All posts by Duf

A good part of my weekend was spent just tending to small tasks around the house like fixing the dishwasher brackets, tending to the garden, packaging 3D orders and a long list of other things. I did take my F22 Pro out for it’s second real ride over the weekend. Although the wheel seems very good in many regards there is one thing I really don’t like, the pedal angle.

Pedals on EUCs can utilize something called the dihedral angle. If you look at the wheel from straight on that angle can be seen when the pedals are in the fully down position. Well the F22 has a significant dihedral angle which puts my feet in a position that is just very uncomfortable. It’s so bad that after 10 miles I was ready to get off the thing. It is pretty painful and takes away from my overall enjoyment of the wheel. Some riders like a steep dihedral as it makes them feel more locked into the wheel. With my body geometry it just feels awful. I’m not sure what I am going to do about it. I need to have a more flat angle, somehow, yet these are not adjustable.

Some of you may recall this dwarf mulberry tree that I ordered online last October. When I planted the tree it had a few tiny leaves and didn’t look like it could ever amount to much.

I continued to tend to it over the weeks which turned into months. It had a period of time a couple months ago where it was not looking so great where it dropped leaves and just seemed unhappy.

I moved it to a different pot and paid more attention to it’s watering regularity. The tree rebounded

and now has a ton of leaves. It looks quite healthy to my untrained eye. I am hoping to eventually move it to the yard where it can continue to grow and prosper, just like I hope to do.

Yesterday I saw the new Marvel movie, Thunderbolts. I had been looking forward to this movie for quite awhile based on the various trailers. I came out of it underwhelmed. It seemed like this one of those films where the best parts of it were already shown in the trailers.

The movie went way too far into the emotional wellness aspects of the characters IMO. However the thing that really got me shaking my head was how they ultimately “defeated” the main bad guy, The Void. I would love to say it here but won’t to avoid spoilers. When you see the movie I am pretty sure you will understand what I mean. I stayed for the post credit scene which was supposedly a big deal however it was basically just a promo for the Fantastic Four movie that comes out in July. For me Thunderbolts was just not great, I’d give it a B.

Here are the videos I posted regarding the F22.

It’s been awhile since I have shared any annoying people at the gym stories but yesterday was a first in the nearly 40 years I have been going to a public gym. I started my workout and was talking to some of my gym buddies when all of a sudden I heard the sound of man singing. As I focused in I realized he was singing what sounded like church hymns. The guy was tall, rail thin, wearing a weight vest and his work attire of khakis and polo shirt while walking on a treadmill, singing.

He had airpods in so evidently he was listening to music that he was then singing to. It was loud. I found it hard to believe this guy thought nothing of singing hymnals in the middle of a gym. The lack of self awareness was pretty remarkable. What was at first odd and then funny became outright annoying. Church music is probably the least conducive sound you can imagine when trying to workout.

Before long myself and my buddies relocated to the other side of the building where his non-stop singing was less noticeable. After a period of time who walks over but Mr Singer to lift very light dumbbells. He stopped singing at this point but myself and others again left the area. Maybe he took the hint.

On the way back to the office my one buddy said this guy actually works in his office. He said he sings in the choir for a church. I guess he thought a treadmill at the gym was an ideal place to rehearse. The lack of f’s about everyone around him was pretty impressive. It was definitely a first for me and hopefully a last. If he decides to perform again in the future I will have little choice but to ask him to abstain, for God’s sake.

So I made my return to sand volleyball last night for the first time in approximately 6 months. My biggest goal was to see how my body would hold up. I knew my skills would not be great after not touching a ball in so long. I didn’t play great but I didn’t play awful either which was somewhat of a surprise. My team went 4-2 on the night.

The two biggest negatives was that I could hardly jump at all so most of my attempts at hitting were awful. Part of that is just being hesitant to put a lot of energy into jumping and of course my timing was terrible too. I had similar hesitation when going after some balls that would require a quick scramble or dive. There were several balls that I would have gotten in the past that I just didn’t even go for. It’s all the end result of not trusting my body yet. I have a similar hesitancy now when playing pickleball, not going for balls that would require really fast acceleration.

