All posts by Duf

Elsa has been very spotty with her eating for a number of years but in the last week or so she has not been eating well at all. She would gobble treats just fine but would not eat most of her meals. In addition she had some diarrhea for a couple days which raised my concern as well. The concern was partially because she ate part of a pee pad that my girlfriends dog uses on Sunday. I was worried that it was causing some degree of GI blockage that could lead to diarrhea. Elsa has developed an odd affinity for eating paper towels, tissues and toilet paper in the last couple years. My concern had reached the level where I scheduled a vet visit for this afternoon. I cancelled it this morning.

Finally last night she ate normally which she did once again this morning which made me feel better. She also has not had diarrhea in a couple days so I think she is back on the road to feeling more normal. I believe I mentioned the issues she was having with her back legs where she struggled to get on things like the sofa and the bed. She is once again getting herself up onto these things again. I can tell it’s not as easy for her as it once was but at least she is feeling good enough for her to be able to get to her favorite spots without assistance.

This weekend should be mostly low key. I am anticipating the Eagles playoff game Sunday afternoon against the 49ers. It will be an opportunity for the Birds to make a statement that the inconsistency that has plagued the offense all year long is finally ironed out. The key to that is the offensive line and Saquon Barkley being able to run behind it. It’s that simple.

Yesterday my box of EUC Army shirts arrived. Of course I wasted little time before I pulled out one to try it on. The shirt is a higher quality version and softer than prior shirts I have had made. The print quality seems really good, I am pleased with the outcome. I may sell a few of these but for the most part they will be given away to be utilized as free advertising since the website address is on the back.

Yesterday the big news was a woman being shot in the face in the middle of an ICE raid. From the video it is clear that there was no reason for the ICE officer to fire. It seemed like the white woman in her mid-30s was freaking out due to what was going on, panicked and just wanted to get away from the situation. Despite Trump saying the officer was “run over” clearly that was not the case. As you would expect widespread outrage was the reaction to the incident. Let’s talk about that word.

To me outrage means basically nothing at this point. The reason it means nothing is because outrage again and again has proven to result in very little change or outcome that is tangible. How many times since Trump entered politics has the word outrage been used when describing the reaction to his statements, decisions and actions? Far too many to accurately count.

I used to think that outrage was a word that was a prelude to action. Now it is more like screaming into a vacuum. Everyone expresses outrage over these terrible things that are going on daily yet nothing really changes as a result. Especially in the federal government, consequences seem to be something that no longer exist thanks to lawmakers that are too fearful of repercussions to take the necessary actions to hold people that are doing outrageous/illegal things accountable. The system is broken and I don’t think we have the ability to fix it any time soon.

I saw the latest Avatar movie last night, Fire and Ash. I knew going in it was very long at 3+ hours, just like the first two movies. Seeing it on a weeknight was less than ideal. The theater was quite full which was a surprise as well since the movie has been out for a couple weeks. With a movie of that length you always worry about it dragging on too long but that was not the case this time. I hardly noticed the film being 50% longer than most modern movies, it kept me tied in the entire time. Like all Avatar movies, the visuals are amazing but the characters and story are compelling as well. It was the best movie I have seen in quite awhile and gets a clean A in my book. You should see it in theaters IMO. I’ll be paying a sleep penalty this morning but it was worth it.

This weekend was a good one despite being unable to play pickleball due to a tournament that closed the courts to the public for both days. I got what I needed done around the house as well as getting in my first EUC ride of 2026, which is the first riding I have done since I had the P6 in the house. I took my Veteran Patton which is probably my favorite wheel I own although I have hardly ridden it in the last year. I had a nice ride Sunday afternoon that reminded me why I should do it more often.

I originally thought I was going to be able to watch the Eagles/Commanders game Sunday afternoon but I guess once the Eagles declared they were resting their starters the local CBS affiliate decided to show a different game. I wound up listening to the broadcast instead. The Eagles lost the game in rather disappointing fashion. I think a lot of fans were hoping Tanner Mckee was going to step in and light it up, despite playing with mostly non-starters. He was not spectacular. The game also illustrated that the eagles back up secondary players are basically awful. They committed pass interference time and again and just seemed helpless. I don’t know that losing a game to a 4-12 team at home outweighs the benefit of resting your starters for the playoffs.

