So it was cool to have my birthday on a Friday this year. I went home after work and got changed so we could head back out to Carrabbas for a birthday dinner. It seems that all of the sterilization of the Naples location over the years, most of which I have complained about repeatedly is evidently annoying other former patrons as well. Katie and Daniel were able to get immediately seated at 7PM which would have been WTF crazy a few years ago. A 90 minute wait on Friday night was not unusual.
Again some of the shortcomings of the chain were front and center during the meal. The wait staff which used to be very interesting, good, and stable since they made good money, has now become a carousel of faces. I never recognize anybody from one visit to the next. The guy we had as a server was in training and had another woman helping him. Even with tag teaming the table the service was sloppy and slow. The “glasses” the draft beer come in are ridiculously small, an obvious cost cutting/profit padding move. The reason glasses was in quotes is they don’t even use real glasses anymore, they are plastic. Plastic glasses break less = more $$$.
Our food at least was half decent and I was surprised they actually had staff sing happy birthday in Italian to me, another tradition that had been ditched a few years back. It was another subpar experience at what used to be my favorite local restaurant. That title clearly needs to be up for grabs.
So although the dinner was only so so we had a fun activity planned afterward. I had all of the PTV’s loaded up in the back of the Prius. We planned to go see the awesome Xmas light displays in the Victoria Park development on them. Cindy and I had checked out the lights a couple years ago cruising top down in the SSR and at the time I thought that was an awesome way to experience the sights and sounds. Well doing it on the EUC’s and MiniPros was way better.
We parked in a shopping center about a half mile or so from the development. Cindy had brought some battery powered mini-Xmas lights that she wrapped around each one of us to add to the festive spirit. Once we got into the development it was awesome. The degree of decoration on nearly every house was just great. People were really interested in us of course, wondering what the heck we were riding. We looked like rolling UFO’s.
Riding around all that traffic was a bit challenging at times but we managed ok, mostly staying on sidewalks but even when we were on the road the pace of traffic snaking through the development was very slow so it wasnt a huge deal. All four of us had a lot of fun. I could hardly believe we were riding until 10PM. Riding at night definitely is a different kind of cool. It was so much fun that we are hoping to get out on the wheels one more time this week after work out at Ave Maria.
On Saturday morning Cindy and I were outside early attending to some normal yard chores. We planned to have a pretty mundane day since we were supposed to do a nighttime Xmas 5k at 6PM. We picked up Sadie mid-morning and then took both dogs to Rural King to grab a couple things.
While we were eating lunch at home we were watching something on the DVR. I had saw Elsa go out the dog door early on in the show but didn’t give any thought to the fact I didn’t see her come back in. After the show was over we were looking for Elsa in the house and could not find her. I remembered I saw her go out on the lanai so I assumed she was still out there. When I went out there and told Cindy I didn’t see her, things got serious.
Cindy went into full fledged freak out mode. I had the far side door cracked as I was filling the pool with a hose. I quickly surmised that she pushed the door open. After calling her a couple times she came trotting up to the door, crisis averted, or so I thought until I looked at her face.
The left side of her snout looked like she was punched, it was visibly swollen. My first guess is she got stung by a bee. We have a certain weed in the grass that creates tons of tiny white flowers that the bees love. Elsa was acting normal otherwise but Cindy was in panic mode. My thought was we should ice her snout and give her Benadryl. Cindy was worried the allergic reaction could be severe so she contacted an emergency vet and took Elsa there immediately.
There evidently was another bite or sting on her back as well. The vet wound up giving her a couple shots. By the time they got home the swelling had gone down and Elsa seemed back to normal.
There was an unfortunate casualty from the Elsa scare, our Xmas 5K. The vet said we needed to observe Elsa for a few hours to make sure all was well. We certainly couldn’t leave her home alone while we did the 5K. I was really looking forward to the race and paid a pretty steep price for the entry fee. I have NEVER not participated in a race I registered for so missing the event was very disappointing. Cindy had picked up our bib and race shirt already the day before but we missed out on a pretty epic finisher medal by not being there. Oh well, sometimes things just don’t work out even though I am not all that good at accepting that situation. Instead of running we spent Saturday night eating pizza and watching DVR content.
Since we missed the 5K I absolutely had to get out running Sunday morning to atone for it. I was not thrilled that although it was exactly one week before Christmas it was 70 degrees and humid at 6:30 in the morning. It made for a much sweatier December run than normal. I survived it, getting in with an average pace just under the 9 minute miles.
Katie and Daniel came over for our Sunday morning ride. We didn’t do anything thrilling, using DD as a home base to explore two different nearby developments. We wound up putting in over 7 miles on the ride.
Instead of watching the Eagles/Ravens game Cindy and I decided to go see the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One. The 1:50 matinee was sparsely populated which was nice. The movie itself was nice but not great. The first half of it felt sort of slow. The second half of the movie was more exciting for sure but I still felt much less excited overall than I did after seeing The Force Awakens. There is some disturbing facial CGI going in the movie that will stand out like a sore thumb when you see it. I’d give the movie a B+ which is lower than I hoped for going in.
When I got home I installed a new cabin filter in the Prius. Most people don’t think about them but they do get pretty damn gross.
Even though I didn’t see the Eagles game, it followed a now familiar script, losing a game they could have won. Unfortunately in pretty much every close game this year the Birds are the ones who ultimately choke at the end, a disturbing trait that needs to be shaken off via new personnel or coaching techniques.
I got busy with automotive work on Saturday morning. The first task was rotating the tires on the Prius. The front tires were getting pretty worn so I figured I would do a simple front to back rotate to hopefully buy me a little time before the tires have to be replaced. For years I have been frustrated that the air impact wrench I owned was not powerful enough to remove lugs from a wheel. However I was happy to discover my new 20V DeWalt impact driver was up to the task. It broke free the lugs with very little issue, quickly spinning them off into my hand.
The tire rotation was simple and the tread on the back tires was significantly better than the front. I had hoped the swap would result in less road noise from the tires. Instead the opposite happened, it’s actually louder now than it was before. Damn it.
