I printed a lot of articulated mantas over the weekend. Some were oversized, some were smaller but they all came out really well. The A1 is pretty amazing in what it can create. I am trying to print one of my EUC stands on it right now as a test even though it probably makes more sense to keep printing those on my Prusa’s. I would rather use the A1 to make really cool things.

I didn’t to play pickleball because of some tournament they were running at the park. I didn’t get out to ride a wheel. I didn’t live stream. I didn’t make any videos. Sure I played some WoW, went to the Miromar Outlets and made a trip to Home Depot but it was one of those weekends where getting the required chores done was the most work I felt like doing. My motivation reserves were definitely low.

My first print on the A1 that fully utilizes it’s capabilities finished yesterday afternoon. Since I have the app on my phone I got a notification of it’s completion and was able to confirm it by activating the integrated camera the printer has as well. The print was a multi-color manta that has crazy articulation. When I got home and picked it up it collapsed over my hand almost like it was made of fabric.

The quality of the print was incredible. If I didn’t tell you it was 3D printed I’m not sure you would know. This model was downloaded from a site I pay for called STLFlix. It is a repository of nothing but high quality 3D models, most of which are multi-color. I liked the manta so much that I started another one last night that is slightly larger and uses a different main color. I can’t wait to see what other sort of cool stuff I am going to be able to create. The possibilities are literally endless.

The other day I stumbled across a video from some guy that takes 3 minute ice baths every day. He lives in Winnipeg and the tub is outdoors. Most of his videos I have seen he has had to break up the ice on the top of the water with a sledgehammer before he can get in. It’s in a word, insane. He has done this for on approaching 800 days in a row.

While he is in the freezing water he somehow manages to talk about ideas that are fundamental to living a good life, one of which is consistency which is part of the idea behind him dunking himself daily. Could I force myself into an ice tub with 33 degree water and sit in it for 3 minutes? The snap answer is no but the truth is if I set my mind to it and told myself I can do it, I would. Accomplishing anything starts in with your thoughts. If you think you will fail you already have lost. That being said, will you be seeing me in an ice bath anytime soon, nope.

With no Eagles football on the schedule this weekend I have some extra hours which is fine by me. I am thinking about trying to play pickleball Saturday morning to see how things go. There will be more creating by the A1 printer as well as some sort of EUC activity if things go as planned.

Yesterday I made arrangements to fly up to PA for my buddy Troy’s wedding at the end of March. When I went to PA last January I stayed with Troy during the visit. We have been friends since I got into the computer career back in 1992. It will be a pretty quick trip with my staying only three nights. I’m sure a lot of funny memories will be created in the short time span.

Troy and I have had some pretty crazy adventures over the years with the two biggest going down in Vegas and Green Bay. I’m happy for him that he has a good woman now and hope they have a happy life together.

I just realized the jacket sort of thing I was wearing in this picture was from my ex. It was thrown in a trash bag and donated to Goodwill shortly after this picture was taken 🙂

Last night while I was doing my mini-workout I heard a ton of emergency vehicles flying down the road behind my back yard. I walked outside and saw a large plume of smoke maybe a quarter mile away. I assume it was a house fire but could not see exactly the source. I certainly hope it wasn’t someone’s house that burned but the smoke did definitely have a burning wood sort of smell to it.

Yesterday I received four empty printer spools for the new A1 printer. You may ask why I would order spools with no filament? Bambu filament has this cool ability to reuse empty spools. You can split them apart and then buy filament only refills which are less expensive and more environmentally friendly. When I placed my initial order for the filament I did not realize that I had ordered a bunch of filament refills, without spools. My mistake wound up costing me close to twice what I should have spent on the filament. Mistakes teach lessons and this one was learned.

I did a brief video outlining both my mistake as well as how you put a filament refill onto an empty spool. With a full array of four different filament spools loaded on the A1 I started my first complex and long print which is scheduled to take over 19 hours. It included over 300 filament changes. This morning the poop catcher I have was filled despite the print only being 59% done. I may need a bigger toilet.

By the time I was done editing the video I was too tired to get any WoW playing in. Instead I headed to bed, popping a Unisom when I did. It worked like a charm, allowing me to sleep through the night. When I awoke this morning the haze wasn’t as bad either and I pulled myself out of bed within a minute of the alarm going off.

