On Wednesday night I was riding with Christine, her on the One Wheel and me on one of my EUC’s. She has gotten very good, very quickly. She has been gaining confidence.

We were on our way back from the Greenway. She was carving back and forth and having a great time. Then it happened. In the matter of a split second the board cut out and she hit the roadway, hard. I immediately jumped off my wheel to run back to her. She was dazed and could not respond to me. A woman on a bike immediately stopped who said she was a EMT. She recommended I call 911, which I did.

A quick look at the helmet showed the result of the impact, the helmet was busted with deep scratches. This was bad. In addition to the head her right shoulder took a big impact and she had road rash on various parts of her body. The ambulance came and evaluated her. They recommended she go to the hospital but Christine signed a waiver, thinking she would be ok.

The Cliff Notes version is she wasn’t. She was in severe pain and had dizziness/nausea throughout the night. I convinced her to go to the ER with me yesterday morning. She had a CT and X-rays done. The good news is there was nothing broken and no sort of brain bleed going on. However she clearly has a concussion which is serious. Symptoms from it can linger for weeks.

A post crash analysis pointed to one of two possible reasons. I found a big metal U-clamp in the middle of the road around where she went down. She could have hit that which would have caused the fall. The other possibility is she was just going too fast and the One Wheel cut out. Regardless I felt partially responsible, I should have been paying closer attention to her speed.

She will heal up but I have no doubt any future riding will include additional gear. It was a scary reminder of just how quickly and unexpectedly things can go bad.

Yesterday I played pickleball in the blistering heat at lunch. My shirt had not a single dry square inch. Despite the heat I played well with my team winning every game. I then doubled down and played volleyball last night, it didn’t go as well.

The heat and humidity was still in full force. My play was inconsistent. I had a lot of problems passing the ball accurately. I think it was because I was not bending my legs enough, probably due to fatigue. I hit a number of balls into the net as well. The only significant highlights were I did have a couple of hard driven hits that may have been the best I have had since returning. They were partially anger fueled from my spotty play.

My shower last night felt particularly satisfying.

The twists and turns of my life over the last 6 months have been exciting, anxiety inducing, frustrating, educational, and confusing at various times. However the most important thing is I have turned the chapter on a life I knew for over two decades into something that will hopefully result in more happiness, fulfillment and peace.

Last night I got to watch Creed 3 which is now available on Amazon Prime. I have been a fan of the prior two Creed films which are a continuation of the epic Rocky series. One cool part is they have included Rocky in the plot, tying Creed back to Rocky glory days. This was the first film that had Stallone MIA and it made a difference. I thought the story was sort of weak/dumb and the climactic fight at the end was just weird. I mean it was ok but for me, this was the weakest Rocky related film I ever saw. I’d give it a B.

Tonight is normally a volleyball night for me. Part of me doesn’t feel like going for various reasons. I guess I will flip a coin later.

I know that the last couple months my posting here has been erratic and mostly brief. It seems like ever since I moved a lot of things have been shuffled around on the priority list. I am looking to reestablish a quieter, simpler existence where I prefer to live.

This weekend was pretty light on the to do list standpoint. I got out the paint brush, sanding block and paint to address some small areas along the outside of the shower door. There were a couple small rust spots presumably from the metal corner bead. After sanding them down and carefully applying a couple coats of paint the blemish has disappeared.

Have you ever entered into a situation where you already knew the ending? Not only did you know the ending but you knew the ending would be hurtful or negative to/for you and you went forward anyway? It sounds like lunacy right?

I guess sometimes a second set of hard knocks is required to make an impression that is stamped in iron instead of sand.

Last night my objective was to get the mirror frame installed in the guest bathroom, despite missing the dovetail keys that are supposed to be used to secure the corners. I first went to Michael’s since they do custom framing. I thought there was an off chance they sold these keys, they did not. I did however buy some Gorilla wood glue as that is required.

I then went next door to Home Depot knowing the odds of them having dovetail keys was very slim, they did not either. However what they did have were slim corner L brackets. My thought was I could use them as replacements for the dovetails to lock the corners together. It was worth a shot.

When I got home I covered the dining room table with the bubble wrap the frame came in and grabbed the glue. I carefully applied it and then did my best to press the corners together as cleanly as possible. I knew this was risky as without the dovetails the pieces had the ability to move. After I glued the last joint I went around one last time to square everything up.

The Gorilla glue sets up pretty quick. By the time I finished off an episode of Narcos Mexico it felt solid enough for me to install the L brackets. I drilled small pilot holes for the wood screws and carefully turned them in by hand, making sure to not disturb the joint. It seemed to work well.

