So I had my follow up appointment with a pulmonologist this morning. As the vast majority of this medical interaction has been, the results were basically a shoulder shrug. The care network we are in is highly computerized, every person you speak to has a computer in front of them entering all sorts of details about the interaction as you go. I like this, it gives me a documented record of what is going on that I can access myself through a patient portal.
Well this doctor was an old guy and definitely very old school. There was no computer in front of him, just paper and a pen. He asked me at least a couple dozen questions and scribbled down the answer to each one on the paper. The questions had to do with prior history and if I had various symptoms. Pretty much across the board my answer was no. He followed up with a very brief physical exam which mostly involved listening to my lungs.
He then said that he thinks it is unlikely I have fibrosis. He said that perhaps the person reading the CT was maybe seeing something that wasnt there. I had the same sort of thing when the person looking at my x-ray indicated I may have a partial bowel blockage. In both cases I have no symptoms of these conditions.
So anyway, the plan is for me to do a breathing test in the next month and during my follow up 6 month CT scan they will request a higher resolution test which would be able to more clearly see any scarring if it is present. That test will also allow us to verify the small nodule in the one lung is benign and not growing.
So where does this leave me? Well with no clear answers. I can tell you that once again yesterday I got some of that right side pain doing overhead tricep extensions at the gym with a very nominal weight. The fatigue I was experiencing is definitely less apparent but I still do not feel normal in that regard. I have a feeling this is just going to be one of those things that melts into the background as just another thing that becomes the new normal as I continue to age.
I did ask about the report finding about calcification on a coronary artery. The doctor said that wasn’t his specialty but told me that a CT can not determine if the calcification is on the inside or outside of the artery which obviously makes a large difference. He said my primary doctor could order a stress test if they wanted to but at this point I really don’t think that’s necessary.
So the buyer of the Segway left Kansas a day earlier than he originally stated so instead of arriving Saturday he should be arriving this evening to take the big personal transporter away. They are driving down in a Ford Focus so I have a feeling we may need to take off the steering arm to make it fit. Once the I2 has safely exchanged owners I will feel safe starting the ball rolling on it’s replacement.
This weekend has normal workloads planned with hopefully a side order of getting our Halloween decorations in place. Should be fun.
So yesterday I got a call back on the results of the CT chest scan I had done on Monday. I found the results somewhat surprising. The entire reason for the CT was a small nodule that showed up on my chest x-ray a couple weeks ago. So the CT confirmed the nodule which is 4mm in size. It indicated that it is likely benign but as a precautionary step they want me to get another CT in six months to ensure there is no change in size. The other lung news I wasn’t expecting.
The scan showed what appears to be “mild fibrosis” in both lungs. Fibrosis is a thickening or scarring of the lungs. The nurse practitioner verified that I never smoked before although my mom smoked during my entire childhood. I don’t recall her smoking around me in closed spaces on a regular basis but in general society was a much more smokey environment in the 70’s and 80’s. She also asked if I ever had any exposure to asbestos which I am unaware of outside of the renovation project at work had an asbestos removal period. I’ve never had anything remotely approaching a breathing problem that I can recall so this struck me as very odd. As a kid I spent endless hours playing in moldy, dusty hay in the old barn, that was the only thing that popped into my head as my inhaling something bad for prolonged periods of time.
The other thing on the report that I found mildly disturbing was the presence of “atherosclerotic calcification in a coronary artery”. The NP downplayed that part of the report but it was sort of a red flag for me based on the heart attack that killed my mom. The description I got from the doc at that time of her passing was plaque broke loose from artery wall and stopped the heart. A quick Google search on the condition didn’t put a smile on my face either. “Simply put, the presence of calcification in the epicardial coronary arteries indicates that the patient has coronary atherosclerosis. This observation is of great significance, because atherosclerotic coronary artery disease is the number 1 cause of death in the Western world.”
So of course none of this information made me feel better, especially considering the emphasis I have put on consistent healthy living habits as an adult. So anyway, I have a follow up appointment tomorrow with a pulmonologist to discuss the results and a plan of action. The thing is, I have never had a chest CT before so I have no idea if these findings have been around for years or even decades. It’s good that I at least now have a heads up about it but man, my 50th year on the planet has surely been a downer from a health perspective.
