Category EUC

I was thinking about my latest interest in devices like the Segway Minipro and the Ninebot One and how they tied in with how my hobbies and interests have come and gone over the years.

Going way, way back I had two big interests as a kid, video games and baseball.  My brother and I played the hell of out of the original console video games like Intellivison, Colecovision, and the NES.  Even into my late teens and early 20’s I was borderline obsessed with console gaming. I also spent thousands of dollars in local arcades.

My obsession with baseball had a much shorter shelf life, starting around age 11 and running until I was 17-18 when an elbow injury dashed my dreams of being a major league pitcher.

In my 20’s in addition to gaming, my focus on cars and volleyball really picked up speed.  My 1969 Firebird convertible was the highlight of my car hobby in my 20’s although I owned a LOT of other vehicles.

Later in my 20’s and into my early 30’s volleyball took center stage in a huge way.  I used to play 3-4 times a week and during the summer playing in weekend tournaments was a very regular occurrence.  The highlight of my volleyball days of course was the epic win of the BB division in the 1999 Pottstown Rumble with my buddy Rich.  We beat out something ridiculous like 125 other teams that were in the division to win it all.  My volleyball heyday was cut short by a meniscus right knee injury that I had operated on twice. When I moved to Florida I had a 2-3 year resurrection of my volleyball career with Randall but old age and just lack of interest eventually shut that down.

Since living in Florida I have had a number of things take on a large portion of my attention.  Early on I had my first run as a RC plane enthusiast, building and flying a number of aircraft.  My hobby was bolstered by my friend Mike who was into RC on a level far exceeding mine.  We flew together quite a few times.  Unfortunately once he moved to Colorado my interest in flying dropped off majorly.  I had a resurrection in air based hobbies with the purchase of my various quadcopters, culminating with the awesome DJI Phantom Cindy bought me for Christmas a few years ago.  I still have the Phantom but have flown it very little recently.  The incident with the Yellowstone park ranger office prosecuting me for a drone flight via You Tube really left a bad taste in my mouth.

I also became involved in the MMORPG World of Warcraft in the beginning of 2005, my first time ever playing that type of game.  There were periods of time that I was so into the game it was scary.  At one point I was playing 30-40 hours PER WEEK.  I still play the game to this day but in a much less addicted manner.  Once I started playing WoW my days of gaming on a console like my Xbox 360 pretty much ended.

About halfway into my marriage with Ali we started doing a lot more running and triathlon training.  I had done some running when I lived in PA in my late 20’s, early 30’s but nothing consistent.  For a period of a few years Ali and I entered a TON of events, mostly 5K’s but also a few triathlons.  I maxed out at the half marathon distance, which I completed three times.  A series of annoying and somewhat chronic lower body injuries derailed that hobby although I am in the process of trying to reboot things right now.

Our running also lead to another huge area of focus for nearly the last decade, my involvement with the local running club.  What started out with an email I sent to the club complaining about race results taking two weeks or more to be posted online eventually lead to me being the race timer for the club for almost 8 years.  I really enjoyed the challenge of it all early on as I introduced all sorts of things to make club races more dynamic and runner friendly.  Over time I took on more and more roles for the club, because I could.  Eventually the weight of all of those responsibilities turned the role from fun to extremely frustrating, leading to me leaving that role early this year.

I also had a couple revivals in my hobby car interest since living in Florida, owning an 88 Corvette, a 71 Buick Skylark convertible, and most recently the 2005 Chevy SSR.  The cycle for each purchase felt extremely similar.  I felt that buying each vehicle was going to fill some sort of void I was feeling at the time for various reasons.  Once I assumed ownership I would go through a pretty intense cycle of fixing/upgrading a number of things on each vehicle.  Once those items were addressed, when it was time to enjoy the fruits of my labor I simply didn’t do it as much as I envisioned I would have.

Now the Skylark actually burned up in a fire, but even so, once it was gone for a short period of time I felt a degree of relief.  Since selling the SSR, a vehicle I almost attached a God-like importance to initially, I have not had a moment’s regret with getting rid of it.  My new 2016 Tacoma will give me much, much more enjoyment long term than the SSR ever could have.  At this point I don’t really see myself relapsing back into the car hobbyist role but never say never.

In my early 40’s I really became interested in calisthenics and the bar based exercise movement, lead by the Bar-barians.  In addition to my focus on bodyweight based workouts which got me in arguably the best shape of my life, I also became involved with the Bar-barians group, first running their message board and later running monthly exercise challenges for message board users.  I even designed, set up and maintained their web site for over a year. I virtually met hundreds of people from around the world through my involvement with the group which was really, really cool as well as a few in real life, which is even cooler.  I still do a lot of calisthenics work in my exercise routine but nowhere near the same level as I did back then.

So that brings me to my most current focus, the Minipros and more so the Ninebot One E+, my first electric unicycle.  The cycle of defeat followed by ultimate victory in learning to ride the single wheel vehicle was a feeling of accomplishment I have not matched in recent memory.  It felt very close to the feeling you have as a kid when you are able to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time.  Riding the wheel brings back many childhood feelings of doing something just because it is flat out fun and nothing else.  When I ride the wheel cares melt away, hard feelings soften, and the noise of the world is drowned out by the pleasant hum of the brushless motor pushing you along mile after mile.

Why I decided to go off on this tangent I don’t really know.  In some way while I was running at the gym I was thinking about people that make up their minds on certain things, whether they be hobbies, interests, religious beliefs or political views, and then never, ever take a moment to reconsider those options and do/think new things based on changing circumstances.  I feel badly for these people.  Somebody famous once said something to the effect of “If you are still doing and thinking about things the same way now as you did twenty years ago, you are doing something wrong”  Flip the script, it’s not a bad thing.

Last night Cindy was teaching a class so I used the time to start working on level 2 skills on the Ninebot One.  I am now fairly confident in my ability to handle basic control fundamentals in a more or less safe manner.  I can start, stop, and turn consistently.  However there are more advanced things to learn like riding backwards, jumping small objects, and simply getting on and off the wheel in a more controlled manner.  I practiced all three of these things to varying degrees in the driveway and as expected, going backwards was the least successful of the three.  I did manage to avoid any awful wipeouts, a testament to my ability to maintain balance, awkwardly, even in more demanding situations.  Take a look if you have 19 minutes to kill.

I had another mess of a day at work yesterday, still related to the larger mess from last week.  Before I rebuilt our main domain controller, I transferred all the FMSO roles to another DC that was a VM.  Yesterday the phone started ringing from people saying the time on their pc’s was off like 6 or 7 minutes.  A quick glance confirmed this.  Domain time is normally handled by the DC that holds the PDC Emulator role.