I have been really frustrated about the IT band problem I have been having as mentioned here a number of times. It is approaching three months in duration. I am at the point now where I have totally shifted my exercise routine where healing my IT band is the primary goal. I’m now doing yoga twice a week and I have incorporated additional strengthening and stretching of the hip muscles connected to the IT band into my normal routine. I am sacrificing weight training sessions to just keep blasting this problem until it is fixed. I don’t know any other way. There is definitely some improvement. I wish it was faster than it was but any movement forward is movement that is worth continuing, in my mind.

Last night I got another 90 minute WoW session in that allowed me to bring my monk to level 70 leaving only one character remaining on my main account to get to that threshold. I again streamed on Twitch, correcting the cut off video issue I had the first time through. Unfortunately for over half of the stream I inadvertently had a creepy sounding voice filter turned on but it’s not like anyone was there to see/hear it. Yesterday I also created my own Discord channel/server. I have no use for it as of yet but it is a way for people to connect and interact with me pretty much whenever they want. Like most things I am duf67 on that platform.

My sleep has been an issue for quite awhile. For a long stretch last year I was taking unisom nightly to help in that regard. The downside is it can make it very tough to get out of bed when the 6:30 alarm goes off. Just last week I took one and wound up oversleeping nearly a half hour when I immediately fell back asleep after stopping the alarm. I have been taking magnesium before bed which supposedly has a number of benefits with sleep being one of them. It doesn’t seem to be working.

My pattern is I normally will wake up around 4AM, go take a leak and then when I get back to bed I have an extremely difficult time falling back asleep, sometimes laying there for an hour or longer until my mind will settle down. With unisom that process takes a couple minutes. I suppose I need to determine the lesser of two evils. The bottom line is the absence of restful sleep for most people is a real negative on their overall health and well being. I have been abusing/ignoring that truth for quite a long time.

A couple days ago my buddy from the gym who was a sniper in the military reached out to me letting me know about a really good deal on a Palmetto State Armory AR pistol. It was only slightly more than what I paid for the 1911 hand gun. I wasn’t looking for one but he really pitched it hard saying it was a great gun for the money that uses cheap ammo. The only other gun I was thinking about buying was a shotgun but I decided to jump on this deal. It will be a fun thing to pull out at the range.

The process to get a gun online is you pay for it and then designate a local gun store to have it shipped to. That local dealer is responsible for running the background check and other paperwork required for you to pick up the gun. I’m not quite sure how long going this route will take but it’s not like I am in a rush for it. I do still plan on getting my concealed carry license at some point not to be able to actually walk around with a gun but to make the process of buying them easier and faster in the future.

A couple of my friends have questioned me on why I have suddenly had an interest in gun ownership after going this long without ever owning or even shooting one. It’s just another one of those doors that I am exploring, not because I have any interest in shooting another living being, ever. It has the potential to just be another hobby that brings me a decent dose of fun and something else I can learn about. I don’t anticipate it approaching my pickleball level of interest however.

Yesterday I went for a haircut. The stylist I prefer was not working so I was with a new woman. She wasn’t big on personality or friendliness but she did do a good job with the scalp massage when she was washing my hair. I had her give me more of a tapered cut where the hair is still on the longer side up top but shorter near the ears. I have been looking like a shaggy dog recently so it feels good to get a little cleaned up. I’ll likely be good to go now for a couple months.

Last night I played WoW once again, leveling yet another character, my monk. Apparently monks are really powerful now as I was destroying everything. In the few five man dungeons I ran I was doing approximately 40% of the overall damage which is huge. I decided to also fire up my Twitch stream (@duf67) for the first time in ages. Only a handful of people rolled in and out which is what I expected. I also discovered that since I now am running the game in full screen 4K I need to change my settings in OBS. Unfortunately I did not discover this until the stream was over and saw only a portion of my screen was being displayed, oh well. I’ll fix that.

I gained five levels in little over an hour of game play which is hauling ass. If I get time to play tonight I’ll hopefully carry this character to 70 as well. I’ll probably keep streaming my play sessions to Twitch, not because I have any delusions of becoming a Twitch streamer but because there may be small interesting outtakes from streaming there that could be clipped and pushed to YouTube where my content is monetized.

I know I have talked many times how I don’t look to a new year as a time to make change. My feeling has always been that if change is merited, desired, or required it should not need to coincide with a date on a calendar. There is no time like the present, right? Despite this general attitude I have I do think there have been scenarios where a calendar flip has coincided with a major shift in my attitude and course direction. The beginning of 2024 represented a huge change where I finally kicked myself in the ass enough times to make a permanent change that finally rid me of a toxic situation.