So you may recall that early this year I came into possession of a non-operative Segway I2, the big daddy of personal electric vehicles. The Segway was given to us by a friend that had it given to them years ago. It sat unused in their garage for somewhere around 5 years. In order to get it working I had to spend roughly $1000 dollars on a used set of batteries and a new “key” for the i2.
Once we got it working we took it out a few times. Cindy especially enjoyed the stability and size of the unit and rode it more than I did. When we got the i2 it had somewhere around 25 miles on it, it now has 101, still an incredibly tiny amount of use for a 5-6 year old Segway. Well the bottom line is we just did not use the big Segway much. It’s size and weight made it a pain to transport and limited where it could be used. It has mostly passed it’s time just parked by the front door.
Well I have been considering yet another type of electric vehicle and it struck me that if I could manage to sell the big Segway, which still can command a surprising number, it would make that idea much more doable. These units were $5-6k brand new and it is not unusual to see used ones still going for 3-4k. However this vehicle appeals to a very niche market. I listed it on Craigslist as well as Ebay, not expecting a great result. Because of the size of this thing the Ebay listing included “local pick up only” as the shipping choice, there was no way I was going to try to ship it.
As expected I received no interest on the Craigslist ad. However the Ebay listing generated a lot of interest. In the first 12 hours I had a bid of over $1000 and had a half dozen inquires asking for more info. I priced the unit very aggressively when compared to other i2’s on Ebay, especially considering the incredibly low mileage. I had people trying to negotiate me down from that already low number which I declined. Based on the amount of activity so soon I did not feel any need to cave.
There was one perspective buyer who was really interested. He sent me 5 or 6 messages which of course included lower offers. I engaged him and politely declined his offers letting him know I had a lot of interest so I thought me selling it for my asking price was a strong possibility. I guess my information worked as early yesterday afternoon I saw the email that this person did indeed buy the i2 for my full price, wow. To make the sale more crazy, he is driving down from KANSAS this weekend to pick it up, yes Kansas.
Before listing the Segway on Ebay I would have placed my odds on selling it at 20% or less. To sell it in one day feels like an incredible stroke of good luck. I have not pulled the trigger on purchasing my new target yet. I have a few questions to get answered and wanted to wait until the i2 is loaded up and on it’s way back to Kansas before calling the deal done.
So I received back the results of my second round of blood tests. These were testing thyroid antibodies as well as testosterone level. Once again the tests came back with numbers squarely in the middle of normal range. The only other result I am waiting on is the chest CT which should be soon. If that shows all clear I guess I will just continue to march ahead but try to do so avoiding max exertion scenarios if at all possible. My fatigue and endurance has definitely improved so maybe its just one of the growing list of odd things I will write off to old age.
I got a chance to set up my new massive 3D printer yesterday. In order to make space for it I gave away one of my less massive printers to a buddy at work. The set up and first print went relatively well. I am looking forward to testing out it’s capabilities more thoroughly in the upcoming weeks.
So the other large format 3D printer that I ordered close to a month ago finally was due to arrive yesterday. I saw it was coming via FedEx whom is normally fine with leaving stuff at the door. Well the guy showed up when no one was home and of course this box had a signature requirement. The tag that was left on the door said we could either sign the tag and it would be dropped off the next day or it would be available for pickup after 6:30 PM at the local distribution center. Originally I told Cindy I didn’t mind waiting for it but she seemed into us going and getting it instead.
So that’s what we did, it gave us an excuse for a late day Dunkin Donuts stop and to give Elsa a ride as well. The drive there took less time than expected, we arrived about 6:10, 20 minutes before the time posted on the tag. I went in anyway, hoping the driver may have already returned from his run. My hope was not met, the driver was not back yet, the clerk said I should stop back in after 6:30.
