Category Home Improvements

When I got home yesterday, after a frustrating day of dead ends when it came to trying secure someone to look at our pool cage and roof damage I decided I needed to get on the roof to do a few stop gap repairs.  When I did my roof survey after the hurricane I took note of a couple spots where the shingles were ripped off all the way down to bare felt/tar paper.  I read online that the underlayment will only hold up a short period of time when exposed to the elements.

We had made a nice pile of shingles that had ripped off the house.  I had Cindy toss a few of them up to me which I used to tuck under the intact shelters and then nail into place so water can run off instead of possibly under the shingles.  There were only three spots I found with bare paper so it didn’t take very long.

So as I survey what the hurricane remediation landscape, it is looking like a long and expensive path.  In anticipation of this I started the process of reopening my home equity line of credit for withdrawals.  It closed three years ago after 10 years.  At the time I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of the reapplication process however with a potential slew of home improvement expenses coming up it made sense to do so at this time.  If I am going to spend the money, I may as well do it in a manner that allows me to write off the interest on my taxes.

Like I said I have run into a lot of dead ends when it comes to getting estimates on the work I need.  I had one pool cage contractor said they are only doing full cage rebuilds, not repairs.  Another said they weren’t willing to drive so far because they have enough work by them. Others either don’t answer the phone or just never respond back to you.  I did however have the luck to find a co-worker whose husband works for a roofing company that has an interesting way to handle the estimate problem.

The company will present you an estimate without even coming out to your property.  How in the world can they do that accurately you may ask?  They use GIS imaging and Google Maps to gather the measurements they need.  They then feed these numbers into some program and generate estimates remotely, pretty cool.  I have not seen the estimates yet, I requested one for doing shingles again and a metal roof.  I have a feeling I will be in for some sticker shock.

So with our latest building swap complete (one more to go), things at work have finally settled down a bit for the time being.  It couldn’t have come a moment too soon as the combo of hurricane issues combined with massive requirements at work were burning me down to a nub big time.

Last night I continued my struggle with my CR-10 printer, trying to get an annoying clogging problem corrected.  I wound up eventually doing so by putting in the spare nozzle that was provided with the printer.  I finally got the last part of the latest EUC stand printed overnight although it was a bit buggy.  At random times little snot balls of filament were created and scattered around the print.  I am hoping the reason for this is the filament itself which was out in the open during the power outage when the air inside the house was incredibly hot and muggy.  PLA filament actually “goes bad” when left exposed to air for prolonged periods of time, especially humid air.  I am hoping the bugs I saw were just related to that.

So I have already begun crafting a list to consume a good portion of my first “normal” weekend in quite awhile.  We have been enjoying a rain free period which has allowed the property to dry out completely.  I want to take advantage of this by mowing/weed whacking EVERYTHING which of course will take hours to complete.  The grass however is only a couple items on a long list that consumes the entire piece of note paper it is written on.  It will be a very busy weekend and although it would be nice to just chill, stuff just won’t get done by itself.

Well it seems like life the last few weeks has just been a big blur.  Between post hurricane things and our renovation project at work my normal routines have just been thrown out the window.  In the last three weeks I think I have gone to the gym once.  I just have had no time. Blogging obviously has taken a severe hit as well.

Today I met with an insurance adjuster so he could document our damage.  Of course the biggest concern of all is the roof, followed by the pool cage damage.  The adjuster, who was a nice guy that came down from Mobile, Alabama seemed thorough in his documentation.  He showed me the drawing he made of the roof damage and commented that he would assume with it being as widespread as it is that the insurance company would agree a re-roof is necessary.

If that is indeed the agreed upon remediation I need to then see how I can work something out where the house gets a metal roof instead of another shingle job.  Metal lasts forever, will reflect heat and is very wind resistant.  The adjuster said he saw lot of damage to tile roofs, less to shingle roofs and no damaged metal roofs so far.  I am hoping going the metal route is as simple as me agreeing to pay the difference between a shingle and metal alternative.  To be honest I think the cost might be very close because with a new shingle roof they would have to strip all of the old shingles first which adds a ton of labor cost to the job.  A metal roof can go right on top of shingles.

