Archives November 2016

So I was up and outside early Friday morning, hoping to take advantage of the temps in the lower 60’s for as long as I could.  I had a long day of tree trimming ahead of me.  In recent years Cindy has assisted me in this horribly laborious job.  She hurt her back last week so picking up hundreds of branches all day would have only made it worse.  I was 100% on my own.

I had the bright idea to rent a 32 foot ladder from Home Depot to allow me to more safely reach a couple of the trees on the property that are very tall.  I originally figured I would just use the 32 footer to trim everything.  That plan changed quickly after trying to move the ladder around early on.  Not only is the ladder 32 feet long, it’s also a heavy duty ladder with a weight limit of 300 pounds.  My 20 foot ladder has a much lower weight limit, closer to 200 pounds. The rented ladder was MUCH heavier than my 20 footer, I would estimate at least triple the weight.  When combined with the additional length, moving and placing the ladder by myself was absolutely miserable, requiring the very limit of my strength to manage.  I eventually decided I would use the monster ladder for JUST the couple spots I needed and pulled out my 20 footer to do the rest.

I also made an on the fly adjustment as far as trimming the branches.  I started out using my heavy duty loppers, just as I always have in the past.  Using loppers while up high on a ladder is a pain in the ass and dangerous, requiring you to put your body in awkward angles to be able to cut in between the palm fronds.  When I did the first of the two extra high trees I pulled out my battery powered DeWalt Sawz All.  Although holding the power tool was tough on the hands and forearms, it buzzed through branches in a couple seconds and overall was a big time saver.  Since I now have four battery packs I was able to stay juiced all morning, something I wasn’t able to do in the past when I only had two smaller capacity batteries.

So I busted ass all morning and managed to get all of the trimming done by lunch time.  However that is only half the battle, the afternoon was when I had to pick up the mountains of debris that was now laying on the ground. This is the part of the job that Cindy had been so helpful with in the past.  This was the first time I did this job with the new Tacoma.  I could not use the same disregard as I had in the past where I would overload the bed of the 99 Tacoma with brush, not caring if it scraped or scratched the weather beaten paint.  The bed of the new Tacoma is all composite plastic with covers over the top edges to protect from damage.  Still I was much more careful loading it up, trying to make sure everything touched plastic and not paint.

By the afternoon the temperatures had warmed up quite a bit.  I was miserable.  I was so sore and tired.  I just kept plodding along, keeping my eyes on the finish line.  I did not finish up until about 4PM.  I still wasn’t done though, I had to load the monster ladder back into the Tacoma and take it back to Home Depot.  I felt like I was run over by a truck.  I wondered just how long I can ask my body to endure these sort of grueling all day grindfests.

On Saturday morning I didn’t have as many morning chores as normal as Cindy tried to get most of them handled for me.  We headed out in the beautiful weather later in the morning to get some riding in, heading to a new location, the Vineyards.  The running club used to have a race at the Vineyards but other than that I have not really spent much time in the area.  I was surprised just how much was going on Saturday morning, the parking lot was filled.  There was a large flea market going on along with all sorts of sporting events.  Cindy and I really liked cruising the sidewalk which was lined with all sorts of mature trees and landscaping.  Vineyards has been around for awhile by Naples standards.

We stopped at Rural King during the day.  We were surprised to see a bunch of dogs hanging out there.  Evidently a rescue organization was there with a bunch of their dogs that were up for adoption.  Of course Cindy immediately gravitated towards the dogs, loving all of them.  Cindy has been saying she would love a dog for awhile.  I have not shared her enthusiasm, despite my love of dogs and animals in general.

So we did our shopping and as I was waiting in a slow checkout line Cindy headed over to the dogs again.  When I finally got over there she had latched onto one in particular named Elsa, a cute female mix that only weighed something like 30 pounds.  Cindy put on her best pouty lips, telling me the virtues of the dog.  She is fixed, has her shots and has been on a 5 acre farm with a bunch of farm animals which would hopefully mean she would be ok with the chickens like Sadie is.  I told her that was all great but I was not ready to adopt a dog.  Despite having dogs in the house for over a dozen years, since the separation and divorce I have become accustomed to only having dogs for shorter periods of time, not 24/7.  It is nice to not have to worry about the welfare of a dog if you want to go somewhere.  The house obviously stays cleaner without an animal around as well.  Plus, much of the last few years I have been making moves to try to simplify my life.  Agreeing to adopt a dog would be a step in the opposite direction.

Of course I feel guilty saying no to Cindy.  She always enjoys when Sadie is over.  Cindy grabbed the card from the organization and said goodbye to Elsa with tears in her eyes, making feel even shittier.

