Looking for a new challenge

So when I was first exploring the world of electric personal transport vehicles one of the things I checked out was the One Wheel.  In some ways it reminds you of an EUC with it’s single, albeit huge single tire.  Like an EUC you control speed and direction with your body but in a different orientation.  The One Wheel mimics snowboarding/skateboarding where as an EUC is more like a pair of skis.

As a kid I dabbled in skateboards but I never could do anything beyond riding it conventionally with only mild control at best.  The fact that EUC’s offered more range and speed were the reason I decided to go down that path, a path which I thoroughly love.

However lately I have found myself getting more and more interested in revisiting the One Wheel.  Over the past few years they have really improved the guts of the hybrid skateboard/snowboard.  The initial version had very limited speed and range of only 5-7 miles.  Their latest offering, the XR+ can go up to 18-19 miles on a charge and can reach speeds of almost 20 mph, way better specs than my first EUC.

I find myself feeling like I want to once again challenge my half century old mind and body to take on a new challenge of learning how to ride it.  I think my EUC progress will help in this challenge but the different stance and balance position will surely open a very large can of worms that will take time to adjust to.

One thing I also absolutely love about the prospect of owning a One Wheel is, brace yourself, it is made in the USA.  Yep, pretty much every single electric personal transport has it’s origin in China.  The One Wheel was designed, built and sold out of California.  It’s a feel good story that I want to be a part of.  I’m not sure exactly when this adventure will begin, but it will….

Monday mow, The strength of two and a half men

So Cindy didn’t get the chance to mow during the day yesterday as there was a brief downpour as she was getting ready to do it.  Despite her objections, I told her I was going to get on the tractor and knock it out, despite the skies still looking foreboding.  I jumped on the tractor and got busy.  Mowing wet grass is never fun but I wanted to have the task complete, no matter what. (thanks Dad).  It took me a little more than 90 minutes on the tractor to finish.  I limped off the tractor (a normal reaction nowadays) and headed inside, glad to have accomplished my goal.  Mowing on Monday evenings will not become the new norm.

So as I mentioned yesterday, Cindy took the Minipro to our local bike shop to see if they could get the incredibly stiff tires onto the unit.  I was happy when Cindy messaged me, saying the mission was accomplished.  I asked if it was easy for them to install the tires.  She said definitely not.  It took two beefy guys manhandling the tires at the same time with a third lending a hand in addition.  Some large prying tools were involved as well.  Hearing the depiction of events made me feel a little less like a failure from not being able to install the new tires by myself with lesser tools.

Tonight I have to finish putting the Minipro back together and clean up the mess in the hobby room.  At some point I want to do a comprehensive test of the monster tired Minipro versus our other one with stock tires.  It will be interesting to see how handling and top speed is affected.

Where did it go

Despite my best efforts to make it slow down, this weekend once again flew by in the blink of an eye.  I was planning to mow the grass but Cindy offered to do it today to help keep the weekend slate clear.  I appreciated her effort but just found myself other things that needed to be done.  It’s a viscous cycle.  I spent a good portion of the afternoon cleaning the floor surfaces of the house, first with shampooing all the carpeted areas and then hitting all the hard surfaces with the steam cleaner. It’s unfun work.

Oh I did start off with a run again on Saturday.  A hot and miserable run through thick humidity and temps already pushing 80 degrees.  I am still waiting for it to get easier.

On Saturday night we went out to see the new Jurassic Park movie.  I really liked it, it had a lot of the feel of the original.  The only thing that annoyed was the inconsistency of action of the little girl in the movie (you’ll understand when you see it).  But all in all it was a good, scare the s out of you at times dino movie. I’d give it an A and so did Cindy.

Sunday morning I went for a longish ride on the Monster, riding all the way from the house to North Collier Regional Park.  Even with a 15-16 mile ride, it flies by pretty quickly on the big wheel.  I was cruising right around 25 mph for most of the trip.  I actually hit the speed warning a couple times at 28mph.