The property is pretty cleaned up from the hurricane, as much as it can be at least at this point.  I still need to find a home for the two new ac units in the sheds and devise a way to store them so they do not become housing units for insects and/or rodents.  I have a few minor repairs to tackle which hopefully can get crossed off the list this weekend.

I have finally resumed my 3D printing projects however my big CR-10 has been giving me some annoying problems I am trying to sort out.  The user community for the printer is incredibly robust so there is more or less no question you can ask that someone does not have an answer to.

Oh I forgot to mention, in the way too busy theme, this past weekend I worked half the day Saturday and then drove with Cindy to the Coconut Grove area for her class reunion.    I have never attended any of my class reunions so this was a first for me.  Even though I obviously knew noone except Cindy, I managed to mix in pretty well thanks to a steady flow of Budweisers.  As I was finishing off my 7th or 8th I actually ventured onto the dance floor with Cindy, who had been dancing up a storm with her former classmates a good portion of the night.

We stayed at the same hotel the reunion was held at, The Mayfair.  It was one of the most unique and beautiful places I have EVER stayed.  If you are in the Miami area and want to treat yourself, book a room at The Mayfair.

So on Sunday the guy that redid my pool screen a couple years back stopped by to hand out business cards, hoping for more business.  He doesn’t know that I was less than pleased than his work so there is a chance I might not use him again but I don’t have a clear picture until I talk to my home owner’s insurance company.  However I was more interested in other news he told me.

The mediocre screening guy said he talked to a utility crew doing work down the street before he stopped by.  They told him that power to the street should be restored by Sunday night or Monday morning at the latest.  I thanked him for the good news.  I of course immediately told Cindy the news which excited both of us.  We were hopeful the info was indeed accurate.  Well of course we still have no power as of 9:45 PM Monday night.

To say I am frustrated /annoyed is putting it lightly.  At the same time, after 8 days of dealing with the situation, like anything else, you adapt to it.  I have two generators, working water, and two window AC units so it has made day to day living about as good as it can be without utility power.  Of course Cindy and I are both always hoping for that magic moment where the house lights back up and our lives can start to return to normal.  I wish I had an idea when that may be.

Tonight I had another source of frustration as I had to rip the mower deck off the tractor.  As I tried to mow Sunday night the tractor all of a sudden came to a loud and violent stop.  When I looked under the deck I was not very happy.  Someone had left a red dog run lead in the high grass.  The wire core cable instantly ensnared the blade and wrapped itself around the spindle like a boa constrictor.  I spent close to an hour trying to futz with it in the yard before darkness made me relent.

Tonight I decided to just bite the bullet and pull the deck off the tractor so I could turn it upside down and have better access to the tightly wound mess.  Even after doing this it was still a major hassle getting the wire out.  While I had the deck off Cindy helped me clean it up.  Our soggy yard coats the deck with wet grass shavings that turn into grass cement.  With the deck off we were able to get it pretty clean.  Once I reassembled the deck I mowed the section of the back yard I did not get to complete the night before.

So I still have not heard from the insurance adjuster assigned by my insurance company however I took a step today to further aid me in getting a fair settlement, contacting a public adjuster firm, a suggestion by a friend.  He used a public adjuster for a recent claim and he wound up getting a LOT more for his claim than the insurance company originally offered.  It sort of is a no lose situation.  The public adjuster charges you 10% of the final settlement.  The insurance company adjuster is working for them, a public adjuster is working for you.  The better they do for you, the better they do for themselves.  I like that sort of built in motivation.