Late in the afternoon I got the urge to take on an EUC challenge that was in my mind for awhile since I got the Msuper which sports significantly more range, speed and power. I wanted to ride to and from Dunkin Donuts.  I told Cindy of my plans and despite her hesitations about the safety of such a journey I assured her it would be fine.  It was.  The ride there was smooth with me averaging between 14-17 mph most of the way.  In a couple spots I was stuck in the shoulder/bike lane but I was safely on the sidewalk the majority of the time.  The ride back was even faster since I had a tail wind.  Despite 20 miles on the MSuper my feet did not feel awful, a testament to the larger pedals.

Saturday night I was feeling very beat up from the tree trimming trauma.  We stayed home and watched Free State of Jones, a real life based story that took place during the civil war.  I thought the movie was interesting and exposed an element of the civil war that I did not know existed.  Early on there seemed to be an unnecessary level of gore that did nothing to advance the film.  As I watched the events unfold I thought about just how divided the country had to be in order for it’s citizens to inflict such pain and suffering upon the other.  I then thought about how present day is the closest I can recall to feeling we are moving back that direction in my lifetime. The movie was well done and well acted. A-

Sunday morning I headed out for my long run solo.  It was the first time I ran without any walkers showing up late in the run.  As I ran I did more thinking about Cindy’s desire to adopt a dog.  I ran through pros and cons, remembering clearly how I felt when Ali and I adopted Nicki.  I was firmly against it and after a sleepless first night with her in the house I was ranting that we made a mistake.  Thankfully Ali was more patient than I was and Nicki became our pseudo-child for the next dozen years.  However I also recalled some of the handicaps along the way, being limited by being responsible for and limited by owning dogs. I also recalled the crushing sadness when Nicki died last year. I had a lengthy, silent, internal debate about it as I completed lap after lap.  In the end, the guilty, people pleasing part of my personality won the argument.

When I got home I told Cindy that if we could foster Elsa first so we can see how she gets along with Sadie and the chickens first I would be ok with it.  Cindy’s eyes welled up with tears when I said it, making it even harder to think about not going through with it.  So Cindy got the ball rolling, receiving an application that is needed to start the foster/adoption process.  I am sure my unsettled feeling will continue for the forseeable future.

Later in the morning Katie and her boyfriend came over for more PTV riding.  We went to the Vineyards for the second day in a row, figuring it was a good spot for Daniel to continue his amazing progress on electric unicycle riding.  Daniel was worried about losing his progress in the week that has passed but instead he continued his amazing advancement in skills.  Daniel was an avid skate boarder in his youth which I think has helped him greatly in his EUC learning process.  By the end of the morning he was off the cheap $200 training wheel and on my Ninebot One, doing great.  At one point he was actually on the basketball court shooting baskets while on the wheel, amazing. Katie and Cindy were on the training wheel as well, without training wheels.  Cindy made some nice progress and Katie at one point rode at least 100 feet on a tennis court without falling.  It was a lot of fun.

The Eagles game continued the teams very up and down season where they can’t beat any team in their division but seem to beat everyone else.  They beat the Falcons and their top rated offense 24-15.  The Eagles defense played well, despite having two cornerbacks that drive me crazy.  To me the defense is successful in spite of their weak corner backs who have given up close to the top amount of TD passes in the league.  I can not stand that both of them are prone to gloating and grandstanding when opposing receivers drop passes on their own.  If the team had better cornerbacks and a true number one wide receiver I think we could really have something special.

Carson Wentz had a solid game although he still makes some dumb mistakes like taking totally unnecessary sacks and delay of game penalties.  When he threw the ball away on 4th down at the end of the first half with a few seconds on the clock instead of running it out I was screaming at the tv.  It was just a brain fart which is expected I guess, hopefully he learns and makes less as the season goes on.  So anyway it was a strong win that builds on top of the other strong wins against the Steelers and Vikings.   For the first time in a long time the Eagles actually seem to have a home field advantage, something that seemed to be missing most of the time since they moved into the Linc.

The rest of the weekend I wound down playing a lot of WoW to just disconnect and chill.  It was a fast three days which opens the gate to the whirlwind holiday season to come.

Yesterday I was in a sour mood all day for obvious reasons.  I had thrown my EUC in the trunk of the Prius with the intent of riding it after work at the Naples Greenway.  Well I decided to also take the wheel out at lunch as well, riding the Msuper just felt like it would be a better mood elevator than the gym.  I rode over 8 miles over my lunch hour and enjoyed every minute of it.  The ride after work at the Greenway was awesome with cool temperatures and beautiful skies.  It’s hard to explain what riding an EUC feels like to someone that has never rode one.  It’s a different experience from riding a bike, perhaps because it allows you to focus more on your surroundings and less on the effort required to push you through the surroundings.  In total I put between 16-17 miles on the wheel during the day and still had over half of the battery charge remaining, amazing.

