Last night I tested streaming to two destinations, YouTube and Twitch. It will require more testing but could open up other avenues for me in the future. Check it out.
Trump comes to SW Florida today to rile up the crazies. What a glorious day.
So I have been parking the Prius right by the garage door when I return from work most nights. Since the sprinklers have started running regularly once again that means the driver side of the car has been getting hit with nasty well water, leaving the car looking gross. I finally decided to do something about it yesterday and detoured my regular route home to head up Airport Road to the Sam’s Club which has two automatic car washes. Well of course as you can imagine from the title of this entry, it was a cluster f.
I ran into dead stop traffic about halfway there. It appeared to be from some sort of accident on an intersecting road. It took me a solid 15 minutes to clear the area. Of course when I got to Sam’s I was greeted with a 10 car line at the car wash which I promptly gave the middle finger to. A mile up the road was a stand alone car wash that actually had no line so I ducked in there to get the car cleaned up. Of course my reward for taking that extra 10 minutes was to get dumped into even more of a traffic quagmire on Immokalee Road.
The commute home last night really made me appreciate the arrangement I have had at work pretty much from the first day I started. My buddy and I normally leave the office about 4:45 each day which gives me just enough time to get ahead of the tidal wave of traffic heading home. The route I took yesterday is pure insanity. It’s hard to believe traffic was that horrendous and we are only in the early teething stages of snowbird season. I arrived home stressed out and frustrated. I did park the Prius down in the turn around section of the driveway to avoid it from getting coated in sulfur water immediately.
I again feel fortunate that my biggest issue of the day was shitty traffic as opposed to having yet another angry white male carry out a mass shooting, this time in a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh. My brother lives in Pittsburgh, he said things still feel surreal, the place the shooting occurred was very close to where he used to live. He said it is a friendly, close knit neighborhood, not at all the type of area where you would expect mass murder to occur.
I was relieved to see Donald was planning to come to the city, despite requests by the mayor to wait. Surely his presence will have a calming, peace inducing effect on the city, idiot.
So I decided Friday night that I was going to take another shot at running, something I have avoided for weeks since my energy reserves seemed to be permanently reduced from my undiagnosed ailment. I drove there instead of riding a PEV but I did have the Meepo in the trunk so I could ride it a little afterward. The first few laps felt especially miserable but not because my energy level felt that bad, it was just because I haven’t been running. I managed to complete the 13 laps at what was surely a snail’s pace. I never got the ready to drop sensation, my legs just felt unhappy running, which is to be expected. I’m hoping I can continue on from here, reintroducing a once a week 5k+ run into the fitness routine.
On Saturday morning mowing the grass consumed the majority of the morning. After lunch I got to enjoy riding the One Wheel around on that freshly cut grass. I had only tried this once before and it was pretty early after getting the One Wheel. I recall struggling a lot with the conditions. The back yard is filled with uneven surfaces that make riding very challenging. Well a few months of experience definitely has helped me deal with those conditions. I rode pretty confidently all over the back of the property.
I did have one bad fall when I swung around the hill where the reverse osmosis system drains. The grass there is normally very wet. I rode across it without thinking and had the tire slide out, sending me crashing to the ground on my elbow. I popped right back up, no worse for wear. Feel free to witness my increased skill set below.
We did a late afternoon trek to Tractor Supply where I bought more than $100 of mostly chicken supplies. Speaking of the chickens, the egg factory seems to be shut down. We have gotten one or two eggs in the last three weeks. I am hoping that production could still possibly resume. Four or five of the hens are currently molting their feathers, when that happens they don’t lay eggs. So production may resume but even if it doesn’t they are still our pets first and foremost. Cindy and I have talked a little about possibly getting a few young chicks to reboot egg production eventually but we haven’t committed to doing so.
Saturday night was not exciting but still enjoyable for me. I was doing some work getting 3D prints going and also dug into some WoW while Cindy was doing crafting of her own which she really enjoys. The cool front that was predicted started rolling in during the afternoon, making the temps feel cool and pleasant, finally.
That feeling was amplified Sunday when I awoke to temps in the mid-60’s for the first time since late April or early May. It felt simply glorious to finally have some less oppressive temperatures, even if we had to wait till nearly Halloween to get them. I didn’t get to enjoy the real cool temps in the morning that much because it was the Eagle’s turn to have one of those annoying London games, meaning kickoff was at 930 AM. I barely had time to do the chicken clean up and pay my bills before the game started.
