All posts by Duf

Last night when I got home I was evaluating if I wanted to go ride around Victoria Park or wait until Thursday night.  Trying to do it Christmas Eve would have been suicidal, or so I thought.  The temp last night was chilly, about 60 but was only forecast to be colder on subsequent days so I concluded I needed to do it last night, if I was going to do it all.  I threw my camera gear, Z10 and helmet in the truck and headed there around 6:45 or so.  I had heard from others that went to VP on a weeknight last week it was crowded as hell.  I hoped I could avoid the same situation.

I parked at the same spot as I always do by a nearby shopping center, somewhere around a mile away from the development.   As I approached the first of two entrances there was a solid line of cars that started to spill out onto the main roadway, I knew what I was in for.

The hundreds of cars made navigation on the Z10 treacherous.  I kept my head on a swivel as I alternated between road, sidewalk and grass as Victoria Park has a number of narrow streets with no sidewalk.  With it being that busy it wasn’t easy for me to take in everything as fully as I would have liked as maintaining my safety was the primary concern.  As is normally the case I got a lot of comments on what I was riding.  I also had a bunch of cute kids hanging out windows wishing me Merry Christmas, which warmed my heart, despite the chilly air.  There were also a ton of residents out in the yard hanging out around fire pits.  I think living there would be sort of awesome, it seems like such a special community.

I get lost circling in there and I doubt I saw everything.  In total I spent maybe an hour taking everything in.  It is sort of visual overload, almost every single house has an impressive display. They all sort of blur together after awhile.  When I finally left, the line of cars waiting to get into VP had swelled tremendously, easily stretching a half mile or more onto Airport Road.  I had been there before when it was busy, but I don’t recall THIS level, maybe my memory just is not clear.  As I pulled back into the driveway I was at least glad I made the effort to go see the Xmas lights, even if it was my first time ever doing it solo.

I know I have talked about this before, multiple times.  Whenever Christmas rolls around my mind always drifts back to my favorite memories, especially Christmas Eve.  I am guesstimating I was somewhere around 10 or 11.  On Christmas Eve my mom would make a big meal for the family, it was all family on my Mom’s side.  It would include my grandfather, grandmother, great grandmother, great aunt, and my Uncle Randy as the core group.  I seem to remember there was a couple years where my cousins, Steve and Jen, uncle Butch and aunt Stephanie were part of it as well, I may be wrong about that.

Anyway despite my general avoidance of formal sit down meal situations as an adult, I hold onto the feelings and memories of sitting around that large octagon shaped table with my family.  We also would normally score a few simple presents that night that felt like a warm up for the big day.  As I grew older and moved into adulthood there have been tons of memorable Christmas holidays. Although of course the scenarios were much different I still appreciated them all, but none as much as those days, four and a half decades ago when life was simple, clean, and full of wonder. Unfortunately I am not expecting much magic out of my 2021 version of Christmas but hopefully it gives me something to move upward from in years to come.  If you are reading this, I appreciate you, and I hope you have a great holiday. I will see you on the other side, peace.

I have had a packed couple days as I have been juggling multiple aspects of getting our new huge office building ready for business.  Yesterday morning I had a line of people at my door as I was on the phone as well.  I am fortunate that these sort of situations only occur sporadically instead of being an everyday thing.  There were a number of things that got handled on the fly but in the end the systems are up and running as they need to be although there will be many more challenges to address and logistics to manage before the building opens sometime next month.

This print I started on Sunday is taking forever.  This model was already on the memory card from before.  I must have tried printing the massive village before and it failed. Well I didn’t look at the parameters for the print before this attempt. It looks like I have a much higher infill amount than I should for something this big.  The end result is now going on four days in I had not cracked the 40% mark in overall completion yet.  The print may consume two full rolls of filament, or more, if it completes.  Despite the marathon amount of time this is taking, if it actually completes 100% the model will take the crown for the longest 3D print I have ever completed.

I may go to Victoria Park tonight to roll around and check things out.  I will be bundling up if I do, a cold front blew through yesterday that has dropped the temp significantly in the last 24 hours.  I’m not complaining though, cold air and Christmas go together.

