Today at the gym I saw my one buddy that plays pickleball with me. He was involved in the game with the idiot that I got into the loud argument with yesterday. He was talking about the incident and said how that was the first time he ever saw a look in my eyes like I was ready to explode. I told him it doesn’t happen very much but once that normally slow burning fuse is lit, it can get scary.
I have been told this over my lifetime by the few people that have witnessed me getting truly angry and how they can see a change in my eyes when this occurs. I’m never the type that would actively seek out conflict or violence but if you push me, I am going to swing back, literally if need be. Luckily it didn’t come to that yesterday but the door was definitely opened. Anyone that sees this side of me is always a bit shocked and I understand why.
If there was any doubt, I am officially addicted to pickleball. Over the 4 day weekend I played around 12 hours of pickleball. Despite heat indexes that crawled into triple digits I was out there smacking the ball around. I enjoyed it of course but I also went longer than I should have, my knees feel all kinds of sore here as Memorial Day weekend comes to a close.
I also have voiced concern on a live stream about how often I drink alcohol nowadays. I have gone out to eat and/or drank every day since Wednesday. Do I think I am an alcoholic? No. Do I drink much, much more than I used to? Absolutely. I know part of it is because I live so close to a variety of eating establishments that I go out to eat way more than I did previously which usually includes drinking. Part of it however I am sure is tied into other darker things that have gone down in the last year or so. Drinking helps me in my overall “f it” attitude when it comes to certain aspects of my life.
One of the projects I worked on over the weekend was installing a road tire on my new Begode Master. The swap went well where I used a new technique to get the new tire mounted utilizing zip ties. However the new tire seems to be a little bit wonky. Even after a bunch of massaging and reseating it has a wobble to it that I need to correct. Of course I did a video outlining the process.
Today while playing pickleball I had a loud and angry argument with some guy that kept screwing up the score. The first couple times I let it go but when he did it again I got tired of it and pointed out very clearly that he was wrong. This guy did not like my refusal to back down and the argument escalated to the point where we were face to face a couple feet apart. I was waiting for him to touch me. If he did things would have gotten real ugly, real fast. Evidently this guy has a history of being an asshole. Anyway the three other players in the game (including myself) told the guy we were done playing with him. He stormed off to the parking lot, still convinced he was right. Fck him.
Over the weekend I received my new doorway pull up bar. Since moving to my new house I have missed the luxury of having an easy way to do pull ups like i had at the old place that had the bar park I built myself. The doorway bar set up I bought seems decent and will allow me to drop in random pull up sets pretty much whenever I want which will be a big plus for my overall strength routine.
On Sunday night I met up with my vball buddy and his wife as well as other people I met from the salsa class. We went to a trivia night at a local bar and had a good time drinking, eating and being bad at trivia. However I also had moments of pause as I watched the other married couples acting like happy couples should.
It made me think about how at this age I thought I would have had everything figured out. Hell five years ago I thought I already did. I remember wondering why some people struggled to find a relationship they could be content within. I had been in long term relationships almost non-stop for 30+ years so I thought these people that were not in one had some sort of issue. Fast forward to present day where I have floundered about for coming up on three years, trying to find a person worthy of investing in, and failing, repeatedly.
I have soured on the process, so much so that I am not doing much to change my relationship status. My attitude is basically if it happens, it happens but I am not going to chase it. I know I am a good human being with desirable qualities. Hopefully something organically comes my way but I am not going to aggressively hunt for it as being alone also has it’s distinct advantages. So much so that it is going to take a special person to make me want to move away from it. Maybe it’s all futile, maybe it’s not. All I know is I can’t allow myself to fall into the same sort of traps I have in the past.
I finished watching the two seasons of Iron Fist on Disney plus. The main lead is annoying where he flip flops regularly between being a king fu master to a schlub routinely. There is too much whining and not enough Iron Fisting, if you know what I mean. I can see why it was killed after two seasons. I may go back and finish up the seasons of Daredevil I never saw.
It is clear that pickleball is a major focus in my life with it starting out as a once every week or two thing to multiple times per week to now, two times in the same day. Yesterday I played at lunch and then met up with the group I have now played a few Wednesday evenings with. We “only” played 90 minutes last night which felt short compared to some of my recent sessions that have approached four hours. After playing the five of us went to Tacos and Tequila to eat/drink. We didn’t get out of there until close to 10.