So our holding pattern continues.  I am hoping soon I can get off the $30 a day gasoline bill that it costs to keep the generators humming.  I was at least glad to see the forecast path of Hurricane Maria, which originally was being pitched down here as a possible Irma 2.0, instead is forecast to hook safely northeast and back out to sea, after it smacks the hell out of the leeward islands and Puerto Rico, again.

Well when I last left you roughly six days ago I was prideful from my successful resurrection of the big generator by removing the defective low oil kill switch. In light of what has transpired since then, the generator fix has become an incredibly important part of our daily existence since as of the time of my creation of this entry, Friday night, we STILL do not have utility power, more on that later.

So let’s talk about last Sunday. When we went to bed Saturday night I fully expected to be awakened during the night from the beginning of the onslaught by Irma including loss of power. When I awoke around 6AM and heard nothing significant I was baffled. For a brief period of time I hoped the track of the storm perhaps continued to drift westward into the gulf instead of the predicated northern turn. A quick check of the latest NHC forecast track dashed those hopes.

Irma had almost ground to a standstill off the coast of Cuba as it’s direction was forced to change northward instead of westward. This delay had slowed down the movement of the storm but not it’s intensity.   Irma was still coming although the official track had it still following the west coast of Florida which would be better for us personally but would have been catastrophic for the coastal areas as MASSIVE storm surge of 10-15 feet was predicted. I actually was worried that my office, which is maybe 5 miles off the water could be flooded.

So of course most of our day was spent watching tv. I was amazed that we had power to do so. Power in our area goes out quite often just from our normal thunderstorm activity. There was some incredible video of the water being pushed out of the bays and inlets from the massive force of the unrelenting west winds from the top of the hurricane.

Somewhere late morning as the winds started getting more severe I secured the last piece of plywood to the rear sliding door, securing us inside the house. Our only exit was through the garage door where the chickens were all jammed into the chicken tractor. Cindy and I felt badly for the birds but it was a far better alternative to them being out in their coop since we were skeptical it would even survive the storm.

We took Elsa out for her last bathroom break early afternoon as the wind and rain was getting pretty serious. The forecast path of Irma had now shifted and it was not in our favor. It looked like the center of the storm was literally going to go right over us. Well we had no options now, we were bunkered down and just hoped the 16 year old poured concrete block structure would survive the severe test Irma was going to inflict.

Our power looked like it was going to go out no less than a dozen times. The lights would blip off for a few seconds but kept coming back on which I couldn’t believe. Finally, around 3:45 they went off for the final time and stayed off. Cindy had candles lit very quickly and we used my portable battery bank inverter to power a fan while we listened to the radio.

Having the power had allowed us to still see outside even though all openings to the house were closed. We were able to see out into the front and back yards via our security dvr footage. What we saw before the lights went out was pretty scary. Even after the power failed we powered the DVR with the battery bank to keep eyes outside as long as possible. What we saw, heard and felt was scary.

While we watched the camera feed the winds were mostly striking the property from the north and east. The sound and sensation of hurricane force winds hitting a house is something uniquely terrifying. I was much more interested in the rear yard view as I nervously monitored the status of the chicken coop which is officially wind rated to only 70mph. Each time I heard a severe gust I would look at the camera, hoping that was not the one that ripped the coop from the deck. I did see that the right roof panel on the coop run, which was first in line facing the eastern wind onslaught tore off but that was minor.

Before things went dark we did see our beautiful huge coconut palm that was off the corner of the pool cage had snapped at it’s base and was laying on it’s side. It gave us a good visual as to just how strong the winds were. Unfortunately once the lights went off the worst of the storm was yet to come for us.

So like I said, the last track I saw had the eye of the storm basically going over us. I assumed at some point the roaring winds would subside briefly, allowing us a brief chance to survey the damage. Well things never relented. It turned out we were in the northeast quadrant of the eye wall which is pretty much the worst part of a hurricane track to be in as you are exposed to the huge wind and rain for the longest period of time.