The game was really not as close as the score. The Eagles, and specifically Carson Wentz made some bad plays early that wiped out scoring opportunities. However Wentz more than made up with it the rest of the game. He made some amazing plays and the Eagles played well enough to win. For the first time in awhile instead of falling on their face at the end of a game they actually did what was needed to close out the other team.
I was multi-tasking during the game, as I worked on assembling a gas station skimmer detector. It’s a plan I found in Make magazine. I bought the stuff to make it months and months ago but never set the time aside to do it. I figured an early morning Eagles game was the perfect time to do so. I had some trepidation because the project requires soldering small wires onto small contacts between two different boards. I am terrible at soldering so that made this project somewhat daunting. My aging eyes didn’t help, I relied a lot on the magnifying glass that is built into my old Radio Shack soldering station. I eventually got it wired up but I won’t really know if it will work until I do some more configuration work on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if I wind up having to redo the wires.
Cindy and I got out early afternoon with our wheels to North Collier Park. The visit was for two reasons. Of course we wanted to ride but we also wanted to get our early voting done. A couple years ago we voted on the Minipros so we thought it would be fun to revisit that again. We did the voting first. We took turns so the other could guard the equipment. It was a long ballot that covered four pages in total. I cast my votes, hoping to make a difference in the direction of our political climate but doubtful it will be fruitful.
The ride we had afterward was fun. In total I brought four different devices with us, the Minipro, Meepo, One Wheel, and the Msuper. Cindy, was feeling it yesterday and actually got up on and rode all four devices competently for a substantial amount of distance. I was proud of her for her accomplishments. I still maintain my premise that if she practiced more she would quickly surpass me in riding skill on everything we own. The awesome weather made riding so enjoyable.
Sunday night I had another EUC live stream with Marty. It lasted damn close to two hours which is sort of crazy. Marty and I are able to ramble on about things which works out well I guess.
I had a discussion with my buddy regarding the Florida governor’s race. He and I share an intense disbelief that Trump was actually elected president and we both generally have a similar political mindset. For this reason I was somewhat surprised when he said he thought Andrew Gillum was too extreme of a candidate for Florida governor and that he might actually vote for DeSantis, a Trump acolyte in most ways imaginable.
I asked him to explain what was too extreme as to me, his platform points are very similar to Bernie Sanders, a candidate I wish would have been able to vote for instead of Hilary. My buddy didn’t like promises of free college, free healthcare, and ads that say he wants to raise taxes 1 BILLION dollars in Florida. His premise was he didn’t necessarily think having those things free was a terrible idea but he doesn’t want to be the one footing the bill for all or most of it.
I told him I didn’t agree and it sounded like he was watching too many DeSantis ads with ONE BILLION IN TAXES and nothing else on the screen. However when you actually dig into the proposal, you see it is far less scary and serves the greater good. Gillum claims that companies in Florida as a result of the ridiculous Trump tax cuts (that have us posting one of our worst deficits ever btw), received approximately 3.3 billion dollars of additional revenue as a result. I can assure you the vast amount of that money went straight to the bottom line with a ridiculously tiny amount actually benefiting the lowly average employee.
Gillum is proposing reclaiming about a third of the federal handout to serve the greater good, not the corporate executives, not for stock buybacks, for the average Joe. Trying to provide more affordable healthcare and making higher education more attainable for the younger generation are noble causes and worthy of investment by others. Too many times people that do not need any assistance or help stereotype those that do as lazy or leeching off society. Without a doubt, there are plenty of individuals that are doing just that and I condemn that behavior as strongly as anyone. The difference is I am not willing to throw the countless legitimate people that benefit from these programs to the side to spite the abusers of the systems.
For me, I am willing to contribute more of my income to help serve the greater good. For a large portion of our me first population, that is not the case. For my own personal benefit, DeSantis would likely serve my needs better, however I have no hesitation in voting for Gillum.
I have very minimal hope of Gillum actually winning. The fact that he is black means all of the closet racists in Florida, and there are a lot of them, have a reason to get all riled up. It’s like poking a hornet’s nest. The only chance he has is for the democratic voters to turn out in massive numbers. If 100% of the eligible voters voted in every election, democrats would never lose in Florida or at the federal level. Without a doubt, apathy on the democratic side is the biggest reason we are where we are today. Old angry white people, which now includes people of my generation get out and vote.