I think this year that effort will continue. I don’t have the energy to waste on that stuff anymore. It’s a finite resource that is better spent on things to propel me forward instead of pull me down.

Saturday morning I made arrangements to meet up with Sue, my normal Saturday morning pickleball partner, for breakfast. Neither of us have been playing much lately due to our respective injuries. The restaurant is only about 15 minutes from my place however it took me an hour to get there. Why? The freaking Swamp Buggy parade. Despite living in the Naples area for going on 25 years I never knew/heard about the Swamp Buggy parade. Evidently every year they close off the main road leading into Naples to hold this parade in the middle of “season”. I drove right into absolute gridlock as a result.

I had no choice but to drive parallel to the parade route for miles until I could find a spot to cross. I was angry and frustrated but the truth was this was just unfortunate timing. Luckily Sue was patient and we still had a nice breakfast catching up.

Friday after work, yes I am out of order, I did my grocery shopping. This included a trip to both Costco and Publix. While I was at Costco I saw that they once again had the 32inch HD monitors in stock, which I bought one of when I expanded to three screens. Since then I found myself slightly annoyed because the new monitor is 4K while my other two were 1080P meaning if I drug a window from the center to either side monitor it would become much larger and not fit correctly. I don’t consider myself OCD but maybe I have a little bit of it rolling around in there because the idea of having all three monitors the same motivated me to snap buy the other two.

On Saturday I got to work installing the new monitors. It required a quick trip to Ace Hardware to buy some shorter bolts to mount the new screens on the articulated arms. After maybe a total of an hour work I had the two screens installed and looking great. Having consistent resolution across all screens is an improvement I appreciated even more than I anticipated.

The other small project I took on was mounting the new tool shelf I got on Temu in the garage. I stripped down the lower third of the pegboard to make room to mount the shelf. I had to do a few tweaks to make it work but I got the metal shelf up there and secured. If I am being honest it’s impact on my tool organization was not as significant as I hoped. Is it better than it was before? Yes, certainly, but more could be done.

Sunday was all about the Eagles NFC championship game. The Commanders were very hot. Their win over the Lions was totally unexpected in my mind. I was concerned it could carry them past the Eagles. It didn’t. I could hardly believe the first Eagles play on offense resulted in Barkley running for a 60 yard plus touchdown, it set the tone. For a good portion of the game the Commanders kept it close but later in the second half the Birds pulled away, taking advantage of multiple Washington turnovers to put the most points on the board ever in an NFC championship game, winning 55-23. It was a hell of a win.

I watched the AFC championship game as well. I like many, many others was pulling for the Bills because I’m sick of the Chiefs however Kansas City squeaked out a win again. This will be the second time in three years the Eagles will be playing the Chiefs in a Super Bowl. I can only hope for a reversal of outcome from the last time. I’m still a little in disbelief the Eagles made it this far as I never felt confident during this season. You can’t argue with results. Go Birds.

Last night before bed I selected a model, sent it to the A1 printer and started a print while I was laying in bed. It was the first time I did such a thing using the app. It was stupid easy. Did I mention how much I love this printer?

It looks like we have some moderation in the temperatures for this week to more typical SW Florida winter weather which is welcomed by me. I played pickleball on Friday in temps that didn’t leave the 50’s. Sure it’s doable but not my preference. The highs today in the mid 70s hit my sweet spot exactly.

Last night I put together another wall mounted tool organizer. I snagged this one for cheap off of Temu. I received a smaller organizer for Christmas that I have my power drills on and have been pleased with it. This one is around double the size and I hope to use it to clean up a haphazard section of my pegboard. The before and after pictures will tell the story. Even though I am not compulsive regarding my desire for things to be organized I definitely do appreciate when things have their place.

I hopped on another character in WoW last night and gained a quick 5 levels, this time on my rogue. At the speed this is going in a week I will have all of my characters at the base level of 70 and I can begin actually exploring the content in the new expansion.

This weekend I have errands to run, a couple small projects to complete, and of course an Eagles NFC Championship game to watch Sunday afternoon. I am far from confident but hoping like the rest of the fan base that the Birds find a way to get back to the Super Bowl.

Last night I did something I have not done since moving into my house in March of 2023, flipped the thermostat to heat mode. I was tired of feeling chilled in the house. The temperature inside wasn’t awful, I think it read 66 when I turned the heat on. I set the thermostat to 70 and expected to experience the burning smell I always did at the old house when the heat was turned on for the first time a season. Normally dust that has accumulated on the heating coils will cause this.

