Category Rants

So my last day off had the most relaxation time in it of any of the last seven days which I guess is a good thing.  After I dropped off Sadie at Ali’s place in the morning I parked the car in the Target parking lot for another Ninebot One ride.  I took a route that I used to run once in a while, taking Oakes Blvd, to Vanderbilt, to Livingston, traveling to the water park before turning around and reversing the trip.

In total the ride was damn close to 10 miles and I stayed on the wheel the entire time, only stopping a couple times to briefly shift my feet while holding onto a pole.  The overcast skies made the ride much more enjoyable than it would have been if the sun was beating down on me during those long, unshaded sections of the route.  I managed to avoid a single low battery tiltback warning, keeping my speed in the 10-12 mph range for most of the ride.

During the afternoon I decided to perform the last appearance upgrade I had in store for the EUC, covering the bottom of the foot pedals with carbon fiber looking wrap that is designed to cover things like automobiles.  Installing the covering was not very difficult at all and I liked the way it covered the scratched and mauled surface, the end result of many, many crashes.   The few changes I have made on the bot recently have really improved the appearance in my opinion.

I spent a good portion of the afternoon deeply involved in some WoW Legion.  It was a fun way to disconnect from the here and now for a few hours.

Of course last night Cindy and I tuned in to the debate that had more hype leading up to it than a Super Bowl.  It was in a word, amazing.  For the first few minutes of the debate you could tell Trump was trying really hard to do what his advisors coached him to do, act calm, speak slowly and carefully, using the talking points they thought would be most effective.  However it took precious little time until he came unglued and flipped back to what comes natural to him, talking loudly, interrupting, being aggravated, and expressing himself using a vocabulary that never gets out of the middle school level.

Even if you have identified yourself as a Trump supporter, you would be hard pressed to say he did anything but hurt himself with his performance last night.  Using one of his favorite words, it was a disaster.  I’m not going to waste my time breaking down the countless amazingly poor choice of words he made like how not paying any taxes is “smart”, alienating the nation’s large supply of 400 pound citizens, or that immigrants have guns and shoot people.  That is only a very small portion of what was a dump truck full of missteps he made.  The thing is, he did the same thing during the primary debates and his hard core supporters seemed to not care so I doubt they will care about yet another embarrassing outing.

The split screen was certainly not Donald’s friend.  Seeing him get all bent out of shape while Hilary was speaking did nothing but drive home the point that he is a tantruming man-child at heart.  Sure Hilary seemed almost over prepared at times with well rehearsed responses to some of the questions but there is no doubt she carried herself far better that Donald did.  It’s not even close.

The debate was entertaining for sure.  Unfortunately, entertainment is not high on the list of my qualifications for a presidential candidate.

Last night I was back out on the EUC.  I drove over to the school since it offers me a lot of options for riding terrain.  I also threw a dozen cones in the trunk that I planned to use for some agility training.  The school grounds seemed to be pretty busy with various sporting events and other after school activities.  After riding around a little bit I set up the cones.

First I set up one cone on each of the parking space lines, the goal being to weave in between them.  Parking spaces are pretty wide so I was able to perform the course rather easily.  I then doubled up the difficulty, inserting cones in between the existing ones, cutting the distance I had to make the turns in half.  I struggled much more with that set up, failing to get through the cones without clipping one on my first two attempts.  I was finally successful the third time around going very slow with lots of arm flailing to maintain balance.   I went through a couple more times for fun.

I finished up with some random rides around the school including into the heart of the building complex.  I wound up in an inner courtyard that I was not aware existed.  It took a little while till I found an open exit point.  I felt a bit like a trespasser as I rolled past the kids lockers that surprisingly are under roof but not indoors.  I finished up a little before 6:45 to head home to enjoy a nice Italian spaghetti dinner Cindy whipped up for Katie and me.

This whole Colin Kapernick not standing for the national anthem thing has gotten far more legs than I expected.  In a way it reminds me of the way the transgender bathroom thing got out of hand.  Now you have players in all sorts of sports kneeling/sitting during the anthem instead of doing the traditional thing and standing as it is played.  Hell there was a story in our local paper about a school principal who is now in hot water with a constitutional lawyer because he made an announcement that students MUST stand during the anthem or face disciplinary action which is technically a violation of constitutional rights.