When I took the assembled frame into the guest bathroom I quickly discovered that the medicine cabinet would need to be pulled to slide the frame in. After doing so I carefully was able to position the frame over the faucet and onto it’s resting place on the rear backsplash.

The only remaining task was to pull the paper off the 15 or so pieces of double sided tape that are used to adhere the frame to the mirror. I then pressed the frame against the glass and applied pressure at various spots to make sure it stayed put. After reinstalling the medicine cabinet you can see the final product . It makes the plain and degraded mirror look modern and new once again. It looked good and felt good to once again find my way around an obstacle to a favorable outcome.

Yesterday after work I opened up the box that my mirror frame arrived in. I ordered this last week from the Home Depot web site. I had some time before I needed to leave to play volleyball so I opened the box up to take a look. I pulled out the 4 sections of the frame and the instructions. When I looked at the included parts list I hesitated. When I looked at the back of the frame I saw cutouts where dovetail keys are supposed to go. The only issue was I had no additional hardware.

I double and triple checked the box, looking to see if I somehow missed a hardware packet, nope. I was also supposed to get some wood glue included, that was MIA as well. I was more than mildly annoyed as you can imagine. So the instructions give a phone number and email address if there is something missing. I first called and got routed to a generic sounding voicemail, which was odd. I left a message. I also sent an email but I am very doubtful I will receive a reply.

So next I wanted to see if I could just buy the dovetail keys myself, that would be the quickest path towards resolution. Well evidently they are not as easy to buy as I hoped. Any place I found sold them in packs of like 1000, I need 4. I also am unsure of what size I need. So what I wound up doing in buying a few small L brackets. I am hoping using those and wood glue will substitute for the dovetail keys. I may go to a place like Michaels that sells framing materials to see if I might get lucky and find the keys there. I did place part of the frame around the mirror to just see how it will look. I think it will be great, as long as I can get it assembled cleanly.

When I left to play volleyball it was raining at my house pretty steadily. I still went, not knowing the weather on the courts. Although when we started it was ok rain did eventually sweep through. It was hard enough that we stood under a shelter for maybe 10 minutes. It eventually slowed enough for us to get out there. In total I bet we played at least 30 minutes in continuous rain.

Playing while it’s raining is not fun on many levels. The ball can get waterlogged and very sandy. Your body holds onto even more sand than normal as well in these conditions. Despite the weather I actually wound up having my best session of hitting since I started playing again for two reasons. First the rain has the side effect of making the sand slightly firmer, allowing me to jump slightly better. Second and more importantly, I had a guy on my team that was very good at giving me consistent sets that were where I like to hit. Knowing that a set is likely to be good allowed me to be more aggressive with my approach which I need to get out of the sand. It felt really good to be able to get some decent hitting in. I left the park sandy, wet, but pleased.

Yesterday when I got home I decided to take another whack at painting the spots that I patched. Instead of using the new paint that I got using the label from the original can I used the original paint, which there was not much of. When I applied it this time I put much more effort into feathering around the patched areas instead of just doing a few strokes on the patch. I think the end result is better. If you weren’t looking for it I don’t think your eyes would be drawn to the slight color variation now.

Today I have another item coming for the home, a mirror frame for the guest bathroom. It should dress up that mirror a bit which has some wear around the edges. I would still like to do something different with the light over the sink at some point but it’s a low priority.

Here is your deep thought for the day and it’s something I have been thinking about. Think of your sphere of existence being a lake. Think of people, situations and experiences as being rocks that are dropped into the water. Right after this happens the ripples closest to the rock are the biggest, the most significant, and impactful. As time passes those ripples lessen and lessen, making their impact fade away. I have had a lot of big rocks dropped in my lake recently. I am looking forward to the water becoming calm once again.

On Saturday I was motivated to tackle a project that was in my orbit since moving in. The previous owners evidently had a TON of things hanging on the walls. When I had my house painted I stripped the walls and had all the holes filled. This was not done at the new place so I had dozens of nail holes and drywall anchors marking the walls like a shotgun blast. I knew there were a bunch of cans of paint in the garage but I had not gone through the process of trying to figure out what rooms they went with and/or if the paint was any good. My task was to address these things on Saturday.

So I looked through the large collection of paint cans. Some were very old and the paint in them had turned to goo so they were out. Luckily those did not appear to be any of the current colors of the rooms. To assist me in color matching I grabbed a small section of 2 x 4 and painted small sections to use as a color matching aid, smart, if I do say so myself.

