Yesterday I had a scheduled install time window of 2-5 PM for my new high speed fiber optic internet service. 5PM came and went with no communication from a tech although I received an automated appearing email/text saying the installer was running late. From 5PM until 9:30 PM I had several online chat interactions from staff that clearly were from India where I complained repeatedly and loudly about how frustrated I was by the situation. Each time I was told the tech was still on his way, until the last time.

That last time was close to 10PM. That chat rep said that there was additional prep that needed to be done before the install was done. I noticed that the line from the termination point outside to the house had not been run or buried but I figured that was part of what the installer was going to do. Evidently that is handled by someone else. After once again expressing my discontent to the Indian rep I was told I will be contacted about rescheduling sometime today and that I will be getting a credit for the scheduling error. This is definitely not the sort of start I feel good about with dealing with this company. My hope is once I get through the initial install headache it will be set it and forget it service where I won’t need to deal with support on a regular basis.

While I was waiting for the installer I did get around to making a video on my new Boomstik pickleball paddle. I really like the paddle even though I did not play very well with it during my last play session on Friday. The poor play was more because of two painful knees that limited my ability to move effectively. The paddle itself while pricey is a rare combination of power, a large sweet spot and control. I like it.

I had to go into the office on Saturday morning to be around for some work on our back up generator. There have been issues with reliability of the unit firing up that they were trying to diagnose. Unfortunately three hours of work did not really clear up whatever the issue is as the unit worked fine for all of the testing. Intermittent issues are always a pain in the ass to fix however in Florida generators are a crucial component of building operations.

Later when I got home I finally got around to rotating the tires on the Tesla. I never have done them on this performance model yet. I normally try to rotate them every 10k miles. The odometer has creeped up past 13k so it was overdue. As always the task involved grease, dirt, sweat and a few obscenities but I got it done.

My head wound being closed also allowed me to head out to the swamp to do my first significant EUC riding in well over a month. The heavy rain of wet season had the terrain in a pretty muddy condition with a high amount of vegetation.

I took in the V12S as this was the one test I didn’t get a chance to do before the skin cancer surgery. The wheel with it’s hydraulic suspension did a great job of shielding my joints from the constant impacts the swamp trail offers. I only did roughly 3-4 miles in on the trail before I tired of walking across prolonged sections of muck.

For the second week in a row I watched the Eagles without the NFL Sunday Ticket. They had a nice win going into KC and beating the Chiefs, again. Despite the 2-0 start there are definite chinks in the Eagles armor. Hurts holding the ball longer than any QB in the league has always made me wonder if our receivers are not great at getting open or if his ability to make make quick throws/decisions just isn’t in his arsenal. His stats yesterday were pretty anemic with his arm at least. He made most of his impactful plays with his legs.

Number 8, the guy they picked up to replace Darius Slay so far seems like a significant liability. Teams have been throwing his way repeatedly and been successful because he just doesn’t seem very good. Maybe he is just adjusting to the system but almost every significant pass play I have seen the defense give up, 8 has been in the mix. Big picture the team has won two close games so I should just shut up and enjoy the W and save the complaints for when they start losing games.

My return to volleyball last night almost didn’t happen due to rain in the area. We played in steady rain several times during the night. My lower body felt awful the first three or four games. Every quick movement caused little jolts of pain in both knees. Eventually through the combination of Advil and being warmed up enough the discomfort lessened but never went away.

Despite these issues I played ok, I just could not move or jump in a manner I wanted to. I did not miss a single serve all night and my passing/defense was not too bad. My hope was that the 5-6 weeks off while my head was healing would have allowed my knees to do the same. Unfortunately it feels like I need to “break in” my body to being more active again. I was a wet and sandy mess by the end of the night but walked off without a limp.

A lot of times in modern day shooter scenarios the gunman winds up being shot on site or kills himself. The Charlie Kirk shooter evidently is more interested in self preservation. Unfortunately for him in this world of wide spread surveillance it is very hard to hide. Through a combination of commercial and private video feeds the authorities have been able to track his movement very clearly both before and right after the shooting. Although his hat and sunglasses hide some facial features there are pretty clear pictures of what the guy generally looks like. I would be very surprised if he managed to avoid capture with those images now being out in the wild. EDIT* I actually just heard that supposedly someone that knows the individual turned him in and he is in custody.