So to waste some more time we drove to a nearby CVS for Cindy to grab a few items we needed. When we returned I wasted more time listening to a podcast, not going back inside until 6:40. I got the news that our driver, Chuck, was not back yet but the clerk said he was expected back soon. I asked if soon meant before 7, the time the customer service office closed. The clerk said yes for sure. Back out to the car I went.
So as I waited another 10-15 minutes in the car. As I did I saw several FedEx trucks returning, I was hoping one of them was Chuck. I finally went back inside about 6:55. I asked the big question, “is Chuck back”? Nope no Chuck but it should be “any minute now”. Well I was too invested now so I just stood in the small office waiting for Chuck to return. Well I guess 15 minutes technically counts as being any minute. Chuck arrived around 7:15, allowing me to finally take possession of the huge box which I will hopefully get to open today.
On the drive home we rolled into a major storm. The pounding rain scared Elsa and didn’t make me feel great either, it was very tough to see the road markings at certain points during the trip. Not only was there rain but very intense and huge lightning. The bolts were fat and stayed visible much longer than normal. The ferocious storm turned our property back into a bog after being dried out for over a week.
Today I am home awaiting the arrival of a DirecTV tech to help me rectify my poor signal on the Sunday Ticket channels. It will be interesting to see what the final resolution is.
So Friday evening I rebooted my running program. I had done cardio at the gym every day during the week and didn’t feel horrible so I figured my standard 13 lap run would be a good gauge of where I was at. Cindy actually came with me which was nice. It had just gotten finished raining so the temps were down a little bit although there was still plenty of humidity in the air. I had no pace goal whatsoever, the only intent was to put one foot in front of the other for roughly 3.4 miles without stopping. I managed to accomplish the goal without major incident. It was tough and I felt some mild pain in my right side but I felt mild pain in various other spots too, likely from not running in close to a month. It felt good to get back out there. I’m hoping I can build from here instead of slowly crumbling.
On Saturday morning Cindy and I busted our ass in a major way. After tending to the chickens we weeded the property. I then set Cindy up on the tractor while I grabbed the weed whacker. We did battle with the yard all morning, manicuring it to an even level. When that was done I told Cindy I wanted to move her trailer to a different spot. It has been sitting stationary most of the summer so there was all sorts of weeds and high grass under it. I hooked it up to the Tacoma and did a big loop. We mowed down the old spot and moved the RV to a different spot, closer to the chicken area.
By the time we were done with everything it was after 1PM. It was a long, hot, sweaty morning. I was just glad that Cindy was able to do the mowing or else I would have had another two hours tacked on top. However we of course had more to do. We went and grabbed lunch at Culver’s which just opened up in the shopping center about 9 miles from the house. After that we had to drive up to Cape Coral.
Cindy had sold a table of hers to a guy that lived up there. In exchange for him agreeing to pay Cindy’s full asking price we agreed to deliver it to his office up there. He is a lawyer who is in the process of getting a divorce. The guy had a very lawyer-ish personality if you know what I mean, but it didn’t matter. He handed Cindy the cash that was agreed upon which is all that mattered.
On Saturday night we watched our Netflix rental, The Shape of Water, which was something Cindy requested. I recall the movie getting mentioned for a lot of awards last year. I had no idea what the movie was about. Well the first adjective I would use to describe the film is strange, followed by different, very different. Multiple times Cindy and I gave each other repeated WTF looks during the movie. This isn’t to say it was bad, I would probably give it a B+ just for being so out in left field.
Sunday morning we took a different approach to my EUC ride. Elsa, Cindy and I drove to DD together. Once there I pulled my 18L out of the trunk of the car and rode it North Collier Regional Park while Cindy drove there. She walked Elsa around the park while I rode to and around there. It was a fun variation on my normal weekend rides.
Sunday afternoon I watched the Eagles game, but not on the Directv receiver that I spent 90 minutes getting working the week prior. No, for the second consecutive week I was getting terrible reception on the Sunday Ticket channels. It’s ironic that I wound up signing up for the more expensive MAX package that includes streaming, because without it, I would have been unable to watch the games. When the signal was bad last week I dismissed it to bad weather at the time. When it was bad once again this week the skies were mostly clear. I assumed the issue was the oak tree that is near the dish. A couple times in the past I have had to trim branches that were in the line of site so I figured it was time to do so again.