So for some reason I have never in my lifetime educated myself as to why the electoral college system exists.  This year was the second time in my lifetime where the presidential candidate that won the popular vote did not win the electoral vote.  I would think when it happened back in 2000 I would have looked into the college but I cared less about most things back then.

So anyway, one of my friends posted an article explaining the origin of the electoral college and why it is basically ridiculous it is still in use today, some 200+ years later.  Believe it or not the electoral college was enacted to account for slavery.  Yes in 2016 we are still using a system that was made so slave owners could get additional voting power for the slaves they owned.  Even though the slaves themselves could not vote, each one counted as 2/5 of a vote that would be attributed to the slave owner, allowing them to gain voting influence based on the size of their slavery endeavors.  I am amazed and disgusted that a system that has such a dark origin is still in use.

There is absolutely no reason for it at this point in time and evidently there is some movement to do away with it.  A number of states have agreed to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which would ensure that whatever candidate wins the popular vote is the winner, regardless of electoral college shenanigans.  Feel free to read up on it here.  It makes no sense that every other elected office is a reflection of the popular vote yet the most influential position in government is not.

Sure, Trump enthusiasts will see this point as simply sour grapes which is understandable but it doesn’t change the fundamentals.  Whomever gets the most votes should win, period, no matter what party that benefits.  The same simple logic should apply to the presidential primaries.  It was absolutely maddening watching the super delegate stacked deck system in the democratic primaries, making it nearly impossible for Bernie to win, despite Trump-like grass root support with MASSIVE numbers everywhere he went.  If you get more votes than everyone else you win, keep it simple, stupid.

So with the election fun going on I neglected to mention my Tacoma is back at the dealer.  Cindy took it there Tuesday after the ABS warning light came on once again along with odd brake pedal feel, not something to screw around with.  The dealer gave Cindy a loaner Corolla to use.  The truck was there all Tuesday afternoon so I called Wednesday morning between 9 and 10, wanting to get an update on what they found.  I got my “service advisors” voice mail so I politely asked him to give me a call back to fill me in.

Well around 2pm I still heard nothing so I called again, annoyed that the guy couldn’t take 60 seconds to give me a call, even if nothing was determined yet.  This time I got a person on the phone.  I said I called in the morning and asked for a call back and got none.  The woman checked in the computer about the status of the truck and could only tell me it was still being worked on.  She said she would again tell my service advisor to call me back.

So now it is 4pm and the guy has not called me.  WTF.  So I call back once more with more anger in my voice.  I explain that twice I have called asking for an update and have been ignored.  I wanted to know what was going on with the truck.  Just because I have a loaner doesn’t mean I don’t want my truck back asap.  I get another woman that says my service advisor is not at his desk.  I tell her that I will be at the office until 4:30 and I need the guy to call me back before I leave.  She assures me she will get the message to him and she is sure he will call me back.  Well of course you know the next part, he didn’t call.

I didn’t realize that Cindy had also sent the guy a text message around the same time as my last call.  She had his cell from our first trip to the dealer.  The info in the text was a bit confusing but the last thing was the guy was meeting with the shop foreman at 10 am today about it.  Huh?  You have to schedule a time with the garage to find out what the fck is going on with a vehicle?  So anyway, I am now ready for a not so friendly exchange when I call the dealer later in the morning to sort through exactly what the hell they have been doing with my truck for the last 48 hours.  I need the truck back today in order to complete the tree trimming project that is on the books for tomorrow.  How I get to that point is probably going to be aggravating for sure.

So anyway, the big monster on my three day weekend is doing the annual tree trimming project where we trim 25+ trees all in one day.  It is one of the more miserable tasks I endure each year.  The only positive is the 32 foot ladder I plan to rent should at least make some of the high tree trimming less dangerous.  After the task is done the rest of the weekend should hopefully be downhill and more enjoyable.  Trimming the trees is the precursor to putting up the Christmas lights in a couple weeks so I will look at that as the light at the end of the tunnel, even though hanging the lights is a pain in the ass as well.

Cindy spotted the coyote yesterday morning pacing the back fence line, surely considering jumping the fence to pick off another one of our birds.  Cindy ran at the animal screaming bloody murder which was enough to send it running the other direction.  It was a clear warning that we need to pick up our awareness of what is lurking outside the confine of the back yard.