But the most important thing I wanted to accomplish last night was play a full night and be able to walk off the courts without a limp, which I did. Yes I felt various little tweaks as I was playing but that is to be expected since my body is no longer accustomed to volleyball movements. I woke up this morning still limp free so that was good news. I’m hoping this is the start of a slow ascent back to where I was around a year ago physically where I was playing pickleball four times a week and still playing volleyball. Physical ascents at this age are slow at best and have lots of potential potholes along the way but I will keep pushing forward. Giving up isn’t something I am very good at.

I’m looking forward to a good weekend ahead. Most of mine have been recently.

One of the big attractions of the years US Pickleball Open was Andre Agassi was playing. Andre was a very well known and successful tennis player for a long time from the mid 80s to the early 2000s. His long mullet hair, headbands and style made him look more like a rock singer than a tennis player. Fast forward 20 years later and Andre now has a shaved head and is 55 years old. He also now is an avid pickleball player.

He was paired up with Ana Leigh Waters who is 18 years old and the best female player in the world and has been for a few years. The idea was this was a great way to bring more visibility to pickleball, having a great tennis player brought into the pickleball spotlight. I think it is.

They had their first two matches yesterday. They won the first match but it was not easy. They were eliminated in the round of 16, losing 2 games to 1. It was obvious that the opposing teams were trying to target Andre. Despite his pro tennis player status, pickleball does have some significant differences. Andre being 55 doesn’t help either, by the end of the match he was soaked from head to toe and just looked tired. Another former tennis star Ivan Lendl is also playing in the tournament albeit not at the pro level.

It would have been great if Andre could have gone deeper in the Open but hopefully it accomplished the goal of growing a sport that already is accelerating at incredible speeds. There is talk of pickleball even showing up in the Olympics sooner rather than later, who could have imagined that?

Since I have not played pickleball all week I think I might try to play sand volleyball for the first time in at least 6 months tonight. Although my right side IT band related problems are not gone, they are definitely better. I am anticipating a rough go of it as my volleyball muscles, skills and reflexes probably all have a solid layer of rust on them. My main goal is to see how my body holds up, hopefully getting out of the two hour session without major impact.

Last night I had to come back to the office to meet a vendor to install a new internet circuit. Things did not go well and they were unable to complete the work because of some poor planning, from what I could ascertain. I brought Elsa with as she loves going to the office. She gave the installer a thorough sniff down. Elsa was also involved in a funny incident when I got home.

I normally take her for her walk as soon as I walk in the door. At the end of the walk when we are right across the street from my house I will let her off the leash so she can run back into the garage which I did once again last night. Well there was an Amazon truck out front making a delivery. At that time it seemed like the driver was still in the back of the truck. So the guy, a young Haitian kid emerges from the van as Elsa is in the garage. Elsa sees the guy and turns around and barks once. An instant look of fear flashes onto his face and he RUNS back to his truck. I assured him she is harmless and I tell her to go inside. I can only assume he has had too many run ins with dogs whose bite is as bad as their bark.

The other day a friend of mine sent me a link regarding the launch of another electric car company, Slate. Well to be accurate it’s an electric TRUCK company. Slate is taking a very different approach to building a vehicle. Instead of ballooning costs by including all sorts of tech and features into their truck they make ONE model and then offer a TON of ways you can tweak it as desired. All of the pictures you see are the same truck just with different accessories added.

It’s base form is a two door pickup truck but you can actually convert it to a 5 person small SUV if that better suits your needs. The best part is if you are somewhat handy you can do all of these things yourself. The truck is designed to be user maintained which is almost non-existent nowadays. This concept is cool of course but the most attention getting thing is the potential price. If federal EV incentives remain in place the cost of the vehicle would be just under $20,000, an absolute bargain in today’s market where the average new vehicle price is 50K.

The truck is intentionally no frills, manual roll up windows are standard equipment. But all the basics you need are there and you can dress it up right up front or down the road if you want to. I LOVE the concept. However I have been down this road before. You may recall I was an early Elio supporter, plunking down $100 to reserve one over a decade ago. That was a three wheeled vehicle that looked like a great commuter at the time. That company lead people on for years and never came to market despite repeated promises to be right around the corner.

I also plunked down a deposit on the Cybertruck when it was first announced. At the time I was caught up in the excitement, ignoring the reality that it’s design made a lot of basic truck things inconvenient. When it finally came to market 62% higher than it’s initial projected price I had no problem saying no thanks.