I entered the final weekend before Christmas with lots to do but I wanted to get my ass back on the road bike again. It had been somewhere around a month since I had been able to do my 10 mile darkness ride.  This was the first time I got to use my new handlebar mounted headlight.  It worked great, throwing a sizeable circle of light far enough ahead of me that I felt able to go at my normal 16-17 MPH pace without much trouble.  I could definitely tell my body was re acclimating itself to the activity but my numbers at the end were decent, despite the break.

On Saturday my main focus was to get the property cleaned up.  Even though the grass has grown very little in the last month it was looking pretty ratty.  I spent all afternoon out there, weed whacking followed by mowing.  The visual was much improved afterward and I felt good knowing I should be good to go until the new year rolls around at least.

I sat out a very late addition to my Christmas decorations, LED color pucks.  These were an impulse buy I did off a FB ad several weeks ago.  I was skeptical if they would even show up.  They are solar powered and have a cool looking ring of multicolor LEDS that you can change as you see fit.  For Xmas I made alternating red and green of course but once the holiday is over I can deploy these elsewhere using whatever color scheme I prefer.  I like them.

My Saturday evening was uneventful.  I had minimal appetite and no motivation to do conventional food prep.  My dinner consisted of a PB sandwich and not much else.  I still am getting nauseous doing my egg prep as well in the mornings.  It’s getting to the point that I might just stop eating them altogether.

I got to lose myself in WoW for awhile Saturday evening.  I have accomplished my first goal of getting all of my characters on my first account to max level.  I am now working getting the three additional characters on my second account to that same level as well.  This has been a dumb goal of mine I have accomplished in every WoW expansion that has come out since 2005.  For some reason I feel obligated to get these bits and bytes to their virtual pinnacle. Not doing so would feel like shirking of responsibility, something that I have a hard time doing in real or virtual situations.  I am hoping that within a month the task will be completed.

On Sunday morning I started a HUGE print on the Chiron that if successful will take over a week to complete.  This is basically a torture test to see just how effective the new wiring harness I bought is at solving the random lock up issue.  I have a camera on the print doing a time lapse which should look pretty cool if it completes.

I have fallen off of doing 3D printing for fun, for me.  The overwhelming majority of my printing has been stuff for the store for a long time.  Since the order flow on the store has really slowed I have printers just sitting there doing nothing.  I might as well make something fun for me.  This Chiron print is a Christmas village that I have printed before but never in this massive scale.

I bought a ticket for a 12:00 matinee to see the new Spiderman movie.  This is only the second movie I have seen in a theater since covid became a household word and the first time I have gone to a movie alone since I was last single as Cindy actually went with me to see The Eternals.  I decided to go back to our old stomping grounds, the Prado in Bonita.  There was a time when we were going to the movies almost every week.

The last time I was there, the building I was parked in front of was getting ready to open as another Beef o Brady’s restaurant.  I was surprised to see a For Lease sign in the window.  I was even more surprised to see the remnant stickers on the window indicate it was most recently some sort of other business.  So in the span of less than two years two businesses started and failed in that spot, wow.

I had not had lunch so I ordered a flat bread pizza that I ate in my seat in the top corner of the theater.  There may have been 20ish people there, not many at all for a new Spiderman but they were also showing the film every 30 minutes.  I am a huge Spiderman fan and had seen all of the movies, enjoying some more than others but I would never miss one.  Seeing all of the previous films made me appreciate this version even more, I loved it.  It hit all of the action quota you could want with the normal amounts of comedic relief as well as some real emotional moments that hit hard.  Despite enjoying the hell out of the movie I found myself instinctively looking to my side, what I would always do to see Cindy’s reaction at certain moments.  When I saw the empty seat it made me sad, repeatedly.  I won’t spoil anything for you but just trust me, if you saw the other Spidermans, you must see this one, A+ for me.  The better news is the new Matrix releases this week on HBO Max, another film I am really looking forward to.

When I got home I wasted little time before I threw on my gear and headed out for a short ride.  There were some big things announced in the EUC world this week and in general I just needed to clear my head.  Being out on a ride is a good way to realign perspective although I still have a lot of things I am trying to deal with right now, none of which have a quick or easy solution.

