Last night was a busy one for a Tuesday evening. I found myself running around doing domestic tasks for the majority of the night. One task was to list another one of my EUCs for sale, the Mten Mini. I already have my Sherman S for sale which I have gotten no serious interest in. The Mini was an impulse buy from months ago. I am trying to be a little more reasonable about my wheel collection and my spending choices in general.

I have my second work related conference in a month coming up next week so my mind is already identifying logistical objectives that need to happen before I leave. One of the things this upcoming conference also reminded me of was my split from Cindy which occurred right around this time three years ago. It seems hard to believe that three years has already flown by but the calendar does not lie. During that time period there has been an incredible amount of twists and turns in my direction. What was up turned down, what was right suddenly become left. It’s been a challenge, to say the least. The amount of change that has been placed in my path has been uncomfortable, but necessary.

I found this old live stream I did from the work conference three years ago. Although I didn’t directly reveal the split at this time you could tell there was something going on under the surface.

Yes I have been in a social media void for the last week or so. It was long enough that a few people have checked with me to see if I still had a pulse. I am happy to report that all is well and good. I decided to give myself a break as I had an extremely busy week that left me little time to do/care about much else. Our regularly scheduled programming can now continue, I think.

Last night was volleyball night. My team of three was myself and two women. Luckily for me they were two of the best women players in our group. We won every game but the last one, which we only lost by two points. I played well overall. During the second half of play I had several hits that were among the best I have had since resuming play last year. One in particular that was a hard angle and short was exceptionally satisfying. With the way my body works nowadays I just can not get moving in a way to allow me to hit effectively until I am thoroughly warmed up which takes a couple games.

It was again brutally humid, after the first two games I was already feeling gassed. Luckily I rebounded. Towards the end of play a beautiful sunset went down that myself and several other people were fortunate enough to capture. I also felt fortunate that despite two hours of pretty intense play my body held up more or less perfectly.

I have spent an overwhelming amount of my adult life in stable, structured, long term relationships. It’s a place where I felt I thrived. As I have progressed through life I became more self aware of things I have done wrong in those relationships and tried to learn and grow as a result. I’m not foolish enough to think I’ll ever have it all figured out. Even after the recent almost three years of trying and failing I still am willing to keep my mind and heart open to the idea of getting it right, this time.

Last night I was buzzing around getting all sorts of mundane but necessary things done around the house. I did get a chance to roll around on my Mten3 a bit just to verify how everything felt a full charge and a day later. The tire still feels fully inflated and the wheel is just as agile and fun as it always has been, a good thing.

Last year I posted the following blurb in the blog:

I have been taking some steps recently to try to clear my head and be able to course correct towards a direction where things make more sense and the fog of uncertainty can start to dissipate. I need to lock the rudder in place and keep moving forward towards things that serve my happiness and away from things that do not.

Repeatedly I have seen things I wrote last year that indicated I finally had seen the light, I was finally going to move away from situations that were in the big picture, bad for my long term happiness. Evidently that rudder I was speaking of broke off sometime during the last third of 2023. It has since been repaired and is welded in place, never able to turn toward a certain direction again.

Yesterday after work I made a plan to take my Mten3 to the nearby Tires Plus to see if they could help me seat the bead on my newly installed tire. My portable inflators just don’t have the CFM’s to do it. When I walked in carrying the wheel which had half of it’s shell missing the guy at the counter looked at me a little oddly. I explained to him that this had a tubeless tire that I need a high power inflator to seat the bead with. I was a bit surprised that without any fuss he said, ok, follow me.

He first tried a “normal” air line that probably had the power of the air machines at a gas station. It did not work despite he and I both trying to hold the tire against the rim to seal it. After messing around for a few minutes he said he was going to try something else. He took the wheel over to the spot where the machine is that is used to remove and install tires to rims. That is where the high volume inflator resides. Within a minute he returned with the bead seated and the tire fully inflated, awesome!

I asked him what I owed him for the service. He said they don’t have a service item that really correlates to what was done so he wasn’t going to charge me anything. I grabbed a $20 bill from my wallet and handed it to him, telling him he saved me from hours of frustration. He smiled and said thank you as he put the bill in his pocket.