I mean really, is this all necessary?  It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.  The more outrage, anger, and publicity the general population gives to the story, the more likely others are to jump on the not standing bandwagon.  To be clear, I am not one of those blinders on, Merica guys that gives no thought to the reason this movement has gotten legs.  Yes, there are some disgraceful and shameful things our country has and will continue to do that oppress a large portion of the population although my focus is more on the the feudal-like lords that have been allowed to create such economic disparity.  Of course the Trump presidential campaign has pulled back the rug on the ugly level of racism/sterotyping that was just waiting for the right candidate to nurture those destructive emotions.

Despite these shortcomings, in the big picture I think our country and the ideals that it strives to reach someday are worthy of respect so you will never see me taking a knee when the anthem is played.  That is my personal decision and although I may think it’s disrespectful of someone else to not do the same, I’ll respect your right to do it.  If you want to see less news stories about anthem kneeling, stop reacting so strongly to it.  I saw a funny blurb about the irony that those who seem the most deeply offended by anthem kneelers that are disrespecting the country are the same people that feel the strongest about the need to stockpile weapons to “protect” themselves from the government of that same country.  It’s a head scratcher.

I have a weird work week coming up.  After a normal two day weekend, I work Monday and then am off until the following Tuesday.  I’m not sure if I ever had a one day work week before but it is definitely an arrangement I could endorse easily.

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.

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 I ordered a replacement canopy for the yard tractor back on July 17th online at sears.com.  When I ordered it I opted for local store pick up to save shipping charges.  When the order was placed there was no mention of any sort of delay.  When I heard nothing for 10 days I called Sears and was forwarded to what appears to be an India based called center.  I struggled through the communication barrier to discover that the canopy would not show up in store until August 6th, some three weeks after my order date.  WTF?? Well I had no choice but to wait it out.  While we were at Comic Con I got a text message and an email indicating that my order had arrived and I could pick it up.  I figured I would get it yesterday morning.

So I pulled up to Sears, which is part of our local mall around 10:20. I was lucky to spot the door used to pick up online orders, near the auto center.  The pick up area had two doors, one automatic, which didn’t appear to be working and a manual door which was unlocked.  I step inside and a young girl behind sliding glass said “We are still closed!”  I pause for a second and say to her, “What do you mean you are closed?”  as I just walked in the unlocked door which apparently happens to also be an employee entrance.  The girl tells me the store does not open until 11AM.  Again with a confused look on my face I said “You are closed until 11AM on a Monday??”  She again confirmed the store does not open until 11 which apparently was a recent cost savings move made necessary by Sears dismal fiscal situation.

Well my emotion shifted from confusion and surprise to anger.  I did not want to twiddle my thumbs for 40 minutes until the store officially opened.  I went on a bit of a rant, telling the girl I have been waiting for this item to show up for three weeks and I just drove close to 25 miles to pick it up.  I told her the notifications I got about my item being available made no mention of the restrictive store hours.  I was dug in and ready for a fight because this transaction had already been a pain in the ass.

The girl must have sensed I was not going to take no for an answer very easily.  She said the guy in the department that handles online orders just came in and “once the printer warms up” he will try to help me.  As I was waiting an old lady that worked at Sears came out to the lobby and was telling me the woes of Sears/K-mart from an employees perspective.  I told her how my transaction was an example of why customers don’t want to deal with Sears anymore.  She sort of agreed with me.

So the order guy came out and asked my name.  He disappeared a couple minutes and then emerged with my box.  I thanked both him and the girl that originally told me NO for accommodating me.  It was a small redemption of an overall negative transaction and indicative of why the old retail behemoth is circling the drain.  It seems like the great anti-Sears crusade my dad started in the 70’s might finally be coming to fruition.

Yesterday the box I was praying would show up last week before departing for Comic Con arrived.  It was the Soldier 76 mask I had ordered three weeks ago, almost at the same time as the tractor canopy.  The Ebay listing had a huge delivery window range, saying the item could arrive anywhere from July 28th to Aug 12th.  I ordered the mask hoping the China based seller would be under promising and over delivering.  Well it didn’t work out that way.