So last night Cindy and I fell asleep after watching a couple hours of the election coverage.  At that point it seemed clear that the election results were much closer than the professional pollsters predicted.  You could sense the apprehension in the NBC News staff as the comfortable HRC win that was widely expected was not coming to fruition.  Despite this, when I closed my eyes there was still a clear path to her securing the win, of course the plan hinged on her securing PA, a state that has voted democrat for president for nearly three decades.  Well even my former home state let me down, flipping to red when I awoke this morning, along with pretty every other battleground state on the map.

I was lucky to at least sleep to a little after 5:30.  Cindy awoke early in the morning and saw the result and literally cried herself to sleep eventually.  I shed no tears myself once I confirmed the results as I ate my breakfast.  I just sort of shook my head in both disgust and amazement, Idiocracy had actually come to be.

I can spin myself around in circles trying to analyze how a ruthless business man, reality tv star, and man of marginal intelligence that shits on gold plated toilets was somehow seen to be representative of the type of change that America really wants.  To me it is representative of just how easy it is to use simple psychological warfare to steer the populace.  Stalin famously said, “A lie, told often enough eventually becomes the truth”

There were two candidates this year that represented the uprising against the political status quo in the country, Trump and Bernie.  Even though both of these candidates wanted to uproot the establishment, there couldn’t have been a larger difference in the way they proposed doing it.  Bernie is well spoken, well versed, experienced, and knowledgeable about everything he identified as problems.  He had detailed plans of action to make every one of his proposals come to fruition. Donald had none of that.  He relied almost entirely on vague generalities.  Everything wrong was “terrible” or “a “disaster” and his plan of action to address all of it was more or less “I will fix it, trust me” with next to no ideas or specifics on how any of it will be accomplished.

I just struggle to understand how people could dismiss the constant red flags that have come up during the Trump campaign.  They were literally endless.  In the end the only way I can sum it up is people wanted change so bad that they will take it any way they can get it, even if it is change for the worse evidently.  I can only hope that the damage that is inflicted to civil rights, the environment, our allies, and the economy is survivable.  Ironically, the only thing that may slow down the march into the abyss is that same, lobbyist controlled congress is largely still in place.  In order to carry out many of his campaign vows he will require their support which I think is unlikely he will get in many cases.

So anyway, being a sore loser in the end does not really accomplish much.  I will be thrilled if the doom and gloom I am feeling today proves to be ultimately misplaced.  I will be happy to admit my failure in judgement if that happens.  Maybe I am the idiot and the country will rally around having a reality tv star for President.  History is filled with brash leaders that rallied their country to support efforts that we now view as atrocious. Of course these efforts always have a very bad ending.  I can only hope we have not started writing the next chapter in that book.

The reaction to the election result from Wall Street and the rest of the world is pretty shocking, in a way mimicking 9/11 with plummeting markets and worldwide condolences.

There was one shard of good news from the election results with Florida finally passing medical marijuana.  After the presidential election results we are going to need it.  In the end, we will get what we deserve.

Despite the dramatically less amount of daylight available after the time change I hustled and got out on my MSuper for a little bit last night.  I just stayed local going up and down the nearby side street.  At the fairgrounds dead end I had an off roading opportunity.  It is the same path I tried a few weeks ago on my Ninebot One but ran out of path to follow.  It appears that since that time one of those huge brush cutter mowers went through.  There was now a 20 foot wide cleared area all the way to Immokalee Road.

Despite the path being mowed down there were plenty of hazards along the way with branches, ruts and rocks scattered everywhere.  Riding through the rough cut grass on the Msuper was much easier than attempting the same on the Ninebot One.  The larger tire and heavier weight of the Gotway made it feel much more stable and capable of handling the rough terrain.

I also have finally gotten smooth mount and dismounting of the wheel “clicked” in my head.  Like I mentioned before, I operate mostly on feel and I finally got the feel of how the knee has to be positioned to lock my leg in place against the wheel so the off foot can be placed/removed easily.  I forgot to shoot video of it over the weekend but I will soon.

Today is election day, the finish line of almost two years of incredibly corrosive presidential campaigning.  I, like most Americans just want the process to be over.  While the local news played last night, literally every other commercial was alternating Trump sucks, Hilary sucks exchanges.  Although I am still pretty confident that Hilary will win in the end, the aftermath of this process is sure to have lasting effects.  During the Obama elections/administration I didn’t think it was possible for the American political climate to be more divisive.  Well we have managed to push the bar so low that it is now underground.

Despite my feelings about Trump’s qualifications as President (he has none), the fact that a large portion of the population are willing to overlook his horrid resume to just throw a non-establishment body in the White House is representative of how badly people are sick of it all.  I understand that frustration and have felt it for a long time.  I just don’t feel like cutting off my nose to spite my face is going to help things in the big picture.