After running to Rural King with Cindy and Elsa I got busy on the big project of the day, replacing the grill in the Tacoma. I had bought the TRD Pro style grill over a month ago and have been patiently awaiting it’s arrival which happened late last week. I just was not thrilled with the factory TRD Sport grill which makes me almost think of the shiny “grill” mouth appliances some celebrities wear.
The remove and install process had it’s fair share of hiccups but nothing a little patience could not over come. I may have spent a total of 45 minutes doing the work which is always extended by filming.
I am very happy with the end result. The front end now looks less more in line with the black accents found elsewhere on the truck. Cindy said the new look definitely is more male in appearance.
Saturday night we stayed in and watched The Legend of Tarzan. I found it interesting that the story line takes place after Tarzan had been reintroduced to civilization. I enjoyed the movie more than I expected to, enough to give it a B+ grade.
I once again drug myself out of bed to go run early Sunday morning. I could tell the cold that has been clinging on for going on 10 days was still a factor. My pace was about 25 seconds per mile off my recent best. Oh well, at least I got the miles in.
Katie and Daniel came over to ride wheels again mid-morning. We took them to the Naples Greenway which is a great spot to ride. They both really enjoyed it.
The Eagles game was predictably frustrating with the team doing just enough to lose.Cindy’s brother, fiance and son were over to help share in my misery. The loss continued a pretty damning streak. The last 18 or 19 games that the Eagles have entered the fourth quarter of a game behind, they have lost, every, single time. Talk about a lack of resiliency and execution. Until the Eagles rediscover a way to make plays when it matters most their fans are going to continue to feel the pain. Say what you will about the McNabb years, at least he was able to pull out some games at the end. So far this squad just comes unglued when the pressure is on.
Yesterday I had a different sort of work day that started and ended with riding my Msuper. I headed to the greenway after work and had a very pleasant roughly seven mile ride before sunlight was totally expired. I wore my gym clothes and actually felt a bit chilly as I tooled around. I was cold enough that I actually used the heated seat feature of the Tacoma for the first time ever on the way home.
This weekend I have some automotive work on my plate. I need to rotate the tires on the Prius to try to stretch a few more thousand miles out of them before they get replaced. I bought them shortly after we got the car. It seems nearly impossible that we already have put over 50,000 miles on them.
The other task is replacing the overly chrome grill on my Tacoma with the darker and cooler version found on the Tacoma TRD Pro. I have watched a few install videos for the grill, it looks like it takes some time but is not high on the difficulty scale. I actually ordered the grill over a month ago. It took this long to get it due to high demand. Evidently this is a popular swap out among Tacoma owners.
I am going to willingly subject myself to what is surely going to be a madhouse scene at Costco after work today. In addition to some grocery items I am hoping to score the few remaining Xmas gifts I need to cross off my list. I just remember to take deep breaths and remind myself it will all be ok.
I was sort of freaked out most of the afternoon yesterday from the news that I guy I knew from the gym for quite a few years dropped after doing a heavy set earlier in the week and died the following day. He had a brain aneurysm which surely could have been related to the strenuous activity he was doing at the time. He was 49. Nothing like having mortality thrust in front of your face to ruin your day. I can’t help but feel a little weird each time I am in the area of the gym where it all went down.
Yesterday I got an email from my credit union about how they contracted with a third party service to provide low cost credit/id monitoring services. Based on my recent problems first with my CC number being stolen and then someone attempting to open up an Amazon store card under my name, I decided $4 a month was well worth it.
The service will monitor not only your credit cards but also your SS number, email address, phone numbers, drivers license and more to see if they come up in places they shouldn’t. It didn’t take long for my email address to come up as being on the lists of several hacks including MySpace, Adobe, and a few others. Basically whatever password I used on these sites was now in the wild. When I checked my password vault I use, Lastpass.com, one of those passwords was still in use in some other sites so not only do I need to change those passwords but discontinue use of that particular password in the future. The service also found hits on my home and cell phone number and even gave me a report of all sexual predators in my area. It seems like a nice blanket of protection for a small amount of money. Yet another benefit of belonging to our credit union.
This morning I saw an email come in on one of my gmail accounts asking me to confirm my enrollment in “yespay”, which seems to be some Paypal like service. Of course I didn’t confirm it but it indicates some asshole is using that email address for bullshit activity. I “think” I am fine since I have Gmail set to let me know if someone logs on from an odd location.
I had a dermatologist appointment this morning, a semi-annual chore for me because of my basal cell skin cancer history. My check up went fine. I actually had like a half hour to kill when I got there. I spent it riding my Msuper around, a good way to start my day.
So my weekend got off to a very frustrating start on Friday. In the mail was a letter from Synchrony Bank regarding the Amazon store credit card I applied for. Uh, I didn’t apply for such a card. I have not applied for a new credit card in years. So considering I had someone go on a small spending spree with my Visa card a month or so ago I was on full suspicious mode.
My initial thoughts were maybe the letter itself is a hoax and an elaborate phishing scheme. The letter instructs you to call a number to complete the card application. Perhaps this was just to get people to hand over key information over the phone? I hopped on the internet and checked the phone number and verified it was indeed owned by Synchrony so I decided to give it a call.
I explained to the guy on the phone I got this letter for a credit card I did not apply for. He said he was sorry to let me know that whomever did apply for the card had some key information like my date of birth and social security number. He said that the application did trip some red flags which is why a letter was sent to my address as a secondary form of verification. Of course I found it extremely disconcerting that my SS number is out in the wild. The bank rep was very helpful, letting me know what to do next, call Trans Union and report the incident. What happens is when you report such an incident to a credit bureau they will report the fraud to the other agencies. A 90 day flag is then placed on your account that indicates no credit should be extended in your name without additional verification. Well that’s cool but what happens after 90 days? All the criminal has to be is patient and try again. The guy said if you file a police report you can get that flag placed on your account for 7 years. Yea it’s a pain in the ass to jump through that hoop but better than getting your id hijacked.
I thanked the bank rep and called Trans Union who apparently has outsourced their call center to India, awesome. I struggled through the conversation with the phone rep but at the end of it was assured the flag was now active on my account. For the foreseeable future I need to have my ears up and eyes wide open for ANYTHING suspicious in my financial world.