Luckily Cindy hand crafted me a mask to use in case this exact scenario occurred and she did a great job on it.  Both of us were complemented repeatedly at the Con about the quality of our attire.  If I had this mask it would have been off the charts.  Not only is the mask pretty much an exact replica of the in game mask, it even has a LED light across the visor to complete the visual. It is extremely cool. The good news is the jacket and visor aren’t going anywhere so whenever Cindy and I decide to jump back into another cosplay event I will be ready to roll.

The mask and the whole cosplay experience have started Cindy and I talking about some of the things that could be done if we had a 3D printer.  Once I have some more Amazon points accumulated it might be another mid-summer Xmas present to ourselves.

We had hoped to get out on the Segways on Monday afternoon however prolonged rain washed those plans away.  We spur of the moment decided to go out to a matinee of Suicide Squad.  I knew the movie had big opening weekend numbers.  I heard of Suicide Squad once or twice but never had any tangible comic book knowledge of them.  There were so many characters involved it was tough to get a good feel for a lot of them.  Some of the “heroes” seemed pretty lame, especially the boomerang dude.  I came away with much the same feeling I did with Batman vs Superman, the movie was entertaining enough for a B+ grade but it wasn’t better than any Marvel super hero movie I have seen in the last 5 years.  DC so far just is not in Marvel’s league when it comes to big screen productions.

Last evening I got back on my Ninebot One for the first time in a week.  Earlier I had wrapped it in some packing foam to help protect both myself and the bot from falls.  My goal was to work on getting off the wheel in a calm fashion instead of the “reach down, grab the wheel and then hop off awkwardly” thing I have been doing so far.

The intent is to slow to a stop and then simply step off with one foot, keeping the other foot on the bot, like you would do with a bike.  In theory it should not be too hard.  I tried repeatedly and just could not get it.  Each time I tried to step off with one foot and no hand assist the bot would wind up laying on it’s side.

It became apparent that the foam I used was not going to be up to the task.  Even those gentle layovers started to rip it in various spots. So although I was unsuccessful with proper dismounting, the good news was I went up and down the driveway around 10 times with no falls.  I still had some wobbling and still felt only loosely in control but any session that doesn’t involve me or the Ninebot barrel rolling on the cement is a win at this point.

I recently installed Snapchat on my phone, an app that I have avoided since it came out branded as primarily a sexting application.  It of course has turned into much more than that.  One of the cool features is it’s ability to overlay faces onto a person which can result in some pretty hilarious video clips.  My initial efforts were LOL funny, if I do say so myself.

So Cindy had been working diligently or more accurately, obsessively on costume prep for a good portion of last week.  I have no idea how many total hours went into the outfits for her and myself but it is way up there.  Her creativity in recreating the look of the two characters we were going as, Soldier 76 and Tracer was extremely impressive.  She made 80% of the costumes by hand.  She was working on stuff right up until we left on Friday morning.

After getting the chickens handled for the day we piled into the Prius and heading northward towards Tampa.  I had not been to Tampa in many years and never had much good or bad to say about it.  It took us around two and a half hours until we arrived at our hotel which was called Aloft, a hip sort of place.

I immediately was not happy that our only parking option was to valet at a cost of $20 a day.  The room was not cheap so getting add on expenses right off the bat didn’t make me happy.  We used a luggage cart to haul our large collection of props upstairs.  The room itself was very modern and cool with a flat screen tv mounted on the wall, modern accessories, nice view out the window and black slate floor in the bathroom areas. It was very nice.

The Con started on Friday so we wasted no time in prepping.  Of course the majority of the work that needed to be done was by Cindy both on her costume and getting me situated in mine.  Besides my putting on the costume, Cindy spray painted my hair gray and darkened the area around my eyes.  She once again did the face make up on herself to simulate Tracer’s goggles which takes quite awhile.

Finally after about 2 hours of prep we were ready to head to the convention center.  The skies looked like rain so we decided to get an Uber ride instead of walking the roughly half mile to the convention.  Since it was a “surge” time the ride cost about 50% more than normal.

We did not actually get to the event until after 5PM.  We headed into the main exhibit hall where all the vendors are set up.  It took no time at all until the picture requests came rolling in.  It seemed like once again there was a scarcity of people dressed up as Overwatch characters despite the popularity of the game.