Sunday afternoon I decided to take on tire replacement on Cindy’s Minipro.  I got the bigger tires from James, the guy that drove four hours to test the Z10.  These tires are much bigger than the originals and offer more speed and off road capability.  James forgot to tell me about one more feature, they frustrate the f out of you trying to get them installed.  In total I spent close to two hours trying to get the new tires on, unsuccessfully.  I either needed better tools, better technique, or a second set of strong hands.  I eventually said F it and have Cindy taking it to a bike shop to get the tires mounted today.  I’ll trade $20 to save me two hours of frustration at this point in life.

The last part of the weekend was consumed by my first official live stream with Marty, building off our test version from last week.  I think all in all it went well.  We had the largest viewing crowd by far for me, topping out at 45 simultaneous viewers at one point.  There were some challenges with having so many people in there, namely trying to pay attention to the chat which had some questions we didn’t get to address.  Marty jumped out after about an hour but I stayed in there, trying to answer some of what was missed.  It was a good time but also a bit draining.  Marty was talking about doing this once a week but I think bi-weekly may work out better for me, we’ll see.

 

 

 

Two day marathon

Balance in life is important, too much of anything is generally not a great idea, even if it is a fun thing like riding electric unicycles.  Since Monday evening my life has been consumed with nothing but EUC.  I was planning, riding, commenting, filming, driving and editing pretty much non-stop right up until last night.  To be honest, I just can’t find the energy to type out everything about the experience.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a bunch of fun and I was very honored to be chosen as one of the influencers in the US worthy of giving my opinion on the Ninebot Z-10.  However I would prefer if you just watched the video series as time allows, to tell the story.

 

Delayed, Big bill, Work after work, On it’s Way

So I was supposed to be off today for the gutter install on the house.  However I got an email around 3:30 yesterday saying the work was being postponed to Thursday.  I thought the notice was rather late but at least they let me know instead of just no showing without notice which is how so many service businesses in SWFL operate.  Luckily I was able to move my day off to Thursday to accommodate the change.

So as I mentioned a couple days ago, this past weekend I tried to do an alternative power run to the RV so we could hopefully run the AC unit to keep temps/humidity down.  For almost a month we have had the blower fan in the RV running 24/7 to try to provide some temperature moderation but it didn’t seem to do much of anything besides blow hot outside air into the RV at a rapid pace.  Well to add insult to injury, I got the electric bill yesterday and it had jumped something like $45 from the round the clock ineffective use of the AC fan out there.  If I didn’t have the RV fan draw, I was hoping I would be able to see the first tangible benefits of having a reflective, heat repelling, metal roof on the house.

So anyway, after realizing having the AC running out there with my current electrical circuit configuration was a no go and that the having the fan on accomplishes nothing, we came up with a simpler plan.  We ordered a small dehumidifier which will pull a fraction of the power but keep moisture from accumulating inside the structure.  Cindy is also going to be trying to get out there more regularly to open up the RV so it can air out daily if possible.

I took the truck to work yesterday because I needed to pick up supplies afterward, dirty supplies.  Over the winter I have been dumping bags of top soil in the area directly behind the chicken coop.  My hope has been to create some additional high ground that the chickens can utilize when the unavoidable high standing water of Florida wet season returns.  I have probably dumped 60-70 bags of top soil back there in total.

Well the last part of this plan was to put sod on top to stabilize the dirt.  I had been waiting to do this part until consistent rain had returned.  I hoped to get the sod at the Home Depot 5 minutes from the office but they had none.  Luckily the bigger location 5 miles away still had a good amount of sod available.  I loaded up the truck with 10 more bags of top soil with a chaser of 30 pieces of St Augustine sod.

I was outside working straight up until Cindy got home close to 7:30PM.  It was tedious and dirty work but I like the end result.  The deck of grass sits a good 6-8 inches higher than the low spots back there so I hope it can be the chickens island of tranquility during the stormy days of summer.

I just got a ship notice for an EUC being sent my way.  For the first time ever it isn’t one I bought.  Instead I have been lucky enough, thanks to my YouTube EUC presence, to be selected as one of a handful of people in the United States to get to test a new electric unicycle called the Ninebot Z10.  This wheel was just up in NYC where it was tested by a BUNCH of local riders.  In my case the testing will be isolated to me, unless Cindy, Daniel or Katie want to try it out.  I am looking forward to getting the wheel to see if it lives up to the hype.  I am actually burning two vacation days next week to dedicate to testing the wheel before I have to ship it to it’s next location.