On Saturday I decided to resurrect my infamous to do list, a small hand written piece of paper that resides on the kitchen counter, laying out things I want to accomplish for the day. I rarely use this method anymore although it used to be a weekly ritual. It’s an effective way to get things done. Saturday’s list had six or seven items on it. Crossing them all off consumed the majority of the daylight hours, I finished up mid-afternoon.
Late afternoon I rewarded myself for my labor with an electric unicycle ride to the school. I decided to ride my Ninebot One which I have hardly touched since I got the bigger and faster Gotway Msuper. I just felt like mixing it up. The Ninebot which I probably put over 250 miles on felt a bit foreign at first, feeling small and nimble. Cindy drove over to the school with Sadie and Elsa to walk around for a bit while I was there. I hitched a ride back to the house with her when I was done. During the ride the total mileage on the 9B1 crossed the 300 mile mark. The last 30-40 or so miles have actually been ridden by Daniel, not me.
Saturday night we stayed home and watched Mechanic, Resurrection, a Jason Statham movie. Jason seems to play an almost identical role in every film he does which isn’t a bad thing. His movies usually have good action and excitement despite being very predictable. Unfortunately I fell asleep and missed the entire ending although Cindy filled in the blanks for me. I feel safe giving it a standard B rating.
So my months long streak of getting out for a run on the weekends ended on Sunday. My cold has continued to slowly ramp up with more runny nose and coughing fits. Although it hasn’t decimated my energy level based on the work I did on Saturday I definitely was not feeling great. I took Nyquil cold medicine Saturday night which knocked me out, I didn’t roll out of bed until 7:45, awaking in the Nyquil haze that feels odd. Oh well, I will start it back up next weekend and I actually hope to run at the gym during the week.
Katie and her boyfriend came over mid-morning for yet another EUC ride. We rode around the Heritage Bay development mostly. Both Katie and Daniel have become real EUC enthusiasts. Katie logged at least 5 miles on the slow training wheel without any major incidents which is very impressive.
I was home alone during the afternoon as Cindy went to her nephews birthday party. I didn’t go because of feeling lousy and my desire to catch the Eagles game. In retrospect the game was certainly not worth any sacrifice. The Eagles played like shit, again. It was the exact opposite of the first three games of the season where it appeared the team was hitting on all cylinders with solid play on both sides of the ball with very few mistakes. The team has now transformed into basically a bunch of bumbling idiots, unable to get out of their own way.
Carson Wentz had his worst game of the season, throwing three interceptions and could have literally had double that if the Bengal defenders held onto the ball. Surely the fault is not entirely his as his surrounding cast has gone into the shitter. But Carson has not performed well, making bad decisions and bad throws on a pretty routine basis. I still think he is the QB of the future but the future is considerably less bright than 6 weeks ago.
Doug Pederson who like the rest of team, surprised me early in the season, has now been performing more on par with my pre-season expectations. He just seems to have no answers to halt the steady downturn in performance by his players. Yesterday was a must win game if the team wanted to stay in the playoff hunt. Their response to that challenge was to come out and absolutely suck in every aspect of the game. The rest of the season will be interesting to see if the plummet continues or if the team decides to actually give a damn.
The game was so bad that I spent some of the second half performing a modification to my Tacoma. A YouTube viewer of my channel informed me of a mod many owners have been doing to their AC drain outlet to prevent possible future problems. In what seems a dumb design choice by Toyota, the drain tube for AC condensation is right above the frame. Some owners have reported this constant flow of water has started to cause some surface rust on their frame welds. The mod involves attaching a longer hose to the outlet so the water drips out below the frame instead of above it.
I purchased some heater hose, hose clamps and zip ties to complete the work. I wound up spending more time doing the work than I expected, trying to get the additional hose routed and oriented in such a way to not impede drainage of the line. Of course I documented the process on video, take a look below if you feel like.
Sadie and Elsa have had so much fun playing over the weekend. It’s great that they get along. Elsa in general has seemed less skittish and fearful while Sadie is there. I am not sure why that is but hopefully it carries over after Sadie goes home tomorrow.
I have been thinking for awhile about splitting my YouTube channel up a bit, specifically spinning off all of the electric unicycle videos into their own all EUC all the time home. Yesterday I started that process creating a YouTube “brand page” named EUC Army, a title I came up with for a video a few weeks ago. I am in the process of getting the 50 + EUC videos uploaded, labeled and tagged to the channel as I type.
Although I plan to have nothing but EUC themed videos on the channel, that doesn’t mean they also will not be on my main channel that has 1.3 million views and counting. Having a video on multiple channels is one way to help build YT revenue streams faster which is my ultimate goal. If you would like to help me get a head start on building the channel go here and take two seconds to subscribe!
So last night I got more sleep but still not as much as I would prefer. Sadie started making noise between 4-5 AM. Cindy was nice enough to get up and let her out but I couldn’t fall back asleep. The congestion in my head just made it impossible.
Sadie has had a weight problem for a long time, easily weighing 20 pounds more than what would be a healthy weight. I have noticed that recently she appears to be on a pretty noticeable upward climb in her proportions. Of course the same reason human beings gain weight apply to her as well, too many calories and not enough exercise. Unfortunately ever since Sadie became a part time resident of the house she doesn’t have the same opportunities to exercise as she did before.
Of course the weight is unhealthy for her. With the addition of the neighbors puppy Shadow and Elsa the weight results in injury as Sadie often comes up limping when she tries to sprint around wildly with all of that extra weight on her frame. We are going to try to do whatever we can while we have her to help her drop a few pounds. We discovered these freeze dried liver treats that dogs love but are very low calorie. Inserting those into the equation instead of processed, traditional dog treats which are basically McDonalds for dogs, is a good step forward.
This weekend I have mostly small things to attend to around the house. It would be nice if I got a head start on some Xmas shopping, I always feel better getting that done sooner rather than later. Hopefully my illness does not progress further during the next two days.
It felt weird on Thanksgiving morning to be getting up so “late” at 4:45 am since this was the first time in years I was attending a race as a participant and not a timer. We left the house around 5:30 for the race scheduled to start at 7:30. I wanted to get there early to lend a hand where needed. Once I got there it didn’t take long for me to track down my timer buddy John who was handling the event. I wound up spending almost all of the time pre-race talking and helping John, it just felt like the natural place for me to be.