If the Eagles won the game they could have improved their playoff seeding from number three to number two. I would like to say I feel confident that the Eagles are in great shape for a strong run in the playoffs. With their on again off again offense that has been an issue all season long I think they are going to struggle greatly unless some sort of consistency can be found, aka Saquon runs the ball effectively the entire game.

Another day another page in the chapter of the book of Trump this weekend where they removed Venezuela’s president. Nobody is arguing Maduro is anything but a POS but the problem comes when the executive branch refuses to follow protocol and acts without congressional approval. Trump and his puppets have been side stepping/ignoring congress and the judicial branch repeatedly so this should come as no surprise. Seeing him and later Rubio trying to justify/explain the actions and what the plan is going forward was comical. The fact that we have allowed this man to come to power, twice, is beyond the realm of reasonable explanation. The daily assault on morality, decency, intelligence and common sense is exhausting.

I managed to stay up to watch the ball drop on ABC New Year’s Eve show. As I was doing so I realized that if I had not gotten my OTA antennae functional within the last month it would have been much more of a hassle to watch network content like this. It also has allowed me to watch several Eagles games that I otherwise would have been locked out of.

My New Years Day was extremely slow paced. The major accomplishment of the day was getting all of my indoor and outdoor Christmas decorations put away with a major assist from my girlfriend. The house feels rather empty now.

I also finished my accelerated consumption of 5 seasons of Stranger Things, including the season 5 finale. I guess there has been a lot of debate about how Season 5 went, including the finale. There were complaints of excessive wokeness in the show as one of the main characters decided to come out of the closet right before the climactic end conflict which was a bit odd. Overall though I did enjoy the show that I ironically had not seen a single second of the 10 year run until 5 weeks ago. I thought the final episode was good overall with a few questionable plot decisions.

Last night I saw activity on my front door Ring camera, I figured it was an Amazon delivery so I didn’t rush to go check. When I did check I was confused. By my front door was a Publix bag with a box of Ramen noodles and two canisters of Japanese coffee. My only explanation was this was some sort of Door Dash delivery that was fumbled. It was an odd conclusion to my 2026 New Years Day.

I received an email from the guy that won the V8S on the live stream last week. He told me the wheel safely arrived and sent me this cool picture of the wheel in a park presumably in the Bronx somewhere since that was his address. The cup of Dunkin Donuts on the wheel was a nice touch. I’m glad he is going to get a lot of use out of a wheel that was simply collecting dust in my garage.

Yesterday I received a part to address an issue on my A1 printer. Through installation of the new part I realized that the old part was probably just fine. I had a coupler reversed in direction which was making the original part not lock in place correctly. I only discovered my stupidity after watching a two minute video which illustrated my mistake. After installing the new part and the corresponding coupler correctly my test print was fine. The A1 had been unused for a couple months because I couldn’t fix this “problem”. Doh….

I woke up to some of the coolest temperatures of the season. The Tesla showed 41 degrees this morning. I still did not opt for a coat but did enlist wearing a long sleeve shirt this morning.

I mentioned how Elsa was having issues jumping up on the couch or bed last weekend. I had been assisting her get up by carefully lifting her into place. Well a couple days ago I was about to lift her onto the bed when she suddenly just jumped up there herself. I guess she is feeling better, which is a relief.

I am not going out for New Years Eve. Instead I plan to stay warm and content under my own roof. My New Years Day will likely be focused on taking down Christmas decorations and getting the house back into normal condition, yay. Happy New Years.

In general my posting in 2025 has been less verbose and less frequent than prior years so I expect this recap to follow the same game plan. Let’s review 2024 goals which were summarized as one thing Do the things and make decisions that lead me towards peace, happiness, satisfaction, and contentment.

That has always been a year to year goal for me. In 2025 I actually walked the talk which I can dig into later.

