Category Anything and Everything

Last night was a unique one with the Phillies playing in the World Series and the Eagles playing on Thursday night football.  To make the rarity even more crazy, both teams were playing the team from Houston. Yea that will never happen again.  I went into the night thinking that I would be predominantly watching the Eagles as football is really the only sport I follow consistently anymore.  That was not the case.  Instead I watched maybe 15 minutes of the Eagles game and then just kept up with the score on my phone.  The Birds won, going 8-0 for the first time, EVER. I don’t know how to react to this degree of success.

For whatever reason, I felt more compelled to watch the baseball game.  Maybe it is the ties to my childhood where dreams of being a major league player persisted right up until my senior year. (I was scouted by the Pirates and Blue Jays)  Maybe I suddenly felt a connection to these players that up until a week ago, I didn’t even know most of their names. So I watched baseball.  Unfortunately the game didn’t go the Phils way losing 3-2, their first back to back losses in a very long time.  They now have to go back to Houston and sweep the Astros, a very difficult task.  If they manage to pull it off it will cap a season that might eclipse 2008 in it’s level of glory. The Astro pitching staff is really, really good.

So tomorrow my pool area and gutters are getting pressure washed.  For the first time since building the house in 2001 I’m not going to be the one doing it.  I found a guy on NextDoor to do the work for a number that was reasonable enough to offset what would be 6 hours or more of hard labor for me otherwise.  Depending on how it goes it may be a strategy I stick with.  I still see myself doing pressure washing but I wouldn’t mind offloading the monster pressure jobs as long as it doesn’t cause me significant financial discomfort.

Speaking of financial discomfort, yesterday I sold my Veteran Sherman, the first of three wheels I could be possibly selling over the next couple months.  I LOVE the Sherman but it’s lack of suspension is what made me willing to part with it. I now have three suspension wheels with one more in the pipeline.

While the pressure washing is getting done I plan on getting busy with other outdoor tasks like pulling down the Halloween decorations, weed whacking and mowing.  I am hoping this guy does a good job so I can utilize him in the future.

There is a Dunkin Donuts near Monique that I stop by sometimes to grab us both coffee.  Several weeks ago I was introduced to this guy working the drive thru that sounds exactly like Napoleon Dynamite, it’s incredible.  After work last night I stopped by there to grab some coffee and had my phone ready in case Napoleon was working, he was.

I stopped to drop off my old Iphone to Monique, she was excited and grateful as it will be a substantial upgrade over her old Iphone 6.  I also got to see sweet Leilani for a little bit which is always a treat.

The Phillies game was the polar opposite of the night before where they smacked the Astro pitchers around.  Instead the Phillies got no hit by a combination of three Astro pitchers. an extreme rarity, especially in a World Series.  I think I read it only happened once before?  So the dream of winning the series in Philly is officially gone but hopefully they can shake off the demoralizing loss and get a win tonight.

Yesterday I worked on making sure any and all things phone related were up and running on my new iPhone 14 Pro Max.  It’s an important process because once I blow away my old 11 my safety net is no longer available.  At this point I feel pretty confident I have dotted all of my i’s and crossed the t’s.  My plan is to drop off my old phone with Monique on my way home tonight.

I got to watch the Phillies game last.  They crushed the Astros 7-0 hitting 5 homeruns in the game, a rarity.  This team seems to have a dynamic that is going to be hard to overcome.  They have caught fire at exactly the right time.  It’s been 14 years since I watched a complete Phillies game.

Even though my Halloween decorations are scheduled to come down this weekend it looks like my 10 foot tall grim reaper is going to an early grave.  Over the last two weeks he has had an increasingly more difficult time staying upright.  When I got home I would have to push up on his head to allow the inflatable to stand up.  Well the last few days it no longer helps, after a few seconds he folds over at the waist.  This is the result of the material and the seams holding it together deteriorating, allowing too much air to leak.  It will make me sad to have to get rid of the reaper as this is only his third or fourth Halloween.  Life moves on.

