Overnight there were a bunch of thunderstorms rolling through. I woke up and realized that Elsa had jumped up onto the bed and was up by my head, shivering. She had her body pressed up against me so every time she shook, I knew it. At one point I pulled the blanket over her and laid my hand across her back which seemed to settle her down a bit. I hate how terrified she is of almost any noise.
After my super short 3 day week I have a conventional weekend ahead of me. Let’s hope it’s a good one.
Last night I played WoW hardcore for the first time in roughly a week. Up until this point I had been very careful since a death in game means you have to delete your character, regardless of how much time has been invested. I had gotten my warrior up to level 9 and was trying to complete a quest where you have to kill something. I ran in and got myself into trouble. By the time I realized I was in deep trouble I was unable to escape and died. I was annoyed and frustrated by my stupidity. From all accounts this is a common path for most, the first few times playing hardcore you get a taste for what you can and can not do. I deleted the character and rerolled a paladin, a class that should be a little easier to manage. You can see the death from my Twitch stream.
There are other things I could delve into on this post but I really would rather put the energy towards doing it instead of talking about doing it. Mental gymnastics are exhausting.
I just completed my extended four day weekend for the fourth of July. I am not sure how accurately or in sequence this will be but I’ll give it a go.
Saturday I was doing a number of small tasks and errands that kept me moving throughout the day. I did get out on a One Wheel ride with Christine later in the day before returning home to do yet another live stream, my fourth one in as many weeks. This live stream was one of my longest in a very long time, more than 3 hours. The reason was about half way through the broadcast I was joined by but not one but two guests, Marty and Black Cobra. It was a fun stream.
On Sunday morning I met my buddy Juan to play pickleball. We played at Talis Park which is a VERY expensive community about 25 minutes away from me. They have 6 very nice and relatively new courts. Juan and I played doubles with two residents, rotating partners each game. They must have liked playing with us as they invited us back any weekend to play that we wanted. Later Juan and I played against one of the communities tennis pros. He is a young 20 year old kid that used to be nationally ranked in tennis. He played us 2 on 1 and still kicked our ass, it was humbling.
Sunday I finally got my first ride in on my Veteran Patton which I received on Thursday. It was only a quick 10 mile ride but I realized very quickly that I really like this wheel. I can see this becoming my favorite wheel in a short period of time.
On Monday I got to install the new rail protectors and bumpers I bought for Christine’s OneWheel XR. The prior owner evidently opted to just paint everything black. I installed fresh black front and rear bumpers to replace the very worn originals. The yellow rail protectors really helped to refresh and change the appearance. Christine loved it.
On Monday I did some minor fence repair. A few of the pieces of the fence were loose as the thin nail gun nails were rusting. I reinforced those parts with deck screws instead. There are some spots down low that need to be reattached as well but that section of the fence has a dense hedge around it that I need to figure out how to penetrate to perform the repair.
I headed to the gym Tuesday morning to get a workout in since gym days will be sparse during this shortened week. During the afternoon I did a 50 mile range test on the Patton. The wheel performed very well during the test. I cut it a little close, arriving back home with about 7% battery left after 3 hours on the road.
When I moved closer to town I thought I would have less exposure to backyard fireworks fanatics. I was wrong. If anything the increased population density lead to hearing even more explosions throughout the night.
Elsa was terrified as always. I gave her three calming treats that contain CBD. They seemed to take the edge off at least but she has spent most of the weekend being treated to fireworks every night, sigh.
Sometimes you need to just shut up and do the right thing. Why am I saying that you may ask? To simply remind myself, that’s all.
My new Veteran Patton arrived yesterday. I didn’t even have to run home to sign for it, evidently my FedEx driver didn’t care it was classified as signature required, which is good for me. The only thing that wasn’t good was he left it right outside the garage door instead of the covered area by the front door. If we would have had a thunderstorm yesterday I would not have been very pleased.
I lugged the heavy box inside but did not open it, that will happen sometime this weekend. Instead I opened other boxes, one had my newest pickleball paddle and another had a full face helmet for Christine to use while riding which will give more comprehensive protection.
I had her test it last night when we did our first ride since her crash. The helmet fit her well. We trekked about 11 miles on the Greenway. It was also her first time riding the used XR board I bought. She got accustomed to it quickly and enjoyed the wheel. I think it is absolutely better that we are on two of the same device as our speeds match up instead of me pulling her faster accidentally while I am on an EUC.