Our group was two married couples and myself. It’s a bit weird being the 5th wheel as the single person in the group but it’s a role I can play as long as is necessary. Being alone is better than being with the wrong person, a hard truth.
Tomorrow I begin my four day Memorial Day weekend. Let’s see what sort of trouble I can get into.
Last night I took my new Master V4 out for it’s initial ride. The wheel is going to wind up looking much different than what you see in the picture once my Clarkpad kit arrives but last night was to see how it felt.
When I added air to the shock the other day and hopped on the wheel it felt like a pogo stick. Luckily I was able to adjust the rebound down where it felt better last night. The wheel feels powerful and quick. I was riding 30mph+ easily even though I was at less than half battery. I only rode six or seven miles but it was enough to let me know I will enjoy the wheel. I am hoping my bumper kit and pedals show up within the next week.
Last night I did the work to convert my Monday night live stream into a podcast. I have no clue how many people listen to it as a podcast, I guess it would make sense to track it, but I don’t. After the conversion I jumped in and played a little WoW, gaining a level on one of my characters. I have adopted a dual leveling strategy where I level two characters at a time, alternating between them so I maximize the amount of rested XP I am using to speed up the process. I still have a loooong way to go. Having both of these characters be healers definitely helps though.
I wanted to extend my upcoming Memorial Day weekend so I decided to take this Friday off, despite just having Monday off as well. I don’t have anything specific on the calendar but sometimes I enjoy having a blank slate that I can backfill as desired.
Facebook loves to spy on you and then show you content based on what it learns. One of the things it has learned about me is I have interacted with various things regarding relationships. Based on that it decided to show me this image. Good call. Would I get married again? Man, I would have to be so dead certain that I had the right person to go there. It’s going to be hard to shake the self doubt I have in my ability to properly discern that based on what has gone down.
Last year I hadn’t posted in nearly a week and when I did I complained about being down without giving details. Looking back, I know exactly what was behind that state of mind.
A good portion of the day Friday was spent being very frustrated at Tesla’s inability to get all of the numbers right for the deal. Although I got the official trade number late Thursday the loan was never updated to show the trade and the payoff for the trade in it so I was at a standstill.
Once again I tried calling and responding to the text message thread associated with the sale, as you are supposed to and got no response. Finally around 1:30 I got a call from one of the advisors at the Fort Myers location. He said he submitted a request to the finance department to update the terms Thursday night but nothing had been done yet. He knew I had an appointment to pick up the car at 3. He said he would resubmit the request. I took the leap of faith and headed up there on the 45 minute drive, figuring one way or another it would work out.
I walk in the showroom and quickly find the guy I talked to on the phone, a nice young kid in his 20s. I told him that the Tesla app showed no change in the finance status. My advisor was frustrated, he said in the past something like this would have been corrected in 15-30 minutes. He said the layoffs that Tesla has implemented has made requests like these take much longer. Pretty much every aspect of Tesla appears to be short staffed as a result. Amani said in this location all the managers were laid off in addition to a number of other advisors that run the showroom. He said the entire sales operation now was handled by only three people which seems insane as the parking lot was stuffed with hundreds of Teslas. My frustration now softened, realizing just how shitty of a situation the workforce cuts has put their staff in.
Amani sent more messages to three people in the finance department asking for assistance. I asked him about simply calling someone to get it fixed. Nope, that’s not an option, they have no ability to call the finance department, which seems insane. He apologized and just asked that I take a seat and chill. I had nowhere else to go so I took seat.
They did have a Cybertruck in the showroom that I got to check out. It was cool being up close to one but it did not make me feel badly for not buying one. For the kind of things I need a truck for my Tacoma is just better suited to my needs, and it’s paid off. The Cybertruck is incredibly long, it would never fit in my garage unless I removed everything else in it.
So after I was sitting there for maybe 45 minutes a message popped up on my phone that there was an update to my sale. Finally someone had fixed the numbers. After I went in and confirmed my acceptance we were finally able to proceed with the delivery. Amani directed me to my new blue Model Y Performance and I was on my way, roughly 90 minutes later than expected.