The atmosphere at the Gobble Gobble was so much different from what I became accustomed to at the running club Thanksgiving race. I would compare the feel of that race to a mob waiting to beat in the doors on Black Friday. It was just chaotic as hell from start to finish. The club race has over 3000 participants, the Gobble has less than half of that. This race breaks the event apart into a chip timed and fun run division which further helps with congestion. They had a woman doing announcements on a small stage during the entire time leading up to the race which made it very clear and easy to figure out what was going on instead of just herds of people following other herds of people, hoping they are going the right way.
Cindy and I were in the timed event which took off first, 5 minutes before the fun runners started. Cindy has not been been able to do consistent running leading up to the race so I knew it was going to be tough for her. Despite her saying I should just go ahead and run whatever pace I wanted , I stayed with her for the majority of the race. She was struggling at points and I tried to give her encouragement to keep pushing ahead.
When we got to the 3.5 mile mark I told her I was going to push for the last half mile which she was fine with. It gave me a chance to briefly indulge in my normal race mode mindset where I acquire targets ahead of me to run down and pass. My official time of 38:30 was slower than most of my training runs but I could have cared less, it just felt good to be a participant instead of an organizer. Cindy came across the line pushing hard about 45 seconds after I did.
The post race scene again was far less chaotic than I was accustomed to due to less people and the simple awards structure where only the top three finishers of each gender get anything. Instead of posting paper results John just had a couple laptops set up that runners could use to print out their individual time slips, further relieving congestion. Cindy and I indulged in some of the post race refreshments. I hung at the finish line with John for a little while before we called it a morning. It was good that I got to see the race director, Matt, who I had not seen in person for a long time although I chat to him online on a regular basis. Cindy and I left the parking lot both feeling very good about the experience, it was such a refreshing change from what I had become used to.
When we got home there was no equipment to put away, no data to be massaged and no results to be uploaded. Instead I got to just flip on the Macy’s Parade and chill. I had not seen more than a few minutes of the parade for the past five or six years. I got to watch almost two hours of it this year and loved every minute of it. The rest of Thanksgiving followed the same general feel good vibe. Cindy did most of the heavy lifting for the day, preparing a hybrid tofurkey/turkey Thanksgiving dinner that we enjoyed with Katie and Daniel. Before dinner I actually shot over to the school with the kids to get some more EUC riding in where Katie once again showed massive improvements in her ability to ride the electric unicycle. The meal Cindy prepared was very, very good. We relived the meal via warm ups during the weekend and it was still delicious.
On Friday I was outside early trying to get chores down to free up the weekend since Randall was rolling in for a visit. After I finished up we headed out for some errands. Since it was Black Friday I didn’t expect it to be a pleasant experience. We stopped at Sam’s Club first which was busy but not a mob scene, I saw some good deals but nothing I wanted for myself or others. I was a bit annoyed that the 4K tv I bought at Sam’s in May was now like 400 bucks less on Black Friday.
We then headed to Lowe’s and Home Depot with a primary goal of securing a new artificial Christmas tree. The tree I have is about 5-6 years old and works fine but I am not thrilled that the built in lights are incandescent which eat a lot of power. I wanted a tree that used controllable LED lighting. Getting into the Home Depot parking lot was just ridiculous. As annoying as it was, I just reminded myself of what date on the calendar it was. I knew what I was getting myself into.
The interior of the store was no better with mobs of people clogging the aisles. Cindy swooped in and claimed the last box of a tree model that seemed to have the specs we wanted, a seven and a half footer with led lights that could be color, white or cycle between the two, perfect. While we were there we picked up a few other items. I felt relieved when we finally got out the door, the Black Friday mindset is just something that leaves me feeling unsettled.
Later in the day we actually went back out to the Bonita Home Depot, bringing Elsa along this time. I wanted to pick up a spot light I could install on the water equipment shelter to provide night illumination for that side of the house since it is where we normally walk Elsa. We took Elsa to Home Depot with Sadie the week before and she seemed to like it. Well without Sadie around it was a different story. Elsa seemed scared most of the time, I felt bad for her. Hopefully more exposure to more people, sights, and sounds will help her not react in such a scared manner.
We did our exterior decorations on Friday. I totally abandoned the all white exterior lights that I used to decorate the house with, replacing them exclusively with colored LED lights. We strung lights on the front palm trees and the opposite front fence lines. When combined with our other color/pattern changing decorations the house looks incredibly colorful. I like it.
Randall did not arrive on Saturday until early in the afternoon giving us time to get stuff done in the morning. One of those things was me installing the new flood light. It was an LED model so I was a bit concerned about it’s ability to light up the yard compared to conventional lighting. When it got dark those fears evaporated, the lights were extremely bright, it almost looked like stadium lighting. I also shaved my head Saturday morning. When Elsa first saw me with the buzz cut she barked in fear, thinking somebody new had replaced me. Once she heard my voice her stubby tail started wagging again.
Randall pulled up in his Prius with his road bike in the back. Even though I wasn’t planning to ride my road bike with him I had an idea of riding my Gotway Msuper with him instead. We hung out for a bit catching up although Randall is usually up to date with most aspects of my life via the blog. It didn’t take long until I was ready to load up the car with PTVs to take to the school, hopefully to get Randall rolling.
I brought a Minipro along as well, thinking it would be good for him to cut his teeth on the far easier to master vehicle. I was surprised that at first Randall was very unstable on the Segway. When he stepped on he was lurching forward awkwardly with the frame of the bot bouncing up and down. He soon became more accustomed to how the gyro felt, balancing for you. Within 5 minutes he was able to roll around pretty comfortably. I tooled around on my Msuper while he followed me for awhile. At first I was thinking it might make sense to just stick to the Minipro on Saturday and maybe let him try the training EUC on Sunday but when I asked him if he was up to trying the unicycle he was ready to give it a go.
We used the same game plan as what seemed to work well for Katie and Daniel, setting up the wheel next to the fenced in bike corral, giving Randall ample hand support as needed. Slowly he was able to go further in between touches and had a number of step offs as he lost balance. Within maybe 20 minutes of trying and falling he was doing better. Randall left the safety of the fence and headed down the sidewalk. He wore his helmet at the start of the EUC training but removed it later, stating he felt like it affected his balance, despite my encouragement to wear it. Randall gave me a verbal waiver of liability, claiming that his mountain biking experience has taught him how to fall. He got to put that experience to the test.