The wind gusts were relentless. On the radio we heard an official gust of 142 mph at the Naples Airport. As the storm passed us the winds shifted from the east to the south. The direction change did not lessen the intensity, it just gave the front of the house an equal beating as well. At one point we stepped into the garage to check on the chickens and witnessed the door bowing dangerously from the wind pressure, even with us having two vehicles parked in front of the door. For a brief moment I imagined the nightmare scenario if the garage door failed. Thankfully it did not happen.

Cindy and I could not believe how long the winds lasted. We did not dare to even step outside until somewhere after 7PM. I rolled out under the garage door while Cindy held it open. It was still very windy but I was able to at least keep my footing. I wanted to do a quick survey of the damage. Cindy soon came out as well to see it for herself.

The landscape took a beating. In addition to the coconut palm there were a number of other uprooted/snapped trees. The pool cage was intact but more screens ripped out and a couple areas were bent. The most worrisome thing was seeing the amount of shingles that got stripped off the roof. Three sides of the hip roof had them missing.

There were some good visuals as well. The water equipment roof I made last year survived without a scratch which was awesome. However, miraculous is the word I would use to describe the survival of the chicken coop which as best I could tell was fine beyond the ripped roof panel on the run. My hardening efforts paid off, allowing the coop to stand up to winds almost double it’s normal wind rating.

In addition to the incredible wind we received around a foot of rain during the storm which turned the already water logged property into a temporary sea. At one point almost everything outside of the house mound was underwater. So our immediate feeling was we took some damage but nothing catastrophic.

There was some light in the end of the tunnel as far as the hurricane path. Since it drifted more inland, the coastal storm surge was nowhere near as severe as predicted. There was some but for the most part the coast escaped major water damage, and that’s a good thing.

So it was now late and we were exhausted from the stress of the day. Before going to bed I only removed one panel from the slider so we could get out back. I also fired up the generator so we had power. I was determined to not let our first night post hurricane be miserable. So in addition to the fan I also hooked up the bedroom tv and a bluray player. Sunday night we actually watched The Avengers on blu-ray as we drifted off to sleep, I kid you not.

Let’s cut this entry here. It’s long enough and I have much more misery and my unrelenting efforts to combat it in the days to follow.

So unfortunately the forecast track for Hurricane Irma has been consistently getting worse and worse for us.  The track which at one point was very east coast has now become very west coast and depending on it’s final steering winds there is a possibility the f’ing eye of the storm could be crossing our property.

Cindy and I busted our ass all day yesterday as you can imagine.  We had my plywood shutters I made back in 2004 up on the house by 9:30.  Unlike prior hurricanes where I left a small section of the rear slider exposed we are thinking about boarding it up completely.

As we took stock of our hurricane supplies I pulled out the portable AC wall unit I bought back in 2005 and plugged it in.  At first I was excited that it seemed to still work despite a noise like the fan was hitting something as well as a bunch of dirt/animal/insect excrement that blew out the front.  Well my excitement was short lived as soon the fan stopped and the unit just started to buzz.  I pulled it apart to see if I could fix it but was unsuccessful.  Something obviously was inside at some point and gummed up the works.  Until I can secure a new unit, if/when we lose power our only cooling will be via fans, not a great option in Florida in September.

So although obviously we are focused on keeping the house intact, I spent the most time of all yesterday hardening the chicken coop.  I do NOT want the coop destroyed and I did everything I can possibly think of to prevent that scenario.  I screwed a bunch of boards into the deck along the base of the walls inside, hoping to further lock the floor of the shed to it’s sturdy platform.  I then used two pieces of 2 x 2 lumber to connect and further support the interior trusses to give them additional stability.

My most drastic coop work was criss-crossing ratchet supports across the roof and securing them to the deck underneath.  One of those straps is actually our slack line which was a great suggestion by Cindy.  Not only was the strap long, it’s incredibly strong with a breaking strength of something like 2.5 TONS.  Today after the coop is cleaned I will be doing even more hardening, blocking the windows and front door.  If the coop goes down it won’t be from a lack of my effort to save it.

