Last night I was eating dinner at the table and I hear a knock at the door, the back sliding door. It startled the F out of me. I pop out of my seat and see Shugs walking back to the screen door to let in Sadie. I totally forgot I had Sadie duty this weekend, I had it my head it was next weekend. Evidently he knocked on the front door but I didn’t hear it. Sadie looked happy but super gimpy which unfortunately is the new normal. I talked to Shugs a bit, this trip is to South Dakota, another in their long series of random destinations. He told me the house in Babcock now has the electrical wiring done and has piles of drywall on site. As always it was good to see Shugs, even briefly.
There has been a sudden resurgence in my 3D store sales. It’s directly connected to a shipment of wheels that finally arrived from China. As a direct result I have four of my printers running round the clock with a backlog of things to still build. It’s a pleasant change as in recent months the revenue stream was almost as dry as the Colorado river.
This weekend I need to try to get that new vent fan working in the master bathroom after I “professionally” splice in a new receptacle for it. I have a lot of 3D store related tasks to keep moving and I may just find myself sitting at a bar alone on Saturday night again, who knows?
I was pretty down in the dumps after losing/burying Fiona in the early AM hours. One of the things I was concerned with was how the lone surviving hen, Kathy would react to being by herself. I have read/heard multiple times that barnyard animals are communal beings and do not react well to being alone. I did something most would see as crazy as a result, I bought a fake chicken.
This chicken was on Amazon and was roughly the size of a small bird. My thought process was I could move it around the yard and put it on the perch with Kathy at night to give her semblance of company. I may be delusional and just imparting my own emotions onto a chicken. Maybe she won’t care at all. I guess we will find out when the fake fowl arrives in several days.
Last night I felt like clearing some of darkness in my mind related to Fiona and a few other things. I grabbed my Z10 and Elsa and headed to the park. I gave Elsa a choice if she wanted to walk which she declined so I just let her sleep in the truck while I did laps around the park for maybe a half hour.
Getting out on a PEV definitely has therapeutic qualities for me which is why I should make the effort to do it as much as possible.
Yesterday after work I came home expecting to find Fiona dead in the chicken run. When I walked out there I saw she had moved a few feet but was not moving, I thought she was gone. However as I came over to her I saw she was still with us, barely. I scooped her up and carried her inside the coop. I grabbed one of the unused nesting boxes with wood chips in it and placed it on the floor. I gently placed her in it, trying to place her in manner that looked comfortable. I sat on the floor next to Fiona for awhile, just talking and petting her, she was too wiped out to even open her eyes at that point.
I went back inside and decided I needed to keep busy. I grabbed the second new bathroom vent fan that just arrived and figured I could get it installed in the master bathroom in 15 minutes or less, as advertised. Well once again the home builders half ass sub contractors were on display. The cage for this vent was poorly installed as well. When I unplugged the old fan the receptacle itself fell apart in my hand, great.
After examining it I saw a small plastic tab was broken off. For a few minutes I entertained the idea of trying to rig it using electrical tape to hold the plug together but thankfully common sense kicked in. Half ass solutions where electricity is involved is never a good idea. I grabbed the receptacle and headed to the local hardware store although I knew the odds of them having it were slim to none. As expected I struck out. When I got home I did find the part on Amazon which I ordered. It will be here in a few days but in the meantime I am also stopping at Home Depot on the way home to see if they may have the part. Just like the guest room fan, the old unit was disgusting, covered in gray fuzzy material.
When I went back out to put the chickens to bed I thought Fiona might have passed but again she was still holding on by a whisper. After some tearful moments I told her goodbye as I was certain she would not endure the night. This time I was right. When I went out to the coop this morning she was indeed gone which of course made me sad but also relieved that she was not suffering any longer. I decided I wanted to bury her immediately despite it being pitch black. I grabbed a flashlight and my shovel and carried her corpse to the burial ground in the far rear of the property.
The funeral went as they always do for me, tear/sorrow filled. Each time a bird passes I feel a weight of responsibility that I can not escape. Because of the burial my normal morning routine was streamlined greatly. I slammed a couple pop tarts for breakfast and kept moving at FF speed. I somehow managed to arrive at the office a few minutes early which was unexpected. It’s going to be a somber sort of day. Kathy is officially the queen of the Royal Rumble, the last standing bird of a flock that at it’s maximum included 13 birds.
So I have been getting comments from different sources recently asking if I had lost weight, the most recent of them coming yesterday from a woman at the gym that I had not seen much of in a few months. The answer I give out is yes, I have lost some weight, somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-9 lbs. I actually saw a 7 as the second digit of my weight for the first time after my road bike ride on Friday. I haven’t weighed in the 170’s in forever, the last time after the brutal colonoscopy “cleanse”.