I felt nervous as I trailed Randall around the parking lot. He would have moments of extreme shakiness, sometimes he recovered, sometimes he didn’t. Most of the time he was able to jump off the wheel and let it roll to a tumbling stop. A few times he was the one that went tumbling, hitting the ground hard. To Randall’s credit, the spills didn’t slow him down, he got right back on every time. By the time we left the school some two hours later Randall was still shaky but able to ride around, turn, mount and dismount at a decent level. He said he now understood why I found riding PTVs so much fun.
On Saturday night we enjoyed more Thanksgiving warm ups while watching the latest Netflix rental, Purge, Election Year. I had already seen the first two Purge installments so I sort of knew what to expect. Randall had not seen any of them but knew the general premise. The movie was not bad by Purge standards and in some ways made me think about the 2016 election which is a bit disturbing. If you don’t deal well with movie violence, steer clear. I’d give it a B as is.
Sunday morning I was up early to run, despite logging four miles on Thanksgiving. I let Randall sleep as he isn’t doing much running nowadays. He had indicated he might get up and ride to Ave Maria and then meet me on the way back on my unicycle to head to DD. The air was nice and cool which felt refreshing as I circled the track 16 times. I wound up averaging an 8:55 pace, almost 45 seconds better than Thursday.
When I got back I saw Randall’s bike was still in the garage so I figured he scrapped the Ave Maria ride idea. We instead shoved off for Dunkin Donuts with Randall on two wheels and me on one. At first my intention was to handle the ride like I did the first time I tried it, almost exclusively on sidewalk. I started off that way but found it annoying to have to slow down at the crosswalks as Randall would be able to keep cruising along in the bike lane. About a mile and a half in I swung into the bike lane and just stayed there, riding within a few feet of Randall, taking advantage of his wind breaking.
I told Randall that if he could keep his speed around 18 mph I should be ok, well within the 25mph+ top speed of the wheel. I had never cruised this fast for this long. The wheel felt very stable at speed although I was obviously a bit nervous having nothing between me and vehicles other than a painted line. Randall said he was surprised how easily I was able to keep up. At one point his bike computer was showing we were over 20 mph and I was still right there.
After enjoying a large coffee at DD we headed the opposite direction and it was much more challenging. A strong head wind which was more like a cross wind made Randall ineffective as a wind blocker. There were periods of time where I was struggling big time to stay in place as the wind was pushing me towards the curb. I was worried that the additional wind pressure could gobble up battery life to the point where I may have an issue. The Msuper chugged along, I still had about 30% battery life when we pulled back into the driveway. The video of the ride is pretty interesting. It looks like we are going VERY fast at times.
Late morning Katie and Daniel showed up for us to go for our Sunday ride. Despite logging 20 hard miles a couple hours earlier I was happy to go back out. I had just enough vehicles to cover all of us although we are running into an electric unicycle issue. Both Katie and Daniel have advanced enough that the training wheel is just not enough machine for them. At first she rode the black MiniPro with Cindy who was on the white one. I was on my Msuper with Daniel on the Ninebot One, while Randall continued his learning curve on the training wheel. Randall was already feeling beat up from his day one of training. After a pretty bad spill he said his back was really bothering him. We switched things up and had Katie get on the training wheel while Randall got on the less physically demanding MiniPro. Once again Katie did fantastic, she was able to actually navigate the boardwalk at North Collier Park on one wheel. After the ride we all headed to Panera for a nice late lunch. It was quite busy but fun first half of the day with me logging four plus miles by foot and another 25 miles or so by wheel.
Late in the afternoon Randall, Cindy and I headed to the Miromar Outlets, a sort of holiday tradition when Randall visits. He wanted to primarily check out the Oakley outlet but we ducked into a few other stores. It was crowded but not a madhouse so my skin wasn’t crawling to leave immediately. We picked up a few heavily discounted items before calling it a day.
Before Randall left I asked him if he was interested in my Phantom drone. I plan to get a new Mavic Pro drone once they become available again and I knew in the past he had expressed interest in drones. Randall was surprised by and accepted my offer. I was happy to let him have it as opposed to selling it. I have been through a lot with the drone that Cindy so generously surprised me with years ago. It last saw consistent use when we went out west last year, capturing the footage that resulted in my prosecution by the national park service which was one of the more aggravating experiences of my life. In some ways I am sad to see it go but glad to give it to Randall instead of selling it to a stranger. I put the drone up in the air once last time Saturday morning just to make sure it was in good working order.
We thanked Randall for his visit. Elsa had up and down moments with Randall, mostly erring on the side of caution when he was around. He still had fun interacting with her.
So this weekend had two noticeable deaths on far opposite sides of the popularity spectrum, Florence Henderson and Fidel Castro. I was a big Brady Bunch fan and always thought Florence was the blueprint for the perfect mother. She remained somewhat relevant late into life which I thought was cool. Fidel, who was rumored to have died several times over the last decade finally kicked the bucket for real which has been celebrated wildly in south Florida which has a large Cuban population. The guy was a piece of shit without a doubt.
The Eagles play the Packers tonight. I have no idea which team will show up, the one that dismantled the Steelers or the team that looked so overmatched against the Seahawks.
The weather this weekend was great with cool, crisp air most of the time. It was good weather for dogs to play. On Friday Sadie, Elsa, and the neighbor’s puppy Shadow had a rigorous play session. The end result of it was Sadie walking around with a severe limp Friday night. She gets excited and tries to run around like she weighs 20 pounds less than she does, which usually results in her hurting herself. Luckily Saturday morning the limp was less severe but we tried to limit her running the rest of the weekend with some limited success.
It felt weird that as I was completing chores outside Saturday morning that the final race I was contracted to time was going on. My timer buddy John had offered to time the race for me in a barter arrangement which was fine with me. With the completion of the event my plate is officially cleared of Green Machine Timing business. I have sold almost all of the equipment already and feel no regret in doing so. The motivation I had for starting GMT was fueled by a lot of “f u” energy that has faded over time. With that change along with the lack of financial pressure to supplement my income, it just feels good to let it all go.