Maybe the system at the new house is better or it’s just cleaner because I did have a PM done on the unit a month or so prior but there was no burning smell at all, just nice hot air coming from the vents. Within 15 minutes the house felt better. I left the heat on all night but turned it off this morning. I will make a day by day call if I need to enlist additional heating to the living space. I have also added one of the thick fuzzy blankets that Dawn advised me to buy last year to my bed for now. The thin bedspread was not enough but the extra insulation from the blanket definitely helps.

I also played my second WoW session in as many days. Playing the game on my 4K monitor is a new and enjoyable experience. The speed at which I can level is crazy. Last night I went from level 63 to 70 in maybe an hour of play time on my demon hunter. The game play with that class is chaotic and fast. I was just blowing through enemies and in the five man dungeons I ran I was the top DPS by large margins.

I now have three characters remaining on my FIRST account to get leveled to 70. I then have to reactivate my SECOND account that has my couple other characters that need to be leveled. Yes, it’s a lot I know.

You may recall back in November I did a couple videos on the Shift Robotic Moonwalkers. They were sent to me to evaluate. Most of the times if I am sent a product to review I get to keep the product as “payment”. In this situation instead the company agreed to pay me $300 to do the review. So I did the videos that presented my lukewarm feelings about the Moonwalkers. In a nutshell it’s interesting tech but there were two major and one minor thing wrong with them. They were too loud, too expensive, and you look sort of ridiculous while using them.

So after I made the videos I sent the links to the company and awaited instructions on what was next. It took two weeks and multiple emails until I got a response. They asked if I could upload the videos to them (instead of just YouTube) and told me I could send the product back using the return shipping label that was supposed to be in the box. I responded back asking if they had a site for me to upload the videos to and informed them there was no return shipping label in the box.

Another couple weeks passed, again requiring me to send multiple emails, asking for this information. Each subsequent email I sent had a slightly more irritated tone to it. Finally they tell me I can just put the videos in my Dropbox for them to grab and they sent me a return label which I used to ship the product back the next day. I anticipated getting payment from them to be equally annoying, I was right.

So I sent the email asking how do I get paid. Again I got no response until I sent three of them. This pattern of having to request things repeatedly obviously did not sit well with me. When they do respond it’s always with an apology but then it happens every subsequent time. The response I got was I had two options, I could send them an invoice and a W9 or create a bill.com account and they can pay me via an electronic transfer to my bank. I responded back I would choose option two. I created my account on Bill and then emailed Shift once again to tell them everything was good to go.

I waited another week before following up asking for an update. It again took multiple emails until the response came back that they were unsure why they payment had not been processed yet but they would check into it and get back to me ASAP. I let a few days go before I again asked for an update, this time indicating how my level of frustration with Shift was high with their poor responsiveness. I finally get a reply saying my issue was being forwarded to the director of marketing who actually did respond to me the same day. However I was unhappy with her response.

She said she was told by the payables department that I needed to submit an invoice and W9, the option I did not choose when given a choice. I responded back quickly, including the email that included my being told I had a choice to this person. She responded that she was sorry but she was told I had to do it this way if I wanted to get paid. That officially flipped my switch.

I normally am not the type to have a quick fuse. I gave Shift way more leeway than I should have in my opinion. However there was no more patience left in me. I told this person that this was ridiculous. I explained how frustrated I was by the lack of responsiveness and professionalism Shift has demonstrated during this process. I said I was at the point where I felt like I need to inform other content creators to not entertain working with Shift, meaning make a video about it. Yes, this was a threat. Magically, I get a follow up email in less than an hour saying that the payable department was making an exception and would process my payment via Bill. Later that night I got notification that the payment was in the pipeline, finally.

Although my inherit nature is to be understanding, patient, and polite, there are situations where those attributes no longer apply. The part of me that no longer is willing to tolerate bullshit is normally effective in getting things handled if being nice has proven to be fruitless. I try to avoid the truly angry side of me to take the wheel often as results are unpredictable.

Anyway, I got my money after nearly two months of effort. Persistence pays off.

Well if you need any more proof of just how strange the days are we are living in nowadays, just look at this picture. Yes it’s snowing in Florida. Now granted this is up in the panhandle but still this is crazy. It’s not a dusting that is gone in an hour, this is accumulating snow. In south Florida no frozen precipitation is predicted but it is still pretty miserable with a cold rain with temperatures in the 40s. Since I moved here in 2000 I have never seen a snow event of this magnitude in Florida. Did I mention we are living in crazy times?