So I did some digging and found out that when you have a DC in a Hyper-V environment you need to disable the default behavior of a virtual machine to set it’s time based on the Hyper-V host.  I went a step further, transferring the PDC Emulator role back to the original domain controller which is a physical server.  I then ran the regedit command on both virtual DC’s to get them back in sync.

Even after this change I was chasing down rogue time problems during the day as a few servers did not want to grab the change until I forced them to do so.  I finally got everything back on the same page at the end.  Having varying system times on a Windows domain can cause all sorts of weird problems. I hope I can now move forward with getting our office fully moved over to Office 365.  I keep running into roadblocks that are making the progress on that goal very slow.

Somehow I managed to spend the vast majority of my weekend working on crap ranging from chores to race timing to remote office things.  I got some fun time in but found myself last night feeling like the two days were too task heavy.  Saturday I weeded the property and then followed up with the gas weed whacker, knocking down the growth accelerated by the unrelenting rain.

Late in the morning I thought I would be proactive and call DirecTV a day early to make sure my Sunday Ticket was working so I could watch the Eagles game the following day.  Because of the non-standard configuration I have where I JUST have the Sunday Ticket and no other programming package I have to call them each year after my account comes off the 6 month service suspension.  I have had this set up for close to 10 years and every year it is a pain in the ass to get it working.  This year set the bar to a new high of frustration.

So I call up and get a woman that sounds like she is from the US.  When I explain what I need she indicates I need to talk to tech support.  She said she would transfer me.  Within the first 3 seconds after being transferred I felt my blood pressure rising as I heard the very thick foreign accent on the other end.  Despite the headaches I have had in the past getting my service working, I always at least dealt with US based support staff.  Evidently part of ATT acquiring DirecTV last year was establishing some cheap foreign call centers, awesome move.

So I literally spent 60 minutes on the phone with a level 1 guy and then his supervisor, with me getting more frustrated by the minute as he kept putting me on hold since he had no idea what to do.  At one point I asked him if he was located in India.  He seemed a bit put off by my question and told me he was not Indian, he was located in the Phillipines.  Sorry, my bad, I still can hardly understand you.  I went through a maddening circus of reboots and being put on hold, despite me telling them that normal corrective actions would not work.

So at the end of the 60 minute circus the supervisor said he was going to transfer me to the Sunday Ticket department.  He had exhausted his ability to correct my problem.  He said please hold and I was promptly disconnected.  Of course I was beyond furious.  I called back ready to destroy whoever was unlucky enough to answer the phone.  The 18 minutes I had to wait for someone to pick up the phone the second time did nothing to help that anger.

So an english speaking woman answered.  I explained the hour plus I had just wasted with the Philippine help desk.  I asked her when Directv implemented foreign tech support centers.  She said it was part of the ATT acquisition.  She apologized for the run around and told me that in the future if I would be connected overseas I can request to be transferred to the US group, supposedly they have to honor that request.  I went through another very lengthy phone call with repeated long hold times.  At the end of it I still was getting 721 errors (not authorized) on the Sunday Ticket channels in the 700 channel range but I was getting channel 212, which she said indicates I was good to go.  She said the other channels should work on Sunday once the game content starts.  I was very skeptical of this and told her as much.  She reiterated it should work fine.  (it actually did work on Sunday)  By the time I hung up I had wasted two hours of my weekend on the phone with DirecTv, thanks!!

So as I was waiting on hold I was flipping through other menus on my satellite receiver, one of which was signal strength.  I noticed the average level was in the mid 70’s (out of 100) which is less than it used to be.  The satellite dish is on the west side of the house and unfortunately is aimed right through one of our oak trees.  Years ago I cut out a bunch of branches in the middle to give me a clearer view of the sky with the dish.  It appeared I needed to do so once again.

In the past I did this work with a pole saw which was a pain in the ass.  I decided to get up close and personal this time, grabbing a ladder and my battery powered reciprocating saw.  I used the ladder to just get me up into the main body of the tree, after that it was me just climbing around, reliving my childhood tree climbing days, something I used to do extensively.  An oak tree body is sort of a gnarled mess with lots of tiny, crisscrossing small branches.  It didn’t take long until one of them ripped open one of the brush burns on my knee, unknowingly sending a stream of blood down my leg.

I first cut away some of the small stuff to give me more room to stand and work without getting scraped/impaled.  I then started working on the large branches that were in the dish line of sight.  I had to be careful with the angles I cut, making sure they made the branches fall in a  way that would not clip the house roof or gutters.  A couple of the branches were sizeable, easily 10-12 feet long.  I diligently hacked away, doing my best to estimate the invisible beam the dish uses to grab signal.  By the time I was done there were over a half dozen large branches on the ground.  When I got down I walked over to the dish to take another look.  The center of the tree had been thinned out considerably.  I verified the success of the work inside, seeing the average signal strength had jumped up to the upper 80’s, good enough.

I then had to dispose of all of the discarded branches.  I pulled the tractor out of the shed and used it to drag the branches to the rear pit one at a time.  I would drive up to a branch, reach down with my hand and grab it, trying to wedge it against the side of the tractor body the best I could.  The branch dragging put my grip strength to the test as some created a lot of ground resistance as I pulled them along.   Eventually I got the mess cleaned up.  Between the nightmare phone calls and tree trimming I have put a lot of effort getting my 2016 Sunday Ticket up and running.  I hope the Eagles are worth it this year.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched Black Mass, a real life story of a Boston based crime group, the head of which is portrayed by Johnny Depp.  The movie gave a very brutal view into the organized crime scene and pulled no punches in depicting the violence involved.  It had a pretty well known cast that helped the level of the film.  Despite it’s very dark background, the movie was  a quality B+ flick in the end.

Sunday morning I once again had the 6AM alarm set so I could get out and run.  This time there was no bald eagle on the light tower to cheer me on but I still covered the four miles at a recent personal best pace of 8:52 per mile.  I again stuck with the shorter stride, faster cadence strategy and it again seemed to work for me.

For the past three weeks I have been the first to show up at the track.  I had been always running in a clockwise direction.  Each week a group of walkers show up later and each time they decided to walk the opposite direction I was running which I found annoying.  I didn’t want to be running at people twice per lap.  So on Sunday I thought if you can’t beat em, join em, I ran counter clockwise.  Once again the group showed up and you guessed it, they decide to now walk around clockwise.  WTF …..

Later in the morning Cindy and I took out the Minipro and the Ninebot One.  We went to a new spot, the Naples Greenway, a beautiful walking/running/trail that was opened up in 2014.   It was the PERFECT spot to ride.  The wide walking paths were great for buzzing along on the Minipros.  We put in over 4 miles on the Minipro.  I then pulled out my EUC and rode another 5 miles while Cindy chilled and read a book.  It was quite the nice way to spend a couple hours in the morning.