I have officially concluded my Christmas shopping for 2021.  It has been a very different sort of holiday season and I expect that trend to continue in spades in 2022.

I remember when my parents split up, I don’t recall if the divorce was final or if still in the works when this incident occurred.  It was Christmas and we had just finished up with our visit with my dad.  Back then I don’t think any of the kids looked forward to visits with dad, he was very up and down as a result of the split which was due to infidelity, according to my mom.  There were times when he was just so sad it was unbearable to be around him.  As a 12 or 13 year old it was tough to fully understand the depth of feeling/hurt involved when two people end a long relationship.

So anyway we had just gotten in my mom’s car.  My dad signaled for us to wait.  He suddenly grabbed some additional presents from his car and handed them to us through the window.  When asked, he said they were from the woman he was seeing, she evidently bought us presents.  Without a moment’s hesitation my mom grabbed the wrapped gifts and threw them in the street. As she sped away I recall looking back at my dad picking up the discarded presents from the ground.  That moment in time and the emotion surrounding it has been burned into my mind ever since, obviously.

As an adult I have had opportunities to deal with both sides of this scenario which have given me a greater understanding of the dynamics involved in failed relationships. Unfortunately that experience still does not dull the edge when you get cut upon repeatedly. Only the passing of time and transitioning to the next chapter in life can do that.

Yes today is my birthday but the only thing BIG about it is the number, 54.  It certainly has no correlation to my personal feelings about my birthday as I typically lament the passing of each and every year instead of celebrating it.  I know I probably say this every year in the blog but only because it is true.

It just seems so weird to be saying out loud that I am this age, an age I can very clearly remember my parents being and recalling that it did not seem all that long ago.   I remember thinking someone in their 50s was basically a senior citizen in my youth.  I remember 15 years ago a guy doing service at my house saying that once you turn 50, every year is a dog year.  I remember thinking that was a funny statement at that time.  I have now discovered that it is also a very truthful statement.

Obviously this has been a very different year for me, the most different in nearly a decade.  I am anticipating the next revolution around the sun to bring with it more change than I have experienced in quite awhile.

Yesterday I got a text from my brother in law that I could not believe, it was their cat, Higgins, in a live trap.  You may recall my mentioning that the got out of the yard a few days before I visited them in Texas.  They did tons of searching for him, posted signs on poles and in social media but had no luck.  Everyone pretty much resigned themselves that Higgins was gone, not knowing his fate weighed heavily on everyone, even me.  Whenever I was out with them in the neighborhood I was scanning, hoping to see a tabby cat.

So seeing the picture of Higgins alive in a cage nearly a month later was pretty amazing.  The story goes that an old man was in front of their house, saw the lost cat sign on the post and told my brother-in-law that he thought he saw this cat in a storm culvert nearby.  Damon and the family headed there and Higgins was indeed there but scared and would not come.  A friend of theirs had a live trap so they baited it with chicken and came back a little later to find the cat took the bait.  I couldn’t believe it.

I wondered how he scraped by for a month being he is a domestic cat with no roughing it skills.  Torrin said he lost weight as you would expect.  They gave him a bath and were taking him to the vet to make sure he is ok.  I was so happy for both Higgins and my sisters family, it was truly a Christmas Miracle.

Yesterday I was at our new office which is massive and beautiful.  I was getting it attached to our network so it can communicate with our back end systems.  This location is less than 10 miles from my house so I am trying to schedule the visits in the afternoon if possible so I can just shoot home afterward.  The location is due to be open in less than a month so my tasks are going to ramp up massively until this happens.

Today is my last day as a 53 year old man.  Just reading that sentence makes me cringe. It will be quite interesting to see how my 54th year on the planet works out.

Yesterday I took a nice sized chunk out of the remaining Christmas shopping I had to do.  At this point I should be able to wrap it up easily this weekend without spending a ton of time.  That’s a good thing because I need to give the yard a cut and trim this weekend to get the property to the end of the year without looking too ratty.

