Last night I decided I wanted to get the mowing done to make my upcoming 3 day weekend less chore filled. With the amount of daylight in the evenings in mid-October this is becoming less and less viable. I wound up completing roughly the last half of the mowing via headlights and floodlights. In addition to it being dark it was chilly. Our first real cold front of the season has blown in which I love, however the temperatures around 60 combined with a steady wind had me quite cold, even with wearing a hoodie. The warm shower last night was welcomed. I dont think weeknight mowing is going be a thing for much longer. Luckily this colder weather should also put the brakes on the growth rate of the yard. The picture is from the seat of the tractor.
As I have talked about repeatedly over the past year plus, my time being out of a relationship has given me a lot of opportunity to reflect, learn, and analyze some of my patterns, weaknesses and failures that have lead up to this point. I have realized that in many cases my efforts to fix, please, and help were actually counter-productive in the overall scheme of things. I think I failed repeatedly in maintaining a steady keel when others escalated arguments. For arguments to escalate it requires two willing participants. I should have not been willing to provide fuel for those fires.
I also have realized that there are certain personality traits in women that are absolutely a no go in terms of my ability to have a successful relationship with them. I never really thought about these type of things in depth. It used to be, she’s attractive and seems nice, let’s roll with it without much more consideration. There is much more I think about now as I don’t have the time or energy to invest in something that has basic incompatibility from the start. I want to attract, not chase. The latter is a road to nowhere.
I had a fun Tuesday evening. On my way home from work I picked up Monique. We had plans to go play miniature golf, something she had NEVER done in her life. I picked her up on my way home since the place we were going to play was relatively close to my house. When we got to my place I took care of Elsa and walked the backyard a bit with Monique. I showed her Kathy’s grave in the chicken yard. Monique really liked Kathy and was sad when I told her she had passed. I also showed her my garden area which has some healthy looking red and romaine lettuce in it right now.
On the way to play we decided to grab dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant that I had never eaten at before. I didn’t know that Monique liked chinese food either. We both got the same thing, shrimp and broccoli and enjoyed it. This place was not designed for eat in dining. There was literally one table with chairs in the customer area. We saw a constant line of people walking in to pick up orders they took with them. We both liked the food.
The mini-golf course we went to had recently opened so I didn’t really know what to expect. The place was nearly empty with only one group of four on the course besides us. Like I said, Monique had never played mini-golf before but I only gave her minimal instruction and let her have at it. Her accuracy was surprising, her major issue was hitting the ball too hard at times but more often than not her shots were right on line. As far as mini-golf courses go, the difficulty of this course was not extreme, which is good for someone new. I had a lower score on the first 9 holes but on the second nine holes Monique actually did better than I did which was amazing, including a hole in one on the 18th hole which was a trick shot arrangement. She really seemed to be having fun.
So as I was filling out the scorecard on some picnic benches after the game I noticed they had a corn hole set up. I asked Monique if she ever tried that before, she had not. So we started tossing the bean bags back and forth. They had a total of 5 bean bags so we alternated turns. Once again, despite never doing it before Monique had some surprising success. On one of her turns she got all five bags in the hole, something I could not replicate despite us playing for probably around a half hour. We were the only people left on the property and wound up being there damn close to their 10PM closing time.
When I took Monique home I helped carry some stuff in. Leilani, Monique’s adorable little niece came out. I have been trying to slowly win her over for months, at first she was scared of me and would run away. However over time she has become less apprehensive but last night was the first time it felt like she truly trusted me. She wanted me to play with her. We looked at books, played with her cars, practiced counting to 10 and a bunch of other fun/silly things. It was very cute. I felt truly grateful that she now trusted me. I got home late and went to bed even later but woke up this morning not regretting the lack of sleep, it was a fun Tuesday evening.
Yesterday I finally got the April 2016 bank statement that clearly shows that Yellowstone Park received and cashed my $500 check. I sent the proof of payment to the lovely woman that I interacted with last week. I included a note of sarcasm dripping thanks with the attachment which you can see below. I can only hope she takes a moment to reflect on how she handled our interaction and possibly be a little less rigid and more willing to listen going forward.
Hello Miss Unhelpful. Please refer to my attached bank statement from 4/16 that indicates the $500 check was cashed by Yellowstone on March 30th 2016 as I indicated. As I requested, can you please provide some sort of documentation that you acknowledge this fine was indeed paid and the case is now closed so I can keep it in the event it is ever needed again. Thank you so much for your help in remediating this matter.
