Last night I reskinned my Secret Labs gaming chair. I have had this chair for a very long time. If I were to guess I would say 7-8 years. It’s my favorite chair ever but the surface of it is deteriorating. The chair itself feels just as supportive as ever though so I decided to cover it with a skin from Secret Labs.
The skin I got I believe was for a newer model than my chair but it fits good enough and will extend the life of the chair another few years so it was a good investment of $90. When I do get another chair eventually I guarantee it will be another one from Secret Labs.
Last night I passed out while watching TV at 8:30. I awoke at 11:30 disoriented, thinking it was the next morning. The shock to my system woke me up to the point where I watched another couple hours of TV until I fell back asleep.
Part of the reason I passed out early is I think I am getting somewhat sick. I have had a dry cough for a couple days and this morning I woke up with a sore throat. I am hoping my body repels whatever is going on before things get too bad. The last thing I want is to be sick for the holidays.
The next time you hear from me my 58th birthday will have come and gone. It’s such a big number, so big that it feels impossible for that to be my actual age. I’ll keep fighting the good fight and try to keep a youthful attitude, energy and curiosity for as long as I possibly can. There is no other option in my book.
This Sunday night I am planning on doing a holiday live stream. In this stream I plan to give away my barely used Inmotion V8S. I bought the wheel in April of 2024 during a nice sale they had on Amazon. My thought at that time was it would be a good wheel to potentially teach people on. Well the reality is the wheel has sat basically unused since I filmed my initial videos on it. When I checked last night it has less than 37 miles on it.
I have given away a lot of stuff on my streams over the years but never anything remotely close to a wheel. These cost $600 new. Could I sell it instead? Of course I could but for whatever reason the idea of giving it away to someone in the continental United States is more appealing to me. I am expecting the lure of a free wheel to pull in a lot of eyeballs Sunday night.
You will recall that I went through a very long process of converting every wi-fi device in my home over to the new fiber network. I had to redo dozens of things. I thought I had them all handled but when I saw my last water/sewer bill it reminded me of one I neglected to change, my smart irrigation controller. When the device has no internet access where it uses it to do things like skip watering cycles when rain is predicted, it becomes very dumb. The high utility bill brought my oversight into view. As far as difficulty in changing wifi goes the controller was actually very easy to change. Hopefully it will help trim those water bills just a bit.
Ever since Trump became president back in 2016 I had struggles accepting that people in my circle of family, friends and co-workers had signed on to supporting a man that relies on telling people what they want to hear while obfuscating reality with continuous and steadfast lying. These are good, intelligent, educated people that supported him. For some they excused his childish, ego maniacal and ignorant actions because they felt that bottom line, his policies would be better for themselves, personally.
When 2024 rolled around and he got reelected it was primarily on the back of people that tired of the high prices of nearly everything, a trend that skyrocketed during and after covid. Trump promised amazing prosperity for all when he would wave his gold encrusted wand. Of course reality has proven to be much, much different. This is the new norm though apparently. As long as you say things are great reality no longer matters, numbers no longer matter, facts no longer matter. It’s a dangerous place to exist when there is a segment of the population that follow Trump’s every word as ordained, believing he can truly do know wrong. That speech he gave in the Poconos was a cringe factory. To have that be the face of the country is so disappointing.
I read a quote about the reality of people that have this blind allegiance to all things Trump. It hit’s home.
We understand that they have dug in their heels so deeply, they will not be moved by anything: not facts or data or truth or their own eyes. We understand that there is no political scandal massive enough, no social media rant reckless enough, no act illegal enough, no legislation predatory enough to alter their allegiance.
In my nearly 6 decades on the planet I do not recall this type of devout following of a presidential figure. I hope to never witness it again.
Keep in mind that to me this isn’t a republican/democrat thing. I never have voted strictly along party lines. This is a “what values actually matter to you in society” sort of thing. If you are a “greed is good” or “trample the weak, hurdle the dead” kind of person you are content right now. I accept that I have no power to change the minds of steadfast Trump supporters and will never ostracize someone solely for that reason as long as they don’t try to push that agenda onto my table. I just look forward to the day where intelligent conversation can once again be a focal point of resolution of issues instead of name calling, personal insults, and doing one thing while saying another.