I really liked the blue color in person, the car looked great. The drive home was fun. A few times I stabbed the pedal a little bit to get a feel for the power. It felt like someone shot you off with a rubber band as the car just wanted to leap forward, it felt scary fast. I didn’t get home till close to 5:30. By the time I walked and fed Elsa it was closer to 6. I decided to run over to Bruninas for dinner where I got to talk to Meaghan once again.
Saturday morning I met my friend Sue to play pickleball at East Naples. It was a very sweaty but enjoyable session. During the afternoon I handled a number of small tasks around the house. One of those tasks was taking a short nap if I am being honest, I just felt wiped. On Saturday night I decided to go somewhere I had not been to for a long time, Stix, the sushi place very close to my house.
Stix was a favorite place that I went to regularly with my ex. Since we split in December I have only been there once, taking Dawn when she visited. I decided to sit at the bar, the first time I did so there. They had live music playing with a handful of older couples dancing which was cute to watch. The bar area was not very full but eventually two women came to sit there, one seat away from me. I later found out they were sisters.
The one woman was a tall blonde that still had a good body despite her being older. If I had to guess the first number in her age probably started with a 6. I could tell that 20 years ago she was probably very hot but even now, she wasn’t bad. I talked a bit with them off and on. When it came time to pay I finally got to use the gift certificate I was given as a Christmas gift by you know who, however my tab only used about half of it. I handed it over to the ladies, telling them they should use the remainder to help pay for their bill. The blonde was surprised by my offer but was appreciative. I told them I did not want to keep the gift certificate but of course did not tell them why. I may have been able to explore things further with the blonde but did not feel motivated to do so. If I was just looking to score that could have been a missed opportunity but I really am not wired that way.
Sunday morning I played pickleball again. I played a couple hours with Sue and then played another hour and a half with another guy that I know. Once again it was brutally hot and humid. I refilled my large water jug twice, just trying to stay ahead of the hydration curve. I had no spot of clothing on my body that was dry by the end of the session.
During the afternoon I worked on getting some stuff done to the new car. I moved everything over from the old car including the aftermarket rubber protection I received from Lasfit which protects the floor, kick panels and the back of the rear seats. I also installed the Lasfit mudguards that had been sitting in a box since Christmas. Sunday evening I decided to grab dinner at Tacos and Tequilla. They had a two for one special on house margaritas so I indulged myself. Just to be safe I let the car drive me home via FSD.
I also produced a video on Sunday talking about my purchase of the new car.
My day off on Monday was productive. I called the place that has done the window tinting on all of my Teslas to see if I could get my car in. They said they had one appointment left later in the afternoon so I took it. I dropped the car off early however, throwing my Veteran Patton in the trunk and riding it back home. After I got home I went to the campus gym to get a chest workout in as well as head up to Bonita for some more errands. I also had my house cleaners visit yesterday so I wanted to stay out of the place while they performed their magic.
During the afternoon my new wheel arrived, a Begode Master. This is a wheel that has been out for awhile but this was the 4th version of it where they have improved a number of things from the original. It was a real good deal by today’s standards. I only unboxed it and added air to the tire and shock. I will get out on a test ride this week for sure.
I rode my Patton back to the window tint place late in the afternoon. I had to hustle. I only got a call saying it was done at 4:30. They closed at 5PM. I threw on my gear and hauled ass on the wheel, averaging speeds of 30+ mph for most of the ride. I made it to the shop with exactly four minutes to spare. The matching tint looked great although it cost $100 more than my last Y cost in 2021. Inflation is everywhere you look.
Last night I decided to do a live stream talking about both my Tesla and Begode master purchases. It went for about three hours which was long enough considering I had to work the next day.
I have had a situation that has been frustrating me with someone I used to be close with. I have helped this person out in multiple ways, repeatedly. However it seems like it has become more and more a one way street where I am doing the reaching out, trying to be a good friend while this other person is unable to even exhibit common courtesy in return at times. It pisses me off and I am at the point where I would prefer to just eject this person from my life than deal with the lack of reciprocation. It saddens me because there was a time where I felt that this person would never act in such a manner but yet again, my naive faith in people proves to be misplaced. I simply refuse to waste my time anymore on people that don’t return the effort.
