Monday afternoon the word came down that our office was going to be closed due to Milton from Tuesday through Thursday. We followed the lead of the rest of the county offices. Monday night I grabbed dinner at Bruninas and found the place packed, apparently incoming hurricanes make people want to go out to eat.
It felt weird waking up Tuesday with no alarm. It rained hard for most of the morning. Our area has been drenched by rain since Sunday. Not a great thing with a hurricane incoming.
I noticed water cascading out of my gutters on the back of the house meaning the downspouts were clogged, again. I ran to Walmart to get a real raincoat and then got up on my ladder to clear them out. It was a pretty quick task and the standing water in the gutters emptied out quickly once cleared.
During the afternoon the rain slowed so I decided to put up my hurricane shutters I bought last year. Even though the winds in our area are not supposed to cross 50MPH I thought I would put them up for the practice. Even with shooting video it only took me a little over an hour to enclose the house. The installers evidently messed up marking some of the panels which I had to sort out on the fly. The end result was the house being totally secure. This was so much easier than lugging huge and heavy plywood from the shed at the old house.
Last night I went to Bruninas for the second night in a row, it was one of the few places open. I stayed in bed until 8:30 this morning a rare oddity.
My plan for today is to do some little things to prep for a possible loss of power but other than that I will just be chilling. I might take it as an opportunity to complete the repair on my Master and film a sponsored video. I’m about to head out to hopefully secure my first DD of the day. Thank you to anyone who has reached out wishing me well during the storm’s approach. I appreciate each and every one of you.
Saturday morning I awoke with a 6:30 alarm to go play pickleball. I had a good session of over two and a half hours. Even though overall I think I lost more than I won it was a good time playing with good people, which is all that matters in the end. Later in the morning I was running errands in my pickleball gear and wound up doing long walks in parking lots in heavy rain. The picture depicts the end result.
My main goal on Saturday evening was to get the new tubeless tire mounted on the Master as well as reassemble it as far as I could. I was unsure how this new tubeless tire would seal since this wheel is not designed for tubeless tires. The answer was quite well.
Mounting it on the rim was very easy thanks to my new installation technique that utilizes zip ties. I could just press it onto the rim without any conventional tire tools. I had one issue, it looks like either I somehow lost the gasket for the tubeless tire valve or it did not come with one. Instead of calling it quits I went to the local Autozone and bought a miscellaneous O-ring kit and found one that appeared to get the job done. I was able to pressurize the tubeless tire rather easily and it appeared to be air tight somewhat surprising.
I put as much of the wheel back together as I could and verified basic functionality. I have parts arriving today that should hopefully allow me to complete the repair to get back and rolling on this wheel.
Sunday was one of those all day rain events which is looking to turn into a several day rain event. I got my bills paid, my coffee bought, and tended to a few minor house chores but for the most part was lazy. Being lazy, even for one day normally isn’t great for my state of mind. I wound spending a large chunk of time binging Season 2 of Rings of Power, the Lord of the Rings prequel. I remember when I watched season one thinking it was too slow and almost lost interest however season two was great and presumably the last season? I watched the last four or five episodes all in the span of the afternoon/evening. If you like LOTR you will like this. I now have started on Tulsa King which I have heard a bunch of people talk about favorably.
Over the weekend I got my official notice that MY Cybertruck was ready to be purchased. You may recall months ago I was given the opportunity to buy one of the “Foundation” model trucks which were stupidly overpriced for the privilege of being an early adopter. I passed. Once again I will be passing.
When I placed my deposit over four years ago on a Cybertruck it was with the understanding that the dual motor version I wanted would be $49,900. As you see in the graphic the price of this model is now $80K, insane. Never in my life have I had a situation where you put a deposit down with the agreement on price and that gets casually tossed out the window and it instead is offered at over 50% more?! I love my Tesla’s but sanity has taken hold and there is absolutely no way I would consider that ridiculous money grab. Although I know the numbers will never be published, I would love to know how many of those people that put down deposits have walked away. I am sure it is a HUGE number which I am now officially one of.
So the panic regarding Hurricane Milton started in earnest yesterday in our area. Grocery stores, gas stations and home improvement stores all were hit hard. This morning I stopped at the ATM to get cash to pay my cleaning lady and that was tapped out as well. I did take my own precautionary step of filling the Tacoma as well as my two 5 gallon gas cans to run my generator if necessary.