The Slate is projected to begin production 4th quarter 2026. As good as it looks I know the reality is launching a new vehicle company is extremely difficult and there is a good chance it could fail. Despite this knowledge I plunked down a $50 deposit to put myself in line, a small price to roll the dice IMO. I am pulling for Slate to come to reality, I like their middle finger approach to conventional auto makers that love to inflate prices any way they can. During the Slate presentation they said since 2000 the average price of new cars has doubled. It would be nice to be able to step back in time and get a new electric truck with pricing from 25 years ago. We will see.

The Last of Us is a show on HBO Max that is based on a popular video game that I never played. It recently started season 2 and is sort of a Walking Dead kind of vibe but when that show was actually still good. Of course I can’t spoil it but what happened in episode two was unexpected and shocking. I said “oh my god” out loud more than once. If you liked Walking Dead you should be watching this show.

One aspect of life is how people can cycle through it. Someone who was once a stranger can become a friend or even a romantic partner yet eventually they can find themselves moved out of your circle of importance or value due to circumstances beyond control, actions either by yourself or them, or just apathy. Depending on the relationship you have with these individuals their coming/going may or may not have a significant impact on your life. I have had it both ways, many times.

When you cycle someone out of your life it’s of course best to harvest the good aspects of that relationship as opposed to feeding on the negatives. Even with some of the most chaotic and toxic situations I had over the years with other humans there was always good that could be found and remembered. Although if I am being honest the negatives are often the most impactful, best teachers and long lasting on my memories. Every situation is different but they all give us the same opportunity to learn from them, hopefully taking knowledge forward that will help us make better decisions as we build up that cumulative trait of wisdom that only comes from such experiences.

If someone is bringing nothing positive to your existence, let them go. Value those that you choose to keep.

Saturday morning I once again was in the office early to shut down the network operations center for hopefully the last time for more work on the emergency back up generator. The down time this go round was less than before which was an improvement. I had the NOC back up and running before lunchtime.

During the afternoon I went to to the swamp but not to ride, but to walk. I have been to the swamp a ton of times over the years but only a handful of those did it involve me traversing by foot. I almost always was on an EUC for the visit. The swamp was very dry this time of year but I did see an area of water right by the start that had a bunch of smaller gators in it, at least a dozen. I saw something pretty crazy while standing there.

A medium size gator apparently caught a fish and bit it in half. The combination of the gator and the fish flailing sent half of the fish flying onto the ground by the water where herons quickly took care of it. The gator ate the other half within a second or two. It was very cool to actually see that happen, something I never experienced in 15 years of going to the swamp.

It was unseasonably hot Saturday. I had a significant sweat worked up in no time. In total the walk was close to 5 miles, the farthest distance I have traveled on foot in quite awhile. My knees were not very happy with me but I chose to believe that it was just a side effect of my not asking them to carry me that far on uneven terrain in such a long time.

Over the rest of the weekend I took care of a number of small little chores/projects. On Sunday afternoon I rode my new F22 wheel over to the US Open pickleball championship to catch a few games. It was a nice 90 minutes where I grabbed some food and drink while I watched players much better than I battle it out in the heat. As usual I got a lot of strange looks and various questions about the wheel.

Evidently Facebook is aware of my affinity for Dunkin Donuts. This awareness put a local Facebook Marketplace listing in front of me yesterday, some dude selling authentic DD signage. I’m not sure how he managed to get a hold of them. I immediately had ideas of mounting a set somewhere in my garage however when I saw that he wanted $450 for the set it cooled my ambition. I did message him and let him know that if he did not have any luck selling at his price that I would be willing to pay $100 for one pair. I guess we will see if I get lucky.

Tonight I have a board of directors meeting with the HOA. The HOA is in a bit of turmoil. The treasurer abruptly quit a few weeks ago after finding out her position on the HOA was a violation of her full time job rules. There has not been a replacement suggested or talked about. The president of the board has been extremely busy with his full time business and has had a hard time getting opportunities to focus on community related demands. I wouldn’t be surprised if at the meeting he says he is looking to pass on the responsibilities.

I am the board secretary which is primarily a communication/organization position which I don’t mind. To me the ideal board candidate would be someone in our community that is retired and has ample time available so things can get handled more easily. Unfortunately as is often the case finding people willing to get involved is not an easy task. It’s far easier to let someone else handle responsibility after all. When you figure in that we only have 31 homes in total in the HOA, the possible selection pool gets even smaller.