Last night I did my first multicolor print on the Bambu A1. I chose a simple two color planter as a quick test. Without any interaction from myself it switched colors and produced a nice quality print. I have some Bambu filament arriving. Once it does I plan to do more detailed and cool looking prints.

I finally reentered WoW last night, something I have been talking about doing forever. It has been at least 6 months since I have played the game, possibly longer. Since I last played a new expansion was released which I was not even worried about playing yet, I needed to level.

I have something like 11 or 12 total characters that I used to always get to maximum level. I have around seven to the OLD max level of 70 meaning I have a number I need to level before I can even set my mind to playing the new content. The good news is it is extremely easy to do so. WoW allows you to quickly get to 70 so you can start playing the new stuff. Last night I leveled my one character from 67 to 70 in less than 45 minutes. I then hopped on my next character and picked up another three levels in a half hour.

Despite not playing for awhile I quickly settled into the mindless fun that WoW has always offered me. It’s a great way to make whatever is troubling you fade into the background as you roam a virtual world filled with other people and challenges to provide infinite hours of entertainment. Now that I finally stepped my toe back in I look forward to replacing endless death scrolling in social media to exploring Azeroth once again.

On Saturday I scheduled my second sports massage, hoping it would help me get over this plateau of IT band issues. Much like last time she concentrated almost entirely on my lower body although she did work some on my back. She said the right side of my lower back felt like a rock so she did some cupping on it which I have had done before.

The theory on cupping is it breaks up whatever is hanging in the area and helps to distribute blood to promote healing. It’s a bit uncomfortable but well within my pain tolerance. It does leave you with unmistakable reminders of their use however as you can see. The massage felt great and I want to do them more often. I wish I could say it was a magic pill that made all of my IT band pain vanish but sadly it still exists.

Saturday night I did a live stream, a very long live stream. YouTube added a feature awhile back called super chat goals. Basically prior to a live stream you set a goal for super chats, which are another type of donation. If that goal is met you offer to do something. This time I offered to do a shot of tequila if my $10 goal was reached. Well it was reached twice in the first 40 minutes. I only had enough tequila to do two shots, if I had more I am sure I would have been doing more shots. I also had four Modelo’s so I I met my alcohol quota and then some. This stream went extremely long, one of my longest ever crossing the four and a half hour mark. It was a fun and entertaining stream that had a lot of good interactions.

One of the things I was working on was printing six monitor supports for the new three monitor set up I now have at work. It was a lot of printing that was a total of 18 parts. I used all three of my printers in tandem to get it all done. The A1 was able to print the same part roughly twice as fast as my Prusa.

The big event on Sunday was the Eagles playoff game against the Rams. The game was very close throughout but later in the fourth quarter the Eagles extended to a two score lead. Of course they promptly let the Rams fly down the field to score an easy touchdown and then did nothing on offense to allow the Rams to have a shot to win the game with more than two minutes to go. It looked like the Birds were poised to hand the Rams the game as they were within 20 yards of the end zone with plenty of time left. Thankfully the defense made plays on third and then fourth down to save the game. I felt very lucky but if the Eagles Super Bowl season proved anything it is that luck is an important part of a championship.

One thing that is really annoying me is Jake Elliot. He has historically been a real asset with high accuracy numbers, even from distance. I don’t know if he has some sort of injury or if it’s just in his head but he has been bad this year. He nearly cost the Eagles dearly by not missing one but two extra points in the game, inexcusable. I can only hope he gets his head on straight. Anyway the game was fun to watch, made even better by the fact that it snowed during most of it. We will see what next week brings.

The weather here on Monday was on the drab side with overcast skies and temps that actually dropped during the day. I mostly stuck around the house to get things done. I had a cheesesteak from Wawa for lunch, yes a cheesesteak. Although my diet is still mostly pescatarian I have started to have non-seafood meat products here and there. This change is one of many shifts in habits, routines and behavior that have been going on for the last couple years. There are many things that used to be core in my existence that have simply been let go for one reason or another.

I find myself doing a lot more evaluating of my actions, thoughts and decisions, putting them to two very simple tests. Is this making my life better or worse and is this making me happy or unhappy? If the honest answer to either of those questions is the latter then it’s time for me to make a change.

No I did not watch any of the inauguration ceremonies although I did see a picture of Melania wearing a bizarre hat that looked like it was straight out of a Spy vs Spy comic.