We were buzzing around the house until damn close to 6PM.  We were both exhausted but knew there was more yet to do.  We did our best to enjoy what may be our last “normal” night in quite awhile.  We watched some hurricane coverage on the news but found it to be rather less than helpful after awhile.  I tried to escape the drama for a short while in WoW, knowing the next 48 hours were going to be pretty hellish.

The scene here as you can imagine is rather chaotic.  Pretty much all businesses closed yesterday.  People are scared and even I, whom does not easily succumb to panic am worried. People are FLOCKING to the emergency shelters.  The first round of shelters reached capacity quickly so they opened more.  Cindy just saw pictures of people sleeping outside of shelters that are scheduled to open today, just so they could get in when they open mid-morning.  It’s crazy.

I am considering cutting my pool screens this morning ahead of the storm to try to save the pool cage.  Replacing pool screening is a lot more feasible than waiting months and months for someone to rebuild your cage at premium post-hurricane pricing.  We will likely be working well into the afternoon trying to secure every possible thing we can.  Our final tasks will be closing up the last section of the slider door and transporting the chickens to their temporary housing in the garage.

I did walk the property and shoot video of the prep.  I also put the Mavic up in the air to get some aerial views of the property before that can be contrasted with after.

This will likely be the last blog entry out there before some basic services are reestablished.   I will continue to hope for a best case scenario and even if things don’t go well I am confident Cindy and I will be able to handle whatever comes our way.

So the Prius was between a quarter and half tank of gas so I wanted to try to fill it on the way home if possible.  I passed a number of stations that had bags over the pumps or had lines that were just insane so I kept rolling.  As I approached the intersection of Pine Ridge Rd and 951 I saw a tanker truck in the lot of the Circle K, meaning they have or will have gas shortly.  I took a chance and spun a U-turn.  All of the pumps had cars already waiting for the refill to finish but I did manage to be second in line.

I had no idea how long the tanker had been there but I certainly didn’t mind waiting.  Wait I did, somewhere between 30-40 minutes until the refill was done and the attendant unbagged the pumps.  It was an odd thing.  If I was in the back of a 30-40 minute long line of cars waiting for a gas I would be very annoyed and frustrated.  However waiting the same amount of time, knowing I was second in line didn’t hardly bother me at all.  I just rolled down the windows to watch and listen to the growing hysteria of people trying to converge on the fresh supply of gasoline.  By the time I left, the station was surrounded in every direction by vehicles trying to get in.

So Cindy was busting her ass at the house yesterday doing some preliminary hurricane prep outside.  She was doing her best to clear the patio deck and secure smaller things in the sheds. She also waited in line to get two more of the five gallon gas containers refilled which will give us a solid fuel supply for the generators. I really appreciated her efforts and I am sure she will be helping me tomorrow with the very ugly job of boarding up the house, unless the forecast track of the storm shifts dramatically east.

Even though it seems like the full fury of the storm will be more of an east coast event, at least at this point, we likely still will be smacked hard by Irma.  My biggest concerns are the outbuildings, the pool cage and my water equipment shelter I built last year staying intact.

Along with that is of course the chickens who live in one of those outbuildings.  The shed we converted to a coop is wind rated to something like 70mph, which means it will probably survive slightly higher wind load.  I am hoping to snag a couple 2×4’s and some u-bolts after work so I can build some additional temporary bracing for the trusses inside the coop.  The coop has been exposed to a lot of severe wind from numerous thunderstorms and has performed very well.  Of course a hurricane is a different beast. We are still planning to relocate the chickens to the garage once things start to get serious.  Catching/carrying the ten hens up to the garage should be a lot of fun.

The office is officially closed on Friday and likely Monday depending on how severe the impact is in our area.  I may pop in here before then just to let you know if we are alive or not.