I have had a weird thing going on since last week.  The sight and smell of the eggs I normally make each and every morning has been making me feel nauseous for some odd reason.  I don’t get nauseous for any reason normally so for this to start out of the blue is odd.  Some mornings it was bad enough that I stopped making eggs and just had PB toast or Pop Tarts because I felt dangerously close to throwing up.    Why this would start out of the blue is a mystery that I will likely just write off to more of the wonders of aging.  I am hoping it will simply fade away over time, my general approach to the majority of ailments I come across.

Starting Thursday night Elsa and Sadie switched roles, with Elsa being the one that developed uncontrollable diarrhea.  It was pretty bad.  I hoped like Sadie, the passing of time would help but there was one difference, in the pools of brown liquid there were also some bundles of grass/organic matter.  I wondered just how much grass she had eaten, something she will do on the down low if I leave her unsupervised in the yard too long.

So when I got home Friday night there were more accidents on the pool deck, at least for the most part she would let loose out there.  I was concerned but still hoped she just had to get it all out of her system, she wasn’t eating but she was still drinking water.  Well an hour or so after I got home I saw Elsa walking in a way I recognize, it was a precursor to throwing up.  I tried to get her out to the pool deck but she let loose en route, throwing up a ton of mostly water by the slider and then more outside.  It was at that moment I became officially concerned.

I had scenarios in my head where potentially she ate so much organic matter that she had a GI obstruction that would not only cause the diarrhea but throwing up as well.  I called Cindy to fill her in.  I decided that I wanted to take her the the 24 hour vet, to be safe.  If something serious would happen as a result of me being passive about the problem I would not ever be able to forgive myself.  Elsa is basically my child, the reason I am able to still maintain basic life functionality at this point and time.  I called the vet and told them I would be there within the hour. This was definitely not the way I anticipated my Friday night to go.

We pulled up to the vet a little after 8.  I was happy to see the waiting room was empty.  Cindy and I actually had been here once before a few years ago after Elsa got stung in the face and started to swell up.  I described her symptoms to both the counter staff and again to a vet tech before the actual vet came in, a younger woman who seemed very nice.  Despite being in a foreign environment Elsa was relatively calm and I could tell she was comfortable with the vet, which was great.  After describing all the background the vet said they would take her back for an exam, Elsa went with her without a huge fuss, again somewhat surprising but welcomed.

After maybe 15 minutes the vet returned, saying the physical exam was not bad, they said she had a slightly elevated temperature and heart rate but that was likely just from being nervous.  She gave me several options, one of which included doing an xray to ensure there is no blockage.  I told the vet that was the primary reason I brought her in, to make sure she did not have a GI obstruction, so I authorized her to take x-rays which again, took less time than I expected.

I was relieved when the x-rays showed no blockage.  The vet suggested a few outgoing treatment things she could do, a shot to control nausea for 24 hours, a subdermal fluids injection to make sure Elsa was hydrated and a few cans of GI specific dog food, all of which I agreed to.  I got home a little before 10, relieved that the news was mostly good.  By Saturday morning Elsa’s appetite had returned and she hungrily devoured the canned GI food, she seems to be a big fan of it.  There were no more unplanned “deposits” on the floor or pool deck either.

My Saturday was pretty busy, I did a bunch of small tasks which can add up to a good chunk of time.  I got groceries, wrapped presents, and went about addressing, signing, and stamping christmas cards that I am sending out to family and friends.  I used to always offload this task, this may be the first time I have done it myself, I am not quite sure.  Saturday night I live streamed, which I was supposed to do originally on Friday but obviously that got postponed.  I was feeling sort of tired and low energy but felt obligated to do it since I had announced the stream earlier in the week on social media. I gave away a lot of stuff which I thought was appropriate since it was two weeks from Christmas.  In retrospect I probably gave away too much. I bet a third of the stream was just me managing the logistics of the giveaways.

My Sunday was relatively slow paced.  I spent a lot of time at my computer desk in the morning.  After doing my weekly bill paying session I then moved straight into packing/shipping all of the stuff I gave away on the stream. It took awhile, I wasn’t ready to head out for coffee until nearly 11AM.

In the middle of the afternoon I found myself outside doing a couple chicken things.  Sadie and Elsa were outside with me.  I took a seat in the shade on the hill by the pool cage.  In short order Sadie came and laid down to the right of me and Elsa to my left.  We just sat there, doing nothing but observing the scene in front of us for a good 10 to 15 minutes.  I do not sit quietly in contemplation very often but in that moment I appreciated the stillness.