On Friday evening I again hit the road for my 10 mile bike session. I wound up turning in very close to the best overall pace and time that I can recall since I added this to my routine back in early 2022. With all of the negative health hurdles I have been dealing with this year it felt good to post numbers that showed all hope is not lost. After getting back home I immediately headed outside to handle the weeding because daylight is an increasingly rare resource now.
This was my first time utilizing my new Apple Airpods. Up until now I have been using a conventional over the ear headphones when listening to music out in the yard. The problem with this is if I want to wear one of my wide brim hats, the headphones cause a significant issue. The hat won’t fit over the headphones so I use the hat tether to try to cinch it down to my head. It looks ridiculous, is uncomfortable, and doesn’t stay in place for long.
Up until now I have avoided getting air pods because in the past ear bud style headphones were painful to my ear, perhaps I have an odd shaped canal. I hoped this was not the case with air pods. Luckily, I felt no discomfort during the roughly hour I spent weeding the yard. They will be a nice addition to my arsenal of tools to combat the misery of certain outdoor chores.
Saturday morning Elsa was confused why she wasn’t coming with me . I had an appointment to get my new tires installed at Costco. I arrived when the shop opened at 9:30, the time for my appointment. I walked into the lobby and there was already a line of 8 people, wtf. It turns out all of these people had no appointment and were just trying to do the first come first serve deal. Luckily since I had an appointment I just skipped all these people and handed them my keys.
They estimated an hour and a half for the work. I had some Costco shopping to do but it obviously would not take that long. Instead I brought my T4 with to ride around to kill time. It was a nice ride that reminded me of how I used to approach riding when I was early into the hobby, just explore. I rode around for the full 90 minutes with no particular destination, it was enjoyable.
So I waited for the truck to be officially done before going in the store to shop. It was a shit show. When I entered they warned us that the credit cards were not working, you could only pay with cash or check. Of course I don’t carry a checkbook so I did a quick inventory of my cash. Luckily I was carrying more than normal so I figured I would be ok. The lines to check out were staggering long when I went in, I dreaded checking out. I caught a stroke of luck when leaving. The cards started working and I somehow found a line that I was through in 10 minutes. I never have that sort of luck typically. The new tires on the truck look really sharp, I am pleased with how it turned out.
On Saturday afternoon I spent 2-3 hours cleaning inside. I did the bathrooms and counters but then also shampooed the rugs and steam cleaned the hard floors. It had been too long since the floors had been cleaned thoroughly. I was glad to get the task done, a clean house feels like a better house normally, to me.
On Sunday morning I was supposed to play pickleball with Kerri and two of her friends. However Kerri called me early to say she had a flood in her place, something let loose overnight leaving an inch of water or more in certain areas. I would up spending into the early afternoon trying to help her remediate with my floor drying fan and carpet cleaner which came in handy to pull water from a soaked area rug. I got to meet her dog who was super sweet. She reminded me of Nicki in a way.
When I got back home I wound up on a tech support call for an issue at work that popped up. It took over an hour to get ironed out. Of course the big event of Sunday was the Eagles/Cowboys game that went down Sunday night. In the first half the Eagles dominated, at one point being up 20-0. However in the second half the Cowboys made adjustments and got the game tight at 20-17. The Eagles needed to score again and eat up time. They did both. The had a long drive that had much more running than passing, scoring a late touchdown to seal the game, upping their record to a league best 6-0. I’m not used to such success from the Eagles early in the season since the prime Donovan McNabb/Andy Reid years. I’ll take it, happily.
You know back in 1650 the phrase “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame one me” was coined. Despite the phrase being well over 300 years old it is no less valid now than it was then. No one wants to be a fool.
Yesterday we got past a big hump at work, completing an annual procedure that used to be handled exclusively by my buddy Don who retired in February. It was a team effort to replace what he did solo but it looks like we got through it successfully. Considering it involves roughly 1.4 billion dollars, it’s sort of important. In retrospect I am glad I did not book the trip to LA, I would not have been able to go because of the delay in this process thanks to Hurricane Ian.