I saw an article where ChatGPT was asked to list the top 5 most corrupt presidents in history along with reasons for their ranking. Of course Big Don was number one just like he craves in most situations. He just keeps on “winning”.
Last night I finished up my Christmas card work for 2025. In total I mailed out a little less than 30 cards. The funny thing is out of those 30 I send out I doubt I will get even half of that in return. I don’t really care about the inequity as the season is all about giving, not receiving. It felt good to complete the task. It feels equally good to have the vast majority of my Christmas related responsibilities wrapped up two weeks prior to the big day.
As I mentioned on Monday the deep aching pain in my right leg has not dissipated. It’s a weird injury though as I was able to do a full lower body weighted workout yesterday without major issue. My knee is not swollen, I still have normal range of motion. The pain drifts around from my right hip, down my quad and currently into the left side of my knee. Ironically the worst pain is when I am lying down. When sleeping the only position that works is on my back with a pillow under my legs. If I try to roll onto either side the aching in my knee intensifies to the point where it will wake me up. I am hoping that like many ailments/injuries of mine, this will simply go away. It has already taken me off my regularly scheduled pickleball session for today which I am not happy about, at all.
Last night I stayed up to watch the Eagles disappointing loss to the Chargers in LA. It was a game that was frustrating to watch as the Eagles had a mix of big plays balanced out by a bunch of big mistakes. The defense was good overall but still got run on pretty badly, especially towards the end by Herbert when it really mattered. Jalen Hurts had a total of 5 turnovers with four interceptions and a fumble. To be fair two of the interceptions were batted balls but still, it was a pretty lousy outing where he completed only half of his passes and amassed a QB rating of 31.2, which is awful.
Saquon had a good night statistically amassing over 100 yards for only the second time this year but again, it was deceiving. Most of those yards came on two long runs. The rest of the time he was running into the backs of offensive lineman and falling down mostly. Unless the Eagles can establish consistently that they can run the ball, they are screwed. Teams want to make Jalen Hurts beat them with his arm for a reason. He is slow to make reads and holds onto the ball longer than any starting QB in the league statistically. He NEEDS a running game to help set him up.
The game went to OT, ending on yet another turnover as Hurts was picked off inside the Chargers 20 yard line. The Birds have the soft part of their schedule coming up but even so, I don’t see any easy wins based on what they have been showing on the field. The game did not end until close to midnight. I am quite tired today. I had to watch the game in the kitchen since that is the only spot I have access to my OTA antenna. I need to get that connected to my bedroom as well. The kitchen is not the most comfortable spot to spend 3 hours watching football.
I had a dentist appointment first thing this morning. There has been a bit of an upheaval at my dentist office. Both my normal hygienist and dentist are out on leave so I had two people I never saw before. I apparently have two teeth that are going to need work done which did not make me happy either. I put that work off until after the holidays.
I wanted to talk briefly about all of the talk about how the US is targeting and blowing up suspected drug runner boats. Pete Hegseth has been beating his chest about this operation until it was revealed that there was at least one instance of the military going back to kill survivors that were hanging onto a boat which could be classified as a war crime. Trump has been making ridiculous quotes along the lines of each boat that is blown up saves 25,000 American lives. JFC come on, how stupid does he believe the American public is?
But my problem actually sits above these actions of targeting of ships that may or may not be involved in drug trafficking. My issue is with the inconsistency of logic. Whenever there is a mass gun shooting a popular stance by the NRA is guns don’t kill people, the people firing them do which is a true statement. They argue that despite the ability of guns to kill/maim, ultimately it is the responsibility of the people that use them. Remember, I am now a multiple gun owner and a big proponent of self accountability/responsibility.
So why is it that when it comes to drugs, people are absolved of this same responsibility? Are American citizens being forced to take illegal drugs? Are they held down against their will while they are forced to swallow a pill or inject something into their body? Of course not, they make the choice. So how does labeling drug providers as terrorists and targeting them for execution suddenly make drug consumers more apt to not take drugs? The simple answer is, it doesn’t. This is just one of the countless inconsistencies and hypocrisies that exist within our government and society in general. Don’t get me started on selective adherence to teachings in the bible, cripes. The world is circling the bowl.