Today will likely be the last time I get to play pickleball in over a week thanks to the US Open beginning play this week. Although I will miss getting the play time I will take the opportunity to take in some of the games just like I did last year. It’s so convenient for me to hop on one of my wheels and head over to the court which are only a couple miles away. The big draw this year is Andre Agassi is playing.

Andre was a top level pro tennis player for a long time but in the past couple years he has taken up pickleball and appears to really like it and is getting good at it as well. He is going to be teamed up with the best female player in the world so that is sure to be an entertaining combo to watch. I look forward to taking in a good amount of pro level games over the next week.

I made arrangements to head to Texas at the end of May to attend my niece’s graduation. It should be a fun time. It will also be a road trip where I will be driving my Tesla there however this time it will be with the near magical and much improved full self driving feature enabled. It should be a fun little adventure.

A couple weeks ago I got an email from my property insurance company VRYD, yes, that is their name. The email informed me that they were sending me a water sensor kit for free. I assumed there had to be some sort of catch. There wasn’t. In fact it only got better. If I take the time to set up the sensors and activate them VRYD would send me a check for roughly $300 and my annual policy would have this same discount for having these sensors in place going forward, wow.

Last night I set up the 5 sensors and connected them to the app, placing them around my house in spots where a possible water leak could take place. They track temperature, humidity as well as the presence of water, obviously. The intent is if there is a water break/leak the sensors would alert me immediately so I could take action sooner rather than later, mitigating the potential damage, saving both me and the insurance company money/hassle. I have to say I love the proactive approach VRYD has taken in this area. I wish more companies would do the same. Spend some money up front to potentially save a ton down the line, a concept I can get behind.

I have been cautiously optimistic that the worst of my my IT band related pain is now behind me, I am feeling less and less negative impacts after my pickleball sessions. Last week I played three times. I am feeling confident enough that I may even try to step back on the sand volleyball court next week if I continue to feel ok, something that has not happened in close to 6 months.

I targeted Easter weekend as the time I was going to finish my fence repairs. Ironically most of the first repair session happened on Thanksgiving weekend. After work on Friday I went to Home Depot to pick up additional 2″ x 3″ pieces of lumber as well as another box of 5 pound screws. After eating a quick Wawa sub for dinner I headed out in the yard to get busy.

The last side of the fence I was working on was the shortest section. It also had some posts that were less than straight that I was attaching to which lead to some on the spot adjustments. My goal was to get the new support boards all in place Friday night. I accomplished the goal even if the last few had to be screwed into place courtesy of the floodlights I have in the backyard.

On Saturday morning after playing pickleball I went back out to drive a 3 inch wood screw through each fence board to secure them to the fresh lumber on the other side which completed the project, nearly 6 months after it was started. As I mentioned last week, my goal is the few hundred dollars and labor I put into the repair will result in extending the usefulness of the fence by a few years.

On Sunday I took my new wheel, the F22 Pro out for it’s maiden ride. It felt big and heavy, especially compared to the V9 which is more than half of it’s weight. The ride was only 12 or 13 miles. I am going to need a decent amount more of riding time to acclimate to the wheel. To be honest the wheel has way more performance capability than I really need.

As always, I documented the first ride on the wheel.

Easter has always been a pretty insignificant holiday for me and this year was no different. The biggest impact for me is the nearby church seemed extra busy and Dunkin Donuts closed early. Other than that it was business as usual.

Last night I cracked open the huge box housing the F22 Pro while I live streamed. I fumbled my way through getting the wheel out of transport mode and then applying firmware updates to the main board and battery BMS controllers, which has to be completed four times. The stream went a little over two hours and was fine. The wheel appears to be top notch as far as it’s build quality goes but what really matters is how it feels on the road which I will test this weekend.

In addition to getting some time riding the F22 I also am targeting getting the fence repairs completed over the weekend. The repairs started before Thanksgiving so it is well overdue. It will be nice to have that crossed off my mental checklist. The only remaining big home repair/upgrade I have in my mind is to get the worn out carpet that is in the bedrooms replaced with vinyl plank to make it more pet resistant and cleaner. Sure the master bathroom could use an update but it is good enough for my needs since the cabinets and countertops were already replaced.

It’s hard to believe we are over three and a half months into 2025 already. When I was thinking about how my 2024 went one of my goals was for this year to have a totally different vibe. So far that intent has been working out very well. I hope it continues, I’m no spring chicken after all.