For the better part of the last 5 years I recall mentioning I wished I weighed closer to 180lbs instead of 190lbs however it seems that a lot of the weight loss shows up first in my face, making people think there is something wrong with me. (maybe there is) As far as the reason for the loss I am sure it is multi-faceted. The most obvious reason is Cindy was a good cook and made sure I had a steady caloric flow. Some of the stresses I have been dealing with surely play a role as well and as I said, I have had a general desire to lose a few pounds as well. My strength levels at the gym have stayed similar mostly to what they were at a heavier body weight so to me that is a win. However if I keep getting commentary asking if I am ok I’m not sure if I need to start pounding more twinkies or just deal with being seen as skinny.
So the news with Fiona has been going downhill. Over the weekend I got her interested in eating with some melon and corn I bought at the grocery store but by the time I got home last night I could tell she was fading fast. She didn’t even try to fight me when I tried to clean her rear end. When I put her on the perch last night I placed her in the center section where there is lots of support. When I went out there this morning I found her on the floor near the side of the perch. Evidently she moved and then fell off. To be quite honest part of me wished she broke her neck during the fall to end her misery.
She was really out of it at this point. I gently carried her to the chicken run and let her sit there. She did not move an inch and started tucking her head under her wing, a visual I know all too well. I fully expect to come home after work to find that she has passed on. It’s crazy to me how a week and a half ago she was still more or less normal and now she is a faint shadow of herself.
As I mentioned, of all of the chickens I have had, Fiona is one of the least friendly birds and I never really felt close to her. However as she has fallen ill and I have tried to help her the feeling of closeness comes back as one living creature tries to help another. When you raise an animal from birth basically (1 week old) through their death it is a very difficult thing, especially for someone like me. I can only hope she passes peacefully. That will just leave Kathy and me, ironic.
I got back out on my bike Friday night once the AC guy left from doing the PM on my system. It was the first time in two weeks. There was a strong headwind after the turn around point that sapped my energy pretty significantly. I pulled back into the driveway and checked my numbers, I still managed to keep the average pace over 17mph, barely. I counted it as a win.
On Saturday I tended to a minor list of to do’s. Late in the afternoon I found myself with some time until I was scheduled to start live streaming at 8:30. On a whim I decided to head to Brooks Burgers for dinner, by myself. As far as I can recall, I do not think I have ever sat at a bar alone to eat/drink. When I mentioned this on social media some people were in disbelief.
The experience overall was good. I just chilled out , drank a few beers and enjoyed my meal. About half way through three attractive women whom I would place somewhere between 40-50 sat down next to me. Of course I did not try to shoehorn my way into their conversation, it’s just not in my DNA. They had some live music going on which added to the overall feel good vibes. I walked out of there pleasantly surprised with the experience and will likely be repeating it more often going forward.
So thanks to the few beers, when I got home I was revved up and ready to start the live stream. I actually started it a half hour early, just because. During the three hour plus live stream there was a lot of good energy. The stream was initiated by my reaching 12,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel. As part of the celebration I consumed the very last Zima I had in my possession which was somewhere around three years old at this point.
Even though the Zima taste has now been altered with time to something that is undoubtedly gross, I still felt a bit of sadness realizing this may very well be the last Zima I ever drink. Zima is no longer in production and unlikely to come back. I continued my Zima tribute by wearing my Zima t-shirt Cindy made in Sunday’s video. Instead of going into the recycling bin I washed out the bottle and put it on a shelf as a reminder of an important chapter in my personal alcohol journey.
I in addition to the Zima I drank more alcohol which had me pretty loose on the broadcast which I think is pretty apparent. I didn’t get to bed until way too late.
I woke up Sunday morning feeling pretty shitty from the drinking and late bed time. By mid-day I had shaken off most of the cobwebs. Mid-afternoon I decided to head out in the truck with the GT despite skies that were overcast and potentially foreboding. I wanted to take the GT to the old Golden Gate golf course, a place I had been to several times but not for many months. I brought along my Skydio as well, hoping to get some cool aerial footage. I did get some footage but only a very limited amount. The drone was acting buggy from the get go, unable to get a GPS lock and losing sight of me repeatedly. I’m not sure what the issue was.
I had a good ride but when I got back to the truck I decided I wanted to do more. I drove another 5 or 6 miles to the Naples Greenway and rode there for the second time in as many weeks. During both rides I took pictures, a lot of them, posting them to my Instagram (@duf67) I guess I was feeling creative. Grabbing my afternoon DD on the way home made for a near picture perfect sequence for me.