When I got home I reassembled the wheel fully and then took it for a very brief test spin around the driveway to ensure it was still functional, it was. On the video I shot I talked about my stubborn nature and tenacity that makes me keep trying to fix things when many people would have already raised the white flag. It’s an asset in many areas of life, not so much in others but in this case I was happy I kept grinding away until I reached the finish line. I had been wanting to get around to fixing the Mten 3 for a long, long time.

I also took my Veteran Patton that I rode through the tropical rains on Sunday out for a quick test spin to make sure all is well. Sometimes exposure to extreme wetness can cause problems with wheels, especially bearing issues. I breathed a sigh of relief when everything looked, sounded and felt normal.

Yesterday during the day I got another reminder of the magic of karma and how people that knowingly and willingly f with others can and will get their rewards from the big K sooner or later.

Starting Friday our area has been receiving a litany of warnings about what is now hurricane Debbie however nothing significant was happening. I played pickleball both Friday and Saturday morning. As the day progressed Saturday we had a few minor periods of rain and it was mildly windy. Friday after work I hung out at a happy hour with Juan for awhile but just drank. I then went to Brunina’s and grabbed food while I chatted to Meaghan.

Saturday after pickleball I turned my attention to trying to get my Mten3 back together, using a tube instead of the tubeless configuration it was using before. It resulted in a couple frustrating hours where I was unable to get the tire back on the rim with the tube in there, no matter how much I struggled. I resigned myself to having to go back to the tubeless configuration but I needed to get a new tubeless valve to do so.

On Saturday night I did a casual and improptu live stream from my phone. It started out on the lanai but then moved inside once I tired of the humidity. Originally I thought it might go for an hour but wound up being two and a half instead.

Sunday was when the full tropical weather was in effect. It was windy with heavy rain off and on all day. Areas around Naples had some flooding as we received somewhere around 5-6 inches of rain. It was a mess. For some dumb reason during the afternoon I got the idea that it would be “interesting” to take one of my wheels out into the wet and windy weather. I chose my Veteran Patton which is supposed to be water resistant. Wow did I put it to the test.

When I left the rain was light but that did not last for long. Soon another band of heavy wind swept rain moved in and I found myself absolutely soaked. The coat I was wearing was thought to be waterproof. It absolutely is not. The wheel was subjected to deluge style rain. I only went out for 20-30 minutes or so, that was plenty. I was absolutely drenched. I blew out the wheel the best I could to try to minimize any residual water impact. The picture is how I protected my non-waterproof wireless mic receiver. The video demonstrates my level of decision making at time, which can be poor.

The air valve I ordered showed up later in the day Sunday so I took another shot at getting the Mten3 working. Without a tube in the tire and utilizing my zip tie method I was able to push the tire back onto the rim with absolutely no pry tool assistance which is amazing compared to how much I struggled the day before. However I ran into another issue, I could not fill the tire.

With a tubeless configuration you have to get the tire to seat it’s bead on the rim so it is airtight. There are various tricks to do it but I only had a portable air pump that does not push air fast enough to get the job done. I am going to either have to find a gas station that has a high flow inflator or just go to a tire shop and see if they can pop the bead on for me for a few bucks. This has been annoying, to say the least.

The weather made for an up and down weekend which sort of aligned with how my mental state has been recently. This has been a pretty consistent reality for me for at least two years. It’s not the type of consistency I am looking for however.

Yesterday was my first time back playing volleyball in several weeks dating back to prior my California trip. Since returning I have been going through a couple weeks of my left knee being randomly painful however it had felt pretty stable the last handful of days so I decided to test it.

The playing conditions were not great. It had rained before the start of play and rained lightly off and on while we were playing so the sand was wet and heavy. In a very short period of time I had a thick layer of sand clinging to my body. My team was not great, containing a couple players that I just don’t enjoy playing with. My play was not great either, I struggled off and on throughout the night, partly due to rust, partly due to being conscious of my knee and partly because I was not enjoying myself all that much.

For most of the night my knee held up but towards the end I had a couple shots of pain in the left knee. I walked out of there unhappy with how play went but glad I wasn’t walking with a limp although I did have a few quick ouch moments since then. Today I am scheduled to play pickleball at lunch so that will be the real indicator of how impacted I am by last nights session.