Ali and Shugs were coming back later in the afternoon.  Sadie had been bull rushing the garage door every time I would go out it for a few days in the hope I was taking her back home.  She really misses Ali when she is away for more than a few days.  I loaded up Sadie and Elsa for the trip, Elsa loves Shuggs and Ali and always gets very excited to see them.  We got a recap of their trip, the primary reason for it being for Ali to attend the graduation ceremony for her masters which she recently completed.  They also visited New Orleans but it sounded like they had a pretty tame experience compared to what can go down on Bourbon Street.  I recanted my various tales of dog diarrhea, a great conversation starter.

Last night I ignored the large volume of DVR content I was building up and just spent most of my night hanging in WoW, because I felt like it.  This week is my birthday, hooray.  I am not quite sure if there will be anything at all significant to mark to occasion, I may just go ride an EUC and grab dinner at a bar.

I am now in the point of December where I need to get serious about crossing names off my Xmas buying list.  According to my calculations I have 10 people I still need to buy for.  I am hoping by end of the weekend that list is considerably shorter.

I am walking around like an 85 year old man, the end result of squatting on Wednesday for the first time in probably three weeks.  It’s crazy how severe the soreness can be after squatting if I don’t do it weekly.  I am only using light weight, 135LBS.  I keep the weight light to ensure I get my ROM as deep as I comfortably can which gives you the best overall benefit but also brings the pain as you are using muscles in ways they aren’t taxed in many everyday scenarios.

Last night I got around to editing the footage from my Tuesday night ride in downtown Naples.  I think it turned out half decent even though a GoPro is pretty lousy normally in shooting in low light conditions.

I am doing a holiday live stream tonight where I will be giving away some surplus items, acting as a virtual Santa.  I have Xmas and non-Xmas related tasks to get done over the weekend but nothing overly oppressive at this point which is fine by me.

As I hoped I left a little early yesterday to get home to deal with the end result of Sadie’s GI issues.  On the way home I stopped at Target to buy boneless chicken breast, rice, and a rice cooker since I didn’t have one.  After picking up that stuff I stopped at DD to get my afternoon coffee and had another shitty experience.

This location for years used to be my favorite DD.  I knew a lot of the staff, they were friendly, relatively speedy and got your order right.  Every single person from that crew has moved on, the last couple years it has been a revolving door that has resulted in the place dropping from first to worst in terms of customer experience.

Extreme slowness has been the norm and yesterday was another example.  Despite only four vehicles being in the drive thru line it took me 15 minutes to get to the window.  People were at the menu for minutes with no communication from the staff inside.  Once I was handed my large “hot” coffee and drove out of the lot the first sip revealed it was room temperature and they got the cream and sugar wrong.  I didn’t have the time or energy to go inside to get a new drink so I just forced it down on the drive home.  The caffeine was the most important thing I needed anyway since I got so little sleep the night before.

When I got home I cautiously stepped foot in the door, worried I would instantly smell dog shit.  I didn’t.  I surveyed the rooms and the lanai as well, no signs of defecation revealed themselves which was a big relief.  I theorized that Sadie had emptied her tank the night before.  Whatever the reason I was glad to not walk into a shit show, literally.

So believe it or not, despite being on the planet for nearly 54 years I do not believe I ever have cooked rice before.  My introduction to it was pretty painless.  The instructions for the cooker were simple, measure out the rice and then add the appropriate amount of water based on how much rice you added.  The rice took somewhere around 45 minutes.  The chicken breast prep was pretty simple too, just boil for around 15 minutes.  Once both things were done I combined them in Sadie’s food dish.  I took her rapid cleaning of her plate as a stamp of approval on my chicken/rice preparation skills.

Last night was a much calmer one for all involved.  Once I fell asleep I stayed that way until the 5:35 AM alarm, thank goodness. Tonight I am considering throwing a wheel in the truck and riding the Greenway into Naples proper to do some Xmas light gazing.  Never did it before which is a good indicator that I should do it now.