Saturday morning I knew there was tournament taking place at the courts I normally play at but I figured there would be some courts still open for rec play. When I got there I was told all the courts were allocated for the tournament so I resigned myself to just watching some games as I drank my coffee. As I watched I noticed that there were a ton of courts not being used. Perhaps they did not get the type of turnout they anticipated. A few people came up to me and asked if I wanted to go play on one of the courts, I said sure. We figured if someone kicked us off for a tournament game we could move to another empty court.
I wound up playing with the same woman the entire time. She was athletic and had solid skills so it was fun to play with her. In total we played seven games and won five of them. It was nice to get a bunch of games in when at first I thought it was going to be a wash out.
There was some unwelcomed side effects, my right leg/knee/hip did not feel good the rest of the weekend. It felt like a combination of the IT band related pain I have been battling off and on for almost a year and pain deep inside the knee. For a couple months I had been doing pretty well with the lower body issues but after my P6 demo tour, all of that riding which included hopping onto my right leg again and again, my right leg especially was not feeling great. Of course I continued playing pickleball which didn’t do much to help the situation.
Saturday night I had a near constant dull ache that was in the leg/knee/hip even when laying in bed. I had to have my leg in a certain position to escape the sensation. It was pretty miserable. I took Advil just to be able to dull the pain enough to sleep. During the day Sunday the aching was a near constant companion. I am hoping this is just a temporary thing. There have been many, many times where I wake up one morning and pains have magically disappeared. I’m counting on that scenario playing out once again.
I added two inflatables to my exterior Xmas decorations this weekend. I have not used inflatables to decorate since I moved here in 2023. The small Santa and Christmas tree are a simple but nice addition to the holiday house appearance IMO.
I am making nice progress with my holiday gift buying. I am nearly done purchasing items and I have wrapped the stuff that has been delivered thus far. Staying ahead of the holiday curve has always been a feeling I enjoy.
Sunday afternoon I attended a celebration of life event for my old boss who passed away unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 65. There were a LOT of people there, more than I anticipated. Although I had very little contact with her in the decade since she retired she was a great boss to me and obviously touched a lot of people along the way based on the turnout. I got to see some other retired employees that I had not seen in many, many years at the event as well which was a nice bonus. It’s crazy just how fast the years have flown by. During the ceremony someone recalled a saying Shirley had on her desk, it was along the lines of “Live like you are going to die tomorrow, learn like you are going to live forever” Pretty solid advice.
What I thought was the annual HOA meeting last night turned out to only be an annual budget meeting due to stipulations in our by laws we did not realize. It was not well attended but the good news was we approved using a property management company to assist in HOA duties in 2026. Ironically I had another issue yesterday after work with one of the individuals that was the reason we started considering a property management company in the first place. Their role will be to make sure everything is done by the book while ensuring that if there is a problem household in the neighborhood they will be the initial point of contact and will hopefully shut down some of the ridiculous behavior the board has had to deal with in 2025. I repeatedly have had to subdue my desires to respond strongly to what has happened this year. I would have a field day picking it apart, yet I won’t. Letting someone scream incomprehensibly into a vacuum sometimes is the best response there is. It took awhile for me to learn that.
Last night I finally finished my tallest 3D print ever, a Christmas lamp. If I didn’t tell you it was 3D printed you probably would not know, the model is that good. I put it in the small covered area by my front door as I did with my Spidey pumpkin. It’s a nice addition to my Xmas decorations.
This weekend has no big to do’s on it. I am about 75% done with my Christmas shopping list, I hope by this time next week I am in the 90 percentile range. I do need to do my annual Christmas card ritual as well sometime soon since the USPS is slower than a snail nowadays.
Somehow I went through the last decade without ever watching a single episode of Stranger Things. That changed recently when I watched the first four episodes of season 5 with my girlfriend. As you can imagine, not seeing the previous four seasons made me more than a little lost as to what the hell was going on. The final four episodes are supposed to release on Christmas.