It’s ironic to me that a decent amount of people that rail against Hilary actually liked when her husband was President, or at least liked the way the country felt while he was in office. Budget surpluses and economic prosperity do feel good after all.  Of course the moral police will hate Bill forever.  Anyway, to me it seems like some people are forgetting this is actually a Hilary/Bill 2.0 presidency.  Do you think Bill is just going to sit in the White House bedroom and read Penthouse magazines all day?  Of course not, his fingerprint might not be the one in the spotlight but you can bet he will be influencing and consulting nearly non-stop.

If Donald does lose I’ll still watch him on Apprentice, no hard feelings.

I had one other thought that I forgot to bring up when I made a political post last week about fuzzy numbers.  This point is totally non-partisan and somewhat baffling to me.  Why is there such an emphasis on political rallies and their influence in the election?  I mean think about it.  If somebody feels strongly enough about a candidate that they are willing to inject themselves into the craziness of a political rally, they are already going to be voting for that candidate.  How many people attend a rally as a basis to make their political decision? It’s moronic.

All you are going to hear at a rally on either side is how awesome the rally candidate is and how awful the competition is.  There will be absolutely nothing objective presented to a potential voter in this environment.  So the question remains, what is the point of preaching to the choir again and again?  If the ultimate goal is to swing as many undecided minds in your direction, how does endless rallies help accomplish this goal?

This was exactly my thought pattern when Trump showed up next door to my property, holding a rally in deeply conservative (and rich) southwest Florida.  Did anyone that was undecided or a potential Hilary voter all of a sudden decide to flip red just because Trump was in town?  I personally can not see how that could be.  Generally speaking, after all of this bullshit, how anyone in the country could be undecided a day before the election does not compute in my mind but maybe that is the problem, maybe I am the odd one.

On Friday evening I hopped on my latest electric unicycle, a cheap $200 unit whose only purpose was to give Cindy something safer to learn on.  The wheel is small and slow which is a good thing when learning.  It also comes with detachable training wheels that you bolt to the foot pedals to keep the bot upright while you get a feel for the balance point.  Cindy did not react favorably to my surprise purchase which I already expected.  However through a careful negotiation she agreed to try once again to learn.

She has a big advantage now that neither of us had when the Ninebot One arrived. First she has someone in the household that has absorbed a lot of bumps and bruises so I can help guide her on ways to avoid them.  Second, this cheap wheel is better suited to learning.  In addition to the training wheels it also has a strap that can be used to further assist keeping the wheel upright. I of course had to take the wheel out for a test ride myself.  It felt like a child’s toy compared to what I was used to but the basic functionality was all there. You can see my test ride below.

Saturday morning I was outside bright and early to get the basic chores done, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and lower humidity.  I wanted to get done early because Cindy had indicated she wanted to cruise two nearby community yard sales on the PTV’s.  We drove to the gas station and used it as a launching point since it split the difference between the two developments.  We spent nearly two hours cruising around in the beautiful weather.  We got TONS of comments about the wheels, everyone was curious and interested in them.

I was very interested in an absolutely beautiful 1970 Chevelle we saw that had a 502 engine in it, something I had never seen but evidently is a popular aftermarket choice.  He actually had TWO of these motors, one in the car and another he built to sell which was on display in his garage.  It was awesome.

While we were riding around I spotted a large black bird that at first almost looked like a chicken walking near the sidewalk.  As I got closer I realized it was a buzzard.  As I got even closer I realized the reason he was walking was his left wing was injured, it was hanging low awkwardly.  Of course my initial instinct was I wanted to help the bird but being on an electric unicycle far from the car made that trying to capture/aid the bird not logistically possible, buzzards are very large birds. As we rode away from the bird I felt very guilty.  The guilt continues as I recall it now.

Later in the afternoon Cindy and I headed to Home Depot.  The primary intent was I wanted to scope out the price of new extension ladders.  The 20 footer I have just is not long enough to safely reach the top of several of the trees on the property.  Since I plan to tackle that project Friday I wanted to be prepared.  Well when I saw I would have to spend around $300 to upgrade to a ladder that won’t easily fit in my storage sheds I shit canned that idea but Cindy came up with a better one.  She recalled that ladders were among the tools you can rent from Home Depot.  We went into the tool rental department and saw I can rent a monster 32 foot ladder for 24 hours for $50.  It was a perfect solution.  I plan to pick one one up on my way home from work Thursday.

Later in the afternoon Cindy and I erected the inflatable arch for the last time.  I wanted to take measurements so I could list the arch for sale.  I felt a bit bittersweet about it but still confident that it was a good move for me to let race timing behind.  I was surprised I got some immediate interest int the arch and sold it for my asking price.  I dropped the two large boxes off at FedEx this morning.