At the end of 2024 I had started dealing with a long bout of IT band pain which continued on for a good portion of 2025 as well which has been very frustrating. I took prolonged periods off from pickleball and resigned myself to not playing volleyball any more as a result. I have been doing stretching and strengthening consistently to try to break the cycle which I have somewhat in recent months. My right side is feeling better but still not 100% I hope 2026 has less chronic lower body pain for me.

I reignited my 3D printing hobby in 2025. Once I saw the amazing things I could do with my Bambu Lab A1 I bought four more Bambu printers during the year, a used X1C and a new P1S, P2S, and H2S. In this process I wound up later selling the X1C and P1S so I currently have three Bambu printers active as well as a Snapmaker U1 that will show up sometime early in 2026.

I also sold/gave away all of my Prusa printers for pennies on the dollar. I love my Bambu printers like I once loved my Prusa fleet. I have made hundreds of cool prints throughout the year on my multi-color printers and expect that to only accelerate in 2026. This 3D revival has also revived my 3D focused YouTube channel, Duf3D, which had been collecting dust for several years.

2025 was a year where a number of things that you wouldn’t expect happened. Although it started during 2024 I switched back my diet from pescatarian only to include other animal protein sources. Even though my compassion for animals is the same my belief that what I eat makes any significant difference in their consumption is not. Eating seafood only has the potential for heavy metal concentrations in your blood that is not great and I feel my overall wellness has been better since switching back to a more “normal” diet. I would be lying if I said I feel no guilt about it however.

Another surprising change this year was I fired a real gun for the first time in my life. Not only did I fire one but I now own four of them, two hand guns, a SBR and a shotgun. I even have my concealed weapon permit. However despite some people’s concerns, I have not become a full fledged “gun nut”. During the year I have only shot at the range a total of 3 or 4 times.

Why the change? Well I always dismissed guns as unnecessary despite never owning/shooting one. In general I have been trying to remain more open to trying new things so I have done so. Also to be honest this world we live in is teetering based on what we see going on at high levels in the government. Who the hell knows how long it is until total chaos ensues. If so I have small insurance policy, just in case.

Unlike 2024, I did not do a lot of travel in 2025. I was on a road trip to Texas with my girlfriend to attend my niece’s high school graduation ceremony. That was a fun little adventure. I also flew up to PA for my buddy Troy’s wedding which also included a brief visit with my family.

I hit a milestone on my YouTube channel this year, hitting 15,000 subscribers. The growth has continued to be strong as I just crossed 17,000 subscribers recently. In addition I have been posting content regularly to Instagram and TikTok. I have tripled my followers in TikTok this year, not that it does me any real good since I am not monetized on that platform.

I have had a shuffling of my electric unicycle collection this year. I added a KingSong F22 Pro but then quickly realized it was not a good wheel for me. I then traded that wheel for a Nosfet Aero via a dealer in St. Petersburg. I also added an Inmotion V12S and V9 which was given to me for review. I then trimmed the Mten 3 and the Inmotion V8S from my collection. I still have something like 6 or 7 wheels in my garage but my time riding EUCs was probably the least I have ever done this year since getting into the hobby. Part of that was physical issues, part of it was just my attention and energy being focused elsewhere.

I did not have major home improvement projects this year. The most involved thing I did was more repairs on the fence where I added additional supports to attach the fence boards to. It was not difficult but tedious to be sure. I also have replaced a few of the fence boards and will likely need to do more in 2026.

I played in my first ever pickleball tournament this year. The tournament was on the small side but my partner and I still managed to win in the 3.5 division. It wasn’t a huge accomplishment but was the first tournament play of any type that I have played in 12-15 years so I was proud of the result regardless. I plan to play more tournaments next year. I slowed down on the torrid pace of buying paddles this year, thank goodness.

I had an unexpected and very disappointing conflict with a neighbor this year. I have had several big neighbor conflicts in my lifetime but this was the first time I had one where the neighbors were this dishonest, entitled and dumb. I was proud that I showed the amount of restraint I did based on the insults that were thrown my way. My position on the HOA board sort of requires more decorum. I am no longer on speaking terms with these people and that is just fine with me.