Well at halftime I thought I would run outside and knock off the branch that seemed like it could be problematic. I grabbed my battery powered sawzall and a ladder. The limb I cut was very long and angled over the corner of the garage. I was very nervous about it damaging the new roof/gutters I recently had installed. I cut it carefully. As soon as I saw it starting to drift downward I stopped cutting so it could lower onto the roof and gutter in a controlled manner. Once it was resting on the roof I cut it the rest of the way. I then had to get back on the ground and pull the 15 foot limb off the roof, it was a hassle.
So anyway, I ran back inside to see how much better the satellite reception was since I cleared the obvious obstruction. Imagine my joy when I saw no improvement whatsoever. Weird, so I went back out and stood behind the dish trying to calculate the angle the signal was coming in on. There was one more branch that could possibly be in the way so I quickly climbed up and knocked that one down as well. Again when I went inside I saw no improvement in signal.
After the game was over, which I will talk about next, I went back outside, not to cut any more off that tree but instead turning my attention to the other large oak tree. When the roof was installed my project manager told me that it was important to not let any of the branches of the oak tree drag on the roof. Right after the roof was done I cut a couple branches that were close but I saw there was one very long one that was within three feet of the roof. I figured I already had the equipment outside so I may as well knock it down as well.
When I got up in the tree I was annoyed to see the roof under that branch already had a bunch of black mess on it from the tree, presumably from rain run off. Hopefully I can clean it off. This oak tree is much bigger, probably close to double the size of the tree on the garage side of the house. I used the aluminum six foot ladder to get up into the main branches. I utilized my childhood tree climbing skills to scale another 10-12 feet which was made more challenging trying to do so while wielding a sawzall.
I finally got myself into a position to cut this branch which was at least 15 feet long and 9-10 inches in diameter at it’s base where I was. Cutting something this big with the sawzall was a lengthy process, requiring me to take a few breaks to switch hands. Once again the branch was over the roof so I used a similar technique as before, dropping it slowly until it touched the roof. Once it was resting on it I cut the branch the rest of the way. As the heaviest and thickest part of the branch came crashing down to the ground it hit the ladder on the way down, instantly mangling it and making it useless, damn it.
While I was up there I cut another branch that wasn’t a problem yet but could be in the future. So now it was time to get down, sans ladder. Cindy was not home during all of this fun, which was probably a good thing as I repeatedly put myself into precarious spots. To get back down I wound up wrapping my arms and legs around a branch like a monkey before finally dropping to the ground. I felt fortunate to escape the tree with only a few scratches.
So now I had huge oak branches littered across the yard. Cutting these thick branches with the sawzall would have been very time consuming and inefficient. I dug the chainsaw out of the big shed and used it instead. It made short work of the limbs, allowing me to cut them into more manageable sections. The last step of the process was loading the back of the Tacoma with three huge piles of oak tree branches to be dumped in the fill pit out back. I was pretty beat by the end of it.
So the fact that I still could not get good signal on the satellite dish after clearing line of site had me place a call with DirectTV. I have two theories. The first option is a simple one, maybe the dish just somehow got knocked out of alignment. The second theory is the other thing that has changed since last football season is the new roof and gutters were installed. The new gutters are an inch or two wider than the old ones. I am wondering if that is just enough to get in the signal path. If so the only option would be to remount the dish with some sort of spacer block that pushes it a few inches off the wall of the house. I will find out on Tuesday, I’m sure it will be a lot of fun.
So the Eagles came away with a close victory in Carson Wentz’s return. There were a lot of good things that came out of the game. Carson seemed like Carson, he didn’t seem all that rusty and was still able to move around and run as needed. He made a lot of good throws. He also made a couple big mistakes, turning the ball over twice deep on the Eagles side of the field. Thankfully both times the defense held the Colts to field goals.