I did bring my V8S to the courts. One of the women I play with is an amazingly good conventional unicyclist. She tried out my wheel at the 4th of July party and was able to get the hang of it very quickly. She had asked me if I could bring it to volleyball so she could try it again so I brought it.

Once again she was able to ride without falling. She really likes it. I told her the next time we play I will bring the charger and she can borrow it for a week or two. She then pulled out one of her unicycles which she encouraged me to try. I got up on it next to a fence but had no ability to stabilize myself using the pedals. It would be cool to learn to ride a conventional unicycle but doing it in flip flops and volleyball gear is not a great idea.

This weekend I have a few things to get done, mostly related to my hobbies. As long as my knee stays intact two sessions of pickleball will likely also be in the cards. Tonight I am going to a happy hour with Juan. We went a month or so together and it was a lot of fun so I am hoping for a repeat performance.

Yesterday I played pickleball for the first time this week. It was the first time in nearly two weeks I got through a session without my left knee going “out”. I also happened to play pretty well which was likely connected. When my knee is hurting I am hesitant to go at 100% which knocks everything down a few pegs. I am hoping this trend continues.

Last night I got motivated to do a quick video on my current paddle collection, somewhat motivated by receiving my latest and greatest paddle, a Holbrook Power Pro. As mentioned in the video I really need to slow down the paddle buying train. I currently have nine in my bag which is pretty ridiculous. Curbing that impulse buying trend can be part of a bigger effort to cut back on my spending somewhat, which has been off the rails ever since I moved.

Tonight I am planning to give my left knee a real test as I try to play volleyball for the first time in a couple weeks. If I get through the session without limping afterward I will feel more confident that the last two weeks of knee issues was just a bump in the road.

Last night was a very mundane evening. I did laundry and then finally got around to washing the Tesla. It had probably been at least a month since I did so. It was overdue, especially since the car had been to Orlando and back since the last washing. Washing cars during rainy season is sort of an effort in futility but I still felt better after removing the layer of grime that had accumulated.

I also spent some time in WoW trying to get things “working” again. They recently released the pre-patch for their next expansion which opens the end of August. Whenever this happens they change a ton of things in the game which result in the “mods” you use breaking or requiring you to change the way some things have been done. I trudged through some of the issues last night to the point where I think have basic functionality going. I got one more character to the current max level, which is going to increase in a month. I still have a lot more to go but have a deficit in time and motivation to do so.

My life in 2023 was one of the more tumultuous times of my life from a relationship standpoint. Now that I am going into my 8th month since my last one ended I have transitioned to just a weird time instead. I have clear patterns and tendencies that create obstacles for me in the big picture. Finding the path around and/or over them is the challenge.

It seems like right now I am in my monthly peak in strength. I have talked before how my strength throughout a month changes, presumably tied to the moon cycle. Yesterday at the gym my chest strength felt really good with weight that can be challenging at times going up cleanly and without hesitation. Now if this cycle would also include realigning whatever is whacked out in my knee I would be good to go.

Last night some strong storms rolled through, sending Elsa into her normal routine of hiding. When she was in her “safety corner” I covered her with a blanket to make her feel better. I wish there was something I could do besides try to comfort her, poor thing.

The storms did give me a chance to verify that the downspout extension I installed over the weekend worked as planned. On the south side of the house the water was dumping and collecting right by the structure which is never a good thing. Now the water is flowing near the edge of the landscape bed where it shouldn’t do any harm. It’s funny how nowadays dong something so simple is a “project” because I typically have very little I need to fix around the house anymore.

I don’t know if it was the rainy weather but I found myself feeling very tired last night. A little after 8PM I laid down on the bed and dozed off briefly. That does not happen very often.

For as long as I can remember I have always been a pretty avid watcher of the Olympic games, both summer and winter. The Paris games started on Friday and I have watched exactly zero seconds of the coverage so far. It’s a strange thing but I guess ties into how my TV viewing habits have changed since I moved to the new house. I stopped watching pretty much anything I used to watch on big network TV and never watch live broadcasting outside of football for the most part. The Olympics are a special thing and I should pay more attention to it. I always used to watch a lot of that stuff with whomever my partner was at the time. The lack of one has impacted a lot of my routines and this is just another manifestation of that, I guess.