I had two more spots of skin cancer cut out this year. The spot on my forehead was a mess. It did not close properly and took much longer to heal than any previous surgery I had. I have no doubt there will be more surgeries to come.

Elsa turned 10 this year which seems hard to believe. I want to make sure to do whatever I can to keep her as happy and healthy as possible for as long as I can.

So the biggest positive for me this year was the addition of my girlfriend. Ever since I split with Cindy I have had several years of turmoil as far a relationships go. I went through some very hard time periods that taught very important lessons in regard to what does and does not matter when it comes to relationships.

For many years I have professed how I wanted to find someone that promotes peace in my life instead of chaos. That is exactly what she does. We enjoy each other’s company no matter what scenario we find ourselves in. I only wish I could have figured this out sooner. Her addition to my life has changed a lot of things, all of which are positive.

That’s enough blabbing about this year, you actually got more than I expected.

My goals for 2026 which I will make more conventional this time…

I need to keep doing things to maintain my health. The chronic injuries and even the recent two weeks of illness makes me appreciate the value of being healthy. Not being able to do what you want to do because your body says no is a feeling I really dislike. I expect to continue my fitness regimen as I always have.

As far as home improvements go I have had a back of the mind desire to replace the very worn bedroom carpets in the house ever since I moved in. Maybe 2026 is the year I get to it. I don’t have any other glaring issues in the house that bother me. As I mentioned there will likely be more work on the fence to try to extend it’s lifespan.

I don’t have any travel plans currently on the horizon for next year but I am sure I will find myself crossing state lines at one point or another.

It would be nice to see if I could pump a little life back into my online 3D store in 2026. I sold a few things this year but with my new array of printers I can do much more. It will never be a big moneymaker but it’s nice to earn a little money from a side hustle.

I’m hoping my relationship with my girlfriend continues to strengthen and grow in 2026. I have a feeling it will.

Well that wraps it up. I hope anyone reading this has a great New Year celebration, whatever that means to you. See you in 2026.

I have emerged from roughly two weeks of time away from the office combined with illness with Christmas thrown in the middle of it. It is far too long of a time period for me to give any sort of detailed recap, not that you would want one anyway. The worst part of the flu for me was done by Christmas, by that time random coughing fits were the main remaining symptom. That symptom remains today, just to a lesser degree.

Overall my time off was pretty low key. Luckily I did not have a lot of Xmas prep that needed to be done last minute. My Christmas was enjoyable as I hoped. My Christmas present buying efforts seemed to be much appreciated and I got some cool things as well such as the Hedra RGB lights you can see in this picture, adding even more color to my very colorful office.

I did a couple live streams during my time off, one public, one for channel members only. During the public stream I gave away a number of things including my Inmotion V8S. The person that won was very excited. It felt good to spread some holiday cheer and good energy.

I got back on the pickleball courts finally, playing a total of three times during my time off. I did not play too badly despite the lack of court time. The biggest thing I noticed was my energy reserve was low, after only a few games I was tired. One of my gifts was a book called The Tao of Pickleball. It is a good book that focuses more on the mental aspects of the game as well as tying some of it to the ideas behind martial arts. I am finding a lot of things in the book I would like to work more into my play.

Elsa hurt her back leg playing with my girlfriend’s dog over the break. She isn’t able to jump right now which prevents her from doing things like getting into my bed which is one of her favorite hang out spots. When it first happened I tried scooping her up but the way it put pressure one her back legs made her cry in pain so I I just let her stay in her dog beds on the floor. I have been giving her a few days to see if she improves. It seems better but she is still not normal. I have since adopted a different technique to lift her that doesn’t hurt so she is able to hang out on the bed. She can get down by herself without issue. I am far too familiar with dog joint issues as they get older so I am hoping Elsa can heal up on her own with enough rest. I actually have a pet ramp that was used to load heavy EUCs. I set it up but Elsa just did not get the concept.