Saturday night Cindy and I went to see Dr Strange.  My knowledge of Dr Strange was very, very slim.  I knew of the character and that was about it, I never read any Dr Strange comics.  The movie is an origin story which I thought was well done.  We saw the 3D version of the film and this was actually a situation where it was merited.  The crazy visuals associated with the mystical world was well served with an extra dimension.I have liked pretty much every Marvel movie of the last 10 years and Dr Strange did not break that streak however I would rate it in the bottom third of those films.  I’d give it a strong B+.  Don’t forget to stay till the end.  The ending bonus content got me excited about what is to come.

Saturday night was the clock switch meaning my Sunday run was no longer starting in utter darkness.  Instead when I pulled into the parking lot at 6:45 the sun was already rising which felt a bit weird.  The temps weren’t bad and I completed the four plus miles at a pace within a few seconds of the previous week although it did not feel like it during the run, which was a bit of a struggle.

Katie and her boyfriend Daniel joined us for our Sunday morning ride.  I brought my training EUC with for Cindy to start learning on.  Not only did Cindy try it (and did well), so did Katie and Daniel.  Daniel’s progress was the most amazing.  He went from not ever riding an electric unicycle to being able to roll without training wheels down the sidewalk within an hour.  To be young again, sheesh.  Like I mentioned, Cindy did well, I am hoping we can keep her moving forward in her progress.  Once it clicks for her I am pretty sure she will be better than I am.

So I got to watch the Eagles for the fourth time this year go down, continuing their winless streak in the NFC east.  Carson Wentz, despite putting up the most passing yeards of his young career, did not play great, throwing two consecutive bad interceptions in the first quarter that put the Eagles in a quick 14 point hole.  As positive as I am about Wentz he definitely does not seem good at touch passes.  I don’t think I have seen him hit a receiver in stride on a long pass all season and his endzone post pattern throws just do not have the trajectory or accuracy that is required.  Hopefully he can clean up that part of his game eventually.

The decision by Doug Pederson to twice go for it on 4th down when the team was in easy field goal range will be questioned.  I do like the aggressiveness but you have to have the personnel to pull it off.  Both failed 4th down attempts not only failed but failed miserably.  Of course those 6 lost points were exactly the margin that would have secured a one point win for the team.  If there is a bright side to losing three of the last four games, I would say every loss, except the Washington game, the team played well enough to win.  My expectations for the rest of the season have shifted back down closer to where they were week one.  If we split wins and losses the rest of the way it will still be a more successful year than what I first thought.

Last night we watched our latest Netflix rental, Neighbors 2.  It was much like the first iteration with a few spots of laugh out loud laughter back filled by a lot of silly shit.  I think I gave the first one a B.  I will stick with that rating for 2.0

Last night after work I was again out on my MSuper without my GoPro.  Instead of driving to the school I rode there, the higher top end speed of the new wheel made getting there significantly quicker.  I decided to fire up Strava, an app that is normally used to track running or cycling sessions, to track my ride.  It gives you mapping, time and speed tracking very easily.

While I was at the school I practiced my wheel mounting technique.  Despite now logging almost 300 miles on a single wheel my mounting technique has not improved with distance, I was still hopping my grounded foot on the wheel in a somewhat frantic manner.

When you watch experienced EUC riders they can push off with one foot and then bring the other on board in a smooth and controlled manner.  Well thanks to some encouragement from a fellow rider I decided to try to polish my technique.  Practicing the mount involved taking single steps with one foot on the EUC and the other off where you get a feel for how to hit that balance point.  Like most things, it took me longer than it should to translate the instructions to implementation.  I’m not great at reading something and then executing, I operate a lot on feel and little else.  Once something clicks and feels right I am good to go.  Reaching that point can take awhile for me.

So anyway after a couple dozen practice steps it finally started to feel right.  The key for me was allowing the knee on my left leg which is on the EUC first to bend inward slightly, wedging my leg firmly against the bot, allowing me a stable platform to roll for a second while I bring the other foot onboard.  It’s hard to explain so I will try to demonstrate on video over the weekend.

During the long straight away parts of my ride I could tell I was going considerably faster than I would have been able to on my Ninebot One.  I was surprised just how fast I got up to, touching 20.6 mph according to Strava at one point.  That is road bike speed with a solid tailwind for me.  It won’t be long until I try to do the famous DD ride on one wheel.  The Msuper has the battery power to actually pull it off.

So I have kept the amount of political talk in the blog relatively light, despite this being the most disgusting election of my adult life.  Outside of discussing the eventual result, I plan to try to keep it that way, however….   I wanted to take a moment to just illustrate the type of deception that goes on when portraying scenarios with fuzzy numbers.