I took Monday off to give myself a four day weekend as the 4th of July is Tuesday. I have a number of things I would like to get knocked out, none of which are huge time sinks. On Monday morning I may have a session with my first EUC student. He bought a wheel and reached out to me asking if I could show him the basics. I said sure. I think within an hour or two I can get him at least rolling.
Last night after work I continued my trend of doing things I hadn’t done in awhile. This time it was running a push mower. I offered to help Christine mow her grandmothers property. I have not had to mow grass since I moved in March but I don’t think I mowed grass with a push mower in probably 20 years. I worked up a lot of sweat in a relatively short period of time. The mower had propulsion but I stopped using it after about 30 seconds, it interfered with the back and forth motion too much. It felt good to make the yard look more presentable after maybe 45 minutes of pushing it.
Today my Veteran Patton is scheduled to arrive. Wheels always come with signature required for Fedex so I left a sign on my door asking that they ring the doorbell and if they can do other nearby deliveries I can be home in 10 minutes to sign if needed. We will see if my plan works.
Last night Christine used these suction devices on my painful back. They are basically “cupping” tools although it sure seems like they are industrial strength. You attach them to problem areas. Once turned on they apply strong suction, infrared heat and vibration. It’s painful at first until the area sort of goes numb. 20 minutes later you are left with what you see in the picture.
Christine said the dark color is actually a good thing as it indicates that area was getting inadequate blood flow. The procedure is supposed to encourage healing, we will see. Right now it looks like I was attacked by an angry octopus.
Last night I did a couple things I had not done in years, played Classic WoW and streamed live on Twitch. The reason I played classic WoW was because I wanted to try “hardcore” mode. In the normal game if you die, you resurrect. It’s inconvenient but there is no big penalty for your virtual death. In hardcore when you die, that character is actually dead, you can no longer revive him. It adds a unique twist to the game I have been playing since early 2005. Every action now has to be carefully assessed as one wrong move could result in dozens of play time hours going down the drain.
I decided to make a warrior as that was the first class I ever played in WoW. The nostalgia factor was high and I enjoyed getting to level 6 or 7 successfully. I think I will keep at it as long as I am enjoying it.
As I mentioned I live streamed it on Twitch, I don’t think I had any live viewers which I could care less about. If you want to see the roughly 90 minute session feel free to click the link below. My channel on Twitch is Duf67
I picked Christine up from the airport yesterday. Last night I gave her a surprise I picked up on Friday, a used One Wheel XR. I bought it from a kid in Cape Coral which is nearly an hour away. The only reason I bought it was because he agreed to bring it to me. The kid was about my height, longer hair and looked like he weighed about 130lbs soaking wet. He owned the board since new and had put almost 2800 miles on it. The board looked well used but I did a quick test ride and everything seemed to still be in good working order.
The board had a nearly brand new tire and a good one at that. It also had hub savers, 3rd party foot pads and a set of “fangs” on the front. Fangs are small wheels that are designed to allow the board to be able to drop onto them in certain situations. In some cases if a rider is skilled enough they would allow you to recover from a cut out situation similar to what Christine had.
Christine was surprised and excited. I told her that to me the big advantage is we can both ride One Wheels. With me being on an EUC which can go much faster than a OneWheel I think it inadvertently pushed her to ride faster. With us on PEVs with similar capabilities I am hoping it will help curb the possibilities of going faster than what is safe.
Over this past weekend I put at least 30 miles on the XR making sure it was good to go. It rides great. This board has slightly less power and 5-6 less miles of range than my GT but it should be a non-issue as 15 miles is about as far as I would ever want to go on a OneWheel anyway. I look forward to getting out there for a tandem OW ride soon.
I know I have made reference to this in the past but I feel like bringing it up again. It is the scenario where a person makes a decision, performs an action or says something that they know is not in their best interest and then laments the consequences of it. I can certainly raise my hand as being guilty of this during various times of my life. Well the doing things not in best interest part at least. I think for the most part I am self aware enough to accept full responsibility for what happens as a result and deal with the shrapnel. The best you can hope for is to learn from the situation and not hit yourself in the face with a hammer, again…
On Friday after work I got inspired to do the fan location swap I talked about last week. It wasn’t hard but man was I sweaty from working in the high temperature, high humidity conditions. It was nice having a source of air flow over the furniture although the fan itself was not in great shape. The blades were starting to droop and it didn’t push tons of air, which triggered more action later.
I decided to do a live stream Friday night to talk about my latest impulse buy, a Veteran Patton euc. I plan to sell one of my other EUC’s to lighten the financial load but of course this was far from a must have buy. I talked about a number of other things as I drank four Cayman Jacks along the way.