We got home shortly before the kickoff for the Eagles game.  Like I said I was pleasantly surprised that the game came through on my receiver without a third call to DirecTv.  I really had no idea what to expect, despite the Eagles 4-0 preseason record.  The surprise trade of Sam Bradford and equally surprising naming of the rookie, Carson Wentz as the day one starter left a whole lot of things up in the air.

Well it didn’t take long for me to start feeling better about things.  Carson Wentz lead the Eagles down the field quickly for the first touchdown pass of his NFL career.  I immediately got a good feeling from the rookie QB.  Despite his lack of playing time in the NFL, I never got a deer in the headlights sense about him.  He seemed calm and in control.  It was also a breath of fresh air to see such a balanced running and passing attack from the Eagles, which resulted in monster time of possession dominance, something that NEVER happened under Chip Kelly courtesy of his hurry up offense.

The defense gave me a really good feeling as well.  Much like Wentz, they just seemed in control.  At no point, even when they were up by 19 points did I get the feeling the Browns had a chance to come back.  The D just seemed to do everything fundamentally well.  During the last decade whenever the Eagles were up by more than two touchdowns it was almost automatic that they would roll into a soft prevent, giving up yards and points by the bushel, not yesterday.

It was one of the best feeling opening day games I can recall in the last 15 years of Eagles football.  Of course this is tempered by the fact that the Browns are not a good football team but even so, the Eagles many. many times have found ways to lose to bad teams.  On Sunday they got ahead and then slammed the door, just like good teams often do.  Of course this doesn’t mean the team is going to excel over the course of the season but I will take it one game at a time.  Based on what I have seen from this one game, I am optimistic.

I usually like to wind down my weekends just relaxing or screwing off.  Instead I followed the Eagles game up with paying my bills followed by mowing the yard, finishing up just as the sun was setting towards the horizon.  When I started mowing I felt grumpy about having to end the weekend with yet another house chore.  By the time I was done my mood was elevated from watching the chickens following me around on the tractor, hoping to devour any bugs the freshly cut grass exposed.  Chickens are funny.

So I took off Thursday and Friday not only to give me a nice five day holiday weekend, it was also so I could drive Cindy up to the VA clinic on Thursday morning.  She was meeting a doctor to go over her MRI results from over a month ago.  Yes things move slowly at the VA.  Cindy had gotten a heads up that the woman she was meeting with was “not good” from a friend.

The doctor was probably in her 50’s and took good care of herself, looking fit and healthy for her age.  She started asking Cindy a number of questions about some of her symptoms.  When asked, Cindy would try to expand and give more detail about what has been going on.  Almost immediately the doctor took on a very impatient mindset, cutting Cindy off, just asking for numbers and dates.  Once again, similar to my recent experience, the doctor was being thrust into the role of a data entry clerk as she typed all of the info into the computer.

At times she took on an almost combative attitude, acting like everything was black and white when it comes to Cindy’s issues.  For example when Cindy said she had mercury poisoning, the doctor immediately insisted she didn’t.  When Cindy had her blood test for heavy metals it was at the very top end of normal range.  It was high enough that she got a call from our local health department to ensure her high levels weren’t from something environmental like a contaminated water supply.  So yes, technically Cindy’s number was not in the poisoned range but it was one tick away so obviously it wasn’t good.  Since Cindy stopped eating fish she got retested and the number had dropped significantly.

The doctor continued making proclamations about various things like her word was equivalent to Jesus.  “There is no such thing as medical marijuana” and “lifting weights is bad” were two that really stuck out to me.  Cindy was getting visibly upset from the attitude this doctor was taking towards her situation.  I was literally a few seconds away from making a scene and telling her it is inappropriate, unprofessional, and just plain wrong to not listen to her patient and instead cut her off repeatedly when trying to expand on symptoms.

It was almost as though the doctor sensed she had gone too far and that both Cindy and I had enough.  She started to soften her tone the rest of the exam.  She did a physical exam on Cindy testing a few baselines and went over the results of her MRI.  The exam and MRI didn’t confirm any dire diagnosis which was a good thing.  The doctor had some blood drawn to rule out more things, one of which could be B12 deficiency related, a common thing for people that do not regularly consume meat.  There were some other possibilities brought up that again have much less dire consequences which is good as well.  We left the VA feeling better about things but both feeling a bit amazed at the attitude this woman brought to the table.

We got a TON of rain from the storm that later turned out to be Hurricane Hermoine.  The property had standing water everywhere.  The instant swamp conditions brought in tons of birds by the dozen, all hoping to feast on whatever was in the water.  At one point I bet we had 100 ibis in our yard.  The two hawks that seem to have taken up residence around our place were around nearly constantly.  They too enjoy hunting in the water.  The chickens joined the party, caring less about the rain, roaming the yard all day looking for fresh bugs.

My Tacoma was at the dealership on Thursday, getting it’s 5000 mile service.  While it was there I asked they perform a TSB that addresses shifting issues with the truck which would cause it clunk into gear when shifting from reverse to drive randomly.  By the time we got back from Cape Coral the truck was done so the timing worked out well.  On the drive home the shifting of the Tacoma definitely felt better than it did previously.

On Friday Cindy was gone a good portion of the day.  I got work done around the house and got miles logged on my Ninebot One.  I had set a loose goal to crack the 100 mile mark over the weekend.  Below you will see the footage from my rides on Thursday and Friday.

On Friday I also changed the oil and filter on my Tacoma.  Wait, didn’t I just have it at the dealer?  Why yes I did but the dealer does not change the oil until 10,000 miles believe it or not.  With the new synthetic lubricants and engine design, the old 3000 mile oil change interval is just not needed.  Even so, I did not want to wait to 10K to have it done.  You may recall I actually swapped the oil in the truck after the first 1000 miles.

This time I was doing the oil and filter which made the job a little more involved.  The new Tacomas use a cartridge type filter now for some reason.  Instead of just replacing the entire filter, you remove an outer canister and then just replace the filter element that is housed inside.  You also have two O-rings to swap out.  In addition, to reach the oil filter, the skid plate on the bottom of the truck has to be removed.  So although in almost every way, the 2016 Tacoma has been better than the 99 Tacoma, ease of oil changes is not one of those things.  Since it was my first time replacing one of these types of filters I ran into a few snags but all in all it wasn’t bad.

Saturday morning was once again chore heavy.  One of the things that wound up on the list was trying to “fix” the outside hose connection.  It had one of those quick fit connectors on it that I used years ago when I used to water the property by hand.  Over time it started to leak which made noise and wasted water.  The hose that was attached to it was not in good shape either so I figured I would replace it as well.