One of the things you will hear HRC bashers say is she will continue Obama’s policies that increased the national debt more than any other president in history.  That’s a pretty strong statement that will surely sway the light thinkers.  After all, debt is bad.  So before we dig into that statement you could factor in that when Obama took office the country was in fiscal freefall, the sky was literally falling.  The federal government spent mountains of cash bailing out financial institutions and offering stimulus packages like cash for clunkers, rebates for energy efficiency upgrades, and tax cuts.  Say what you will about agreeing or disagreeing with some or all of those actions, the end result was the nose of the country was unquestionably pulled up from it’s trajectory into the ground.  Of course we still had the uncapped wellhead of money being burned up supporting the Iraq conflict that was created via phantom information by the Bush administration as well. So yea, doing all that cost money, a whole bunch of it.

So when you turn your attention to dollars the numbers look big.  Under Obama’s administration the national debt grew 56% in the first 7 years, adding roughly 6.5 trillion to the national debt.  Growing the debt 56% sounds terrible doesn’t it?  But wait a second, let’s put other presidents to the same scale.  If you flip back only one chapter to the W nightmare years the national debt over his term grew 101%, yes almost double the rate of what has transpired under Obama.

When you look through history the light bulb really comes on.  Ronald Reagan who is still seen by many as a star and the inventor of trickle down economics that has been an absolute disaster for the middle class for the last three decades plus, grew the national debt 186% during his reign. Yes, that is correct, 186%.  So hopefully this information if nothing else gives you some pause to blindly accepting information vomited at you by the people best served by you believing it.

If you would like to open your eyes a little bit, take a look at the debt numbers by president here.  Yep Obama as president has hit a bunch of potholes but he absolutely has done an admirable job of turning what was a very dire situation into merely a bad one.

This weekend there will surely be a lot of EUC riding going on, the weather is supposed to be quite nice.  I would like to catch Dr Strange, run, and do whatever else sounds good at the time, after chores are done of course.

I was out on my new Gotway wheel again last night albeit solo this time.  Before I left I went through a calibration routine that is supposed to allow you to level the pedals.  It resulted in a funny video that illustrated just how fast the tire can spin and just how loud and annoying the beeps the wheel makes can be.

Afterward I headed back over to the school to get some more riding in.  I am really enjoying the new freedom the Gotway gives me where I no longer have to worry about the wheel slowing me down when I approach 14mph.  I did a few higher speed bursts during the ride that might have gotten into the high teens speed-wise, that felt plenty fast enough.

Late last night I watched my first baseball of the entire 2016 season.  Yes, I am not kidding.  I wanted to see if the Cubs could end the longest championship drought in baseball, dating back to 1908.  When I flipped the game on it was already in the 7th inning and the Cubs had a comfortable 6-3 lead.  I felt good about their chances as I saw they had Chapman getting warm in the bullpen , the 100mph+ closer.   When they brought him in to get the last out in the 8th inning I figured it was the beginning of the end for the Indians.

The unthinkable happened, before Chapman could get that single out he gave up a double that drove in the guy on first base and a homerun that tied the game, holy shit.  It started to rain during the top of the ninth which is when sleep overtook me unfortunately so I didn’t get to see the dramatic finish with the Cubs scoring two runs in the 10th inning and the Indians falling short, only scoring one run in the bottom of the inning.  I would have liked to see the excitement at the end of a crazy World Series. I’m happy for the Cubs and Chicago fans, some of which I know personally (Lily), that the long, long streak has finally come to an end.

I was very anxious to get home last night so I could do some extended riding on my new Gotway Msuper.  Cindy said she would come along but not to ride but instead to get in some evening running around the track which was fine with me.  After maybe 5 minutes on the wheel I started to feel much better than I did on my initial ride on Monday night.  I rode around the school area testing myself on various obstacles that I have already conquered on my Ninebot One.  There was no turn, terrain, or obstacle I couldn’t do on the Msuper although it definitely does require some different physics to achieve the same results.

Once I got more comfortable with the control I toyed more with the newfound power and speed I now had available.  It felt awesome to be able to cruise comfortably between 15 and 20 mph.  The added weight and size of the wheel makes moving at higher speed feel very stable.  It was a great ride and I really was hoping Cindy got the sudden urge to run a half marathon so I could have kept tooling around even longer. I am looking forward to many, many miles ahead perched upon the single tire.

I have seen an interesting shift from some people that were hard core Bernie Sanders supporters, shifting their support to Trump instead of the candidate Bernie endorses, HRC.  The reasoning behind the shift the best I can tell is this, an enemy of my enemy is my friend.  In this case the enemy is government establishment in both major parties, the media, and conventional big money backers.