Saturday afternoon we took the dogs on their first tandem road trip, hitting up Rural King and Home Depot. It was weird that we just randomly met Elsa unexpectedly a week prior at Rural King and a week later she was living in our home. Both dogs behaved well as we walked around the stores.
I was hoping to get out on my electric unicycle early in the afternoon since I hardly had any ride time during the week due to lack of daylight and other time commitments. However I wound up getting sidetracked for over two hours working on a computer problem. For some reason Windows file explorer kept crashing whenever I did anything that required browsing the file system. There had been no major changes recently so I had no idea why the behavior would start all of a sudden. I looked the problem up online and saw three possible remedies, I tried them all and none of them worked. I even went so far as to do a system restore from Wednesday, still no dice.
I then logged on as a different user and saw explorer was working just fine so at least it meant my problem was profile specific and not system wide. I decided to back up my documents and data and blow away my profile to start a new one. Doing so fixed my problem but then required me to do a lot of tweaking to get things in the new profile working correctly. I was quite frustrated by the entire process.
I finally got out on my wheel around 4PM. I drove to the Target shopping center and parked there. I then rode the 10K big loop that surrounds the North Collier Regional Park. I entered the park as part of the ride and tooled around for awhile. During the ride I rambled on about a bunch of various topics you may or may not find interesting.
On Saturday night we stayed in and watched Concussion, the movie Will Smith felt he deserved an Oscar nomination for. It was an interesting movie that dealt with just how horrible the side effects of repetitive head trauma can be. There were a number of players named in the film that died/killed themselves as a result. The only two I was aware of before the movie were Mike Webster and Junior Seau. I was shocked and amazed that I didn’t know the infamous Eagles safety from the Buddy Ryan years, Andre Waters, was another player that took his own life after battles with mental illness. The film, although slow at times, does make me look at the only professional sport that I actively root for differently. B+
So overall, Elsa has been pretty easy to merge into our daily routine except for one thing, house breaking. A handful of times she has done number one and two in the house which I guess is expected, however the way it has been happening is a bit maddening. Twice she has taken a dump in the dining room literally minutes after we just had her outside to go to the bathroom. Last night Cindy was walking her around out front for a good 10 minutes to avoid this exact scenario. She did nothing outdoors and promptly shit in the exact same spot in the dining room a few minutes after coming back inside. Obviously this behavior needs to be corrected but other than that, she has been an ideal addition.
Sunday morning I got out for another 4+ mile run. The temperature actually dropped 5 degrees between me arriving at the track and leaving. Some cool air was blowing into town. The run was challenging as the incoming cool air meant that half of every lap I was running into a pretty stiff headwind.
Katie and her boyfriend were unable to join is for our Sunday morning PTV ride because they had to run their dog to the vet. Cindy and I wound up riding around the Barron Collier high school area for maybe 5 miles or so. Riding in the cool air required a sweatshirt but it still felt great.
After the ride we stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Their ad had a cool Christmas LED projector that I wanted to enhance our 2016 X-mas display. The projector literally blankets the front of your house with clear laser red and green images that cycle and move. We tried it out last night, it is coooool.
Katie and Daniel must really enjoy our Sunday rides, they asked if we could still go out Sunday afternoon, after they got back from the vet. The Eagles didn’t play until 4:30 so I was fine with it. We went back to the middle school I run at since they had closed in basketball courts that would be good for unicycle training. At this point Daniel had the basics mastered, Katie was now the one trying to get up and rolling on one wheel.
She had very early success, being able to ride from one side of the basketball court to the other. Within 15 minutes of that it had “clicked” for her. She was rolling along impressively, turning, starting, and stopping at a level that took me several weeks to achieve. It was another testament to the power of youth. She quickly got to the point where she was maxxing out the speed of the training wheel which was tilting her back hard. We had her get on the Ninebot One which she again quickly adapted to. It was amazing. She did have a wipe out that ended her riding session. I didn’t see the whole fall but I think she ran off the edge of the asphalt momentarily. Luckily she was wearing the new safety equipment we had bought for her so she escaped without any serious injuries. I was very impressed with her progress. Both her and Daniel picked up the skill much faster than I ever would have expected.
So that Eagles game was pretty brutal to watch, the Seahawks really did a good job of putting a spotlight on the Eagles weaknesses like their corner backs and wide receivers whom are both below average, at best. Carson Wentz had his worst game of the season. His numbers look better than they really were from junk yards at the end once the Seahawks went into prevent. To add injury to insult, the top two Eagles running backs, Ryan Matthew and Darren Sproles left the game with injuries. It was just a depressing game to watch and was a reality check for the team. Although the Eagles are better than expected this year, they have several key problems that will prevent them from becoming a contender.
So I was up and outside early Friday morning, hoping to take advantage of the temps in the lower 60’s for as long as I could. I had a long day of tree trimming ahead of me. In recent years Cindy has assisted me in this horribly laborious job. She hurt her back last week so picking up hundreds of branches all day would have only made it worse. I was 100% on my own.
I had the bright idea to rent a 32 foot ladder from Home Depot to allow me to more safely reach a couple of the trees on the property that are very tall. I originally figured I would just use the 32 footer to trim everything. That plan changed quickly after trying to move the ladder around early on. Not only is the ladder 32 feet long, it’s also a heavy duty ladder with a weight limit of 300 pounds. My 20 foot ladder has a much lower weight limit, closer to 200 pounds. The rented ladder was MUCH heavier than my 20 footer, I would estimate at least triple the weight. When combined with the additional length, moving and placing the ladder by myself was absolutely miserable, requiring the very limit of my strength to manage. I eventually decided I would use the monster ladder for JUST the couple spots I needed and pulled out my 20 footer to do the rest.
I also made an on the fly adjustment as far as trimming the branches. I started out using my heavy duty loppers, just as I always have in the past. Using loppers while up high on a ladder is a pain in the ass and dangerous, requiring you to put your body in awkward angles to be able to cut in between the palm fronds. When I did the first of the two extra high trees I pulled out my battery powered DeWalt Sawz All. Although holding the power tool was tough on the hands and forearms, it buzzed through branches in a couple seconds and overall was a big time saver. Since I now have four battery packs I was able to stay juiced all morning, something I wasn’t able to do in the past when I only had two smaller capacity batteries.