So I headed over there with my large slip joint pliers to break loose the fitting that was very rusty and had not been touched in many years.  At first it did not want to budge so I pulled harder.  It then budged but I also immediately saw a drip develop on the feed pipe that was exposed from the side of the wall.  I had some small concern but I figured it would either stop or was just from the threaded hose connector being a little loose.  Later in the day when I noticed it still had not stopped I went to the hardware store and bought some heavy duty PVC cement as well as self sealing silicon tape.  After turning off the water to the house I used the combination of the two around the exposed portion of the feed pipe.  At first I thought I got it fixed but later saw it still was dripping, just closer to the wall. Oh well, I guess I just will have to live with the drip for now. (more later)

I also did a quick evening grass mowing session, wanting to take advantage of the brief break in the rain that allowed most areas to dry to the point where the ground was soggy but not submerged.  During the day I also built a landing in front of the steps of the chicken coop out of patio blocks.  That area had become a muddy mess from the all of the rain combined with the foot traffic of Cindy and I in and out of the coop.  The blocks gave us a stable and dry surface to step onto before ascending the steps which was good.

Saturday night we watched Zoolander 2 at home.  Cindy wasn’t thrilled about the rental when she saw the envelope but she had to admit it was funny after taking it in.  If you saw the original Zoolander you already know it’s all about stupid/silly, over the top humor.  It had me laughing out loud repeatedly so it deserves a B+ in my book.

On Sunday morning I again drug myself out of bed with the alarm, despite being stiff and sore from my pretty laborious Saturday.  I was again running solo and I again started at the track with nobody else around until somebody flew in.  That somebody was a bald eagle that landed on one of the light towers as I was completing my second lap around the track.  He seemed to be watching me as I went round and round.  In my head I used the majestic bird as a reason I needed to keep going.  He stayed there for the rest of the four mile run, refusing to vacate even when a a couple of noisy quaker parrots were diving at him.  It was very cool to have an eagle on site.

For the second week in a row I surprised myself with the numbers on the GPS.  Last week my injuries had me somewhat limping, causing me to use a shorter stride.  I was amazed that my overall pace last week was better than when I was running normally.  This week I was less injured but again tried sticking with a shorter stride but faster foot cadence.  Again my numbers were surprising, averaging 9:00 miles for the run, a pace I have not maintained for a very long time.  Using a shorter stride actually is a good thing for someone with bad wheels like me.  It keeps my feet more under me when they hit the pavement, which causes less trauma to my knees than when I try to use a long, loping stride.  I guess I will stick with it and see how things progress.  Today I felt very minimal physical repercussions from the run.

Shortly after I got home Cindy and I headed out for a ride on the Minipros.  We covered 6 miles, the farthest Cindy has ever logged on her bot.  We also stopped in at the gym she has been working at where I got to meet the owner who seemed like a nice guy.  The gym is good looking and filled with brand new equipment.  Now all they need is to get the word out.

I brought the wheel with as well.  I had Cindy follow me on the Minipro as I rode the EUC to get some 3rd person perspective video, something I have very little of.  It was interesting to see my form from a distance.   For the most part I look like I know what I am doing.

I actually went out on the wheel a second time later in the afternoon.  I was getting close to my 100 mile goal.  By the time I finished the odometer on my Ninebot One read 98.5 miles.

This morning I woke up a bit frustrated.  It felt hard to believe that I was already on the last day of my mini-vacation.  It felt like I hadn’t gotten to relax as much as I had hoped, despite logging a lot of wheel time.  I started off with a 20 minute session on the Concept 2 rower.  It was the first time I got on the rower since we bought it from Bill.  I purchased a data logger card so Cindy and I will have running totals of just how many meters we pulled.  I tacked 4300 meters plus onto my total during the 20 minutes, a decent start.

Mid-morning I decided I wanted to head to Ave Maria with the wheel to cross the 100 mile mark.  The town is a perfect spot for PTV riding with wide sidewalks that lead all around the huge town area.  I put in about five and as half miles during the ride which put me well past the century mark overall.  It was a nice little accomplishment for me and something that a month or so ago was an impossibility.

Later today Cindy was in the office and I heard her say “Uh, Shawn…” in a tone that never means anything good.  She said the floor by her desk, which sits along the same outside wall as the hose connection, was soaked.  I instantly knew the cause and went outside to rip off the silicon tape.  My first theory was the tape job funneled the dripping water backwards toward the hole in the wall which in turn pooled inside, soaking the rug.  However once we ran the carpet cleaner over the rug the amount of water it sucked out seemed like way too much to be caused by a small drip over two days of time.

We pulled Cindy’s desk away from the wall and I pulled the still soaked carpet up.  At first I had the small fan in our bedroom on the floor to help dry things up.  I then realized the monster fan that is used to inflate the GMT arch moved a ton more air so I brought it in and hooked it up.

I was struggling with a plan of action.  At first I was thinking about cutting a hole in the drywall more or less in the area where the hose is on the outside but didn’t.  Even if I did see the pipe, I was going to let a real plumber fix it so I would rather he make the cut, if necessary, instead of me.  I then climbed in the oven hot attic, hoping there may be some sort of shut off on the line so I could cut water to the hose without killing it for the rest of the house.  I was unsuccessful with finding one.

So my plan for now is to let this fan blow dry the shit out of that corner and only turn on the water to the house on an as needed basis to minimize the leak.  At first I thought the leak was just from the exposed portion of the hose pipe but with as much water as we saw I am worried that there is also a crack inside the wall.  Fixing it may involve knocking a hole in the outside wall, the drywall, or both.  Of course I feel frustrated that if I just left that hose fitting alone I would not have to be dealing with this shit.

The Eagles made a surprise move and traded Sam Bradford to the Vikings who lost their starter to a horrible knee injury.  The trade got the Eagles back some draft picks they gave away securing Carson Wentz.  I’m not sad to see Sam go.  He was mediocre at best last year and the hissy fit he threw when Wentz was drafted was a big turn off.  The move means we will see Wentz as the day one starter which is exciting in one way but disappointing in another as it likely means the fan base will be in for a rebuilding year more than likely.

Cindy’s daughter was over quite a bit this weekend.  There is the possibility she may be moving in for an interim basis as she tries to exit a relationship with her longtime boyfriend that has not been great for quite awhile.  Although it obviously changes our living arrangements considerably, if it gets Katie on a path that leads to more happiness down the road it will be worth it in the long run.  She is too young to have her options limited.

This was a very heavy Ninebot One riding weekend.  It started off at lunch on Friday when I rode from Naples Medical Center after picking up the DVD of my brain MRI results.  I rode all over the coastal Naples area.  It was definitely more challenging having to keep a close eye on so many potential obstacles.  All in all I did a good job and logged 6-7 miles in the process.

I took some time and looked briefly at my MRI brain images but it didn’t take long until I lost interest.  To be honest it sort of grosses me out seeing slices of my skull/brain and everything contained within.  I didn’t see any huge obvious flaws so I guess that is a good thing.