After doing so it appeared to me that I had found the color used in most of the kitchen, the guest bathroom and the main living space as well as the bedrooms. This can had the least amount of paint in it but I was confident in my findings, so much so that I ran to Lowe’s and got another quart of the paint using the color code on the old gallon.

After patching the numerous holes, letting them dry and then sanding them smooth I started painting. The greenish color in the kitchen was a perfect match although I discovered the paint around the counter/cabinets is some different shade that I do not appear to have. The guest bathroom paint was a match as well. I did not have any holes to patch in there but went over a number of scuff marks to clean it up. When I applied the paint I bought it looked like it matched well. I took pride in finally cleaning up the holes that littered the walls. Then, an hour or two later, I was not as happy.

As I walked the house I realized that the paint once dried was just a shade or two darker than what was already on the wall, making it look like I now had lightly colored liver spots anywhere I painted over a patch. I was annoyed. I had some paint that they bought in January that looked lighter so I tried some of that as well, it was too light but I did discover that is what was used in the master bathroom. So I now can either try to take a chip of the existing color to get color matched or live with it until I decide to get the inside of the house repainted. It is an annoying situation.

On Sunday I went out a ride. I shot a video based on a request I received regarding the process of moving to a small electric unicycle to one of the bigger, nearly 100 pound models. I think the video turned out well.

In the video I talked about a general feeling of blah that was hanging over me recently. I am hoping that feeling clears soon.

I played volleyball again last night. It had rained pretty substantially an hour or so earlier. It seems like for whatever reason this stirred up the bugs which were swarming people most of the night. Even though it was not really sunny I kept my Oakley sunglasses on all evening, even once the lights turned on. For whatever reason they seemed to keep the bugs away from my face.

The wet sand combined with my sweat covered body left most of my bare skin looking like a corn dog most of the night. I played better than I did last week for sure which made me feel better. I had a few good hits which always puts a little pep in my step. I still struggle to get out of the sand but if I commit to aggressively approaching and get a set in firing range I can convert it to a kill once in awhile.

I have mentioned a number of times both here and in various videos I have made since moving about how happy I am about my decision to move. It has made a dramatic impact on my day to day existence in a positive way. With the move behind me and the cabinet/counter project being recently completed I feel like I can now work on getting in a groove as far as the rest of this thing called life. I have been falling short in ways that I’m not happy about. No worries though, I’ll get there.

My Memorial Day weekend so far has been very productive. On Saturday I buzzed around the house knocking out things I have been wanting to do. As promised I did the faucet hardware swap between the master bath tub and shower which resulted in matching sets of chrome and brushed nickel instead of the mismatch I had previously.

When I went to Home Depot during the morning I took a shot at buying a brighter LED light for over the sink in the guest bathroom. The light they had in there was just too dim. I bought one that had something like 5 times the light output. I managed to make it fit and boy is it bright. It’s so bright that I put a second diffuser panel below it to tone it down a bit. I think it will be ok but I can always do something different down the road. I also ordered a mirror frame to clean up the visual of the mirror that was starting to look shoddy around the edges.

I finally got around to running the carpet cleaner in the bedrooms, something I wanted to do since I moved in. I don’t believe the prior owners cleaned the carpets much based on how much dirt I pulled up. Hell I feel like I should do it all a second time, it was that bad.

My second pickleball paddle arrived in as many days. This one is called The Filth. In pickleball if someone makes a really good shot it is often called “filthy” hence the name. This put my active in hand paddle collection to six with one more paddle en route to me. Yes I have a problem. Hopefully 7 paddles is enough variety for me for awhile.

Later Saturday afternoon I rode with Christine on the Greenway. Her house is close enough that you can ride to there from her front door which is great. I took the T4 which I haven’t rode in awhile.

On Saturday evening/night I got drunk, really drunk. Margaritas have sort of taken over as my main alcohol intake recently. Even with as drunk as I was I don’t seem to have severe hangover consequences with them, which is a plus. It was a fun night.

My Sunday had less chores/projects than the day prior. After paying my bills I got out my Sherman S to do a DD ride. I expanded the ride to include a lot more than just coffee because I felt like it.

Tomorrow I am starting off my Memorial Day playing pickleball with my buddy Juan which should be a lot of fun. Juan and I have become closer friends over the last year even though I have known him for probably 15 years via the gyms we both used to frequent. I may also head to the gym at work since I have 24/7 access to it to get a workout in. After that the rest of my Memorial Day will be played by ear. Please take a moment to appreciate what the day is all about, the sacrifice of others, for us.