My three other Tesla purchases have been smooth with each one being even less hassle than the previous. Unfortunately that trend has reversed this time around. After purchasing the car on Tuesday and handling everything I could handle I had been on basically a two day holding pattern waiting for Tesla’s preliminary trade estimate to transform into an official trade offer. Wednesday I basically just sat still but yesterday I started getting concerned since I was scheduled to pick up the car today.
Tesla’s automated purchasing system is pretty impressive, impressive until a need comes to have contact with an actual human being that is. Multiple times during the day I tried calling in, navigating their phone menu to speak to a “Tesla advisor” only to be told none are available currently and I should call later. It was maddening.
To add to the lunacy one of the things the recorded message suggests is to respond to the text you receive when buying a car which is supposed to go straight to the delivery support people. I tried that avenue as well, repeatedly and once again got crickets in return. By the end of the day I was getting very frustrated.
Then suddenly shortly before leaving work I get a text back saying my official trade offer was in. It was $300 less than the estimate, supposedly because of some of the aftermarket stuff I have on the car. I didn’t care, I approved the offer and was eager to move onto the final steps. Instead I hit yet another roadblock.
The loan details were wrong. Instead of including the loan payoff on my current car in there the system was expecting me to pay off the loan balance in cash, for some reason. So once again I was at a hard stop and responded back via text letting them know that the loan terms were now incorrect. I am now once again waiting for a human response, a hard thing to come by in Tesla-world. I am not anticipating this preventing me from picking the car up today but damn, this process has been anything but smooth this time around.
Last night instead of playing volleyball I worked on getting my car all cleaned out and ready to be traded. As I was doing this I thought about my time with this Tesla. I picked it up the week after Cindy moved out of my house in late 2021. We were still on good terms at that time. This car was the one I bought after completing the most crazy transaction of my life with Vroom where I sold my RWD Model Y for roughly 10K more than I paid for it. The car has served me well taking me to Texas and Pennsylvania along with the day in and day out long commute from the Estates.
At the same time the car also was with me during my tumultuous 2023 where I added and removed female drivers to the car multiple times. There were many fun and frustrating moments for sure. Getting a new set of wheels will wipe yet another slate, clean.
I decided to give myself a three day weekend once again. My free PTO hours had again climbed above 200 which is normally my signal that I need to use some up. I’m still feeling a little bit in a funk so hopefully the extra time off helps me get back into some mentally clear waters.
My potential purchase of the new Model Y has been on a holding pattern the last 24 hours. I have submitted/completed everything I currently can however Tesla has still not provided the official trade in value, only the estimated value. Without this value everything else grinds to a halt. Sure I could do the deal without the trade and sell my car to a place like Carvana or Carmax but trading it knocks a nice chunk of sales tax off the top so I would prefer to go that route. This means I either wait or try to talk to a human at Tesla to get some answers which usually has a very high suck factor.
Yesterday I played pickleball both at lunch and last night with some of the people I played with last week with. The lunch session was incredibly hot, so hot that by the time 12:30 came around there was not a single game going on in the 25 courts surrounding us. The temperatures for the nighttime session were better but the humidity was oppressive, I still was soaked. One of the women I played with cracks me up. She is small and has a high pitched voice. However she is also very competitive and swears like a sailor. Every time a curse word came out of her mouth I could not help but laugh.
After play I hit Tacos and Tequila and was joined by the married couple that includes the guy I play volleyball with. I had four margaritas with my dinner but didn’t feel all that affected by it. We had a good time hanging out and shooting the shit.
My knees are feeling pretty shitty today. I am likely to skip volleyball this week because of them and because of the need to strip all the stuff out of the Tesla that I wish to keep.
In the past when Teslas were more of a new thing and I was doing a lot of Tesla content on my channel I made a couple “reading viewer comments” videos. I have received some decent interaction with the new FSD videos so I decided to shoot another one. It’s a different style video for me. Different is good, most of the time.
I mentioned in a recent video how I had this dumb idea about upgrading my Model Y to a Model S. I looked at this from various angles, buying new and buying used from various sources. None of them made fiscal sense. I would have to invest an even larger chunk into my monthly car expense which honestly is large enough as is. However yesterday my brain locked on to another option.