That is the question I have been asked quite often by both people near and far regarding the impending doom that is Hurricane Irma.  It’s been 12 years since we had our hit from Wilma but I still remember how surreal and dangerous it felt.

So what am I going to do? Well first of all, not panic.  The hysterical/mob type mentality that these sort of events bring to the surface so easily in many people bothers me.  I absolutely hate it.  It demonstrates to me just how quickly people can devolve when faced with a crisis.

There have been a surprising amount of people that have chosen to pack their shit and get out.  I think the images of widespread destruction in Texas from Harvey being so fresh in people’s minds has ratcheted up the panic level here.  When you hear numbers like 185mph sustained winds and things like “most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean”, any person would have to be concerned, which I am, but packing up and leaving never entered my mind as a remote possibility.

I did have some concerns with gas.  I wanted to make sure the Tacoma was fully gassed up since it would likely be the primary post storm vehicle due to it’s ground clearance.  During the day every gas station you passed was mobbed by cars, like fire ants converging on a victim.  I told Cindy I wanted to try to go out later at night and to head east instead of west.  During previous hurricane episodes I actually had luck finding gas in Immokalee, I figured I would try again.

At first it looked like my plan was going to be a bust.  The first four or five gas stations we passed were out of gas.  We then spotted a convenience store with cars lined up for the pumps, normally not something I would be excited about.  I swung a U turn and got in the line which was probably around 10 cars deep.  We waited in line for around a half hour, both of us hoping they would not run out of gas before we reached the pumps.

Luckily we were able to get some gas.  Even though I had three empty 5 gallon gas jugs in the back of the Tacoma I only filled one of them in addition to topping off the truck.  I already had one full 5 gallon container at home so I didn’t want to partake in hoarding mentality.  There will still be gas deliveries this week that will allow me to fill the other cans if I want to.

As far as other prep at home, if the the forecast path remains in a direction that could hit us with major weather I still have my plywood I cut to size for the various openings on the house.  Affixing them is a long, difficult, and tedious process.  We also would have to try to get EVERYTHING that is not in the ground outside, inside using a combo of both sheds for storage while crossing our fingers that the hurricane straps that hold them to the ground do their job.  Our new RO system has a 300 gallon water tank that should be able to provide us water as long as I can provide the system power via generator.

I have two generators, a big one that is 12 years old that does not want to run continuously for long periods of time and a smaller Honda that is less powerful but very reliable.  I would use the big generator to power the water system in spurts the keep water flowing.  The little one would be used to power a few key things inside like the fridge, maybe a fan, and hopefully my window AC unit at night if it still works.  We have some rechargeable lights and battery banks to charge things like phones as needed.

To be honest my biggest concern of all is the safety of the chickens.  The shed we converted into a coop is wind rated to something like 75mph.  I am hoping it being braced against the attached run gives it some additional strength.  However if the forecast is for winds approaching triple digits I think we will use the old chicken tractor and relocate the chickens temporarily into the garage.  If they were hurt/killed from us rolling the dice with the coop staying intact I would feel absolutely awful. For this plan to take place I would need to pull my Tacoma out of the garage and park both it and the Prius sideways in front of the garage door to offer additional wind protection buffering.

So as I said, I won’t be panicking but I will be watching the updates carefully and acting accordingly.  There is nothing in my lifetime that matched the sights and sounds of the absolute fury of a hurricane ripping down my pool cage in 2005.  I am hoping we manage to not reach that magnitude of intensity this time around.

So I have spent the majority of my 5 day long weekend as I normally do, trying to front load all of the work, projects, and tasks  so for the last portion of the time off I can chill out.  Well to finish that front loading process consumed nearly three full days unfortunately.

On Thursday I got a head start on the weekend chores by weeding and weed whacking the yard in the glorious heat and humidity of a late August Florida day.  I was pooped afterward but wanted to try to get one of my “fun” projects done, replacing the case on my Msuper EUC.  I damaged the case learning to go backwards and recently got a brand new case and trolley handle to undo the damage I had done.