I was considering buying the materials to make my own “suicide cord” for the generator. This is a cord that runs from the 220 output on the generator to the dryer outlet in your house. Although potentially dangerous it allows you to back feed electricity into your house and control distribution via the breaker box. This is universally looked at as a bad idea by electricians, hence the name. If you forget to throw your main breaker prior to doing this you can back feed the grid which causes all sorts of potential disaster. It became a non-issue though since all of the wire, plugs and adapters seemed to be snapped up already. I have enough conventional extension cords to rig something up to get me by if it comes to that.
Unlike Helene which was consistently forecast to hit towards the pan handle, Milton’s track is currently in the Tampa Bay area with the potential cone barely touching our northern border. However that is close enough to cause significant impact here. The storm could touch CAT 4 strength before landfall. This is going to be an interesting week to be sure. I might just get the chance to test out my new hurricane protection if the projected path drifts down our way. Let’s hope not. Our ground is already saturated so there will be significant flooding, regardless. The Tacoma will be my vehicle of choice the rest of the week.
I forgot to mention the other day that I managed to save nearly 40% on my car insurance this week. I have been pissed off about my car insurance situation for awhile. I originally switched from being a long time AllState customer to Travelers to save a nice amount of money. On my first annual renewal they jacked the prices back up and have been raising them steadily ever since.
I remember when I was younger my mom telling me how cheap her car insurance was and me making a mental note of how I looked forward to that day as well. The thought process is logical, the older you get the less risky of a driver you become, the less your insurance is, or should be. That has not been the case, obviously. For my two vehicles I was paying close to $4000 a year, insane. Keep in mind I have had no accidents in the last 30 years plus.
So last week I was contacted by the agent that does my homeowners insurance, asking if I would like a quote for auto as well since there would be a discount involved. I said sure, why not, not expecting any significant savings. Instead I got a quote that would save me four figures a year which I was happy to accept. Now time will tell if the same game will be played where this is a one year reduced rate to suck you in. If so I guess I will keep leap frogging around if needed.
Last night I tried a move I had not for a very long time on my pull up bar called Skin the Cat. An odd name, yes I know. You start in a pull up position but then rotate around threading your feet between your arms, finishing in a hang. It is a dangerous move that tests both your shoulder strength and mobility. It honestly is something I shouldn’t do. I was able to do the move although the lower height of my pull up bar and my long dimensions make it harder to extend my legs fully but it was close enough.
I was able to reverse back out of the move cleanly without feeling any significant shoulder tweaks so I felt fortunate. Dawn, who is very competitive and recently installed her pull up bar at her new house saw my video and felt like she needed to see if she could do it as well, she did.
The rest of my night was spent working on the Master that I crashed on. I needed to see the scope of the damage. It turns out to be relatively minor with only two parts that I can tell which will need replacement, neither being a big one, the headlight and rubber top cover.
I also pulled the motor to remove the tire, allowing me get a look at the failed inner tube that almost killed me. The stem was ripped cleanly from the tube with a nice hole left in it’s absence, explaining the instant pressure loss.
The other thing I checked was the valve stem hole in the hub. I was suspicious that it had a sharp edge on the tube side which could have cut into the rubber. It was actually chamfered and smoothed out to prevent tube damage so there went that theory. I am not sure if the tube was just bad and failed or if the tire pressure was low enough to allow it to shift and rip. I left the Master disassembled with tools strewn everywhere, something I don’t enjoy. This weekend I hopefully will at least get the new tubeless tire installed and then will only have to replace the couple damaged parts when I get them.
In addition to wheel repairs and pickleball this weekend I do hope to get out on at least a short ride on a wheel, just to say I did it. I don’t feel fearful of doing so but there has definitely been some sort of mental impact/shift since my accident. I’m curious how/if it will manifest itself riding.
I played my first pickleball since the accident yesterday at lunch. Even though my left elbow is still covered with a tegaderm patch it didn’t bother me all that much. I still felt a bit tired but played pretty well overall. It felt good to get back out there.
Yesterday I received the new tubeless tire that I will hopefully install on my Master V4. The tire and tubeless valve were sent to me for free from Ewheels who I have worked with for many years. The hope is the tubeless tire will seat cleanly on the rim and will in the process eliminate inner tube blowout as a source of future failure on this wheel. I am hoping to start the process tonight.