Yesterday I received a response to an email I sent to the Wyoming District Attorneys office a couple days prior regarding their attempts to squeeze $500 from me a second time for the Yellowstone drone incident that was settled in early 2016. The response I got back made it clear she was not understanding my point regarding how one of the two fines was already messed up because the wrong case id was used when paying them, hence I assumed the same thing happened with this $500 check. After a couple back and forth emails I decided to just call and speak to this woman in person.
Within the first 30 seconds I knew I had a real peach on my hands. She gave me attitude from the get go, claiming my point about another case number had nothing to do with my fine. Repeatedly she cut me off as I tried to explain which of course turned off my nice guy switch. This became a loud, heated argument that I am sure others in my vicinity in the office heard. She refused to try to process what I was telling her and why it mattered. The call ended with her hanging up on me after she said someone from the attorneys office would call me back.
I was pissed as you can imagine. I immediately called my bank again to press them on getting the documentation I need to prove the check was written and cashed by Yellowstone in 2016. The rep said he could verify the check was cashed by them on 3/30/16 and it appeared on the April 2016 statement. He began the process of getting this document sent to me which hopefully happen in a couple days. I wrote one final email back to this miserable woman, because I wanted her to think/listen the next time before she assumes she knows a situation. The email I sent is below:
The check was cashed on 3/30/16 by Yellowstone, I will be sending you the bank statement that shows this as soon as my bank gets it to me. Whatever bank Yellowstone deals with may have an image of that check.
I really do not appreciate the attitude you gave me during the phone call. I understand this original mistake was not made by you and I’m sorry if you feel I was blaming you for it, I don’t. However, if you had paid a fine 6 years ago, was told you didn’t and then when reaching out to address it had someone that was unwilling to listen to the explanation, I doubt you would appreciate it either. Both the CVB mistake and this one are because the wrong case ID was on the judgement that you sent to me yourself. I referenced this ID when making both payments. Your failure to understand why this is significant is hard to understand. Or maybe, you just didn’t care.
Treat others as you would like to be treated Ms Grumpy. I hope you have a good day.
I did a quick video in the series I have regarding this incident.
This morning I had my first ever chiropractor appointment with a guy I used to go to the gym with 15 years ago. It was good seeing Tim, who is the same age as me and like me, put considerable effort into staying fit. I explained to him my back pain and how it was worsening. He said my symptoms are one of the most common he sees at his office. He gave me a number of stretches/exercises I can do on my own. He also put me on the table for some manipulation. My problem is caused mainly by muscle tightness and weakness in certain errors. As he had me do certain movements he would be pressing on muscles which generated a ton of pain, as they are supposed to as they release. I was sweating and controlling my urge to yell in pain at various times.
There was only one sudden adjustment where he had my right foot pinned between his legs. He jerked backward which startled me more than hurt. Again it’s an effort to release the tightness in the joints causing the pain. When he was done I had less pain than when I walked in there. I set up another appointment in a month to see how I do after working the movements Tim gave me. I really hope I can knock down this pain, it gets very intense at times.
This weekend I once again have a number of smaller things to do. One big thing is getting the tires replaced on the Tacoma. The truck now has 55k miles on it and it’s rubber is not in good shape. I am getting some more aggressive tires with raised white letters, which I always liked. I am having Costco do the work. Their pricing and warranty is good. The only thing that annoys me is they do not do alignments there, which I definitely want done with new tires. I will have to schedule that to be done separately. Now that I am past the work hurdle I’d like to start giving myself some long weekends, I could use them.
I was thinking about going to practice a little volleyball with Kerri last night (the woman I play pickleball with) but the plans got canceled. I wound up spending a good portion of the night trying to catch up on House of Dragons, I had managed to fall three weeks behind. It’s a weird thing, despite cutting down dramatically on the stuff I record to watch later I still have a sizeable backlog of content to get through. I have already talked about how it seems I hardly ever have time to go into VR or play WoW anymore. It seems like just sit around and veg time is becoming a more and more scarce commodity in my life. Last night I welcomed the opportunity to unplug the brain for awhile as it is crunch time at work this week.
Tomorrow I am making my first ever visit to a chiropractor, a guy I actually have known for years as we used to go to Powerhouse Gym together. I have always avoided chiropractors as the sound of bones and joints cracking as they get adjusted has always bothered me. My mom went to a chiropractor for much of her life and always felt better afterward. I am going specifically to see if I can be given some sort of stretches or exercises that can stop the lower right quadrant back pain that has kept increasing in intensity over the last 6 months. I have not seen Tim in years, possibly a decade or more so it will be good to catch up.