This weekend is looking to be more conventional than my recent versions since my head is ok. I hope to knock out some tasks that involve physical labor as long as my body allows me to do so. The Eagles play the Chiefs Sunday. I am pretty sure it will be nationally televised which will again make my decision to drop the Sunday Ticket a non-issue.

Let’s start the blog with a normal update in my circle before moving to much heavier topics.

I believe I mentioned on here how they buried fiber optic cable in our neighborhood roughly a month ago. Well last night a sales rep came to my door asking if I would be interested in signing up for their high speed service. I have been pissed off at Comcast/Xfinity for years so I was very interested in hearing what they were offering. I currently pay roughly $225 a month for my existing service which includes basic TV and internet with download speeds of a gig and uploads of around 400MB.

Although the service normally performs well I hate the song and dance you play with Comcast where every year or so you have to renegotiate a new package to get your price back down. Even if you do, normally it means you are giving up something to keep the price near where it was. Even after those negotiations occur your bill seems to magically keep creeping upward every few months. I used to be more vigilant about fighting all of these phantom charges but to be quite honest I tired of it and just resigned myself to overpaying every month because I had no other alternatives. Well, now I do.

With Quantum Fiber which is associated with Lumen, a company I have dealt with for years at my job, I can get 3 gig of bandwidth up AND down for $105 a month. Not only am I more than tripling my speeds, there also is no installation charges, and that price is guaranteed for life. Yes that is not a typo, I will not have to pay more for my internet ever. There is also the possibility of even greater speeds being available to me in the future.

Fiber internet has a ton of advantages over cable internet. You aren’t sharing your pipe with neighbors so the performance should be consistent regardless of how many around you are using it. Fiber optic cables are not susceptible to lightning strikes like copper coax cable are which can result in equipment damage as I experienced myself a month or two ago. Cable internet always has different upload/download speeds, with fiber the pathway is the same both ways, something that is great for someone that uploads large videos to the internet on a regular basis. I’m hoping the service lives up to my expectations as it is scheduled to be installed Monday. I look forward to informing Comcast that I no longer will require their services.

With the wound on my head being closed finally I am trying to resume my normal activities which have been gimped for over a month. I played pickleball yesterday and plan to play volleyball tonight to see how that goes as well. I also have some projects I have been putting off since they involve a lot of sweat investment, those are back on the to do list.

I have my pest control guy coming today. Every two months they spray the property outside to curtail pests. Despite their efforts I have been having a lot of issue with ghost ants inside which are so tiny they can wiggle in through the smallest of cracks. I have been trying to battle them with bait traps that are supposed to eventually kill the colony as well as caulking various spots in the house where I have seen them enter/exit. Despite my efforts they keep showing up. I am hoping allowing the contractor inside to treat the trouble spots will get me back on the winning side of my insect war.

So I like most people saw the shooting of Charlie Kirk yesterday. I was not personally a fan of him as he was one of Trump’s loudest and most consistent supporters. He was very young and made a name for himself going around the country and debating people on various political, social, moral and economic points, a lot of which was on college campuses. His efforts to bring younger people into the sphere of caring about politics was without a doubt effective. Despite not agreeing with his stances on many things he was obviously an intelligent man that was guided by his beliefs. I respect intelligence as well as the right of people to believe what they want. My line comes when people try to enforce their beliefs onto others which happens in both directions.

Ironically it was at one of these big outdoor college Q&A’s where it went down. It appears that someone with a sniper rifle took him out from roughly 200 yards away while laying prone on a rooftop. He has not been caught. No matter where you stand politically, it was shocking and a dark day. The scariest part is in today’s world you just never know the true nature of the event. Was it an individual that just hated what Charlie Kirk represented or was it a third party that was tasked with a murder to cause further division, rage and distraction to serve a very small group of powerful individuals. It’s an awful truth in our world today that truly nothing is out of bounds in the realm of possibilities. I feel sad for Charlie’s family and friends and hope this does not lead to further escalation.

His murder is grabbing the headlines on 9/11, a tragedy that ironically opened my eyes to just how dark and deep the levels of deception the federal government can go to manipulate public opinion. Oh yea just for fun Putin flew drones over Poland, a NATO ally, that got shot down inspiring them to state this is the closest they have been to war since WW II. These are dark days we are living in, I’m just trying to keep my head down and avoid the shrapnel.