At first I was trying to just put on the mask as needed since it limited my vision to a narrow slot in front of me.  However the picture requests were so fast and furious I wound up just leaving the mask on.  I used Cindy as a beacon in front of me that I would just follow through the crowd. Besides the limited vision I was also hot as hell.  In no time at all I had sweat running down my back.

We did not realize that although the Con ran until late at night, the main exhibit hall closed at 6PM meaning we only got to walk around it a bit.  To be honest, between all the picture requests and the crowds we didn’t get to really look at anything in depth on the show floor.

Once the main hall closed we headed downstairs where a bunch of things were set up in the smaller rooms that lined the halls.  Of course there were a ton of interesting costumes to look at which honestly is my favorite thing to do at these events, just people watch.

Cindy was having some costume difficulties throughout the show.  The complexity she added to her costume unfortunately brought additional fragility as well.  A number of things that were attached via glue gun broke loose.  Luckily she brought safety pins with that could be used to fix most of the problems. We hung at the convention center for several hours, posing for picture after picture.  Since this is the first time I dressed up for a con this was a new experience for me.  It gives you an idea of what it must be like to be an actual celebrity.  It was both cool and annoying at the same time.

We decided to walk back to the hotel Friday night in our full costumes.  Cindy was a bit scared by the idea of walking.  We saw some interesting things on the way like a bar owner in a screaming match with two patrons that appeared to be trying to skip their bill and some shady looking guys that bottomed out their low riding car pulling into a parking garage.  Walking in the warm and humid air in costume just brought on a whole new level of perspiration for me.  We were quite glad when we got back into the AC of the hotel.

We stayed up a bit on Friday catching some of the Olympic opening ceremony but then turned it off due to us both being exhausted.  We began a night of pretty miserable sleep thanks to bad acoustics and inconsiderate assholes allowing their children to run wildly up and down the halls after midnight.  Cindy called to the desk to report the noise but it really didn’t matter.  Pretty much any noise whatsoever in the hall seemed to amplify and broadcast into the room.  We woke up Saturday morning feeling like shit from a lack of solid sleep.

At first Cindy was saying she wasn’t going to dress up at all for Saturday.  She was bummed out about her costume failures from Friday.  I told her she would regret not dressing up so she reconfigured her outfit on the spot to a less restrictive version.  It still looked good.  We once again hailed an Uber to get us on site, we got there late morning.

Before heading there we had the non-complimentary hotel breakfast.  Again with what the room cost, throwing in a free continental breakfast would have been beyond reasonable.  Instead we paid $21 for greasy egg sandwiches neither of us enjoyed.

Well we knew Saturday would be much busier than Friday but that knowledge did not make the situation any better.  There were just walls of humanity everywhere you looked.  We went into the main exhibit hall and tried to merge into the current of people circling around the space.  It was pretty damn miserable.  Of course we again had picture requests by the dozens.

Everywhere you looked there were long, long lines.  The lines to get Norman Reedus’s (Darryl from Walking Dead) autograph and/or picture were some of the longest.  I just could not believe that many people were willing to wait in a line that long to pay $200 to spend 30 seconds with the guy.  The lines for food were equally morbid.

After being there for 2-3 hours we wanted to get some food.  The lines were still horrible even though it was now around 2pm.  We headed outside to check out the army of food trucks by the convention center, hoping they would be less busy.  No luck, the lines there numbered in the dozens as well.  It was frustrating to be in a situation with that many people.  We decided to take a time out and took yet another Uber back to the room to chill out for a few hours.  Once we got there we ordered a pizza and just tried to relax for a bit.  We were already tired from the lack of sleep the night before.

We decided we would head back between 5 and 6 but do it in normal clothes.  I still had the dark make up around my eyes and a Soldier 76 T-shirt that Cindy hand crafted but that was it.  We walked there this time.  It was still crowded but not suffocatingly so as before.  It felt a bit weird walking around without being asked for pictures.  It made you miss super hero life in a small way although it was nice being able to walk around in comfort.

We had more fun this time around exploring some of the rooms which included Cindy schooling me on Galaga, one of her favorite arcade games growing up.  She was really, really good at it.  We also got to bear witness to a very odd cosplay battle where three or four Spidermans took on a sword wielding Batman, a T-Rex, and Popeye.  The footage from that is down below.  All of the video we shot was from Saturday.  We had the GoPro strapped to Cindy’s arm so we could have film rolling throughout the day to capture some of the craziness.