It was a good weekend for me, better than what has become par for the course the last few years. I can only hope the trajectory keeps pointing upward.
Last night as sunset was approaching I made a decision out of the blue to go ride the Onewheel GT around the park. I do very little night riding and I don’t know that I ever rode a OneWheel after dark. It was a good time to start as any. The temperature was perfect and the park was alive with activity, but not enough to be overbearing. I rolled for over an hour and loved every minute of it. It’s part of a conscious effort I have been making to keep the nose up and pointing forward toward a happy future, wherever that path may lead.
Anyone that knows me well knows my love of animals of all sorts. I feel a connection that is hard to explain. If I make it to retirement I could definitely see me volunteering doing something to benefit them. This post in fact has no topics not related to animals.
So let’s start with the animal that is the closest to my heart, sweet Elsa. Her and I have always had an extremely strong bond but since my relationship split that bond has become more of a weld. Without her I am not quite sure how I would have maintained a degree of sanity over the last half year plus. This picture was taken last night while I was folding laundry at 10PM. In the middle of it she decided to use a folded shirt as a pillow with a look that said to me “can we just go to bed now…”
The next picture is one of the two cats that our department has sort of adopted over the last year. My buddy and ex-boss Don noticed back then there was a cute little black cat that was napping out in the AC compressor yard outside of our offices pretty consistently. He bought some food and put it out there. We were both pleased to see he started eating it although he was terrified of humans. He/she would hide until we left the area.
Over time two more black cats have joined the rotation periodically, the most recent addition being the one in the picture who has white feet and belly. Over time we upgraded them from paper bowls to actual cat dishes. We also started putting water out as well.
Since Don retired a month ago the cats have become primarily my responsibility which I don’t mind. The white footed cat is increasingly less scared of me. In fact when I put food out now he will hang only a couple feet away until I am done. He still looks ready to run at a moment’s notice but I hope one day I actually get to pet him. I also noticed he spent a lot of the day after eating just laying on the concrete slab under the compressor. I immediately felt badly and found a small outdoor, water resistant pet bed on Amazon. I put it out there last week, worried they would be scared of it and not use it. However by the end of the first day white paws was sitting/sleeping on it which made me happy.
The last animal story of the day is not a happy one. Fiona, one of the two remaining chickens is following an all too familiar downward spiral. The descent starts when the chicken has nothing but diarrhea for a prolonged period of time. The end result of this is her rear end getting caked in dried mess. I have already blasted her butt with a hose and/or soaked her in a tub four or five times. Next comes a lack of eating and lethargy. When I take her off the perch in the morning I can clearly tell she has lost weight. It is pretty clear to me what is coming down the road. Fiona NEVER had a health issue her entire life. To see her going downhill makes me sad, despite her consistently grumpy disposition towards me and everyone else her entire life.
Kathy, the other hen is a freak of nature. She has had runny poop for years and at one point had gone pretty deep down that same spiral to only bounce back on her own. Since then day in and day out she has been fat, happy, and hungry, despite being the oldest hen around, a model for chicken seniors around the world.
One of the very early projects I did when I got into 3D printing was making an Octoprint box for my CR-10. This consisted of a Raspberry Pi with a special version of Debian Linux on it. Octoprint let’s you remotely control your printers, monitor the progress with a camera and much more. I used it pretty heavily early on. However my CR-10 became problematic and I started moving on to other printers, leaving my Octoprint box abandoned. I am thinking about doing a new Raspberry Pi project with one of my Prusa’s but just thinking about this new project made me think about the good old Octoprint box, which at this point is probably 5+ years old. I decided I wanted to try to update/revive it.
I spent a good portion of last night trying to do that. My linux knowledge is very slim so I relied heavily on Google. I was able to update parts of the install but other things would simply not work. I finally gave up and decided to just blow away the current install and reload a new Octoprint image on it today. I look forward to using it again although my 3D store printing operation has ground to a near standstill recently with very minimal orders.
You may recall a story I told about an order that was destined for France. Instead of going there the post office instead sent the package to the west coast and then returned it to my mailbox 2 weeks later with no explanation. Luckily I got the 50+ dollars it cost me to ship it refunded by Stamps.com. I contacted the buyer and asked him if he wanted me to try to send it again, he did.
So this time the package did actually cross the Atlantic Ocean and wind up in France. However when the customer checked with his local post office he was told the package was mistakenly sent to the wrong city. Well evidently it never made it to the correct city and instead the incredibly dirty oversized padded envelope was back in my mailbox with a sticker checked FD. I later found out that means “False Destination”. I verified the address with the customer, he said it was correct.