I have been going back and watching the show from season one to get some context and appreciation for the show that so many people have talked about over the years. Right now I am on episode 3 of season two. I have a ways to go yet.
Even harder than not knowing anything about Stranger Things is not being aware of the awful, awful state of us politics in 2025. Trumps first term set the bar for inflammatory, insane headlines coming from him or something he had done. It seemed like it would be nearly impossible to ever have such a four year term ever again in US politics. Well so far in his first year of term two the bar has definitely been raised. The flow of lunacy has gone from a steady stream to a raging river, ready to crest the shores.
The end result of this has been the numbing of reason, accountability, decency, critical thought and outrage. I mean just how outraged can one actually be when every single day there is a new thing that is beyond belief to digest? Childish, immature, and ignorant behavior has now become ingrained in US politics thanks to the rise of Trump. Hell it has infected society itself.
When you watch the congressional panels that seek to hold some of Trump’s disciples accountable for the circus going on like Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, or Kash Patel it is maddening. The default strategy it seems when asked a question is to never attempt to answer it, instead pivoting to a list of attacks they have prepared for the people asking the questions. Nothing gets accomplished or answered, ever, keeping the public in the dark just as intended. This strategy of answering hard questions with attacks was again something popularized by Trump. Let me give you an example.
Imagine I saw you take $50 out of a cash register. I stop you and tell you I saw you take the money and ask you why you did it. After denying what I just saw, your reply to me is that you heard everyone is saying that I can’t get a girlfriend because I am fat and ugly. There then is a group of zombies near by that start clapping enthusiastically for your reply. That is US politics. This occurs within both parties to be clear but is especially core to the MAGA clan.
Sure there are a few people that have snapped out of the trance and stopped taking every word out Trump’s mouth as gospel as if Jesus Christ himself spoke. But there are so many still that just refuse to divert from Trumpism because they are more afraid of being wrong than looking at the big picture. He truly is the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain and all that remains is an old, insecure, immature man-child screaming into a megaphone. He closely follows the Joseph Stalin playbook where “a lie, told often enough, eventually becomes the truth”.
It’s been a long time since I have addressed the madness and I don’t intend to continue doing so as it is a fruitless endeavor. I just hope we make it to 2028 without a complete implosion of anything and everything that we once held as core values. Maybe AI will take over by then.
Last night I dropped off the P6 to UPS for it to travel to the next reviewer. Lifting the 130+lb huge box into the back of my truck solo took significant effort. Luckily I have a small hand truck that made wheeling the box into the UPS store much easier than hoisting it into the truck. Part of me is sad to see the best wheel in the world leave, part of me is relieved. I spent a lot of time and effort reviewing the wheel and as I mentioned, all that riding had a negative impact on my body as well.
I have started the process of checking off my Christmas gift buying list. I’m probably only a third done so far. I am hoping by a week from now I will be basically done. Just as I am normally when faced with most tasks that require action, I would rather get them done sooner rather than later. The advent of gift cards and the accessibility of online shopping has made Christmas shopping much more manageable than it once was.
Tomorrow we have another HOA meeting on the docket where a number of things are supposed to be decided/approved. I am not quite sure how it’s going to go as both the president and vice-president plan to resign with no heir apparent visible. In addition we are supposed to vote on bringing on a property management company to help run things. To me, enlisting them is absolutely necessary since there is not a lot of interest in other residents to perform these duties. I got recruited to the board not realizing most of the current members were planning to jump ship. It’s going to be an interesting meeting.
Here are random thoughts about the 9 days that have transpired since I last posted. The following does not follow any chronological order or defined structure.
I really dug into the Inmotion P6 that I have had to demo for the last couple weeks producing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 videos during that time period. The highlights included me covering 77 miles during the range test and topping out just under 50 MPH on my speed testing. I really love the wheel and it proved why it’s the best wheel available by a large margin right now. I may find one in my garage down the road if I can offset the big cost through sale of other wheels I own.
On Black Friday I took some time to replace a few fence boards that were broken and/or badly warped. I could not find picket fencing of this size at Home Depot or Lowes so I had to just buy the lumber and cut them to size and shape. I may wind up doing that entire front section of the fence eventually for uniformity sake.