Yesterday my new phone arrived after a nearly two week wait, an iPhone 14 Pro Max.  I have had iPhones for many years but I never have opted for the top of the line version.  I thought their size was too big and I didn’t think the additional features were worth the money.  This time around I threw those concerns out the window with the Pro Max and got 512GB of memory to make sure I would never have any headroom issues either.

Migrating between phones used to be a big headache but they now have made it stupid easy. You stick the new phone next to the old phone, answer a few questions and it automatically moves all of your apps and data across.  I had everything migrated across in less than an hour and I have a substantial amount of junk on my phone.  Almost everything comes across intact but there is some clean up you have to do like setting your authenticator apps back up, reentering credentials in certain apps and a few more tweaks but overall it is far, far less hassle than it used to be.

Although the new phone is bigger than my iPhone 11 it is not oppressively so, I can still slide it in the front pocket of my pants as needed,  I like the always on screen feature of the 14.  Even when the phone is locked you can still see a dimmed version of what is going on.  I am going to see if I can get through a typical day with that feature turned on without needing to charge. One of the reasons I went with the Max version of the phone is it has a bigger/better version of the battery than the regular Pro.

I messed around with the phone for an hour or so trying to get everything reconnected.  There are a few things I need to get straightened out so my old phone is still intact at this point, just in case.  Once I am 100% sure I am good to go I will blow the iPhone 11 away and give it to Monique.  I messed around a bit with some of the new features on the 14.  I like it so far and look forward to it fulfilling my needs for the next 2-3 years

It worked out well having the phone to work on last night because I needed to stay up late, very late to fire off a process for work.  I had to wait until the clock ticked past midnight to start the job.  Gladys called me to help me stay awake which was appreciated.  I wound up not getting to bed until close to 1AM but woke up this morning not feeling as awful as I may have otherwise expected.

Friday after work I got my 10 mile ride in.  It went well but this may be one of the last rides I can do after work without using lights.  Once the time change hits it is totally dark by the time I get home.

On Saturday morning after getting home from grocery shopping I had two things I decided I wanted to accomplish, rotate the tires on the Tesla and do the tree trimming that I am not paying the tree service company to do for me.  The tire rotation was no big deal, consuming a half hour maybe.  The trimming session was another story.  In total I spent six hours in the yard.  I had hoped to be done in half that time.  It was one of those situations where I would be trimming one thing and see something else to trim that I had not planned on doing and then another and another.  For example I trimmed back the areca palms around the pond.  Those things are like weeds, I bet I took 100 branches off that area alone.  I trimmed the invasive brazillian peppers along the fence line, the pygmy palms as well as the cabbage palms I don’t currently have the tree service do.  I think in the future I will be having them trim anything that takes a ladder.

I used the sawz-all and the my new Ryobi power pruner for the work.  Both of them held up well, despite my putting them through some harsh conditions.  After knocking everything down I had to pick it all up, throw in the Tacoma and dump it in the fill pit out back.  My body was totally spent by the end of it.  It left me wondering how many grind myself into the dirt yard sessions I have left in me.

The idea of preparing food sounded like far too much work so instead I drove down to Brooks Burgers and sat at the bar while I watched the Phillies game.  There was a cute female bartender that I had friendly conversation with which was unexpected.  Speaking of the Phillies, despite their amazing playoff success so far this year I have not watched a single game until the World Series.  Talk about a bandwagon fan, pretty pathetic.

I was moving pretty slow Sunday after the intense labor the day before.  Surprisingly my right hand was in the worst shape of all. Because of all of the vibration of the sawz-all I could hardly close it.  I had zero grip strength.  As the day went on it got a little better thankfully as it is my pickle ball hand! After lunch I did a quick ride on my EX20S.  During the ride I revealed I had put a deposit down on yet another wheel, the Sherman S.  This is a suspension version of what may be one of my favorite wheels of all time, the Sherman.  The deposit escalates my motivation to sell at least three of my current inventory of wheels to bring more fiscal sanity into my life.

Last night I picked up Monique.  We went to Coconut Point to walk around, eat dinner, and see Black Adam.  I have not been there for YEARS.  Coconut Point used to be the place Cindy and I would go to see movies early in our relationship, we went every week or two.  We had dinner at Olive Garden, another place I had not patronized for years.  We both liked our food and enjoyed the meal.