We decided we had enough somewhere around 8PM.  We had a much more pleasant walk back to the hotel which included a detour to the beautiful river walk area that was nearby our hotel.  We finished off our left over pizza for dinner and called it a night.  In order to block some of the sound from the hall we tried piling some shit in front of the door.  It didn’t really make a difference, we still both generally slept like shit.

Once we got up we wasted little time getting packed up and out of there.  We skipped the hotel breakfast and instead grabbed sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts.  The DD was actually in a town just outside of Tampa.  The drive there took us through areas that ranged from sketchy looking to historical.

On the drive home we listened to some podcast that Cindy discovered where a woman tells real life stories in very interesting ways.  The story we listened to was about Bo Berghdal, the soldier that the US traded five Gitmo prisoners for.  The story revealed that the headlines that 24 hour news organizations jammed down the public throat were extremely inaccurate.  The media made it seem like Berghdal was a Taliban fan and had a pleasant time while being their hostage.  Actually the opposite is true, his existence during those 5 years in captivity was horrific and he tried to escape multiple times.  It’s just another example of the American public being all too willing to accept what the media tells them at face value.

The drive home had a major delay as there was an accident on I-75 that involved fatalities.  Traffic jam situations generally make me dislike people more than a lot of things.  As you approached the area of the accident there were multiple sign boards indicating that the left two of the three lanes were blocked.  You had to be blind to not see them.  So a logical, considerate person would get into the right lane to minimize the quagmire of cars trying to merge over.  Well of course most people don’t give a flying fck.  They deem their time as more valuable than others and stay in those lanes they know are closed in the hope to get a few car lengths further ahead.  It is reflective of society in general, fck the greater good, me first.

We got home around 11:30 and started unpacking.  Cindy headed out to tend to the chickens.  I wonder if they missed us?  The rest of the day was low key as I ripped video from the con, paid my bills and chilled out.  Today I have a few things on the docket, including getting back on my Ninebot One.  Should be fun.

You can see the videos we took from the Con below.  It was a fun time but Cindy and I both agreed we enjoyed the experience at Miami Supercon more.

Friday night after work a few people from work met up with my ex-boss Shirley who retired about a year and a half ago.  I had not seen her since then.  Cindy came out and joined us as well.  I downed five Shock Tops while we were there putting me beyond safe driving parameters.  We left the Prius there and Cindy drove us both home in the Tacoma.

Our new Segway miniPro arrived during the day.  I told Cindy she should open it up and put it together which she happily did.  She shot video of her unboxing which I combined with my first attempt to get on on the Segway, drunk, when we got home.  You can see both things here.

Trying to step on the miniPro for the first time drunk was not ideal.  The first couple times I tried the board rocked back and force violently.  It wasn’t because of a problem with the Segway, it was my alcohol impaired balance.  Even with drinking, I eventually got myself up on the board and was able to slowly maneuver around the great room without feeling like I was going to crash.

Cindy right away was more adept at riding than I was.  Even though it was pitch dark we took the board outside so Cindy could ride in the driveway.  There is a built in speed limiter on the miniPro where you can not unlock the top speed on it until you log about .6 miles of ride time.  After a few laps around our driveway Cindy had passed that distance so we unlocked the speed limiter, which allows the miniPro to get up to 11mph before the the automatic brake is applied.  The built in headlights made nighttime riding a piece of cake.  The configurable color LED tail lights are extremely cool as well.

Saturday morning I hopped back on the board inside and practiced sober.  I quickly gained confidence in my ability to control the Segway.  I had no issue riding around the hard surfaces in the house, easily steering around furniture and other obstacles.  I drove Cindy back to South Street to pick up the Prius which she used to get to the cycling class she was teaching.  When I returned home I wanted to get more miniPro time but I instead rode the tractor around the yard for a couple hours, the grass was getting high.

I didn’t have any major construction projects on the schedule but I did help Cindy assemble two wood pallets into a chair.  The bare pallets had been sitting around for awhile so I was happy to lend a hand to get them out of the yard.  I also ripped a couple boards off a third pallet so Cindy could turn it into a planter for a friend of hers.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched our current Netflix rental, The Big Short.  The film is based on a true story regarding the financial meltdown of 2007/2008 and the origin of the credit default swaps that pushed several financial institutions off the edge and required others to get billions of federal bailout money to remain afloat.  I thought the movie was extremely well done and did an excellent job at illustrating at just how greedy and disgusting the financial industry was and is.