So I busted ass all morning and managed to get all of the trimming done by lunch time. However that is only half the battle, the afternoon was when I had to pick up the mountains of debris that was now laying on the ground. This is the part of the job that Cindy had been so helpful with in the past. This was the first time I did this job with the new Tacoma. I could not use the same disregard as I had in the past where I would overload the bed of the 99 Tacoma with brush, not caring if it scraped or scratched the weather beaten paint. The bed of the new Tacoma is all composite plastic with covers over the top edges to protect from damage. Still I was much more careful loading it up, trying to make sure everything touched plastic and not paint.
By the afternoon the temperatures had warmed up quite a bit. I was miserable. I was so sore and tired. I just kept plodding along, keeping my eyes on the finish line. I did not finish up until about 4PM. I still wasn’t done though, I had to load the monster ladder back into the Tacoma and take it back to Home Depot. I felt like I was run over by a truck. I wondered just how long I can ask my body to endure these sort of grueling all day grindfests.
On Saturday morning I didn’t have as many morning chores as normal as Cindy tried to get most of them handled for me. We headed out in the beautiful weather later in the morning to get some riding in, heading to a new location, the Vineyards. The running club used to have a race at the Vineyards but other than that I have not really spent much time in the area. I was surprised just how much was going on Saturday morning, the parking lot was filled. There was a large flea market going on along with all sorts of sporting events. Cindy and I really liked cruising the sidewalk which was lined with all sorts of mature trees and landscaping. Vineyards has been around for awhile by Naples standards.
We stopped at Rural King during the day. We were surprised to see a bunch of dogs hanging out there. Evidently a rescue organization was there with a bunch of their dogs that were up for adoption. Of course Cindy immediately gravitated towards the dogs, loving all of them. Cindy has been saying she would love a dog for awhile. I have not shared her enthusiasm, despite my love of dogs and animals in general.
So we did our shopping and as I was waiting in a slow checkout line Cindy headed over to the dogs again. When I finally got over there she had latched onto one in particular named Elsa, a cute female mix that only weighed something like 30 pounds. Cindy put on her best pouty lips, telling me the virtues of the dog. She is fixed, has her shots and has been on a 5 acre farm with a bunch of farm animals which would hopefully mean she would be ok with the chickens like Sadie is. I told her that was all great but I was not ready to adopt a dog. Despite having dogs in the house for over a dozen years, since the separation and divorce I have become accustomed to only having dogs for shorter periods of time, not 24/7. It is nice to not have to worry about the welfare of a dog if you want to go somewhere. The house obviously stays cleaner without an animal around as well. Plus, much of the last few years I have been making moves to try to simplify my life. Agreeing to adopt a dog would be a step in the opposite direction.
Of course I feel guilty saying no to Cindy. She always enjoys when Sadie is over. Cindy grabbed the card from the organization and said goodbye to Elsa with tears in her eyes, making feel even shittier.
Late in the afternoon I got the urge to take on an EUC challenge that was in my mind for awhile since I got the Msuper which sports significantly more range, speed and power. I wanted to ride to and from Dunkin Donuts. I told Cindy of my plans and despite her hesitations about the safety of such a journey I assured her it would be fine. It was. The ride there was smooth with me averaging between 14-17 mph most of the way. In a couple spots I was stuck in the shoulder/bike lane but I was safely on the sidewalk the majority of the time. The ride back was even faster since I had a tail wind. Despite 20 miles on the MSuper my feet did not feel awful, a testament to the larger pedals.
Saturday night I was feeling very beat up from the tree trimming trauma. We stayed home and watched Free State of Jones, a real life based story that took place during the civil war. I thought the movie was interesting and exposed an element of the civil war that I did not know existed. Early on there seemed to be an unnecessary level of gore that did nothing to advance the film. As I watched the events unfold I thought about just how divided the country had to be in order for it’s citizens to inflict such pain and suffering upon the other. I then thought about how present day is the closest I can recall to feeling we are moving back that direction in my lifetime. The movie was well done and well acted. A-
Sunday morning I headed out for my long run solo. It was the first time I ran without any walkers showing up late in the run. As I ran I did more thinking about Cindy’s desire to adopt a dog. I ran through pros and cons, remembering clearly how I felt when Ali and I adopted Nicki. I was firmly against it and after a sleepless first night with her in the house I was ranting that we made a mistake. Thankfully Ali was more patient than I was and Nicki became our pseudo-child for the next dozen years. However I also recalled some of the handicaps along the way, being limited by being responsible for and limited by owning dogs. I also recalled the crushing sadness when Nicki died last year. I had a lengthy, silent, internal debate about it as I completed lap after lap. In the end, the guilty, people pleasing part of my personality won the argument.
When I got home I told Cindy that if we could foster Elsa first so we can see how she gets along with Sadie and the chickens first I would be ok with it. Cindy’s eyes welled up with tears when I said it, making it even harder to think about not going through with it. So Cindy got the ball rolling, receiving an application that is needed to start the foster/adoption process. I am sure my unsettled feeling will continue for the forseeable future.
Later in the morning Katie and her boyfriend came over for more PTV riding. We went to the Vineyards for the second day in a row, figuring it was a good spot for Daniel to continue his amazing progress on electric unicycle riding. Daniel was worried about losing his progress in the week that has passed but instead he continued his amazing advancement in skills. Daniel was an avid skate boarder in his youth which I think has helped him greatly in his EUC learning process. By the end of the morning he was off the cheap $200 training wheel and on my Ninebot One, doing great. At one point he was actually on the basketball court shooting baskets while on the wheel, amazing. Katie and Cindy were on the training wheel as well, without training wheels. Cindy made some nice progress and Katie at one point rode at least 100 feet on a tennis court without falling. It was a lot of fun.