I think the Eagles got rather lucky in this game. On the long drive that resulted in the game winning TD they were helped out in a huge way by penalties to keep the drive going, once on a second and 26, and a second time after a failed 4th down attempt. The game was filled with penalties on both sides of the ball. The Eagles dominated on time of possession but that did not equate to much scoring. I also can’t stand Mills, the Eagles CB. The guy gets burned for huge penalties every game it seems. Yesterday was no different as he got called on pass interference, twice.
But I’ll take the win. Last year there were tons of situations where the Eagles got lucky just at the right time. There were so many Eagle teams in the past that would have allowed the Colts to come back and score on their last drive. In their two wins this season the defense has come up big when they had to. Sure it would be nice to have a comfortable win where the outcome is decided before the last 3 minutes of a game but that seems to be a rare thing nowadays.
So as I mentioned last week, I have spent the entire week at the gym doing nothing but stretching and cardio. I have been getting in about 30-35 minutes of cardio per day. I have been using machines that monitor your heart rate and adjust the resistance to keep you in an effective range for my age and weight. For me that number is 139 beats a minute or more.
The intent of this week of no weight work is to see how the right side pain responds. I can tell you as of now I don’t really feel anything in that area. I can also report that during all of this cardio time during the week I haven’t felt the same harsh fatigue that was hitting me hard a couple weeks ago. I plan to do a slow run at the track tonight after work to see how I feel as running was really where I most noticed the change in my energy level.
I’m not really sure what this experiment proves or disproves. I have one more test on Monday, a chest CT where they want to take one more look at a small nodule they saw in my lung. It will also give a look at my remaining other major organs just to see what’s up. At this point I am wondering if this will just be one of those mysterious things that just comes and go as I continue to age.
This weekend has full yard maintenance on the docket. Last night I was thinking about trying to get the mowing done but the skies were very threatening and I had a bunch of other stuff to get done so I didn’t get the chance. As always I will hope to knock all of it out at the beginning. I hate having work yet to be done hanging over the second half of my weekend.
I brought my One Wheel with today. Instead of doing another cardio session at the gym I’m just going to ride the board, perhaps all the way to the beach and back, a fun change up in routine.
Last night after work Cindy and I went over to the school to ride around, we brought her skateboard, the OneWheel, the Meepo and the 18L. My hope was Cindy would get some practice time in so she gets more comfortable on the Meepo and the OneWheel. She did ride the Meepo around a little bit but didn’t want to try the OneWheel. Despite being able to ride an EUC she still has a lot of fear issues which hold her back from progressing. When she gets on her focus is a fear of falling which derails you immediately and makes the entire experience stressful instead of enjoyable. I’m not really sure how she can turn off that switch and just let her natural athletic ability take over. I mean hell, she rode the Msuper EUC in the middle of very crowded Boston sidewalks and streets last year. She can do it.
Katie and Daniel came by to ride as well. Daniel is a big fan of the Meepo. I also let them both rind my 18L for the first time. They agreed that the 18L is another level of smoothness and quality that they have never experienced on their Gotway wheels. They also both liked I could stream the 30 Seconds to Mars Pandora channel to the built in speakers on the wheel. Katie and Daniel came back to the house with us to eat a tasty taco dinner that Cindy prepared, it was nice to have the gang under one roof, it doesn’t happen much.
Last night I started on a big 3D printing project for my buddy from up north, Charlie. He is opening a virtual golf center and needs roughly 1000 small pieces printed that will be used to identify clubs and stations. He has one 3D printer, a Flashforge Finder but printing that many pieces would take him forever on one printer with a small build area. He asked if I would be willing to help print them. Of course I was happy to help since I have six printers in the hobby room. I should be able to get the work done in a fraction of the time it would take him.
Charlie offered to pay me which I of course refused. All he has to do is provide me the filament to print the stuff. He has helped me out so many times in the past, doing something like this for him is the very least I can do. Charlie is one of the nicest human beings I have ever known. He is walking away from his career as a programmer to jump with both feet into trying to launch this business. It’s an extremely gutsy move but I applaud him for being willing to chase his dream.