It will be a bit more involved than the first time I swapped the tire on this wheel as I need to first remove the Clark protective gear to do. That gear held up very well during the crash. I need to see if anything else is significantly bent or broken along the way, hopefully not.
Last night I ran to Home Depot to grab a small pot and some potting soil. I just received a dwarf mulberry tree via Amazon, believe it or not. It arrived in good condition but needed to be put into a real pot. I placed it in it’s new home, watered it and put the baby tree on the table on the lanai where it can get indirect sun.
I have not tried to grow anything like this for a long time, dating back to when I still lived in the Estates. I sort have placed a symbolic meaning on the tree, hoping it can grow and prosper just like I hope to since I had the accident.
This evening would normally be volleyball night but with a left elbow that is missing several layers of skin the idea of sand getting into that does not sound appealing, at all.
Last night I fed AI the transcript from the three hour live stream Sunday night that was concerning my accident. The 10 minute synopsis podcast it created was the best one I have heard yet. Outside of a few mispronunciations it was almost perfect.
Even though I have been able to step back into my normal daily routine since everything went down Saturday I find myself in an odd state of mind. Last night after work I was walking Elsa and thoughts just started running through my head about how easily I could not be there, how instead I could be lying maimed in a hospital or dead. The thoughts trigger negative emotions which to me seem strange. I should be happy and grateful that I escaped as I did, and I am, but there are also these feelings of mortality and why am I still here that are entangled as well.
I wonder if the rest of my life is going to be separated clearly into before crash and after crash segments where things that used to be a certain way suddenly are not.
Last night I was at my computer for most of the evening. First I converted the three hour live stream into a podcast, a task I normally do. I then loaded up my video editor and brought up the clip of my crash. When you see the live video it is hard to see all that happened that resulted in my escaping serious injury, or death. I went through one frame at a time and got a clear picture of what occurred.
As I described before, I had no idea that the red truck in the picture was on the verge of hitting me. All I remembered was sliding into the middle lane and waiting to get hit. I thought I was on all fours for most of it. I wasn’t.
Instead right after this dive onto the road you see here my feet wound up in front of me almost like a baseball slide. I then sat up and by doing so apparently barely cleared my body from getting hit by the vehicle. Only then did I flip onto my hands and knees to slide to my final stop. I knew it was a close call but this looked like a razor thin margin from impact based on the images. I did a short video that included some of the stills you could not see originally.
I was able to get better sleep last night as my left elbow stung less than the night before. Keeping the area covered and bandaged is a challenge because of it’s location. I was able to go to the gym yesterday and have a decent workout which I was happy about. As of this point my intent is to try to play pickleball tomorrow as well although volleyball will be off the menu until the wound heals more. I still am finding myself unsettled and out of sorts but I feel that is to be expected.
I did have Ewheels reach out and offer to send me a different tire which I hopefully would be able to use to convert my Master to a tubeless configuration which would make the type of scenario that took me out very unlikely, something I would like.
I will work on getting my brain back on track, busy solving problems, working out tasks and thinking about the future.
Before I address what happened Saturday, which needs to be last, let me talk about a couple mundane things from the weekend that have nothing to do with my own mortality.
Over the weekend I addressed two issues that have been bothering me for a very long time at the new house. My tub in the master bathroom has had dead ghost ants and other insects showing up for a long time. Several times I found small cracks in the caulk along a baseboard that appeared to be a point of entry although it still didn’t really explain how they would wind up in the tub. Finally last week I figured it out. The spigot for the tub had some cracked and dried out caulk on the top and the bottom basically had nothing sealing it off. I grabbed a tube of caulk at the local hardware store and applied a thick bead around the fixture, sealing it to the surrounding tile. So far it seems to have been effective as no more debris has been spotted in the tub since.
The other issue that has bothered me since I moved in was the light that is attached to my mailbox. That light is supposed to be controlled by an optical sensor on the house but for whatever reason it is on all the time. I tried to troubleshoot it several times in the past unsuccessfully. I decided to take another approach.
One of the remedies I tried in the past was to put a Hue smart bulb out there that could be controlled independently. The issue was my wifi signal did not reach out to the street so the bulb was unreachable. My approach this time was two fold. I bought one of those Xfi pod wifi extenders and placed it in an outlet by the front window. I then bought an Amazon Basics smart bulb which integrates easily with Alexa and placed it out front. This time the wifi was available, allowing the bulb to be configured and communicate with the rest of my smart home set up. I set the light to go off and on a schedule which should hopefully solve this issue. As a bonus if I am feeling festive the light is full RGB compatible, allowing me to change the color to whatever I want.