On Saturday morning I was out in the yard early weeding and tending to the property.  It was incredibly warm and humid.  I can hardly wait for winter to arrive so I can work outside without such a misery tariff. We took Sadie out for a DD and Rural King ride which she of course found very exciting.  She slides so easily into Cindy and my daily existence.  Just having her around makes both of us feel better.

Later in the day we headed over to Cindy’s daughters place.  Cindy was tending to her two dogs for the weekend.  Of course we brought Sadie with.  Sadie was already very familiar with Tank, whom we dog sitted for around two weeks.  She had not met Bowser, who is a much bigger, high energy dog.  Sadie had to set Bowser straight with a ferocious sounding snarl when he tried to mount her from behind.  Once that was over all three dogs had fun.  It was the first time I saw Sadie running around and playing with other dogs since my dad and step mom were at the house with their dogs a couple years ago.

Later in the afternoon Saturday the skies were looking ominous but I was getting the urge to go out on the Ninebot One.  I told Cindy I was heading out although I wasn’t quite sure what my destination was going to be.  I headed out onto Immokalee Road and decided I would make a right and head toward Bird Rookery Swamp.  At first I thought I would just go part of the way down the road to the point where it turns to limestone.  Then I decided to just go to the entrance of the swamp.  When it was all said and done I went onto the boardwalk to the end.

The ride had a lot of challenges.  I never rode on limestone road, compressed stone parking lot, grass path or boardwalk before.  I had some shaky moments but stayed upright.  The Ninebot One is remarkably good at handling off road conditions.  I was surprised to see a notice at the end of the boardwalk that the actual trail was closed to the public.  The sign said something like it was due to wildlife concerns.  I was curious how long it had been closed.  I did notice the water levels at the swamp were VERY high.

So once I turned around it started to rain.  When I got off the boardwalk I texted Cindy that I was at the swamp and it might be a good idea she came and picked me up.  By the time I got onto the limestone road it was a downpour.  I knew the Ninebot was pretty water resistant so I kept trucking along, hoping to meet Cindy coming down the road to pick me up.   Once I hit the asphalt part of the road the rain had pretty much stopped.  I heard texts coming in on my phone but I didn’t feel like stopping to answer them, I just wanted to get back at that point.  It turns out that Cindy did not get the text saying I was at the swamp.  She only got the one asking for a pick up.  She assumed I was at the school so she drove there. When I got back to Immokalee Road I stopped and texted her again where I was but that I was just going to ride back as I was almost home.  I cut across Immokalee Road and was less than a mile from the house.

So the EUC was very wet from riding through a rain storm.  I never had ridden it while it was this wet before.  In the video you will notice I mention something about how the pedals felt extra slippery when wet.  So after I got on the right side of the road the Ninebot started beeping which is an indicator it wants you to slow down, either due to a low battery condition or excessive speed.  The wheel also has a “safety” feature which will start tilting the pedals backward to force you to slow down.  This tilt normally is subtle at first but I have had previous rides where it became quite severe very quickly, causing me to have to lean forward awkwardly to stay on it.

Well shortly after crossing I heard a few beeps followed almost immediately with sudden, severe tilt back.   Due to the slippery pedals I was not able to stay on.  My feet slipped off and I went barrel rolling onto the road shoulder at somewhere around 13 mph.  I just happened to be filming with my GoPro when it happened.  The last thing you hear is the sound of my boots sliding off the pedals before I accidentally turned the camera off when I fell.

Of course my first reaction was anger.  The Ninebot went rolling down the grassy ditch, ejecting one of it’s LED rings in the process.  I did a brief survey and saw my right knee was bloody.  For whatever reason I decided to not wear knee pads for the first time in a month.  Of course they would have prevented the road rash.  The EUC appeared to be fine which was a close second in concern to my own injuries.  A couple minutes after my fall Cindy pulled up.  She was freaking out that she didn’t know where I was.  I told her I just fell so I just wanted to get home.

When we got back we did a more extensive examination of my injuries.  In addition to my dirty and bloody knee I had banged up my right shoulder, hip and even my face which had a bloody scratch and a feeling like I was punched in the jaw.  Of course this all freaked out Cindy further.  I assured I was ok and the only reason I fell was because I never rode in wet conditions before.  It was definitely a good lesson.

I had already made up my mind before the crash Saturday that I was going to run on Sunday.  Having a battered and bruised right side created a hurdle to that goal but I still pulled myself out of bed and went to the track solo.  I knew it was not going to be fun.  It took nearly a mile until I was running without a mild limp.  I decided to cut myself a small break and only ran a little more than 5K in distance instead of the four miles I logged last weekend.

Somehow my overall pace was around 15 seconds per mile faster than the week before which seemed ridiculous.  When I tried to analyze why the only thing I could come up with was my stride was shorter because of the injury but my foot cadence was faster.  Maybe that is the way to go.  I always assumed using a longer, slower stride was more efficient overall but maybe that isn’t the case.  The sprinklers at the track were on again giving me moving wet obstacles to steer around.

When I got back I changed my shirt and hopped in the truck with Cindy to go back to her daughters place to check on the dogs.  Sadie was excited to have another play session with her buddies. Having three dogs is fun to experience in short bursts.  Dealing with it day in and day out would be a real chore.

When we got back I had another Ninebot One goal in mind, despite my bloody crash the day before.  I wanted to ride it all the way to Dunkin Donuts, some 10 miles away.  The plan was for me to leave on the wheel and then have Cindy leave about 45 minutes later which in theory should have us arriving at DD at around the same time.  At first we talked about then riding the Minipros around DD but Cindy said she didn’t feel up to riding.  I pushed off for what I knew was going to be a long, potentially boring and somewhat painful ride.  Being on an EUC for that amount of time and distance is rough on your lower body.  Doing it with a banged up right side makes it even more so.

I was about three miles into the ride, approaching Wilson Blvd when I heard the Prius beeping.  Cindy had left already and was trying to flag me down.  I wasn’t sure why she would be coming already and was worried something was wrong at first although I heard nothing from my phone prior that would indicate there was a problem.  I pulled over, confused, as she spun around to my side of the road. She said she changed her mind and had the Minipros in the back of the car.

I didn’t react well to the abrupt change of heart.  I had my mind in goal accomplishment mode, I wanted to conquer the ride on the EUC.  I felt like I was getting pulled from the game and put on the bench. In retrospect it was less of a big deal than I made it. I threw the wheel in the Prius and we drove to DD.  After we picked up coffee we came up with the idea of me riding back to the house which would actually be an even further ride since I already logged three miles.