 

Weekend has arrived

It’s been a busy week of work so I am anticipating the weekend, where I will fill a good portion of it with more, work.  It’s the hamster wheel I willingly subject myself to.

I don’t have many words to entertain you today but I do have over 90 minutes of live streaming to keep you occupied if necessary.

It’s raining, again

I figured since it was yet another rainy day I may as well get the blog written for the weekend.  The weather the last two weeks has been crazy.  We went from arid, dry conditions to wet season literally overnight.  It has been gray and raining the better part of two weeks, it’s nuts.  There have been a series of low pressure systems in the gulf causing the weather, the latest being tropical storm Alberto.

We got lucky and only had light rain falling on us when we went for our run early Saturday morning.  I had taken last weekend off from running due to some mild pain in both of my knees.  My legs didn’t feel great while covering the 13 laps but we finished with a pace almost identical to what we logged two weeks prior.

So I had a decent size list written up for the weekend, not a staycation size list but at least a half dozen items were on there.  All of the rain meant the grass was back into high gear growth mode.  I got the the weed whacking done before the sky let loose but that meant the tractor mowing would have to wait. I mean what sort of idiot mows grass in the rain?

Another item on the list was to take the old dryer to Cindy’s mom.  She was buying a new washer to go with the dryer we are giving her.  The weather was still looking terrible but I grabbed a blue tarp from the shed to cover it during it’s ride in the back of the Tacoma.  Getting the unit into the truck was an ordeal.  I had it on a hand truck and I was up in the bed trying to lift the dryer up with brute force while Cindy was on the ground trying to lift.  It didn’t go well as I didn’t account for the wheels of the hand truck getting stuck on the tailgate.  By the time I realized what was happening the tailgate was at a 45 degree angle.  We set it down and modified our strategy.  We transported the dryer face up with the tarp strapped around the unit to keep it dry.

It was a good thing we covered the dryer.  The closer we got to Cindy’s mom’s place the harder the rain came down.  We unloaded the dryer in a torrential downpour.  I was absolutely soaked.  So the laundry spot had an old shelf that was about an inch too low to accommodate the high profile of the dryer and pedestal stand.  We decided to just pull out the shelf as anything on it could either go on top of the new washer/dryer or into the slide out drawers in the pedestals below.

So in addition to pulling the shelf I pulled the old accordian style dryer vent tube which was filled with lint.  I had Cindy sweep out the outlet into the wall as well, it was pretty bad.  I replaced the old vent pipe with the newer style that we had with our dryer.  I was finally ready to try to slide the dryer into place when I discovered another issue.  The 220 plug on the wall was an older three prong style, the cord on our dryer was a 4 plug.  Luckily dryer cords are easily changeable.  I hopped in the truck to head to nearby Home Depot where I got a different cord and a few other things I needed for the chicken coop.

Once I returned I swapped the plug and then was finally able to slide the dryer into place so I could see one more pitfall.  The laundry nook had folding doors in front of it.  With the dryer pushed into place the edge of the door blocked the pull out drawer in the pedestal from opening.  Cindy’s mom said we could just pull the doors off, she didn’t like them anyway.  After doing so the clearance was just enough to allow everything to work as intended.  Cindy’s mom thanked us for our help and we were off.

We decided we were going to drive up to Lehigh Acres to take a look at my two pieces of “investment” real estate I own.  I put that in quotes because it actually has been the worst investment of my life.  As it sits I am probably down roughly 80%-90% of what I originally paid for the two parcels.  I had not been up to the lots in at least two years, maybe longer.

The one reason we went was to see if there was any viability to using the lots to to store Cindy’s RV on  during wet season. (it’s not viable)  The other reason was to just see what has changed in the area since I been there last.

The two lots are tiny compared to our land here.  One parcel is .24 acres and the other is .29 which is standard for Lehigh Acres.  I bought these during the real estate boom in 2003.  At one point I could have sold each lot for nearly double what I paid for them but I thought there was no ceiling so I just held on.  Once the bottom dropped out of the market the prices absolutely plummeted and I paid the price for greed, riding it all the way to the bottom.