I really enjoyed my long weekend up in Cocoa Beach. Even though this was my fourth or fifth time to the Space Center I never tire of it. They do a good job of updating some of the content of the park to keep it current and fresh. The idea of just how vast space is and all that it contains is something that has always fascinated me all the way back to my childhood. It interested me so much that being an astronomer was the first thing I recall ever thinking I wanted to become, which was later supplanted by the desire to be a major league baseball player.

I love the old school beach town vibes of the Cocoa area. The place we stayed was a total throwback, built in 1987 with not a lot of updating. In a lot of cases that would be viewed negatively but it wasn’t. The place was clean, warm, homey and very unique. It was so old school that you opened the door to the room with a physical key, yes, a key. The room faced the water which was very cool. Ocean views when you wake up are pretty amazing. It was a great few days and I have no doubt I will be returning again in the future.

After my quick two day work week winds up today I will be packing for a long weekend road trip to Cocoa Beach. Not only is that spot close to the Kennedy Space Center, the beach itself is very much a throwback to what a beach town used to be. I have been there a few times and always enjoyed myself. I expect the same this time around. I will be taking the Tesla and utilizing the month long FSD subscription I activated a couple weeks ago. It makes extended driving sessions so much less of a hassle IMO.

It really is pretty crazy how much I have streamlined my life in the last 3-4 years. Most of it was initiated with my decision to sell and move out of the house that Alison and I built in 2001. That process more or less forced me to examine what I had and what I actually needed. It was something that was long overdue. Save it for a rainy day mentality and former relationships I was in created a stupid amount of things that I didn’t need in the big picture. I developed an ability to do a very fast mental calculation of something’s worth to me. If it failed that formula out it went to either Goodwill, the front curb or just thrown straight in the trash.

That calculation of worth has expanded over time to not only include things but also include situations, people, relationships, and activities I spend my time on. Friends of mine are often very surprised how streamlined my existence now is with the outsourcing of certain home maintenance activities that give me the freedom to do pretty much what I want. It’s a far cry from when my life was mired in chores and tasks that consumed so much of my energy and time.

I have tried to distance myself from people that take far more than they bring to my life. I have had a long pattern of getting entangled with such individuals and am happy to say for the first time in a long time I am free and clear of that scenario. I have run that calculation on many other things that I used to spend a lot of energy on, things that in the big picture I have zero control over. I simply stopped giving a F about a lot of things is the simple way to summarize it. I’ll take care of my circle, you take care of yours.

I was sort of bummed out that my four day weekend was still not going to include activities like pickleball or riding since my wound was in the final stages of closing. I did get lucky and had my new H2S printer show up early on Sunday. It was originally not going to arrive until Tuesday. I also got lucky earlier in the day when someone came and picked up my X1C. He drove all the way from Tampa to get it which was hard to believe. I didn’t get my asking price but close enough that I didn’t feel bad about the sale at all.

This printer was packaged immaculately, just like my A1 and P1S was. From the first second the printer oozed a sense of quality. Setting it up takes time as there a couple dozen screws to remove as well as large amounts of film/foam that are all over the place to ensure the printer arrives in perfect working condition. I would say in total I spent 45 minutes going from unboxing to the initial power calibration.

I did a couple speed benchy prints to verify everything was good, it was. Despite being huge, dwarfing the P1S that sits next to it, the printer is extremely quiet while being lightning fast. I simply love it. I look forward to making large and complex models in the future with it.

As I mentioned the wound on my head is basically closed at this point. It looks presentable enough that I am no longer walking around with a bandage on my head. I am still keeping it covered with anti-bacterial ointment just to be safe. One unfortunate side effect because of where the surgery is located is that I have a patch on my scalp where hair used to be that is no longer there. The surgeon said it should grow back but the process could take several months, yay. It could be a reason to keep the sides of my hair high and tight until regrowth occurs.

Yesterday I was dialed into the office on my day off as there is a yearly process that has to be completed this week. I have been working through various issues that needed to be addressed. I think we are almost in the clear at this point which is a good thing.

Last night I got the urge to live stream despite not riding a wheel for a single second since the last stream. I had a decent two hour stream where one of the primary subjects was drama in the EUC community which can be generated from irresponsible riders, odd decisions by manufacturers or created by content creators looking to maximize eyeballs by posting titles/thumbnails that are salacious in nature. I am not a big fan of EUC drama just like I dislike drama in my normal existence.