As I soon as I headed east on Immokalee I realized I might not be able to complete the ride back due to serious head wind I was now traveling into.  It was pushing against my body continually, making the bot work hard to keep me moving at 10+ mph.  So despite the wind, things were going ok.  My biggest issue was foot discomfort which I would address by stopping periodically to shift my weight around a bit.

About 5 miles from the house I started getting my first warning beeps and mild tilt back of the pedals, something that happens increasingly more often as the battery gets depleted.  When I felt the tilt I would immediately lean back to drop some speed.  Well about a half mile from Wilson Blvd I heard a few beeps and then almost immediately got thrown into sudden, severe tilt back, much like what happened the day before.  Despite the pedals being dry, it once again was severe enough that I fell off the back of the bot, sending me and bot rolling down the grass embankment.  I just happened to have the camera on again when it happened and this time it kept rolling, capturing the crash in it’s entirety.

Beside getting dirty, I didn’t have any additional injury from this spill.  The Ninebot escaped unharmed as well, simply rolling down the hill.  I was pissed.  This “safety” feature is treacherous, it should not go zero to 60 in the span of a couple seconds.  I got back on the bot and continued forward at a greatly reduced speed.  Despite this, the low battery level caused a couple more bad tilt backs that had me hop off.  Once I had to wildly scramble to grab the wheel as it headed toward the road.

I realized there was no way I was going to make it all the way back to the house.  I texted Cindy and had her meet me at Orange Tree, some two and a half miles from the house.  By the time I got to her I was only able to putter along at maybe 6 mph.  I learned my second valuable EUC lesson of the weekend.  The Ninebot One is not designed to be taken for double digit mile rides when most of it is into a stiff headwind.  Riding it in low battery conditions was annoying and downright dangerous.  I now have just under 80 miles on the Ninebot One odometer which seems sort of crazy considering how things started out.

We decided to make unusual plans to do a Sunday dinner out at Carrabas.  We hadn’t been there for a while.  I was shocked just how empty it was, about 2/3 of the tables were unoccupied.  We were not impressed with the cleanliness of the place.  Despite being slow, we were at first directed to table that hadn’t been cleaned.  When we went to another high top table the area around it was sort of a mess as well.

The waiter reminded us it was happy hour meaning 2-1 drinks.  There was one problem, they had no draft beer which is what qualifies for the special.  WTF?  I wound up drinking two Miller Lite bottles at $5 a pop, lame.  The food itself was good and our waiter was green but nice so it wasn’t a total negative experience.  It certainly did not give either of us an urge to repeat our patronage soon.

So the internet is up in arms about Colin Kapernick making a conscious decision to not stand during the playing of the national anthem before the 49ers preseason game this weekend.  Colin said it was his way of protesting the way black people are treated in our country.  To me it was Colin’s way of showing he isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack.

Of course I feel it is disrespectful to not observe the anthem.  Despite your social views, somehow your team was stupid enough to throw a 100 million dollar plus contract in your lap.  It’s going to be hard to garner much sympathy for your oppression when you live in such “difficult” conditions which is something he should have given thought to prior to creating this circus.

Sure this is America and you have the freedom to not acknowledge the anthem, just like others have the freedom to think you are a huge a-hole for choosing to do so.  It was just a poor decision by him.  I think there are much more effective ways to make a point without alienating yourself from the populace.  I do have to admit that I sort of enjoy this being Chip Kelly’s mess to deal with.  It is certainly laying the groundwork for this to be a disastrous first year in 49er coaching career.

Yesterday was the MRI of my head which is an attempt to give a clearer picture of exactly what is going on with my right ear.  Once again they asked for payment up front which I find annoying.  I had a conventional MRI a long time ago so I sort of knew what I was in for.  Although I’m not claustrophobic, being in a space where you literally can not move is not pleasant.  The MRI at this facility was actually housed in a truck trailer in the parking lot, weird.

My scan was going to consist of two parts, one regular scan and then another scan after they inject me with some sort of dye to provide additional contrast to the image.  The tech stressed how I needed to keep my head as still as possible.  If you move in the middle of an imaging run they have to redo it, meaning you are stuck in the tube even longer.

I normally am pretty itchy, especially on my head.  Just watch any YouTube video I have and you will surely see me scratch my head or face more than once.  Knowing I was more or less locked in place for 45-50 minutes gave me some anxiety as I laid down on the table.  The tech put a pair of headphones on me that had a radio station playing and then put a plastic cage sort of thing over my head.  He once again told me to stay as still as possible as my body started to get inserted into the machine.

The chamber was tight.  My arms drug on the side of the tube as I moved, forcing me to pull them closer and hold them in a somewhat awkward position.  Having the roof of the chamber a few inches from your face is not a good feeling.  I almost immediately closed my eyes and left them that way for the entire session.  Thankfully there was a steady flow of air going through the tube to keep me cool.

The sound an MRI makes is very loud.  The imaging goes in solid spurts ranging from 2-4 minutes in length during which the rhythmic droning drowns out everything else.  At times I could feel the electro-magnetic forces pulsating through my head, it was an odd sensation.  Of course it didn’t take very long until I had an itch on my head which of course I could do nothing about except wait for it to subside, which it eventually did. I thought when I got pulled out of the tube to get the injection I might be able to scratch any itches but I had to keep my head glued in place the entire time, even during the injection.

The session after the injection felt slightly shorter than the first one although my sense of time became somewhat distorted inside the tube.  Despite the itch urges the tech said I did an excellent job at staying still.  When I finally got pulled from the tube it was a relief.  After scratching my head thoroughly I gathered my things and was on my way.  I am stopping back there at lunch to pick up my images on DVD.  Although I don’t know what I will actually be looking at, I guess it’s a good thing to have images of my brain, just in case.

So a little less than two years ago I bought my own used timing box.  It was the start of the idea I had to make my timing skills my own part time gig, outside of what I had been doing for the running club for many years.  The idea of me calling the shots and being able to charge more for my services seemed appealing.  Once I broke away as the club timer in January I assumed I would start actively timing more events on my own.  I invested a good chunk of money in getting more equipment to help me in that regard. I bought some laptops, an inflatable arch, generator, race clock. shelter and several other things.

I did do a couple events, all small in size.  They went ok but despite their size brought on similar amounts of stress as bigger races I used to time, partially because I was dealing with a different cast of people that I had no idea how competent or incompetent they were.

Then a weird thing happened.  After not timing a race for a few months I started to realize just how little I missed it.  I got a decent amount of inquiries about timing other events and most of them I turned away immediately.  I did schedule two events, one in October and another in November, both of them involving friends of mine.  I have since handed off the November event to another timer, leaving only the October race on my calendar.   I was talking loosely with Ali about timing her race in January but again had no real enthusiasm for it.