I had a major change in my great room. I have had the same couch/loveseat for somewhere around 10 years, if not longer. They made the move with me to the new house.
The imitation leather was badly worn and I had ideas of replacing them for awhile now. Well I replaced them but how it happened was unexpected. I was browsing couches on FB and saw someone listed what you see here for $200. It was basically brand new. When I met the sellers they explained they bought the couch but then realized it did not fit the space they had available well so they bought something else.
The couch is not high end obviously but it was comfortable enough and I was able to get it all in the back of my Tacoma in one trip. I like the chaise style seating it offers and Elsa does as well. The new sofa takes up much less space than the old two piece arrangement and I kind of like it that way.
I tried selling the two old couches dirt cheap but got no offers so over the weekend I drug them both out to the curb and listed them for free. One of the two pieces was picked up, the other may be destined for the landfill. The sofa is just part of the changes in the house lately which also includes a proper kitchen dining table as well as utilizing the kitchen wall mounted TV set up that was pre-existing.
I also upgraded the OTA antenna that the TV is connected to. The compact indoor antenna I mounted in the attic worked pretty well but was not powerful enough to pull in the NBC and Fox signals because of distance. I bought and installed a bigger legit antenna in the attic which corrected that issue allowing me to now pull in signal from those towers which are over 50 miles away.
I had the displeasure of watching the Eagles suck not once but twice. Blowing the game with the Cowboys after exploding to a 21-0 second quarter lead was embarrassing. It was like once the other team makes a few adjustments the offense has zero ability to counter.
The Bears game was even worse. The game did not reflect just how badly the Eagles were outplayed based on the 24-15 score. The defense was porous and allowed not one but two of the Bears running backs to gain over 100 yards while Saquon Barkley once again just could not get anything going. With the two ugly losses there are a lot of people pointing the finger at Jalen. I think this was always lurking under the surface as there are aspects of Jalen’s game and personality that a lot of fans don’t love.
He isn’t a fiery leader. Most of the time he has the same stoic expression whether things are going good or bad which is not what Philly fans like. They want a QB that lives and dies on the field and expresses that emotion. With Barkley not being able to run consistently this year it has exposed more of the flaws in Jalen’s game, namely holding onto the ball forever (slowest average release of any QB in the league), and a style of play that seems to be more focused on not making mistakes instead of making plays.
Surely he is far from the only problem. In the Cowboys game they committed something like 14 penalties which clearly impacted the outcome of the game. The offensive line seems to no longer be able to run block. The defense was bad against the Bears and even the tush push seems to have lost it’s magic. I can only hope we are not seeing the beginning of a monumental collapse like 2023.
I played a decent amount of pickleball during my time off. I have had some knee issues as a result of riding over 100 miles on the P6. Getting on and off the 112 pound wheel again and again is rough on me. That translated into me not feeling great while playing although I did still play both Saturday and Sunday this weekend.
I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner that my girlfriend prepared with way more food than I could imagine. Overall it was a great extended holiday break where I repeatedly felt thankful for how 2025 has worked out for me thus far. I’m looking to focusing on making being happy the new normal going forward.
Last night I did my first real ride on the Inmotion P6 that I picked up on Sunday for testing. It took very little time for me to feel why this wheel has gotten the amount of accolades that it has. Despite being a very heavy wheel at 112 pounds it feels light on it’s feet once you start moving. It feels like a high end sports car with the best feeling suspension I have ever experienced on an EUC. The video will tell the story. The great thing is I am off work until after Thanksgiving so I will have a lot of opportunities to ride the wheel and get a true sense of what it is about. My only concern is I will love it so much that I will feel compelled to buy one for myself.
I had yet another 3D printer impulse buy yesterday, buying the new Bambu Lab P2S that became available. It is the upgrade to the P1S which I currently own. It has a bunch of improvements over it’s predecessor yet costs the same. My plan is to sell the P1S to offset some of the expense while upgrading my 3D printer farm at the same time.
As I mentioned I am off until the Monday after Thanksgiving. I have no worries about having a multitude of things to keep me busy, entertained and content. I may pop in here a couple times during that hiatus, I may not. If not have a great Thanksgiving!!