The movie theater was nearly empty, I guess Sunday nights are not busy.  We were literally the only customers in the lobby when we walked in 10 minutes before the movie we were seeing, Black Adam, was scheduled to start.  The movie wasn’t bad but I found myself cringing when I realized the ultimate bad guy in it was a demon-like figure.  I knew Monique was not a big fan of that sort of stuff so I felt badly for sitting her in front of it.  After the movie I apologized and told her I had no idea that the story would involve that stuff.  She was fine and said it was no big deal but I still felt like I wish I knew the plot going in.  If I did I never would have suggested she go with me.  I’d give the flick a B+.

I got home very late after driving in to Naples to drop her off and then all they way back home.  I had my dentist appointment this morning where the hygienist and I exchanged stories about the joys of being over 50, comparing ailment and injury stories.  I got out of there with no cavities which is always the report card I am hoping to hear.

For the past few weeks my Thursday evenings have included playing pickleball at the new park with some other friends from the county government.  I thought that was the plan last night until I heard one of the guys was out of town, freeing up my evening.  At first I had ideas of it being a f off evening but then the task master got in my ear. I realized if I did the weeding Thursday night I could then do my road bike session tonight.  I was combining the two things but it just gets dark too early now to do it easily.

So weeding it was.  I put in my air pods and had Elsa walking around with me for most of the work which I enjoy.  Elsa is now in love with the chicken coop.  For her entire life she was banned from the chicken area.  Now that the restriction has been lifted she LOVES to go into the coop for some reason.  The second I open the door she runs in and looks happy as can be, it’s very funny.

Speaking of sweet Elsa, she continues to enjoy plopping herself up at the head of the bed to dig in.  Cindy used to discourage this behavior but Elsa has learned that dad doesn’t care.  I wash the sheets every week anyway.  So last night I had to hit the bathroom before bed.  When I went in the bathroom Elsa was down on the floor on one of her dog beds.  When I came out, no more than 60 seconds later she had dug herself into the bed again.  I find it endearing.  She actually stayed up there with me all night.

My weekend plans are a bit fuzzy at the moment.  I have some yard clean up to do which could include trimming the trees I don’t pay the guy to do.  I have been trying to secure a guy I was talking to on Facebook to do my pressure washing of the pool deck but he appears to have ghosted me.  I have to see if I can find someone else or just bite the bullet and grind out the hated task myself once again.  I would like to get out to see Black Adam this weekend, Monique said she would be interested in tagging along.

Last night on the way home I picked up Monique once again.  She had agreed to show me how to make tortillas from scratch.  We had to make a pit stop on the way to the house to get maseca which is the corn meal base that tortillas are made from.  In the past I had asked Monique if she wanted to try driving the Tesla which she declined.  I asked her once again when we exited Walmart, she surprised me by saying she would give it a try.  She was very cautious but did a good job getting us back to the house safely.

I gave Monique a tour of the back of my property, she did not realize that I had built the fence myself.  She really likes my property and all of the open space it has.  The tortilla prep was interesting.  The most important thing was seeing what the consistency of the dough should look like and how long to have them in the pan to cook.  We wound up enjoying the meal as we finished up watching one of the Halloween baking shows that I can’t get enough of.

It’s very cute how Elsa has now warmed up to Monique.  At one point she jumped up on the sofa between us and was giving Monique kisses.  Monique loves animals like I do so it made her happy too to have Elsa accept her.  Elsa rode in the back of the Tesla when I took Monique back home after 9. It was a different and fun night.  I ordered myself a real tortilla press so I can make some respectable looking tortillas on my own in the future.

A week or so ago my brother Todd mentioned the idea of me going up to PA for Thanksgiving.  I hadn’t really thought about traveling for Thanksgiving since I am still hoping to get out to LA before the end of the year.  However as I looked at the calendar I realized that I could actually do both, more than likely.  I would once again drive my Tesla like I did last year on the trip to Texas.  What I would not do is constrain myself to as compressed of a timeline which made the driving part of the trip sort of miserable, especially going there.