So anyway I think I have decided that after the October commitment I will be closing the doors on Green Machine Timing.  At this point in my life I just have very little tolerance for putting myself in situations I don’t enjoy.  Life is too short.  My cost of living salary bumps at my real job combined with YouTube money have already pretty much erased any income hit I took walking away from running club timing.  Unloading all of my stuff will help me recoup some of that money and reclaim a lot of space in our third bedroom.

In a way I feel much the same I did regarding the SSR.  Starting my own timing gig sounded like a great idea but the reality of it turned out to be different.  Race timing has been part of my life for the greater part of the last decade but things change.  Much like the SSR, I don’t think I am going to really miss it all that much when it’s gone.

I am picking up the DVD of my MRI results at lunch.  Instead of going to the gym, I brought my Ninebot One in the Prius.  After parking at the med center I plan to get a little bit of riding in around coastal Naples.  Should be fun.

Yesterday I had a follow up appointment at our on site employee clinic scheduled at 8:45.  Even though nothing has really changed with the status of my problem I guess they wanted an update on how the ear specialist appointment went.  I arrived about 8:40.  I expected the visit to be very quick.

Well I didn’t get called back into an exam room until 9:20ish where the nurse weighed me, took my temperature, and blood pressure even though I just had the same thing performed a couple days prior.  I was then told the NP would be in to see me shortly.  After another 20 minutes of staring at the walls in the exam room I had enough.  I walked out and told the receptionist I couldn’t wait any longer.  She apologized and asked if I wanted to reschedule an appointment and I told her no, I’d let them know if I needed anything else.

The onsite clinic has had a retooling of staff members in addition to be taken over by another organization.  I have not been impressed by the changes.  When I made the initial appointment I called three times during business hours and got no answer.  Both times when I walked into the clinic the receptionist ignored me for 30-45 seconds, not because of a phone call or dealing with another patient, she was just doing data entry.  How does somebody in that position not realize the most basic thing to do is at least glance at a person, smile and acknowledge their presence?  Nope she stares straight ahead like a horse with blinders on.

Then there is the actual medical exam experience which seems much more heavily weighted again on data entry instead of wellness.  Far more time is spent in silence as the staff is typing shit into the computer instead of doing any sort of diagnostic.  I do appreciate the end result of the data entry, having more information available online but they need to find a way to find a happy medium.  Right now you just feel like a part on an assembly line.  In a nutshell my medical care experience since having the ear problem has sucked.

So I finally was able to get our Office 365 subscription at work activated but it wasn’t long until I ran into another roadblock which apparently is related to the steps that were taken to activate the account.  I once again have been thrown into outsourced help desk hell where I am dealing with support personnel I literally can not understand.  Dealing with this issue is enough of a pain in the ass as is, trying to do it with a huge language barrier in place makes it maddening.   I am actively trying to find the secret number that connects me to a US based Microsoft help desk.

I was stressed out all day so getting out on the Ninebot One was a nice way to clear my head.  I put in my longest ride ever on the single wheel, just under 8 miles.  I continued to experiment with foot position.  I think I am figuring out exactly what position gives me the best mix of being able to stop, turn, and ride most effectively.  I also used my new windscreen for the GoPro in an attempt to cut down on the horrible wind noise I was getting in some of my previous rides.  For the most part it did a great job.  There is no point in the video where you can’t hear what I am saying.

So yesterday I had a follow up visit with the ear doctor.  I have to say I have not been impressed with their operation.  When I went to my first appointment last week early in the morning I had to wait 45 minutes to get in and then spent most of the morning doing the same thing, waiting.  Well yesterday my appointment wasn’t until 3:15.  I again had a long wait of over 60 minutes.

To me if an office consistently is late getting patients in that means they are overbooking the time slots.  It isn’t rocket science. The experience isn’t made any better by the receptionist that seems to be in a permanent bad mood.  I also found it annoying that they wanted to take my credit card for my $35 co-pay before I even saw anybody.

So I finally was called back and met with the actual ear doctor instead of his PA.  He was an old man that has certainly looked at thousands of ears during his career.  He asked me if I had been taking the steroid.  I told him I had for 5 days but have not noticed any change in the symptoms.  I did tell him I started noticing I had drainage down my throat the last few days but he said that was probably a side effect of the prednisone.  The amount of fluid in an ear is so small you would not feel it in your throat.

He too seemed a bit oblivious to the circumstances of the incident, seeming to think that the gym incident was perhaps a coincidence and the hearing loss was caused by something else.  I assured him it was not and described it as someone flipping a switch.  He wants me to finish the prednisone and get the ear MRI to make sure nothing major is going on in there.  He again mentioned the possibility of it being a “fistula” which is a small tear in the membrane between the middle and inner ear.  If it is that, they either heal by themselves or don’t.

When I read up on the condition it repeatedly mentions severely restricting physical activity during the first 7-14 days which I obviously have not been adhering to.  I probably should try to dial it back but my inner taskmaster doesn’t feel the same way.  The low ear ringing and diminished hearing out of that side is annoying but not a show stopper.  Regardless it would be nice to not go through the remainder of my life with the sound of a leaking capacitor permanently in my head.

Last night I wanted to get out on the wheel and ride.  The problem was it was pouring rain at the house.  I threw the Ninebot One in the Prius and hoped to find a nearby dry spot.  Luckily the precipitation stopped just before I arrived at the middle school.  I had a decent ride of almost five miles around the area.  There were some kids around the school for some event that were interested in my one wheeled wizardry.  One of them yelled out “Hey, can I try it?” , I instantly yelled back, “TOO DANGEROUS!”  I also had people just yelling at me randomly as I cruised down the sidewalk by Oil Well Road.  It was hard to tell but they sounded like sounds of approval.

I had no crashes but could feel some fatigue in my legs from Sunday’s run followed by 13 miles+ of riding on two bots.  When the legs feel tired the responsiveness definitely suffers.

Saturday morning Cindy went in to work at her new gig at a new gym that is only 8 miles away.  I used that time to get out in the yard with the weed whacker.  I had not buzzed the yard in a few weeks.  The ground was quite soggy with some standing water so it was a messier than normal experience.  I also got a reminder of why I was supposed to wear long pants when performing this chore.  I inadvertently whacked a fire ant mound that sent a ton of them into my rubber boot where they immediately started lighting up my calf.  As I ripped the boot off and started whacking at my leg I vowed to never do the chore in shorts again.  I kept myself busy all morning doing stuff around the house until Cindy got home a little after noon.

Early in the afternoon Bill, our friend from the running club showed up with two Concept 2 Rowers in the back of his truck.  We were buying one of them.  Bill has been a long time rower.  He has amassed literally millions of meters of rowing over the years.  I had enjoyed rowing both at NCH and Planet Fitness.  Retro does not have any rowers.  Cindy and I thought a rower would make a nice addition to our fitness arsenal and we had a spot in our bedroom in front of the window where it would fit. The rower we actually bought was one Bill’s daughter used for awhile.  Despite being used a lot it was still in excellent condition, much better than any rower I used at the gym.