When I got home last night and took the dogs out Sadie seemed to be feeling pretty spry. Of course she was still extremely gimpy but she was acting playful and even tried to “run” which I discouraged. I think the combo of the various pain meds she gets plus the additional exercise and more limited food she gets when she is at the house does her good.
I took her back to Ali and Shugs place last night. Her and Elsa rode side by side most of the way in the back of the Tesla, it was cute. We hung around at their house for a little while but with the hour long drive back we couldn’t stay very late. Elsa loves Ali and Shugs so much. She even was being friendly with Shugs dad and girlfriend last night as well which was a pleasant surprise.
Late last night I had inspiration for my latest YouTube short which I personally think is one of my best so far.
It’s sort of ironic because unlike last time I was single, where I lived and died on dating apps for the most part of that year, this time outside of maybe a two week period, I have avoided them completely. I thought dating online would be perfect for someone like me, the exact opposite turned out to be true.
I also realized that at this point I have officially been single for the longest period of time since I was 17 years old. The pros are definitely catching up with the cons in certain ways.
Yesterday we had an employee inservice day where the entire organization gets together to go through various presentations and education. It’s an all day affair that had highs and lows. I was stationed with my laptop to monitor communications and deal with a few ongoing projects we have. It helped me break up some of the monotony.
Last night was the last night for Sadie to be staying over and unfortunately it was the least restful for me. I woke up around 2:30 AM to see Sadie standing near the bedroom door, I assumed it meant she had a bathroom emergency. She went outside and peed but it definitely was not an emergency. When I went back to bed my mind had flipped back into active mode. I laid there for what felt like forever trying to fall back asleep. I’ll be running her back up to Babcock tonight.
I made a request to my bank to see if I could get an image of the check I used to pay my fine back in 2016 to Yellowstone. Unfortunately they said they only keep check images for 5 years however they should be able to get me the bank statement that has that check transaction on it which should be good enough to get the DA from Wyoming off my back, hopefully.
So Friday morning I get a call from the med clinic, finally. I had been asking for my CT results for two days, all I wanted was a phone call with the results. Well I got the call but instead it was to schedule an appointment to go over the results, wtf. I protested, asking why can’t they just give me the results now. They said it had to be done via an appointment, which I scheduled for 2:15 Friday afternoon. For the first time since this all started I had an oh shit feeling in my stomach. If the CT was ok, why would I need an appointment? Did they see a tumor? Am I going to die? All of these thoughts poured through my head in a short period of time. I felt emotional thinking about the possibility that something serious was going on.
As the morning went on my anxiety eased a bit. My buddy at work said how he had to go into the clinic to get the results of his x-ray which was totally clear. I’m not sure if this is a HIPPA thing or just a way to post another office visit to insurance to keep the dollars flowing. When he told me that I felt more inclined to think this was the same scenario. Yea I have lost weight but otherwise I don’t feel like I have any other symptoms. I tried to keep my mind off the results during the day, playing pickleball at lunch and keeping busy.
I head over to the clinic for the appointment and get the news, the same news I got in 2018 when I had a CT. They asked if I was constipated, told me I had nodules in my lungs, a small kidney stone and arthritis in my back, the SAME things I was told 4 years ago. There was no tumor, which is all I cared about. The stuff they did see had not changed in appearance so I called it a clean bill of health as far as I was concerned. I told the people that knew about the test, they shared my relief.
When I got home Friday I got a piece of mail that tempered my good mood from the test results, a letter from Wyoming. Wyoming is where I was prosecuted for a drone flight in Yellowstone 6 years ago. I knew this letter was going to piss me off, I was right. The letter claimed I owed them $500, the donation part of what I had to pay. $500 went to the Yellowstone slush fund and $285 was the fine and court costs. As soon as I saw this I was pretty sure I knew what happened.
When I got the bill in 2016 to pay it included the case id I was supposed to reference. When I paid the $285 via pay.gov I got a notice 3 months later that my bill was unpaid. It came to my attention that whomever sent me the bill put the case id of the other guy that was “on trial” with me at the same time for the same thing. So my payment got applied to his account. When I contacted collections and told them this they relented and I thought all was good, evidently not.