The last mundane topic was the Eagles game against the Bucs which was awful and not really as close as the 33-16 score. With each shitty performance I find myself more and more annoyed with Jalen Hurts emotionless attitude. Yes he is talented but he also has the slowest average ball release time in the league. He just is unable to consistently make a decision and get the ball out quickly. Whether they score a TD or he just made yet another turnover his expression is the same. I’m sort of over it. The defense was a joke, special teams was a mess and I turned the game off mid-third quarter.
Ok, so Saturday afternoon I decided I wanted to do a range test on my Master V4, something I had been meaning to do for awhile. The weather forecast was not favorable with potential rain in the area but I rolled the dice anyway and rolled craps. Within the first 11 minutes the rain already started but I pushed forward, being the stubborn individual that I am. Soon I was riding through steady rain and on very wet roads but both myself and the wheel were doing ok.
I was hoping to get out to my old house and back but I realized I was not going to have enough battery to do so. I decided to ride up Immokalee Road until I hit 20 miles on my GPS and then reverse direction, a solid plan. I hit 20 miles and headed back west along a road I had literally ridden at least 100 times over the years, maybe more.
There was a mixture of both wet and dry sections of the road due to spotty rain. I had my GoPro out and had just mentioned I was traveling at 36MPH according to my GPS when it happened. All of a sudden it felt like I had rolled onto a patch of ice, the wheel fish tailed under me and then headed towards the three lanes of traffic, with me on it. I had checked my rear view mirror briefly before the fall so I knew there was appreciable traffic on the road.
The next thing I know I am on the ground, sliding on my protective gear. I see the wheel in front of me. I know I am in the middle of the road and I also know I am about to get run over by a vehicle and potentially die. I was bracing for whatever that feeling was going to be but it never came. Instead I stopped sliding, looked back and saw a white dump truck that had stopped roughly 10 feet behind me. I couldn’t believe it.
Despite being somewhat in shock I sprung up quickly to collect the wheel and get off the side of the road as all three lanes of traffic had stopped. One of the vehicles stopped and asked if I was ok and/or needed anything. My quick physical inventory revealed I was ok albeit with a bloody left elbow. Everything else felt like it worked. A fire chief also stopped to ask if I needed anything and I again assured him I was ok, which I was physically, mentally, not so much.
So the wheel appeared ok, it had some physical damage but turned on and balanced. My plan was to suck it up and just ride home. However when I stepped on the wheel it again felt like I was on ice, I was convinced the road had some oil or something on it that was the reason I lost control. However after walking with the wheel a bit and trying again it still felt all screwed up so I just resigned myself to walking until someone could come get me. That someone was Michelle, one of my employees that lives nearby. Thankfully her and her husband could come get me.
As I was walking down the sidewalk I stopped and looked at the wheel again and realized that the tire was completely flat. Suddenly I realized what had happened. My inner tube had catastrophically failed, more than likely ripping at the valve stem causing the instant loss of pressure and subsequent loss of control. That is why it felt like I was on ice. Identifying the cause was a small victory but didn’t change my state of mind where I was trying to process the idea that I literally just escaped death. It wasn’t until I watched the video that I realized I actually escaped it twice.
Evidently there was a red truck in the right lane that I never even saw. When I went down I was ridiculously close to him. My forward speed and angle across the lane was just enough to get my body past his moving vehicle, which never stopped. I had no idea that I JUST missed getting clipped by this person, probably by inches.
This realization just added additional weight to what already was a heavy mental load. How did I get so lucky? Why did I get so lucky? I don’t know the answer. Saturday night I put the video together and then bandaged up my bloody elbow which was missing quite a few layers of skin. My gear for the most part saved me, protecting me from further harm and allowing me to slide instead of tumble to a stop.
Once the video was posted there was a tidal wave of response from the internet, too much for me to keep up with. There were theories about why it happened as well as criticism for me even being willing to ride with three lanes of high speed traffic in a bike lane. However most of the comments were very positive and reinforcing that it was sort of a miracle that I got up and walked away from that, I had to agree.
On Sunday I had a very low key day. You would think my mood would have been better having sort of escaped death the day before and being grateful for doing so.. However I found myself feeling almost depressed in some ways, it is sort of hard to explain or make sense of. I was thinking about taking a wheel to DD but thought better of it due to time and the complications of trying to get elbow guards onto my raw left arm.