Tesla recently announced a significant incentive on their Model Y’s, .99% financing, unheard of in today’s high interest rate environment. Tesla also has recently dropped the pricing on all of their Y’s as they are trying to clear out an inventory backlog. So I decided to start playing around. My thinking was my 2021 Model Y has nearly 39,000 miles on it thanks to two plus years of commuting from the old house after I got it. The tires will likely need to be replaced within the next year and I only have one year left on the four year comprehensive warranty.
So I ran numbers, including trading in my Y for a new Performance Model Y, yes the fastest Model Y you can get. The preliminary trade estimate plus the crazy low interest rate makes it realistic that I can move across to the brand new car without significantly changing the monthly payment I already have budgeted, sign me up! I laid down the $250 deposit with little hesitation and started filling out all of the electronic forms that are needed for the sale. The nice part of the way Tesla front loads all the paperwork is when you go to pick up the car it is a 5 minute process, which I love.
So the only potential hold up is my trade. To get an OFFICIAL trade figure I had to send in some pictures of the car yesterday and now wait for Tesla to confirm. If that all goes well I am scheduled to pick up the car in Fort Myers Friday afternoon. Last night I started removing some of the custom stuff on my Y like the wheel covers. I also have additional floor protection and some more custom things I will be pulling and reusing in the new car.
The Model Y Performance is a beast with a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 155mph. Do I need a car with those type of performance numbers? No, of course not. Will it be fun to have the potential to use that sort of power? Yes, yes it will be.
Last year I took a work related trip to Cape Canaveral and came home to a list of things to keep me busy. When I read these entries from a year ago I do so knowing some the dark behind the scenes things that were going on at the same time, none of which ever saw the light of day in the blog, of course. These little personal stupidity reminders do not make me feel warm and fuzzy.
Last night was a pretty chill evening. After making dinner I dove into some WoW, I am now trying to level my 4th character to the current max level of the game. This is my priest, who is a healer class as you can imagine. Leveling as a healer or a tank is usually faster if you are doing multiple dungeon runs as I am. Being either of these roles requires more responsibility and focus so playing one of them means that your time waiting for a group to form is typically much, much shorter than when you are playing a DPS class, which there are an abundance of. At the pace I am going I could max this character out in a week or two.
It’s one of those days where I feel like I am in a bit of a funk and not feeling like digging into anything today to expand upon it. Yoga class resumes at lunch so maybe that will help lighten the mental load.
My weekend kept me moving. I played pickleball both Saturday and Sunday, to excess. On Saturday I played roughly two hours which wasn’t bad. On Sunday I almost doubled that, playing just under four hours. It was too much. It was hot and humid and I was running on water alone, not bringing anything to eat. To make matters worse my last two games were full court singles which spent every last bit of energy I had remaining. It was fun for sure but it took a lot out of me.
On Friday after work I went to Bruninas to have a few beers. During that visit I found out that I was sitting two chairs over from Tom Berenger, yes the actor from Platoon and a number of other films. Evidently he lives in the area now and is a regular. He has aged a lot and if Meaghan did not tell me who it was I would not have realized it but once I looked again I recognized him. I did not say anything to Tom while I was there but I did interact with his wife a bit. I will have to see if I can get Tom into a conversation at some point.
I did some more testing of Tesla full self driving over the weekend, specifically the auto park and summon features. Summon does what it sounds like. You can be up to 200 feet away from the car and have it drive itself to you. This feature when I first tested it years ago was unreliable and slow. I was happy to see that just like the rest of FSD, the summon feature has improved as well, to the point where it is borderline usable.
Sunday was Mother’s Day. It made me sad to think about my mom and her passing which will have happened 10 years ago this August, which on it’s own seems impossible to believe. The speed time passes at the point is insane.
I was feeling less than happy most of the day which is possibly why I felt motivated to just keep playing pickleball for hours. When I am playing there is no room or time for my mind to dwell on unhappy thoughts.
Sunday evening I met up with my buddy I play VB with and his wife. They also played pickleball with me last Wednesday. He was amazed that I saw Tom Berenger on Friday and was curious if he would be there again on Sunday. He was. I drank, talked and ate dinner with them for a couple hours. They are fun to hang with. Brian and I traded crazy ex stories. I keep trying to push that circle outward.
I did yet another wheel impulse buy this weekend, another way I try to distract myself.