I have a quick two day work week with a lot to accomplish in that time.

Yesterday I had to deal with the medical profession back to back before coming to work. The first visit was getting a lab result from the local hospital. I had to be “admitted” for it to be processed which was more frustrating than anticipated. On the plus side my result was emailed to me, allowing me access to it without going through the doctor that ordered it which I liked since I don’t really like that doctor, either.

The next stop was the dermatologist to check on the wound healing progress. Again the news was good. The open area is steadily closing. I was given direction to keep using the antibacterial ointment until it totally closes and I don’t need to come back unless there is another issue. Sounds good to me.

My very strong dislike of having to deal with health issues which require visits to a doctor has been a life long state for me. I just don’t trust most of the individuals I have dealt with. Far too often I have felt like a resource that needs to be harvested for test after test that accomplishes nothing outside of draining my wallet. Unfortunately the older I get, the more likely the chances of my having to interact with them are. I have a couple things on my radar that I hope resolve themselves but if not I will likely have to step back onto that maddening gerbil wheel.

I listed my X1C on Facebook marketplace the other day but have not received the type of interest that I had hoped for. I have no plans to give the printer away at a stupid low price. It’s not a deal breaker for me if I can’t sell it. In fact if it does not sell I may just bring it into the office to build items here since I wind up giving away so much stuff to fellow employees anyway.

I have extended my Labor Day weekend by taking Tuesday off as well. My intent is to once again avoid activities that drench me in sweat which I am beyond tired of doing at this point. My hope is by this time next week I will lift any and all restrictions on my activity.

When I went to get my latest cancer surgery performed the receptionist informed me that my estimated portion of my cost after insurance would be $700 and change. They wanted to collect that up front. I told them no. I said I have been a patient there for over 20 years and I never have paid up front. After some consultation they said that was ok and they would bill my insurance. Yesterday I got the bill from them and it confirmed exactly why I never will willingly pay up front.

My portion of the charges worked out to be only $400 instead of $700. So in a perfect world the office would have to reimburse me the extra $300 that I would have paid up front. I don’t trust a business to give me back money I already paid them. It would be far easier and more profitable to just hope I don’t notice or say anything and retain the overpayment amount. I hate anything and everything to do with the medical profession.

Last night I took pictures of my Bambu X1C in advance of listing it on Facebook Marketplace for sale. I am hoping to sell it quickly to make space and dollars available to be utilized on the new new massive H2S 3D printer which will be arriving shortly. I have had terrible luck trying to sell my old Prusa printers this way but I am hoping for better luck selling a more desirable type of printer.

Last night I did a quick fix on my A1 printer to address a clog in the hot end. Over the weekend I had tried to clear the clog conventionally but was unable to do so. Instead of investing more time into the issue I invested $12 on Amazon and got a new hot end nozzle. Install of the part took a couple minutes and I was back up printing. At this point in life in a number of situations my time is more valuable than my money.

While I was at the gym yesterday I was thinking about how I am not pushing to get stronger/better like I should. Instead I do a lot of the same exercises for the same amount of reps which I always have known is not ideal but for some reason I had fallen into that routine and figured it was good enough. Hell I am going to be 58 this year. Well it’s not good enough.

Getting off that same train is as easy as a plus one, as in adding 1 rep to whatever you are doing every week or two. It’s an incremental change but over time those plus ones add up to a big shift in your capabilities. I have no plans to go peacefully into the twilight of older age and the plus one mindset is a good way to support that.

Bambu Lab has been teasing the release of a new large format printer, the H2S. It has the ability to print very large objects just like the flagship H2D but has only a single print head instead of two. However outside of that it has a lot of the same tech the H2D has for a price that is nearly $1000 less.

When I saw the price the wheels in my head started turning to come up with a plan to both to make it work financially and logistically. After some mental gymnastics I arrived at a plan that makes it more feasible to me. The H2S will replace my used X1C. The H2S does everything better than an X1C so it makes sense to me to swap out a used printer that is approaching 5000 hours of print time with a brand new unit with better tech and bigger print volume. Selling the X1C will take a nice bite out of the financial impact as well as freeing up bench space to place the new unit. It makes sense, in my mind at least. I hit the buy now button and will start the ball rolling in selling the X1C ASAP, complete with the various upgrades I recently completed on it.