I did a live stream Sunday night where I went in depth about the incident, my feelings about it and how it may affect me going forward. This will be one of those bookmarks in life where you relate to things before and after they happen. It will be interesting to see what the next chapters for me will be as a result.
Yesterday I had my first physical in two years as required by our insurance qualifiers. I put this one off until right before the deadline which is unusual for me. Normally I like to knock unpleasant things off my list first, procrastination isn’t my thing. I think the reason was the last time I had a physical they said I had a “borderline” EKG that resulted in sending me to a cardiologist which turned into a lot of money and testing to just tell me that I was fine. The other thing about physicals that I dislike is the DRE of course. Look it up if you don’t know what that is.
It was interesting, they apparently now try to make this both a mental and physical check up. I had to fill out a questionnaire that asked things related to my mental wellness. The only negative I acknowledged was issues sleeping. There were other things I could have acknowledged on the list that I chose not to.
The physical itself went ok. I had another EKG done and was told it was actually better than two years ago which I was happy about. However the thing that made me the most happy was I escaped without a DRE being performed. I’m not sure if she forgot or decided I didn’t need one since they took blood for a PSA retest. Whatever the reason I certainly was not going to remind her.
Yesterday in the morning the weather around here seemed almost nice with some blue sky popping out. However in the afternoon and evening we started getting some significant wind from Helene. A couple of the other government offices closed due to them. Even Dunkin was closed, preventing me from obtaining some much needed afternoon coffee. My yard has a substantial amount of small oak tree branches scattered around from the winds. The wind sounded ominous from inside the house at times, blowing hard enough to push air past the sliding glass doors more than once. We were lucky.
Volleyball was cancelled of course so instead I decided to go visit Helen at Carrabbas, something I have not done in months. I have lost a few pounds again and I thought a big meal would be a good head start to at least getting back to 185lbs. Helen was glad to see me. I was there early enough to actually snag happy hour specials which I have never had before.
Last night I passed out early, very tired from staying up too late the night before. I managed to sleep pretty soundly through the night without a sleeping aid, an indicator of my level of exhaustion.
This weekend my plans are loose and fluid. I will likely dive deeper into making some internet content over the two days. I find that when my mind feels unsettled, embracing my creativity is a way to take the sharp edge off of whatever may be bothering me.
Last night the bands of rain from Helene started up on a more consistent basis. Right now the storm is about eye to eye with Naples albeit a couple hundred miles or more off shore, a good thing for us. Despite the distance the public schools and court system closed today preemptively. My phone has been blowing up with storm surge, flood and cyclone warnings for a good portion of the last 24 hours but overall I think the impact to our area will be pretty minimal.
Almost as soon as I got around to mentioning how Dawn and I were going to dip our toes into seeing if we could make a long distance relationship work last week those plans sort of came off the rails. In the big picture it’s probably the best decision for both of us at this point in time. As is always the case lessons have been learned.
The end result is my once again standing upon a clear deck looking out over the horizon and trying to figure out which way to point my rudder.
For quite awhile I was wanting to post a video commemorating my YouTube channel having reached 2000 videos. I waited so long that I actually now have 2060 videos on the channel. Anyway as mentioned I have been messing around with AI tools to make those summaries of my live streams. I decided to dip into AI once again, this time to make a song, Rolling to Dunkin. I gave AI one sentence to describe what I wanted and it spit out what you see/hear below in a minute or less. I then took the song and paired it with various clips of myself riding while drinking DD and voila, my 2000 video celebration is complete. Thanks AI.
Last night I had some free time that I was thinking about what I could use it for. I could go for a ride, I could go play some pickleball or maybe jump back into WoW. Instead I did none of those things and instead laid in bed and took a nap. It’s an odd choice to take a nap so close to when I would normally go to bed anyway but that’s what I did. My brain was just feeling worn out from poor sleep recently combined with ineffective circular thinking that succeeds in only causing mental fatigue.
So hurricane Helene is still swirling to the south and west of us. It is moving very slowly right now but is forecast to accelerate rapidly once it gets up into the gulf. The good news for us is it is still forecast to be far west when it passes this area. We will still see significant rain bands and appreciable wind but it should not be anything awful. Unfortunately for people living in the panhandle of Florida they are looking at seeing the brunt of a CAT 3 storm or worse later in the day Thursday.