My assumption is they did the exact same thing with my $500, applied to the other guys fine. But the fact that it is now 6 years later makes it much harder for me to document the case. I no longer have that check and I am not sure if my credit union can get me an electronic image of something that old. It’s extremely aggravating. I emailed the contact on the letter. I plan to back it up with a phone call to make sure this is squashed immediately. The letter drug up just how angry I was about how the initial incident was handled. I’m glad to see they are continuing the tradition of ineptness.
Friday night I celebrated my health win with another 10 mile ride where I posted my best time/pace for at least 6 months. I then immediately weeded the yard into darkness as Sadie supervised me.
Saturday afternoon was consumed by mowing, nearly 5 hours of it. I tackled the normal mowing and the back yard which has finally dried up from all of the rain from Ian. The grass was a jungle at spots, consuming a lot of time. During the morning I did some more chicken area decommissioning, relocating a couple of the Ring cameras to the house area, throwing more stuff out and just cleaning up. The process is far from done. Elsa is amazed that she is now allowed to go inside the chicken yard.
Saturday evening I met up with Monique and her mom. We took a run to Sam’s Club, a place neither of them had been to in years. I hadn’t been there lately myself but it only measured in months. I grabbed a few things I needed and so did they. It was fun for me to have them tag along for the shopping experience and they seemed to have fun as well. When I got back to their house I took one of Gladys’s other sisters, Margaret for a ride in the Tesla. I drove a few miles out and then she drove it back to the house. She was VERY excited.
Sunday morning I drove to DD to stage a short ride on the T4. I felt a bit out of sorts during the video and I think it showed.
Most of the afternoon was spent editing videos which got to be a bit too much eventually. I still have more work to do but it can wait. I will be leaving in a few minutes to go attend a comedy show JP, Cindy’s brother is in. I attended one other of his shows a month or two after Cindy and I split. A lot has transpired since then for everyone. All I want to do is drink a few beers and laugh. I could use a break from the serious side of life for a little bit.
I hurried home last night to quickly do the chores and feed Elsa before loading her back up in the Tesla to drive up to Babcock Ranch to pick up Sadie whom I am watching for a few days while Ali and Shugs are out of town. Shugs dad and girlfriend are staying at their house. They have a place on Fort Myers Beach that took heavy damage from Ian. They told me crazy stories about what they both experienced and some of their neighbors went through that decided to stay put. One of those stories included swimming through storm surge to grab on to the railing of a house that was still intact, insane.
I had a quick bite to eat but didn’t stay that long as I had an hour drive back. Sadie is really struggling. Her ability to walk is minimal, her one eye looks like it has a cataract and the other eye has some type of infection that we are giving her eye drops for. I feel bad for her as you can tell she wants to do all the things she used to do, her body just won’t allow it.
So I reached out to the med center repeatedly yesterday, wanting to get the results from the CT test I took. The entire day passed without that happening, which annoys me. Early this morning I got a call from them saying they wanted me to come in to go over the results. I said I would prefer to just get them over the phone but they insisted it had to be done via an office visit, which I arranged for later this afternoon. So my knee jerk reaction was that this meant there must be something bad in the CT, which could be the case. However I have had to go into the office for other test results as well which weren’t necessarily bad results. My buddy at work said recently he had to go in there just to get the results from his X-ray, which was clear. They wouldn’t tell him on the phone. So my hope is this is just a HIPPA thing where they are not allowed to disclose medical information on the phone. Mid-afternoon I’ll be turning the page, one direction or another.
This weekend I have small projects around the house. I would like to continue on cleaning up the chicken area. I can repurpose most of the Ring cameras that are out there and get rid of some more things that were only useful in my role as a chicken keeper. I may go to a comedy show that Cindy’s brother is participating in locally. I went to another one of his shows shortly after the split and it was a good time. I could use a good laugh or two.
Last night I decided I wanted to get the mowing done to make my upcoming 3 day weekend less chore filled. With the amount of daylight in the evenings in mid-October this is becoming less and less viable. I wound up completing roughly the last half of the mowing via headlights and floodlights. In addition to it being dark it was chilly. Our first real cold front of the season has blown in which I love, however the temperatures around 60 combined with a steady wind had me quite cold, even with wearing a hoodie. The warm shower last night was welcomed. I dont think weeknight mowing is going be a thing for much longer. Luckily this colder weather should also put the brakes on the growth rate of the yard. The picture is from the seat of the tractor.