The trip confirmed that both of the lots have some nice attributes for different reasons.  One of them is very close to the middle of Lehigh Acres with easy access to all amenities while being surrounded by nice homes and a nearby country club.  The other lot is more remote but again nice with a canal and orange grove behind it meaning you should never have to worry about encroachment from the rear.

During the ride Cindy threw out an idea that had some intrigue for me.  What if we built a house on one of these lots for either rent or resale?  It’s something that could possibly be one way for me to recoup that money that will otherwise be lost forever.  It’s something I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking on until I get my HELOC paid off but it is an interesting idea.  It would be a lot simpler if the land prices in Lehigh started rebounding like land prices in Collier County have but it seems like that is an unlikely scenario.

My new full face helmet for EUC riding arrived Saturday.  I wasted little time before trying it on for comfort.  The XL helmet felt good and didn’t appear to affect my field of vision at all which is important.  On Sunday I got out in the driveway with it on briefly just to do a quick real world test.

Saturday night Cindy and I got out to see Solo, the latest Star Wars movie.  I have to be honest, with as disappointed as I was in the last Last Jedi combined with a lot of negative hype about Solo, I was less than excited to go see it.  However as a true Star Wars fan I felt obliged to see it in a theater, regardless.

My luke warm feeling about the movie was also self cultivated from seeing trailers that didn’t overly excite me.  I thought the actor they got to play a young Han Solo just didn’t look the part and I felt that would really overshadow the movie.  There were also all sorts of problems during the production of the film including reshooting large portions of it.

Well I have never been the type of person to be afraid to admit I was wrong about something and Solo is definitely an example of that.  I thought the movie was not good but GREAT.  Although the actor that played Han was not the visual depicition most fans would want, he did a great job of portraying the personality of Han Solo.  It didn’t take long for my initial apprehensions to melt away.  This felt like a true Star Wars movie and I enjoyed it from start to finish, you will too.  It gets an A.

Sunday morning I awoke to news that Florida was under a state of emergency from Alberto due to the potential for severe rain, forecast as much as 10 inches in some areas.  F that, even though it still was off and on raining outside I decided I HAD to get the grass mowed.  So while Cindy was out running errands mid-morning I fired up the Craftsman and got busy.  I was able to get almost the entire front of the yard mowed before the rain returned.  However it returned with a vengeance.

At one point I was mowing in the middle of an absolute deluge.  The canopy on the mower kept me sort of dry from the shoulders up and that’s it.  I didn’t care, I was going to finish, no matter what.  Cindy got back when I was almost done.  The tractor was encased in a wet, green organic blanket that I tried to rinse off afterward.  Even though I was soaked by the end of the task I felt relief to get it done before potentially horrid rain began. That rain never really came.  We had off and on periods of rain all day but it seems we missed the flood level precipitation that was predicted which I am certainly happy about.

We spent the rest of the day around the house attending to mostly indoor things.  I told Cindy late in the day that somehow, despite mowing in the rain for two hours earlier, I somehow felt lazy for not doing more.  It’s an odd ailment I suffer from.

Last night we watched our Netflix rental, Geostorm.  Wow, despite having the star of 300 in it, one of my favorite movies of all time, Gerard Butler, I found this movie to be utterly ridiculous.  Pretty much nothing made sense and when Gerard “saves” the planet it seems like it was already too late.  This was the opposite experience of Solo as I actually thought I would like this movie.  B-

Today we hoped to get out on the wheels for Memorial Day but it again was off an on rain all morning.  I may still get a shot to get out there later today but the the constant threat of rain makes it annoying and less than desirable to venture out only to get washed out later.  I have a lot of indoor things to keep me busy if need be until the world of work returns tomorrow.

 

Last one, It only takes a few

This morning I finished up the last of the seven installs I have been doing at our various branches where I am swapping out a network device.  The project is to proactively give us better performance when we switch to a cloud based back end in the next couple months.  Just like most everything else in life each install has gotten easier with repetition.  The first location took me almost 90 minutes to work through some bugs.  The last install today took less than 10 minutes.