So although it seems like I am doing 2-3 videos a week on YouTube there has been a dark hole of videos regarding 3D printing, my third major hobby up there with PEV’s and gaming. The last time I posted anything regarding 3D printing on my channel was around the 4th of July. So last night I thought I would address it in a video. I talked about some of the reasons for the absence, some of which may surprise you. Check it out if you have a few minutes.
Speaking of hobbies, I just got notice that our EUC “podcast” was accepted by iTunes and is now available for consumption on the platform. If you are on the iOS platform you can find the show here.
This morning I had another blood draw. Thankfully it did not require fasting or 10 vials of blood to be drawn (only two). After my follow up visit at the clinic where I mentioned my mom’s history of thyroid issues and inquiring about the possibility of low testosterone numbers, the blood draw was ordered to test for those things. In addition I am supposed to now schedule a chest CT to get a closer look at a small “nodule” in one of my lungs that was seen during the xray. The thought is it is nothing significant but a CT will confirm that.
So my second AnyCubic I3 Mega 3D printer arrived yesterday. My first one has become my favorite printer I own and a workhorse, responsible for the majority of my 3D EUC stand production. I figured grabbing a second allows me to double productivity while giving me a back up if one goes down. Since I already had one, setting up the new one took very little time. Within 30 minutes I had it ready to go and it was printing it’s first EUC stand.
I used the printer addition as motivation to do some overdue reorganizing of the stuff in there, especially the two work benches. A lot of stuff got tossed out or put away. The end result is a much cleaner looking workspace that had me going back to admire several times during the evening.
This morning around 4:45 AM we had another Elsa intestinal incident. This time it was Cindy that felt/heard it coming. She shot out of bed and yelled for Elsa to come outside. Well evidently during the landing on the floor next to the bed some excrement was ejected.
We didn’t bother going back to bed, after cleaning up the aftermath I did some work in the hobby room and also did the legwork to get this week’s live stream converted into a podcast and uploaded/posted. I also received notice last night that the podcast has now officially been accepted on iTunes, meaning you can now listen to the shows on the two major platforms.
So for the third week in a row I decided to skip running. That, with my plans to do no resistance training this week at the gym or at home is part of my experiment to see how my body reacts. My fatigue was definitely lessened last week. Now if I can get this dull right side pain to vanish…
Since I did mowing on Tuesday night I figured I could get away with not mowing this weekend. The grass was starting to look just a little ratty in spots so to reach a mental compromise, after I mowed down the front drainage ditches I just mowed the immediate mound around the house so at least that looked freshly manicured. Doing that should be sufficient to keep my inner taskmaster at bay until next weekend when a full yard maintenance is required.
Mid-morning Saturday I pushed off for a DD ride on a vehicle I never tried before on that 10 mile journey, my electric skateboard. The posted top range on the Meepo is 11 miles so my hope was I would have enough juice to make it there and have Cindy pick me up afterward. Riding the board in the bike line which is filled with small pebbles and various debris was challenging, requiring close attention to the road surface in front of me at all times. Even a small rock feels big when you hit it with a solid urethane wheel.
The board performed surprisingly well. The majority of the ride I was traveling 16mph+and topped out just under 20 mph several times. Despite traveling 10 miles, the battery indicator light still had 2 of 4 leds lit by the time I got there. It was a different and fun ride.
Later in the afternoon I decided to tackle an annual task that I never look forward to, reactivating my Directv Sunday Ticket football package. When you are a normal Directv customer this is easy, you just turn it on. However when you are a special, grandfathered in account like me that ONLY has the Sunday Ticket, it’s a pain in the ass. Each year I wind up spending tons of time on the phone until I finally get someone involved that actually has the knowledge and permissions to reactivate the service on my account.
It’s been such a hassle that I have asked that the procedure is documented in my account notes in detail. Even with that preventative effort I still wound up spending a total of nearly 90 minutes on the phone getting it sorted out. If you watch my Sunday ride video I talk about the latest chapter of the ordeal in detail. The cliff notes version was it does now work once again although I was told I HAD to bump up to the more expensive Sunday Ticket MAX package to do so, which I don’t really believe. Regardless I am once again signed up for the service, if I had any other way to get Eagles games I would sign up in a second.