The Eagles have had two wins during my break, beating the Commanders who were wrecked with injuries. Even so the game was very close in the first half. Last night the Eagles beat the Bills on the back of incredible luck, 13-12. The Eagles had a good first half but once again the offense disappeared in the second half. They set some sort of record by scoring zero points while throwing for zero yards in the half as well.

Last year was different, once the Eagles got a lead they could lean on Barkley to grind out yards and clock to close out games. Instead the Eagles gained 16 yards in the entire second half, yes, 16. All year they have demonstrated an inability to counter if a team changes things up on them. Without Barkley producing consistently Hurts just can’t carry the load with his arm. It feels odd to be complaining about a win, on the road against a team that was 11-5. The wildly inconsistent performances of the team just make myself and many other Eagles fans frustrated. Despite their record, I will be amazed if they go anywhere in the playoffs.

So I entered the 10 day break feeling like garbage and wishing for the time I could emerge into a more normal existence. That time has finally arrived. I am feeling a bit of the post-Christmas blues that I have always dealt with but a little self reflection makes me realize I don’t really have anything to be blah about.

What I thought originally was just a cold has definitely been reclassified as some variety of flu based on this going on for a week now. Last night the misery continued with coughing, non-stop nose blowing and watering eyes. I went to bed before 9PM which never happens. When I awoke during the night I did so with one eye or the other pasted shut from all off the fluid that was coming from them I suppose. I can’t remember the last time that happened.

So despite all of this I tried to focus on whatever positives I can. It seemed like when I got up this morning the coughing fits were less severe than recent days so hopefully that means I might be turning a corner. You would not think any corners were cleared if you looked at me. Both my eyes are extremely bloodshot and look like I was crying non-stop for hours, I look like shit.

Episodes of illness like this make me appreciate the luxury of good health. I hope to be able return to normalcy as soon as possible because existing like this is pretty miserable.

So I spent my entire 5 days off sick. I’m not quite sure what flavor of sickness this is but it has involved coughing fits where it feels like am coughing up a lung, lethargy, filling trash cans with tissues and a mild fever at times. It seems like once a year I get knocked on my ass with some sort of illness. There is definitely something going around. Maybe it’s this years version of covid, who knows. What I do know is it seems there are as many people sick as healthy right now. I HATE being sick. It makes me feel weak and sort of worthless. I have lost several pounds as well during this time period despite eating regularly, even though I don’t really have an appetite to do so.

I did very little besides lay around and binge watch Punisher episodes although I did have a couple wins. I managed to figure out what piece of coax runs to my master bedroom and used a splitter to get my OTA antenna feed to both my kitchen and bedroom. This means the next time the Eagles are on national TV I can watch it in my bedroom instead of the kitchen, which was less than comfortable.

Since I moved into my place in March of 23 I have had an annoyance in my master closet. It felt like there was a small hard object in the middle of the carpet. For reasons unknown to me I just let the situation remain unresolved for the last couple years although every time I would step on the hard spot it would annoy me, significantly. I finally decided to pull up the damn carpet and see what the irritating hard object was.

It wasn’t one thing, it was three. Three small shelf brackets that are used with the closet organizer set up. How they would have wound up under the carpet is a mystery but after removing them and being able to step anywhere in the closet without feeling like I had a rock in my shoe I felt much better. Sometimes those small wins feel disproportionately big.

The Eagles had a BIG win, destroying the Raiders 31-0. To me it felt like the game was much more about the Raiders being awful than the Eagles being great. Regardless I hope it gives the team a boost of confidence that gives them some forward momentum as they move through the end of the season.

The illness made me cancel the big live stream I had planned where I was going to give away a wheel. I postponed it for a week, hopefully I am in the clear by then.

Yesterday was my 58th birthday. Despite my illness sort of detouring some of our plans I had a really enjoyable day with my girlfriend. That’s the great thing about her. No matter the situation she makes me feel better.

Being 58 doesn’t feel different than 57 although if I allow myself to dwell on the idea that I am actually that old my mind goes into dark places. I still realize that in reality I am going pretty well as far as most 58 year old people go so I can’t complain, despite doing so regularly.