Today the new washer and dryer are scheduled to arrive.  We are having them haul out the washer with the failing main bearing.  The dryer is going to go to Cindy’s mom.  I am hoping maybe we can run it over there tonight to get it out of the way instead of sitting in the garage.  Both Cindy and I are looking forward to getting the new set.  They will fit better in the limited space in our laundry room and hopefully will serve us well for the next decade or so.

So the other day on YouTube I saw a video posted by a young fellow EUC enthusiast that included in the title something about “dominating city streets”.  What the video depicted was the kid riding at very high rates of speed while manning a selfie stick.  However I soon found myself getting very annoyed and frustrated by how this high speed riding not only was on streets but on pedestrian walkways and sidewalks as well, in some cases while pedestrians were actively using them.  This kid would come flying up behind people and blow by them with no thought of what would happen if the pedestrian suddenly changed direction.  The video was filled with reckless riding.

I have seen videos by this kid before doing similar things in the past and never said anything but for whatever reason I felt obliged to this time.  I commented that riding that fast around pedestrians is reckless, dangerous, and is the sort of behavior that is going to initiate a crackdown on EUC use in the states.  In several countries in Europe this has already happened. With my background with drones I already had seen first hand how the ignorant few can ruin something for the many.

So anyway this kid did not react well to my criticism which was certainly not surprising. He sent me a message in Messenger that included “ You are a 50 year old man dogging on a 20 year olds videos… grow up.” as if somehow our respective ages impacted the facts of how he was riding.   Of course I found humor in the kid advising me to be the one to grow up.

So anyway, I was far from alone in my criticism of his antics in this video so my ultimate hope is that although I would never expect him to admit it, hopefully he will use more care and thought while riding in the future.  Hey when I was 20 years old I wasn’t much for taking the advice of my elders either.

Last night I watched the end of the AMC show, The Terror.  That was one crazy show, damn….

One wipe at a time, Better???, Automation

So I decided to take a one week hiatus from running this weekend.  Both knees had soreness at the top of them which felt like it would benefit from a short break.  The knees already had taken some additional beating from playing racquetball on my lunch hour on Friday.

So without running on the calendar I jumped right into doing the chicken work first thing Saturday.  Once that was handled Cindy offered to do the weeding so I could get started on the first of two main projects of the weekend, cleaning the roof eave.  Last weekend I completed cleaning one side of the house, handling the other three was no less fun.  I used the same technique as before, a spray bottle and rags.  In total I spent three to four hours cleaning the eaves one wipe at a time.  No, I won’t be looking to do the project anytime again soon.

We also headed to Home Depot during the morning where I plunked down big bucks for a new Samsung washer and dryer.  In the last week the LG front loading washer we have started getting VERY loud during spin cycle which sounded like a bearing going bad.  A quick search online indicated this is a common failure with these washers.  I then started investigating what is involved in replacing the bearing and seal.  Although the parts can be obtained for less than $50 the labor required to replace the bearing is massive, requiring a complete tear down of the machine.

Depending on what you find during the tear down there is the possibility that other components will need to be replaced as well.  I had been looking to replace the washer/dryer for a couple years so the idea of spending that much time/effort to repair something I want to get rid of just didn’t make sense to me.  We actually paid less for the new Samsung set than I did in 2010 when I bought the LG’s.  Having a front loading washer just is not as great as I once thought it would be.  The new set features a high efficiency top loading washer which will work out better for several reasons.

Saturday evening we made arrangements to go see Deadpool 2 with Katie and Daniel.  We got a last minute surprise when Cindy’s niece and her boyfriend showed up as well.  We arrived early to grab dinner at the theater.  Cindy and I were the only veterans of The Prado theater.  Katie was very impressed by the VIP theater accommodations, specifically the reclining leather chairs.

Cindy had worked during the day on making us Deadpool t-shirts for the movies.  The one she made for me was absolutely epic and good not have been more appropriate.  Of course we wore them.