The Eagles game continued the teams very up and down season where they can’t beat any team in their division but seem to beat everyone else. They beat the Falcons and their top rated offense 24-15. The Eagles defense played well, despite having two cornerbacks that drive me crazy. To me the defense is successful in spite of their weak corner backs who have given up close to the top amount of TD passes in the league. I can not stand that both of them are prone to gloating and grandstanding when opposing receivers drop passes on their own. If the team had better cornerbacks and a true number one wide receiver I think we could really have something special.
Carson Wentz had a solid game although he still makes some dumb mistakes like taking totally unnecessary sacks and delay of game penalties. When he threw the ball away on 4th down at the end of the first half with a few seconds on the clock instead of running it out I was screaming at the tv. It was just a brain fart which is expected I guess, hopefully he learns and makes less as the season goes on. So anyway it was a strong win that builds on top of the other strong wins against the Steelers and Vikings. For the first time in a long time the Eagles actually seem to have a home field advantage, something that seemed to be missing most of the time since they moved into the Linc.
The rest of the weekend I wound down playing a lot of WoW to just disconnect and chill. It was a fast three days which opens the gate to the whirlwind holiday season to come.
Yesterday I was in a sour mood all day for obvious reasons. I had thrown my EUC in the trunk of the Prius with the intent of riding it after work at the Naples Greenway. Well I decided to also take the wheel out at lunch as well, riding the Msuper just felt like it would be a better mood elevator than the gym. I rode over 8 miles over my lunch hour and enjoyed every minute of it. The ride after work at the Greenway was awesome with cool temperatures and beautiful skies. It’s hard to explain what riding an EUC feels like to someone that has never rode one. It’s a different experience from riding a bike, perhaps because it allows you to focus more on your surroundings and less on the effort required to push you through the surroundings. In total I put between 16-17 miles on the wheel during the day and still had over half of the battery charge remaining, amazing.
So for some reason I have never in my lifetime educated myself as to why the electoral college system exists. This year was the second time in my lifetime where the presidential candidate that won the popular vote did not win the electoral vote. I would think when it happened back in 2000 I would have looked into the college but I cared less about most things back then.
So anyway, one of my friends posted an article explaining the origin of the electoral college and why it is basically ridiculous it is still in use today, some 200+ years later. Believe it or not the electoral college was enacted to account for slavery. Yes in 2016 we are still using a system that was made so slave owners could get additional voting power for the slaves they owned. Even though the slaves themselves could not vote, each one counted as 2/5 of a vote that would be attributed to the slave owner, allowing them to gain voting influence based on the size of their slavery endeavors. I am amazed and disgusted that a system that has such a dark origin is still in use.
There is absolutely no reason for it at this point in time and evidently there is some movement to do away with it. A number of states have agreed to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which would ensure that whatever candidate wins the popular vote is the winner, regardless of electoral college shenanigans. Feel free to read up on it here. It makes no sense that every other elected office is a reflection of the popular vote yet the most influential position in government is not.
Sure, Trump enthusiasts will see this point as simply sour grapes which is understandable but it doesn’t change the fundamentals. Whomever gets the most votes should win, period, no matter what party that benefits. The same simple logic should apply to the presidential primaries. It was absolutely maddening watching the super delegate stacked deck system in the democratic primaries, making it nearly impossible for Bernie to win, despite Trump-like grass root support with MASSIVE numbers everywhere he went. If you get more votes than everyone else you win, keep it simple, stupid.
So with the election fun going on I neglected to mention my Tacoma is back at the dealer. Cindy took it there Tuesday after the ABS warning light came on once again along with odd brake pedal feel, not something to screw around with. The dealer gave Cindy a loaner Corolla to use. The truck was there all Tuesday afternoon so I called Wednesday morning between 9 and 10, wanting to get an update on what they found. I got my “service advisors” voice mail so I politely asked him to give me a call back to fill me in.
Well around 2pm I still heard nothing so I called again, annoyed that the guy couldn’t take 60 seconds to give me a call, even if nothing was determined yet. This time I got a person on the phone. I said I called in the morning and asked for a call back and got none. The woman checked in the computer about the status of the truck and could only tell me it was still being worked on. She said she would again tell my service advisor to call me back.
So now it is 4pm and the guy has not called me. WTF. So I call back once more with more anger in my voice. I explain that twice I have called asking for an update and have been ignored. I wanted to know what was going on with the truck. Just because I have a loaner doesn’t mean I don’t want my truck back asap. I get another woman that says my service advisor is not at his desk. I tell her that I will be at the office until 4:30 and I need the guy to call me back before I leave. She assures me she will get the message to him and she is sure he will call me back. Well of course you know the next part, he didn’t call.
I didn’t realize that Cindy had also sent the guy a text message around the same time as my last call. She had his cell from our first trip to the dealer. The info in the text was a bit confusing but the last thing was the guy was meeting with the shop foreman at 10 am today about it. Huh? You have to schedule a time with the garage to find out what the fck is going on with a vehicle? So anyway, I am now ready for a not so friendly exchange when I call the dealer later in the morning to sort through exactly what the hell they have been doing with my truck for the last 48 hours. I need the truck back today in order to complete the tree trimming project that is on the books for tomorrow. How I get to that point is probably going to be aggravating for sure.
So anyway, the big monster on my three day weekend is doing the annual tree trimming project where we trim 25+ trees all in one day. It is one of the more miserable tasks I endure each year. The only positive is the 32 foot ladder I plan to rent should at least make some of the high tree trimming less dangerous. After the task is done the rest of the weekend should hopefully be downhill and more enjoyable. Trimming the trees is the precursor to putting up the Christmas lights in a couple weeks so I will look at that as the light at the end of the tunnel, even though hanging the lights is a pain in the ass as well.
Cindy spotted the coyote yesterday morning pacing the back fence line, surely considering jumping the fence to pick off another one of our birds. Cindy ran at the animal screaming bloody murder which was enough to send it running the other direction. It was a clear warning that we need to pick up our awareness of what is lurking outside the confine of the back yard.
The left side of her snout looked like she was punched, it was visibly swollen. My first guess is she got stung by a bee. We have a certain weed in the grass that creates tons of tiny white flowers that the bees love. Elsa was acting normal otherwise but Cindy was in panic mode. My thought was we should ice her snout and give her Benadryl. Cindy was worried the allergic reaction could be severe so she contacted an emergency vet and took Elsa there immediately.