Bill is the equipment manager for the running club so we spent nearly a decade meeting up on race sites way before the crack of dawn to set up for events.  Bill has also helped me out on my property in the past, doing some grading work and also helping me transport and set up my smaller storage shed.  He may be the hardest working person I know.  We caught up a bit on the latest and greatest as he gave us a pretty thorough run down of the rower.  There aren’t many things I miss about my time as the running club timer but being able to work with good people like Bill is one of them.

After Bill left we did a run to Home Depot to get a few things.  We actually did not stop at Rural King this weekend, a rarity.  Going to Dunkin Donuts, Home Depot and Rural King just fits us like an old comfortable t-shirt.

Saturday night we opted to stay home and watch my Netflix Blu-ray, Gods of Egypt.  Yes I had heard the movie got bad reviews but how bad could a movie be that has the Kingslayer from Game of Thrones and King Leonidas from 300?  Well the answer is, really, really bad.  It was so bad that Cindy bailed watching it maybe half way through.  I was committed to see it through to the end.  A movie can be awful but sometimes it’s so dumb it can flip around to be entertaining in some bizarre way.  That is kind of how I felt as I endured to the end.  I was laughing out loud at just how dumb it was.  It also had a very weird musical score at times that did not seem to match up with the mood of the scene.  You really don’t need to ever see this movie but if you chose to do so I would advise downing a six pack first.  C-

Sunday morning I once again had the alarm set for 6AM to get an early run in.  Cindy had planned to go with me but her back was bothering her so I wound up going solo.  I was surprised when I pulled up to the track around 6:45 and there was nobody there.  Normally there are one or two people walking the track very early.  I was also glad to see the sprinklers were not running so I wouldn’t have to dodge them this time around.

I had decided going in that I wanted to increase my lap count by one.  I had been doing 13 lappers up until then which worked out to be around 3.4 miles. 14 laps was my goal.  It was sort of peaceful having the track to myself as I circled the track as sunrise emerged.  As I got to lap 11-12 I was feeling ok so I entertained the idea of pushing for four miles of total distance.  I had not run 4 miles at all in 2016 and I if I did it in 2015 it was very early in the year.  As I rounded the final turn of lap 14 I glanced at my watch and saw one more lap would get me four miles.  I mentally committed and put in the 15th lap.  To be that close and bail would have been lame.  I ended the run as I began, alone, but feeling a mild sense of accomplishment as well.

Later in the morning Cindy and I loaded up the Minipros in the Prius and headed to North Collier Regional Park to get some riding in.  The park is large, beautiful and has paths all over the place that are perfect for two wheeled fun.  As we were zipping around we saw signs for early voting.  I knew early voting had opened up on Saturday but I did not know you could vote on Sunday too.  Cindy and I decided we should take advantage of our discovery.  We rode back to the car so Cindy could grab her ID.  We then took turns babysitting the Segways so the other could vote.  There were no lines and we finished in less than 5 minutes each.  We were both happy we inadvertently got a chance to fulfill our civic duty while joyriding.

As we rode around the park we got asked about the Minipros a few times by other park visitors.  To those that have never seen them in action it looks pretty crazy.  While I was waiting for Cindy to vote I was freaking a couple out by driving my Minipro around by remote control.  It was very warm, by the time we were done my shirt was soaked.  Even with the heat it was a beautiful and fun ride.  Cindy and I both really enjoy cruising on the Segways.

Cindy made arrangements to go to the movies with her daughter, niece and mom Sunday afternoon which again gave me time to do my own thing.  One of those things was to go back out on the road to ride my other personal transport device, the Ninebot One E+.

I had not ridden the wheel since Wednesday after work.  During that ride I felt stiff and uncomfortable.  I gave myself a few days to recover physically and mentally.  I drove through a pounding rainstorm a couple miles from the house to Dunkin Donuts where it was blue skies and nice.  I decided to take the wheel on the same route Cindy and I followed a couple weeks prior on the Minipros into a nearby development and golf course.

When we did that ride I remember thinking how it would be awesome if I was comfortable enough on the Ninebot One someday to be able to go this route.  I did not expect to be able to do it so soon.  I felt much more comfortable on the wheel than I did on Wednesday.  I actually rode back to the car three times with the intention of leaving.  Each time I decided I was having too much fun and headed out again.  In total I logged over 7 miles during the session which felt awesome.  Being able to navigate the sidewalks and walking/riding paths without feeling in mortal danger was a good thing.

Towards the end of the ride I came across another revelation in regards to foot position that was unknowingly causing me issues.  I had been having issues turning well to the left which is the side my foot is planted on the wheel when I mount.  I would normally have that left foot and ankle pressed firmly right against the side of the wheel, my thought process being less space meant less room for wobble.

I did a little test where I tried mounting the wheel with the opposite foot.  During this test I realized my turning problem had now reversed sides as well.  Well the light bulb clicked in my old brain.  It seemed like having a foot so tight against the bot makes it difficult to turn that direction due to lack of clearance.  I mounted the wheel with my foot and inch or so off the wheel and felt GREAT.  Not only could I turn both ways better, it also allowed for a more comfortable riding position.  It felt like moving the foot off the wheel a bit allowed the slight variations in wheel angle to be absorbed by my feet and ankles instead of transmitting all the way up my left leg.  I ended the riding session feeling very optimistic and anxious to get back on it again soon.

I watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics last night which for the most part was much less interesting than the games itself.  I found the Brazillian music annoying as hell.  The costumes made me feel like I was watching one huge Mummer’s Parade.  The most interesting part of it was when Japan did their high tech routine promoting their hosting of the games in 2020.

Despite my initial thoughts about the raw sewage rivers and Zika outbreaks in Rio clouding the Olympics, I still found myself just watching the various events, many of which I NEVER witness outside of this four year cycle.  There are so many touching and meaningful moments that every Olympics provide, despite the never ending commercialization of the event.  I can still drown all that extraneous bullshit out and just enjoy the simplicity and joy of witnessing the best athletes from around the world trying to make their dreams come true.

I am now on my fifth day of prednisone and have stepped down from the three pill to two pill a day level.  Unfortunately I have noticed absolutely no change in my ear problem.  It still feels closed and has a low level ring.  I have a follow up appointment with the ear doctor today.  I will be sure to voice my opinion if he starts to suggest an extensive treatment plan, I will likely tap the brakes.  The bottom line is I can still hear and the ringing is only loud enough to be annoying but not debilitating.  I’m not going to get on the hamster wheel of expensive testing/treatment to just help pad their bottom line.  My gut tells me this is something that will either heal itself or not.  I don’t think they can “fix” it with a pill or a shot.