I absolutely loved the first Deadpool movie and expected the second movie to be great but not as good as the original because hey, that hardly ever happens.  Well I feel pretty confident in stating that Deadpool 2 is even better than the original.  It had me laughing out loud more than any movie I can recall in the last decade. (Thor Ragnarok was close)  It was so damn funny, I loved it. The movie gets a rare A+ in my book.  Spoiler, although there are shorts during the credits, if you sit till the VERY end of the credits there is nothing waiting for you.

Sunday morning Cindy and I went out to do a ride around the Dunkin Donuts area.  It turned out only I rode because the one tire on her Minipro was very low on air.  Cindy wound up doing some grocery shopping while I did a 6 or 7 mile ride on my Monster.  My lower body already hurt from being on a ladder so much on Saturday.  Riding an EUC only amplified the discomfort.

Sunday afternoon Cindy and I tackled the remaining big weekend project, installing a second automatic chicken coop door.  Our original door is one of the highlights of the coop as it automatically opens and closes each day to keep the chickens secure.

We decided we wanted to take it one step further.  Often times when we get up all of the chickens are already awake and pacing inside of the run, anxious to be let out so they can roam about doing their chicken things.  We thought adding a second door to the run would allow the birds early access to the yard as well as allowing us to make sure they are completed closed up in the evening if we are away for some reason.

I ordered the door a couple weeks ago and it has been sitting by the front door waiting to be installed for over a week.  As is the case with the vast majority of my construction projects.  I had a loose mental outline of how I wanted to install the door that was fluid and changed as the install was done with suggestions from Cindy.

The end result turned out well with the door feeling very secure but still somewhat protected by the clear roof panels over that section.  Some of the chickens went through the door right away, others were cautious.  We closed the main door so they HAD to go through the opening to go to bed which they all did.  This morning most of the hens did not quite grasp the concept that they didn’t have to wait for us to open the big door to get outside.  I am sure they will catch on soon.

Another busy week is awaiting me but the good news is I have a three day weekend waiting at the end of it.

 

 

 

Hanging, So Proud, Flexible, Lord of the Zima

So Friday evening I hung out with Shugs and the dogs at Ali’s place for a few hours.  We drank a couple beers, ate pizza, and watched some baseball on the big 73 inch DLP tv that just had a new lamp installed into it by Shugs.  It really brightened up the pic on the set.  It was nice to just chill and shoot the shit.

Running the next morning was a challenge after drinking a few beers the night before.  I wore my new (to me) Forerunner 301 GPS that I bought off Ebay.  It has the same bulky form factor as my prior Forerunners but with updated electronics.  The GPS seems more accurate and as a result it confirmed I am slower than my old Forerunner said I was.  It’s ok.

So Cindy was over on the east coast participating in what was up until this point a secret activity.  She was competing in a bikini/fitness competition in Boca Raton.  She agreed to do it after encouragement from her friend who had done her first competition in November.  She has been working hard for a couple months training, dieting, and doing all of the other unfun stuff required for such an endeavor.

Of course she was apprehensive about getting on a stage to be judged wearing next to nothing but I was confident she would do well as her fitness level is great and her personality shines through.  When she sent me a picture after her heavy spray tan was applied and her make up was done it was a pretty shocking transformation, she looked great.

The actual judging occurred Saturday morning but the “show” in front of an audience was not until Saturday night.  During the show is when you actually find out how you did.  Later in the night I received a text from Cindy with a pic of her holding three trophies.  She placed in three different categories which is amazing for a first time participant.  I told her I was very proud of her.  She couldn’t believe it.

I tried to stay up until she came home.  I was up playing WoW until 1:30 AM.  She rolled in the door a little after 2 AM.  I awoke and gave her sleepy congrats.  Of course she was beyond excited, even with being exhausted. It was quite the accomplishment.

Despite going to bed so late my body awoke about 7:15 Sunday morning.  I closed the curtains to let Cindy sleep as I went out and tended to the chickens and a few other to do’s.  She slept until after nine which is unheard of in Cindy’s world.  One of the things I did was undo a smart switch install I did on the pool light.  I NEVER use the pool light, I thought if I installed a smart Wemo switch I could put it on a schedule so we get cool pool lighting in the evening for an hour or two.