Just imagine you bought a house and instead of buying one mortgage on it you instead bought 50 mortgages on it.  In simplistic terms that is sort of what these banks did, selling mortgage investment bundles, filled with horrible risky loans over and over and over again.  It is pretty incredible when you try to wrap your head around just how deep the fraud and irresponsibility went.  The scary thing is so many people act like it was ancient history while the financial industry received little more than a tap on the wrist for literally stealing TRILLIONS of dollars from the general populace.  People can’t be bothered with things like financial fraud and abuse when there are so many Pokemon pets yet to catch.  Anyway, I liked the movie a lot and every adult should see it, and pay attention.  It gets an A.

Sunday morning we had an interesting exercise session that included running, Segway riding, rollerskating, and rollerblading.  I put in about 3.5 miles on the track while Cindy rode around the school grounds.  We then drove to Dunkin Donuts where I rode the miniPro while drinking coffee while Cindy roller skated.  Cindy had told me she used to be a really good skater but I never saw her in action.  It didn’t take long for me to be impressed.  Despite her not skating for years she immediately seemed comfortable, skating backwards and doing spins like it was nothing.

We later switched, I put on my roller blades and Cindy rode the board.  I also had not rollerbladed in several years.  Unlike Cindy, I was never adept at it.  At best I could avoid falling down but I never was smooth or fast.  I managed to not fall on my face but if you watch the video you will see my awkward style.

After an active start the rest of my Sunday slowed down. Both Cindy and I felt very tired during the afternoon and actually laid down for a psuedo-nap.  The most productive thing I did during the day was to reroute an ethernet cable that used to be used for the Xbox 360, into the wall and back out behind the tv for hard wired internet speed.  I pulled the 360 out of the bedroom as it had no practical use with a smart TV and a Fire Stick residing there now.

This weekend the string of horrible events continued with more police shootings in Baton Rouge and a bloody, unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey.  Soon these atrocities will become so commonplace that they get as much news time as US soldiers dying unnecessarily in Iraq/Afghanistan.  It gets to the point where typical public response to these events just feels numb. Outrage, prayers, and cries it must stop are the typical blueprint.  To me the increased frequency of these events would indicate that whatever we think we are accomplishing with that response is obviously ineffective.

I had planned to fill today’s entry with light and mostly pointless jabber about stuff like how my Segway miniPro arrives today, our discovery of a cool show called Mr Robot or how I decided to solo the end raid of Wrath of the Lich King last night.  Instead I woke up this morning (without an alarm between 4-5AM) to news that there has been another terrorist mass casualty event in France.  This tragedy deviated from the normal gun and explosive tactics most used by suicidal maniacs.  Instead this man drove a large truck at a high rate of speed right into the middle of a large crowd gathered for a Bastille Day celebration.

The casualty count is somewhere in the mid-80s with many of them being children.  It is yet another horrible event in the long stream of horrible events that seem to be a regular occurrence in the world nowadays.  With these tragedies happening so often it gets hard to discern between them.  Regardless of the corresponding death toll with each event the rhetoric is typically very similar with leaders vowing to “defeat” terrorist groups which is a crock of shit.

When politicians say they are going wipe out terrorism they are appealing to simple thinking people.  It is impossible to wipe out a group that blends in among the populace and that views blowing themselves up as badge of honor that has rewards in the afterlife.  You can’t defeat extremism because they are willing to go beyond the boundaries civilized society exists under.

Of course as is the case far too often, religious beliefs are at the rotten core of this endless conflict.  There is no foreseeable resolution.  Religion has been the cause of conflict throughout human history and to think it’s changing anytime soon is naive.   I have no answers, no light at the end of the tunnel although I am sure the executives of military mega-conglomerates have a little spring in their step everyday they wake up to news like this.  Anything that helps to propagate fear and panic is good for business.  My personal plan of action is to just keep moving forward and hope human beings don’t totally eradicate themselves before the century is over.

Have a nice weekend hunting Pokemon.