On Saturday I decided that just moving the old fan wasn’t enough, I went to Home Depot and bought a new one. I am pretty sure it is the exact same model I bought and installed at my old house before moving. The install was relatively easy and the new 52″ fan has a bright LED light along with a more powerful motor that moves significantly more air than what it replaced. I was very pleased with my upgrade, especially after sitting on the couch without sweating my ass off.
During the afternoon I headed out to the swamp to get a ride in on the S22. When I left my house the skies looked menacing. When I got out to the swamp area it was even worse with dark clouds, rain and lightning nearby. I knew it was a dumb idea but I headed out anyway.
As expected I wound up getting soaked during the ride but the wheel held up well. When I got back to the truck I found my phone sitting on the bed rail of the truck where I mistakenly left it. It was soaked but luckily Iphone 14’s are pretty water resistant. The video captures the moments pretty well.
Saturday night I took ANOTHER ride, this time around the neighborhood just as the sun was going down. It was peaceful and therapeutic.
I had no real tasks on Sunday other than paying my bills which was nice. I went for yet another ride on the Greenway in the middle of the morning. It was a very enjoyable 10 or 11 mile jaunt.
I went over to the park to see if I could get some pickleball in later. The place was a ghost town with only 6 or 7 people using the courts. I wound up just doing some solo drills for maybe an hour.
During the afternoon I went to the gym at work since it is 24/7 access. I had the entire place to myself as I worked chest. One thing I have recently started doing is a heavy negative after I do my 1 rep max. It seems to be helping me as my 1RM has been inching upward over the last few weeks.
Sunday night I did yet another evening ride and again I enjoyed it. The area I live in has a bunch of roadways with a 25MPH speed limit and light traffic which makes for a very low stress experience, I love it.
I was to bed early last night because I was taking Christine to the airport early this morning. Although I have no real need to get up very early anymore I still function just fine getting up way before the sun rises. On the drive to the airport I thought about how I was getting up at 5:30 every morning to take care of the chickens. I then thought back to my days as a race timer when I would be getting up even earlier to drive my loaded truck to the race site. That conditioned my brain to be up and firing first thing as pre-race prep had a lot of moving parts. In a weird way it felt good to be out and about in the world while many are still in bed.
This weekend I have a few things I want to do. One of them is to do some swapping around of fans/lights on the lanai. My new outdoor sofa is positioned at the south end of the space. The ceiling fan is in the middle so when it’s running you can’t feel it if you are relaxing on the couch. A zero dollar fix for this issue is to move the fan where the light currently is above the couch and put the light where the fan was. I eventually would like to get different lights out there but for now this will address the issue.
I also would like to take my newly repaired Kingsong S22 out to the swamp for a ride. It will give me a chance to revisit my old stomping grounds. I realized recently that I never rode the S22 in the swamp so this will give me an opportunity to correct that oversight. Other than a few small tasks I would like to just enjoy the time in whatever way I please.
Yesterday I got on a kick where I pulled clips out of some of my old YouTube videos and made Shorts out of them. The all involved me falling/failing in some way, a very popular genre.
Last night I played volleyball. For some reason before we started I had the inspiration to rake the sand court. They have a large rake designed specifically for that task. So I spent at least 15 minutes carefully dragging the rake down both sides of the court, leaving a pristine even trail behind it. The other players commented on how they never played on the court that looked this good. So we started our game and within 10 points the court basically looked exactly how it did before I started. I won’t be raking it again.
My play last night was decent. My passing was better. When it gets erratic it is usually from one of two reasons (or both), not moving my feet to get in a better position and/or not bending my knees enough to get the ball trajectory more up instead of out. I had a few good hits which always give me hope. I also continue to have an annoying more or less constant ache down what feels like my right IT band which affects my ability to move quickly or jump. It would be great if that went away. There was more movement than normal last night since we played triples the entire 2 hours.
The other day I got back from the gym, reached in my pocket and realized I was missing one of my airpods. Almost instantly I wrote it off as a lost cause and used some of my Amazon spiff dollars to get another set of Airpod 3’s (mine were 2’s). So AFTER I place the order I decide to back track my path back from the gym just in case. I got four steps outside the door and found the missing pod. Oh well, I gave my old set to Christine since one of her boys lost his awhile ago.
I am looking to have a pretty quiet weekend where I can do whatever I feel like doing. I plan to do that.