Well when I wired the switch in I didn’t read the instructions. The old switch had a black wire, a white wire, and a green ground wire.  The Wemo had a green, a white and TWO black wires.  I made an on the fly decision to simply connect the two black wires to the black house wire and match up the other colors.  The switch appeared to have power and I was even able to configure it through the app.  I assumed the pool light was working but it was hard to confirm in daylight.  After the sun had set I hit the switch and was disappointed to see the pool was dark.

I did some digging and evidently for proper operation the switch needs a second black wire which is how most normal switch circuits are configured.  I am not sure why the pool light deviated from this.  I read online about people with similar set ups getting around it by wiring the white neutral wire directly to ground which evidently is a big no no.  It may get the switch working but it also has ther potential to cause other safety issues elsewhere.  So anyway the end result was me putting the old switch back in.  Imagine my thrill when I went to test it last night and it still didn’t work…

So for a few weeks I have been gathering intel regarding when Zima was going to be released for another limited production run.  They brought back my favorite alcoholic beverage last year over the summer and it sold out very quickly.  Evidently I am not alone in my love of this great tasting beverage with a 5% alcohol content, which makes it go down very easily.  Anyway, I found out that they were releasing it again this year with an official launch date of today, May 7th.

I am part of Facebook group called Zima Permanent.  As the name implies, the desire of the group is to bring back Zima as a full time offering instead of seasonally.  I would think the sales would dictate that.  On this group I saw that some locations were getting their Zima shipments early.  I used a site called brickseek.com to search local Walmarts for Zima.  I found ONE location that supposedly had 114 units.  It was in Cape Coral, almost an hour drive away but I didn’t care.  Cindy was down to take the dogs on a Zima treasure hunting trip.

So after the hour drive I entered the store with a short grocery list in hand that Cindy made which was in addition to Zima.  She stayed put with the dogs in the Prius.  I grabbed a cart and walked towards the beer and wine aisle with great expectation.  As I made my first pass down the refrigerated aisle I saw no Zima.  I didn’t panic, it must be on an endcap or perhaps stacked in one of the main aisles.  I slowly circled around seeing other alcoholic items on display but no Zima.  I went back to the refrigerated aisle, three times, hoping I just didn’t see the distinctive packaging, somehow.  Nope, no Zima….

I was dejected as I went around the store and grabbed the handful of other non-Zima items on the list.  After doing so I made one more return run towards the beer, but from a different side.  I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.  There it was, a full five shelves of Zima 6 packs, in an aisle three our four away from the beer aisle.  Why it was there I don’t know but I didn’t care, I had found it.

Now I have seen pictures of people doing ridiculous hoarding of Zima, one guy had 10 CASES in the back of his truck.  I was much more conservative, grabbing 12 six packs or three cases.  Yes it was a lot, especially when you factor in that each six pack was just under 10 bucks.  But again I didn’t care, I found my quest item.

I was a little self conscious as I pushed my shopping cart full of Zima towards check out.  The clerk that assisted me in self check out said she used to drink Zima when she lived in New Jersey 20 years ago.  She had no idea they brought it back.  I told her she better get some while she can.

I returned to the Prius triumphantly.  I took up a good portion of normal dog laying real estate in the back as well as putting a couple six packs on the floor.  I drove with extra caution on the way home, conscious of the value of the cargo I was carrying.  Once we made it home I scattered my Zima around the house making sure I had various sources to pull from.  I am hoping three cases is enough to get me through this calendar year as I normally only drink them occasionally.  Cindy is a fan as well.  I look forward to many good Zima times during the rest of 2018.

On Sunday I had my first ever successful 3D print with TPU which is rubber like, flexible filament.  I have tried printing the stuff multiple times on several printers with little to no success.  This time I tried on the Ender 2 which has a very short Bowden tube which I thought may work great with TPU.  My hunch was right as I printed a flexible cap for the charging port of my EUC.  I later printed a flexible Benchy boat which came out very well.  I am now thinking about what sort of projects would benefit from being able to print in this new flexible material.

Our roof is supposed to start having the metal installed today which should take a total of no more than three days.  Cindy and I are both looking forward to it all being completed.  I have one more related task to be contracted out, new gutters all the way around.  I hopefully have an estimate for that being done tomorrow.