Changing the case on an EUC is a MAJOR operation that requires you to take the unit pretty much entirely apart.    Of course I had never attempted such a thing but I had watched a video of the process and was confident I could do the work.

Well in the end I did indeed do the work but I hit some major delays along the way, all of which are documented in the nearly hour long video which was a condensed version of the nearly three hours I spent in the process.  In the end I found a way to circumvent my issues and the new case looks sharp.

On Friday the front loading continued in earnest.  This time I jumped on the tractor and mowed the grass, taking advantage of the relatively low standing water levels.  During the afternoon I started my second major hobby project of the weekend, installing a new logic board and auto leveling sensor into my CR-10.

Like the EUC work, this project required me to rip into the hardware in a pretty significant way.  I once again had a lot of struggles with the install.  A lot of the problems came from my relative inexperience with 3D printing hardware but as I usually do, I managed to find my way to the finish line in a circuitous fashion.

On Saturday half of my day was consumed at work.  I had to replace the two main backbone switches in our NOC, another part of our renovation project.  Doing so required me to unplug every wire connected to the old switches, install the new switches, and then run new wires in a more organized and orderly manner.

I asked Cindy if she wanted to come in to help as I could use her to help me document the connections so I didn’t miss anything.  She said sure and we decided to bring Elsa with as well.  Elsa was a bit freaked out being in a foreign environment and did not want to be out of eye contact of myself or Cindy.  It took awhile but eventually she settled down enough to take a nap while we worked. For the most part the work went smoothly and having Cindy there easily helped me shave at least 30 minutes off the job.

After the office work was done we ate lunch at Panera and then stopped at Rural King and Home Depot for some more supplies.  By the time we got home it was after 3PM so the majority of the day was eaten up.  Last night we vegged out while trying to continue consuming the backlog of DVR content we have from being away on the roadtrip.  If I didn’t have EUC’s, 3D printing, and WoW as hobbies I would be able to get through shows faster but to be honest, I’d rather have other things to help split my attention between.

We had some incredible lightning and thunder Saturday night.  At one point I thought a bomb went off in the atmosphere.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a ball of light out of the bedroom window and what seemed like 10 seconds later the shockwave hit and it hit hard.  Even inside you could feel the power of the blast, it did not seem like thunder from normal lightning, it sounded like a bomb.

All weekend I have had various episodes of limping and walking like a geriatric.  Regardless I tasked myself with getting up early this morning and going out to run.  I think I may have run lap 6 twice but either way I did somewhere around 5K of running, once again feeling very labored to do so.  I need to just keep pushing myself to get out there.  Even though things hurt the first few laps after I warm up the pain sort of fades and general discomfort sets in.

A little later in the morning Cindy and I headed out to ride our wheels.  It was my first chance to give the Msuper a thorough test after all of the work.  It seemed to ride normally which I was very happy about.  Katie and her friend Kendal joined us briefly on the ride but their one wheel ran out of battery power so they headed back early.  After the ride we made another Home Depot pit stop as well as a stop at Micahel’s for Cindy to grab some crafting supplies.

I currently have both 3D printers cranking out two different projects and I hope to be able to take a good portion of the rest of my time off doing exactly what I would like to do. We will see how that turns out.

So I told Cindy Friday night that I was getting up and running Saturday morning as long as it wasn’t raining, even if I don’t want to.  Because of Supercon, the road trip, and being beat up from yard work I had not run in at least 5 weeks.  When the alarm went off at 6AM I confirmed it was not actively raining so I threw on my running clothes and headed out into the warm and humid morning.

The 12 laps around the track were slow and not enjoyable, just as I expected them to be.  But I did complete the roughly 5K run and body willing, I will be back there next weekend to continue the punishment.  Running at my age and with my joint conditions is probably a dumb endeavor but I plan to hold onto it as long as I can, as I try to desperately fend off the relentless effects of time.