Cindy and I went out to see the new Predator movie Saturday night. I have always been a big fan of the series. When we walked into the theater we were happy to see there were hardly any other bodies in the seats. I lately have been picking the two seats in a top row corner to keep us as far away from other annoying human beings as possible. When the movie started there were less than a dozen people in the theater and of course 75% of them were in our row….
And of course these people all annoyed us. There was the man that brought his two young children to an R rated movie that had intense gore, violence, and very adult humor. Great parenting there when you have to explain to your child what “F my face with an ardvark” means. Then we had the young couple only a couple seats over from us. The girl had her phone sitting in her cup holder so she wouldn’t miss a single crucial notification on her iPhone during the movie and the both of them were talking repeatedly, not that the movie required intense concentration to follow. Cindy was on my right so she was closer to the annoyances than I was and she was clearly annoyed. I told her multiple times we could just move to one of the vast uninhabited areas of the theater but she wanted to just stay put.
The movie itself was entertaining enough but certainly could not come close to achieving the same impact as the original, although they definitely did try to draw a lot of parallels. It was a B flick for me.
Early Sunday morning, somewhere between 5 and 530 I felt the bed shaking. I put my hand on Elsa and could feel the shaking was her. She had been having some diarrhea issues so I suspected the worst. I shot out of bed and told Elsa to come with me. As we ran towards the slider to the patio she was farting. As we crossed over to the patio she let loose there as well as follow up on the grass outside. I was thankful she was able to hold on until getting on the patio. I felt terrible as she stood in prolonged squat position, looking scared and miserable.
Cindy came out as well and said she would stay out in the main area . She encouraged me to go back to bed and try to sleep which I did but did not expect to be successful at. I did eventually dose off for a few more ZZZ’s which surprised me.
Mid-morning I did my second PEV DD ride in as many days, this time on my new 18L. I wanted to get another long ride in to verify that I was getting solid range from my new battery back. At the end of a 26.6 mile ride I was still showing to have 43-44% battery remaining which is very solid. During the ride I talked a ton of different topics, you may find it interesting to follow along, or not.
So I watched the Eagles game, partly on the TV and part on my computer, something I can now do since I am paying for the Sunday Ticket MAX package. Both viewpoints depicted the same story, an under performance on both sides of the ball. The offense just looked inept most of the time. Nick Foles who ended last season looking so confident and in command seems much less so so far this season although he did make some good throws late in the game. But the defense really stunk up the joint yesterday, making journeyman QB Mike Fitzpatrick look like Joe Montana, he torched the Eagles up and down the field the entire game.
Deshaun Jackson once again lit up the Eagles. It’s funny, since Chip Kelly cut Jackson years ago, he has gone on to have a pretty average at best career however that seems to change everytime he goes up against his old team. Repeatedly has had big games against the Eagles when was with the Redskins and now he continued that trend as a Buccaneer. The Eagles seemed to have no answer as Deshaun put up huge numbers.
I still think the offense is really hurting from not having Alshon Jeffrey in the lineup. Having him in there means opposing teams are less able to double up on Zac Ertz and Agholor since Jeffrey is a legitimate number one wide receiver. I’m not sure what the answer is for the defense that usually employs a soft zone in their bend but don’t break strategy. Unfortunately they did a lot of breaking yesterday. I’m not really sure what to expect from this season but if I am being honest, I’m not that worried about it. The shine of last year’s Super Bowl win will take a long time to go dim in my eyes.
Last night I did my seventh live stream with Marty. Unfortunately the episode was plagued by bad audio. During the first 15 minutes we had no audio being heard by the stream for Marty even though I could hear him fine. When I tried to fix it I somehow wound up turning my voice into a bizarre sounding space alien. Eventually we got it so we both could be heard but the end result was Marty’s audio still sounding pretty bad since I had to use the mic in the web cam to get it to work at all.
There were a number of changes since the last broadcast that potentially could be the source of the problem. I have a new headset/mic and also had performed updates on both Xsplit and Skype, both of which are used in the production. Sometime before the next broadcast we will need to do a test broadcast to see if we can get it all sorted out.