So I officially gave up, refunding the amount of the sale and the $50+ shipping cost I paid. I wrote it off to an expensive lesson as well as made the determination to never ship to France again as I have had similar issues in the past there. It looks like the package had a rough life in it’s thousands of miles journey. When I opened it up the parts inside had some damage along with some weird wear marks. I guess if I ever have a scratch and dent sale these stands can be part of it.
It has been perfectly cool in the mornings the last few days with temps in the 50’s. On Friday after work I knocked out the weeding instead of going on a bike ride. The reason for doing so was to allow me to get the property mowed early in the morning. It was very nice doing so while the air was cool. The reason I was advancing my normal schedule was I made arrangements to go back up to Babcock Ranch with Ali and Shugs to see the latest progress on their house.
Elsa gets ridiculously excited when she see Ali, Shugs, Sadie and Ferdie. She was sprinting around in circles, jumping and just being a total spaz. It’s very cute. I brought the Tesla so we took it to Babcock. When we got there we had lunch at the Lake House a nice restaurant in the town center. Evidently they are pretty severely understaffed, as a result it took a long time to get through the meal. However we were outside overlooking the lake in beautiful weather so it didn’t bother me much.
There has been a ton of progress on their place since I saw it last where the house was basically just a foundation. There are now walls, a roof, and the inside is studded out. The lines for natural gas and water have been roughed in as well. It was cool to both see the house and see Ali and Shuggs excitement for it. I think they will be very happy there.
The Saturday switch up meant I did my grocery shopping on Sunday with Elsa in tow of course. When I got back I decided to finally install the upgraded bathroom vent fan I bought from Costco a couple weeks prior. For as long as I have been in the house the guest room fan has annoyed me because the vent cover would not stay locked against the ceiling, despite my repeated efforts to rig it. Also the bearings in the motor would occasionally make a nasty squeal that would come and go.
Many times I thought about replacing the fan but for some reason I had it in my head it would be difficult to do. Well it turns out I was wrong. When I saw the label on the new fan boasted of an easy 10 minute installation I was skeptical. It turns out it is stupid easy and made me laugh that I avoided doing this for a decade or more. The new unit has a bigger motor yet is quieter however the biggest thing I like is the integrated LED light in the new fan which adds a lot more light to the space. Of course I shot a video about it just in case someone needs guidance on the stupid easy install.
Late Sunday afternoon I headed down to the Greenway again with my OneWheel GT to try out some of the other riding modes which can significantly change the way the board feels. The one mode, Flow, which I never tried but had heard about actually felt really good and might be my go to for most riding environments.
I was up late editing both videos. The weekend flew by but I came out of it with a better mindset than I have carried for awhile.
I have been going through a very aggravating circus with my dermatologist office. I had four spots cut for skin cancer testing several weeks ago. Two weeks ago I got a message to call the office for results. Over the last two weeks I have had multiple aggravating phone calls to them. Each time my hold time has been at least 15 minutes before I get to talk to someone, it’s nuts. So I was told all four spots were positive for skin cancer. For the first time ever one of them is squamous cell cancer. Every other instance I have ever had is basal cell.
So the reason I needed to keep going back and forth was initially they said they wanted to set up four different appointments to do this. I asked why that was necessary and I would much prefer fewer visits so there are fewer healing cycles. Well the best I could do was get them down to three sessions. They are going to do the two on the back of my neck/scalp at once but the two on the forehead will have their own cut and stitch sessions. This is all going to go down in the span of a week, the first session is May 2nd and the third surgery is May 9th. It isn’t going to be fun to be cut into repeatedly like that but at least my healing should happen at more or less the same time.
Last night after work I headed outside and got the weed whacking knocked out. Although doing this on a weeknight takes you right up to sunset it is nice to have it out of the way, allowing me to just sit my ass on the mower tomorrow. The other nice part of doing it late in the day is you escape the heat and sun, a large bonus.
This weekend besides mowing I may go out with Ali and Shugs to check out the progress on the house they are building. Elsa loves seeing them and it’s good for me to keep ejecting myself from the house, into the world. Now that some of my OneWheel GT injuries are healing up maybe I can get back out on a pickleball court again. The video I made about my calisthenics history is seeing surprising interest, I thought nobody would care. I was wrong.
There has been a sudden resurgence in my 3D store sales. It’s directly connected to a shipment of wheels that finally arrived from China. As a direct result I have four of my printers running round the clock with a backlog of things to still build. It’s a pleasant change as in recent months the revenue stream was almost as dry as the Colorado river.