The fact that Trump has an astonishing amount of republicans that have publicly disavowed him is a positive in the eyes of these people.  Bernie, despite being a long time member of Congress is definitely an atypical politician.  Trump is even more atypical, with viewpoints and statements that are vague, divisive, immature and downright dangerous at times.  These former Bernie supporters seem willing to dismiss/forgive all of Trump’s sins on the off chance that he will be equally disruptive to the status quo if he would be elected. To me it’s like a game of craps except the only way you win is if you roll snake eyes.  To them, some chance of meaningful change is better than no chance at all I guess.

All of the smearing going around about Hilary’s corruption, emails, scandals, etc. honestly makes me shake my head.  Naive people are acting like a politician lying, cheating, or doing questionable things is abnormal and outrageous.  What the hell, it’s an assumption, much like assuming most lawyers are assholes.  A politician lied?? Gasp.  Cut me a break.

Please provide me the list of people in Congress (or Trump) that would come out looking positive if their email communications were made public.  It would be a very short list that likely would result in you handing me a blank piece of paper.   Hell I think you can extend that litmus test to ANY person that utilizes, email, instant messaging, or text messages.  If it was made public for the world to read things would be exposed that would you would not be proud of, guaranteed.

So anyway, to get back to my original point of Bernie people flipping to the Trump train.  I can understand that the desire to shake up the system could be so strong that you are willing to vote for somebody that is so woefully underqualified for the job in the off chance he doesn’t step on one of the various landmines that await.  I would say two things to these people.  I respect your right to vote for whomever you want but will respect you more if your vote is an ultimate contributor to a horrific scenario in the future, you are brave enough to admit your failure in judgement. Second, no matter who wins the presidency, nothing of significance will change unless both parts of congress are under the same parties control.  Bi-partisanship is unfortunately dead and buried in today’s world so unless congress has the same majority nothing of real significance is going to happen in either direction, ever.

I got a very surprising Fed Ex shipping update yesterday indicating my new MSuper EUC which was originally estimated for Wednesday was going to show up Monday instead!  I had been following the shipment closely which made this even more surprising since early Sunday morning the wheel was still in the UK.  Later Sunday I saw it’s location had been updated to Tennessee so I assumed the Wednesday delivery was going to stand.  I was amazed when I saw it was on the truck for delivery, kudos to Fed Ex.

Cindy freaked me out a bit when she sent a picture of the FedEx missed delivery sticker on the front door.  The box required a signature and Cindy was out running errands.  She saw she just missed the truck so she actually went out and found the guy and signed for the wheel for me which was awesome.

So of course as soon as I got home I dug into my new toy.  The first thing that struck me was just how heavy the wheel is, weighing in at right around 45 pounds.  Since I have done a ton of research before making the purchase I mostly knew what I needed to do right away, put air in the tire and start charging.

Gotway like Ninebot is a Chinese company, however they are MUCH smaller with a staff somewhere around 40 people.  You can immediately tell the difference as Ninebot has tailored their vehicles to be more suitable for the American market with design and safety features that are regulated.  Gotway has not been around long enough to start polishing their product line to that degree and it shows.  However what their wheels lack in sophistication they make up for in power, speed, and range, at your own risk of course.  The manual was entirely in Chinese and the phone app that is used to communicate with the wheel is primitive compared to what Ninebot provides.

So I pumped up the tire and threw it on the charger for a little bit.  It arrived with only 30% battery charge so I wanted to give it a little more juice before my initial test ride.  The sun was starting to set so I pulled it off the charger after maybe 25 minutes to give the wheel a short test.  Cindy was outside with me as I was able to hop on immediately and take off.

I  felt like I was transported back a couple months ago as far as my skill level goes, it felt so different than the Ninebot One.  The most immediate difference was the firmness setting on the pedals.  By firmness I mean how much forward and backward lean is required to control the wheel.  I almost felt like I was on a bed with worn out springs, it felt much softer than what I am used to.  Luckily this is one of the many configurable settings for the MSuper.

The other thing I noticed was because of the fatter tire, higher profile, and increased weight, the same moves I would use to turn the Ninebot were not sufficient to turn the MSuper.  I will have to do a fresh set of experimentation with optimal foot/leg placement for the new wheel.  None of these things were unexpected, I knew it was going to feel different than my 9B1, I just didn’t realize it would feel THAT different.

I threw it on the charger overnight so I will have a fresh battery to play with this evening.  I plan to take it to the school parking lot to get practice on the MSuper.  It will take some time for me to get the same level of confidence as I have on the Ninebot One but once I do I think the MSuper is going to be simply an awesome experience to ride.