread the sod I bought around yesterday. I need a little more but I plan to address that via a Home Depot run instead of buying more pallets. We are actually going to be able to move some of the stuff that was laid down in a non-low spot to make up for deficit elsewhere. I found it funny in an annoying way that Miguel was very quick to text me an updated amount of what I still owed him when it was so painfully slow to get responses to my questions this entire time. I told him I would be happy to write him a check for the remaining amount once he rolls the sod as he promised. If he never gets around to doing that then I guess I won’t get around to writing that check.
For the last two days there have been protests here regarding the Floyd murder. When I walked out to my car last night in the pouring rain I was amazed at the amount of police in the parking garage, staged to deal with whatever happened. There were a couple dozen police vehicles around and at least 50 deputies grouped together. The demonstrations here were mostly peaceful outside of some yelling and pushing. The outrage is understandable, especially when our president tear gasses a crowd so they disperse to allow him to stand in front of a church holding a bible for a photo op. It was like he ripped a page directly from the playbook of other famous dictators. His lack of empathy, understanding, and intelligence continues to be awe inspiring, in an awful way, day in and day out.
I made a video last night demonstrating how to install the new 3D rear bumper model I am selling on the store, if you are about these things. Store sales have been really brisk, exceeding capacity currently.
So I have been given excuse after excuse by Miguel as to why he has been unable to get me the sod that I paid for almost a month ago. With those excuses came multiple missed delivery/install dates, at least a half dozen times. For good measure he also likes to ignore texts for days , especially if they request something ridiculous like an ETA till completion.
So the latest grind has been trying to get 7 more pallets of grass to finish the job. Miguel has insisted he can’t get the sod. He says the sod field is too wet and the trucks they use to deliver are stuck. Well considering we are moving more and more into rainy season I don’t think that is a situation that is going to get better with each passing day. So yesterday I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I did a Google search for “Naples Bahia sod”. Within seconds I had a list of possibilities. I called Leo’s Sod as I recall buying two pallets of sod from them at least 15 years or more ago to cover the elevated dog area. I asked them if they had any bahia sod. I was expecting a similar story about scarce availability based on what Miguel told me. Instead i was told they had it in stock and could deliver either yesterday afternoon or today. Yea it was $20 more per pallet but I am more than willing to pay for expediency at this point. I gave them my credit card to pay on the phone. They said they would let me know if they could make it out there this afternoon. I could hardly believe it when they told me later they were bringing it out, the same day.
I had just gotten off a conference call so I had to quickly shut down everything at work and quick step it to the Tesla. Cindy was over at Katie’s place so I asked her if she could head home in case the truck gets there before me. As I approached the house it was a beehive of activity. The sod truck had just pulled in, the DHL van dropping off filament was already parked and an Amazon delivery van was pulling in as well. It was sort of nuts how all of these events lined up. For good measure a few minutes later the people that bought some chairs Cindy was selling arrived as well. It was a pretty hectic few minutes.
I stayed outside in my work clothes telling the sod guy where I wanted the pallets. I sent a picture to Miguel letting him know I now have sod, no thanks to him. I asked him if he was still interested in having his crew lay the sod for the $20 per pallet we agreed upon previously. His one word response was “yes” When I later asked him when they were coming he said “tomorrow”. We will see if they show up today. If not I am pretty ready to tell him to f off and I’ll just spread the sod myself although part of the installation he does includes rolling the sod flat which would be a nice bonus. The grass he did in the chicken area looks fantastic.
This was just the latest confirmation that you just can’t trust anyone but yourself to make sure shit gets done. If I am paying you yet I have to babysit your actions I really don’t want anything to do with you in the future. It’s amazing that a month of excuses was remedied in a couple hours just by me making a 5 minute phone call.
So the Trump train of insanity keeps rolling along with nobody at the wheel. Just like his handling of Covid 19, the Floyd murder reaction by the president has been utterly ineffective, corrosive, and inflammatory. I recall saying a long time ago a very simple truth that I think is inarguable. Not every person that supports Donald Trump is a racist, but, EVERY racist supports Donald Trump. Think about that and let it simmer.