When I got home I wasted no time getting outside to tend to the chickens, weed, and a few other things around the yard.  At some point the onslaught of rain began.  I was in the mindset where I didn’t care, I finished up the last of the chores in the midst of a downpour.  Once you are that wet, more rain doesn’t really matter, at least in my mind.

After drying off we put Sadie and Elsa in the Prius for a coffee and Rural King run.  This was the first time I ever saw the Rural King parking lot flooded.  That is how much rain we had gotten the last few days (it’s still raining btw) The dogs just love car rides and Elsa loves them even more when Sadie is sharing the back seat with her.

When we got home Cindy went right back into the guest bathroom where she was doing some of the final touch ups.  The side splash piece of matching quartz we ordered from Home Depot showed up Friday so we installed that with construction adhesive which was pretty much the last piece of the puzzle. The small room really looks completely different and all the credit for the design, color, and motivation to do it belongs to Cindy.

With the latest multi-day rain event the chicken area once again has become a flood zone.  Instead of allowing them to walk around in the muck all day we once again have allowed them access temporarily to the entire yard to find high ground.  The chickens definitely like having some drier land to explore but they still seem to like spend a lot of time while it’s raining on the perch inside the coop run.

So I bought the McGregor-Mayweather fight when Cindy showed interest in seeing it.  She had said something about going to a restaurant/bar to see it but in retrospect I was VERY glad we did not go that route.  So the PPV event said it started at 9PM, a little late for my tastes but ok.  Well since I am a boxing PPV noob I had no idea that it really meant the main fight would not start until roughly midnight!  Prior to that they show three fights with boxers I care nothing about.

Cindy made us some late night coffee to help keep us awake.  I spent most of the prelims playing WoW.  Cindy was in a funny mood and at one point decided to put on her Wonder Woman costume AND ride her electric unicyle around inside.  Nothing surprises me so my reaction to this was measured.

So even though I knew it was unlikely, I was really pulling for Conor to win somehow.  Mayweather just annoys the f out of me with his attitude.  But hey, the guy is 49-0 so he backs it up.  So the first three or four rounds of the fight Mayweather basically did  nothing yet somehow the majority of the judges scored three of those four rounds for him. Conor was clearly the aggressor and landed a number of punches although none of them appeared to really hurt Mayweather.

As the rounds went on it became clear that Mayweather was basically just waiting for McGregor to start to fatigue.  Once that happened Mayweather started to become more and more active.  By the time the fight was stopped in the 10th round Conor had no legs left underneath him although it didn’t seem like Mayweather had knockout power.  It was the expected outcome but I was still disappointed that Conor couldn’t at least hurt Mayweather a little bit.  I was also disappointed that we didn’t get to bed until after 1AM.  This was the first and likely last boxing PPV I will ever buy.

Sunday morning we awoke to MORE rain.  It was just miserable outside.  Cindy and I still wanted to get out and ride some so after I paid my bills for the week we threw the wheels into the car and drove down to the parking garage in the government complex, a place we rode once before.

The five level, mostly empty garage was a great, dry spot for us to do some skills practice.  I worked on mounts/dismounts with my opposite leg I normally use, backwards, and one footed riding.  Cindy worked mostly on learning to ride backwards as well as agility on her V5F wheel which is easier to throw around.  We rode for around an hour as the rain continued to come down steadily.  It was cool that we still managed to get some one wheel time in despite the precipitation.

The rest of our rainy Sunday was laid back.  I got to play a lot of WoW and had the 3D printers working hard.  Over the weekend I reprinted the lithopane of Nicki, fixing the negative image I got the first time.  It turned out really well, I gave it to Ali as I thought she would like it.

I also installed FlashPrint on to Cindy’s computer so she can start messing around with 3D printing things herself.  She printed this very cool small mesh skull for her first print.

Despite the rather miserable weather I had to remind myself that things could be worse, much, much worse.  All I had to do was look at the photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on Texas to place things into perspective.