After confirming with Todd that this sounded ok, I would leave early Monday morning and then arrive in PA sometime Tuesday evening.  I would have the day before and after Thanksgiving to enjoy and then push back south Saturday morning.  I only will use 4 days of vacation time for the trip (I would take the following Monday off as well) and the driving 1200 miles up and back should be at a much more relaxed pace.  With no chickens to care for any longer the only accommodations I had to make is to make sure Alison can watch Elsa and ask my neighbor to grab my mail, easy stuff. I think it will be a cool little adventure for me to look forward to.

It seems I am always fixing issues because things are always breaking or need attention otherwise.  The bathroom spare toilet paper holder in the guest bathroom has been obsolete for years.  It was designed for yesteryear before the widespread implementation of oversized rolls of toilet paper.  As a result it just sat in the corner with maybe one  roll haphazardly perched on top of it.  I had thought about the idea of designing and 3D printing some simple replacement for years as well but finally got around to doing it on Monday.  What you see here is the end result. The holder was actually supposed to be at least a third taller but the printer I was using died during the print job, yes something else to fix.  I’m still pleased with the end result.

I received a new power pruner yesterday to replace the one that broke over the weekend.  I also received a new power supply for my year old spider inflatable that went dark over the weekend.  The break/fix cycle seems never ending although I admittedly get a little hit of dopamine for each issue I resolve.

Last night I dedicated to trying to plow through some of the backlog of recorded content I had at home.  I put a nice little dent in the pile but will need an episode of extended laziness to get completely caught up.

I forgot to mention I bought a used Macbook Pro off of FB Marketplace.  You may ask why?  There was no pressing reason other than a desire to get more in tune with the Mac UI.  I do also like the integration with my other Apple devices.  It does have a weird quirk I did not notice on the listing, it has a keyboard that includes arabic symbols.

It took me all of 30 minutes before I screwed it up when I tried to change the name of the admin account.  Because I did not research ahead of time how to do it I wound up stripping the account of admin rights.  I had to do a surprisingly easy backdoor hack to get an admin account back on the machine.

Saturday morning I set my alarm so I could get to the vet for Elsa’s appointment to have the raised mole/blood blister thing looked at.  The vet wasted little time getting her in.  She said I had two options, they could use a needle to test the cells of the growth and we could act from there or just have her cut it off and have it tested.  I wanted the growth gone so I immediately chose option two.  20 minutes later Elsa was back with a shaved spot on her shoulder with a stitch or two holding things closed.  She seemed surprisingly fine which I was glad to see.

On Saturday afternoon I headed down to help Monique with trimming some trees at their place.  Her dad is getting older and since I have all of the trimming tools I was happy to help.  Compared to what I used to deal with, what they needed done was not bad.  On the way to do the work I actually met up with Cindy to give her some mail that had some importance.  If I am not mistaken I think it was the first time I had seen her face to face since January, which seems crazy.  It was a good interaction which made me happy.

The trimming work turned out to be more involved than I first imagined.  I knocked down the stuff that required my 10 foot ladder but Monique was busy too.  I gave her my power pruner and she went to town with it.  I originally thought I would be able to get all the debris to fit in one load in the truck.  In reality it took three very full loads to get it all out of there, which I dumped in my fill pit at home.  Despite it being yard work it was not that bad since the two of us were doing it together. When I was done I got to hang with Monique’s niece some more which was so much fun.  She was showing me various toys, books and puzzles.  She can say my name and seems to genuinely like me now which warms my heart.

On Saturday night I had a last minute live stream that went on for close to three hours.  There was a lot of non-EUC talk, including a lot of discussion of male/female dynamics.

My Sunday was pretty chill.  Late in the morning I picked up the third and final load of trimmings from Monique’s place.  She was nice enough to prepare a breakfast plate for me.  As I loaded the trimmings into the truck she watched Elsa for me.  Monique and her mom really love Elsa.  The more Elsa is around them the less nervous she is becoming which is sweet.

Sunday night I planned to go ride around Victoria Park to check out Halloween decorations.  When I mentioned my plans to Monique she expressed interest so she wound up coming with me.  She rode her bike while I rode the wheel.  It was cool seeing the decorations which were quite extravagant in some cases.  The other good thing was there was hardly anyone there so we didn’t have to fight through tons of pedestrians and vehicles.  We almost had the entire place to ourselves.  Monique had seen the X-mas decorations there before but never Halloween, she seemed to enjoy it.

I was off work Monday.  I felt like I had a pretty great day.  I started it with getting an actual haircut, something I had not done in almost 10 years.  Instead I have always just shaved my head or tried to do a fade cut myself, which never turns out well. I went to Sport Clips and got the MVP treatment which was nice.  After the haircut you get your hair washed, a scalp and face massage and then they hit your shoulders with a percussion massager.  The woman did a much better job than I have ever managed myself.  I think I will add professional haircuts to my new normal rotation.

I went straight from there to meet my buddy to go play some pickleball in East Naples.  We played four very competitive games that I was lucky to win.  I can tell the snowbirds are returning as each week we have been playing there are more and more people over the lunch hour.

When I got home I decided to finally do my range test on the Begode T4.  This was a range test I was nervous about as I was not quite sure how well the wheel would do taking me out to Ave Maria and back.  It turned out to not be an issue as I got back easily.  Unfortunately as I was taking the picture you see here my camera got blown over and damaged the mic cable which unknowing to me trashed the audio for the rest of the ride.

There was a hilarious moment I caught on video where this flat bed truck was driving through a flooded out pathway.  The visual was pretty amazing.  I also tried out the newest Nobleman gear that was sent to me to evaluate, a set of gloves and a vest with tons of storage and a reflective back.  I thought the gloves would be uncomfortable in the heat but they had ventilation that made them quite comfortable.  I will be using them more often.  The ride went well, wrapping up what was overall an enjoyable and satisfying three days.

Yesterday I got another call from Wyoming.  My heart fills with love whenever I see a call coming from the 307 area code.  Luckily this time it was not the grumpy paralegal I spoke to last week.  Instead it was the actual assistant district attorney named Jasmine.  Immediately I could tell I was dealing with a more sunny disposition.  Dare I say she even sounded cute.  She called to tell me that they received my bank statement and that everything was all good now.  She explained why the letter was sent and how it was not specifically targeting me, which I never thought in the first place.

I pointed out to her that contacting people so many years after a citation took place isn’t great, especially if proof of payment is required as banks only retain record for so long.  She said if proof can’t be obtained usually there will be a phone conversation to talk about it.  I thought to myself how that was exactly what I was trying to do with the other woman, which she had no interest in listening to.  But knowing that I was in the clear made proving my point less important.

Jasmine was very pleasant throughout the entire conversation which further disarmed me.  It just goes to prove that sugar is always better than shit when it comes to accomplishing your goal.  I do have another letter coming to me today which should be my final proof of payment.  This ridiculous, anger and anxiety inducing event that started way back on Christmas Eve of 2015 has finally come to a conclusion.

Yesterday I had a pickleball double header, playing both at lunch and last night.  The first time I tried doubling up sessions in one day a couple months ago I was in bad, bad shape afterward. I feel pretty unaffected today which is awesome.  I think it’s a combination of playing more and my back hurting less.  Since my chiropractor appointment the pain has definitely improved.  I try to do some of the stretches and exercises he showed me when I can, it seems to help, knock on wood. It’s a good thing because I am supposed to play today at lunch as well. I rode one of my electric unicycles to the courts last night to play, adding additional fun to the session.

Tonight I am going to skip the bike ride so I can get the weeding done.  The reason is I have an appointment at the vet for Elsa early tomorrow morning.  The other day when I was petting her I felt a small bump.  At first I thought it was a hitchhiker or burr that she picked up outside but I couldn’t pull it off with my fingers.  I then was concerned it could be a tick but it really didn’t look like one.  I soaked it with alcohol to make sure.  So I’m not sure if it is a raised mole, blood blister or something else but I would rather be safe than sorry so I want it checked out.

During the afternoon I offered to help Monique and her dad trim some of the palm trees they have behind their house.  I have all the tools to make the job go relatively quickly. After that my 3 day weekend opens up.  I of course have things to keep me going around the household for the weekend but I want to make room for fun, as always.