So what was the point of this rant? Oh I don’t know. Vote for who you want, whether it is for the greater good or just good for you personally is a decision everyone has to make for themselves. The political climate in our country since the turn of the century has been nothing but disgusting and I see no light at the end of the tunnel.
So this weekend our first real cold front is supposed to finally arrive which will push our overnight temps well into the 60’s and deliver highs in the low 80’s. I can’t tell you how much I have been looking forward to a break in the Florida summer which this year has run basically from May to almost November. The bad thing is I see the cooler forecast temps and one of the first things that pops into my head is work.
Specifically I am referring to the annual trimming of the 25+ trees that I undertake each year. Each year this task gets more and more daunting because the trees are another year taller and I am another year older. It is physically the most demanding chore I do around the house, followed by when I do full scale pressure cleaning which is due as well. I always try to time the tree trimming with days with cooler temps because it is such grueling work. Sometimes the weather just doesn’t cooperate. I don’t plan to throw myself into it this weekend although I will surely feel some degree of guilt for not doing so. I do have a self imposed deadline of making sure the work is done before Thanksgiving weekend.
Instead I will keep busy with smaller tasks as is normally the case. I would really like to get some quality riding time is during the break in the weather, that’s for sure. My Sunday will be odd with the Eagles playing at 9:30 AM due to them being pegged to play in one of the stupid annual London NFL games they put on each season. I just don’t get the point.
So you know you are officially old when you are making calls to financial advisors to discuss retirement which is what I did yesterday. With my job, one of the benefits is a retirement plan. That benefit used to be strictly a pension plan for all employees. Well sometime in the early 2000’s they made an investment plan as an option where instead of a defined monthly benefit from the point you retire until you fade away, you have money thrown into a retirement account that you have full control over. When you retire you them have this big chunk of change to do with what you want.
So when this option became available all employees had to decide if they wanted to stay in the pension plan or move over to the investment plan. At that point I wasn’t all that sure if I would be at my job until retirement, plus I liked the idea of having full control over that money if I did have a change of careers. When you are in a pension plan you get that benefit at retirement age and that’s that. So at that time I decided to move into the investment plan with the understanding that I had one opportunity to “buy” back into the pension plan during my career.
So turning 50 was a good reason to start reevaluating my retirement options which at this point are unbelievably only about a decade away. I called into the Florida Retirement System and talked to an advisor that was very helpful in explaining my options and how it all works. We ran a calculator that estimated my retirement income if I went with a pension versus the investment plan. The numbers it returned were shocking to me. The monthly benefit with the pension was roughly 35% higher than I would expect with the investment plan if I figured on getting a moderate return on my money.
The other positive news was I had more than enough money in my investment plan to cover the buy in cost to transfer back to a pension plan. I actually would have a nice chunk of change left over in that account to go along with the larger chunk sitting in the 457B account I also contribute to. So the conversation made it pretty clear to me that at this point in my career, with more than 18 years under my belt, switching over to the pension plan makes a lot of sense, assuming I manage to stick around for awhile after retirement age.
I am hoping the market rebounds a bit so I can initiate the switch with my investment plan as fat as it can be. It seems surreal that I am at the point in life where I have to even give these things serious consideration. It seems like only yesterday that my biggest concern was what flavor Pop Tarts I was going to eat while I watched Saturday morning cartoons.
So yesterday was the first day of business at the branch we moved over the weekend. As I hoped everything went smoothly with no emergency trips to Marco Island necessary. I love it when a plan comes together.
After work last night I set up the new big Westinghouse generator. Prep was easy, I just had to attach some feet, the wheels, and add gas and oil. The push button electric start is pretty cool as well as the automatic choke system. It’s almost like starting the Tacoma. It even has remote key fob that allows you to stop and start it remotely, although I’m not quite sure when that would ever be necessary.
I like the built in monitoring screen which can show output voltage, output frequency, and total run time. Despite being larger than my other generator it seemed to run quieter. Despite it’s nearly 250 pounds of weight, moving it with it’s large leverage providing handle with solid rubber tires that never go flat, was relatively easy. This weekend I want to hook it to the RV and see if it can handle the AC without popping a breaker. I suspect it will swing it without sweating.
Speaking of sweating, I have been doing a lot more of it consistently at the gym. With my weird side pain I have really cut back on the heavy lifting portion of my routine. I also have been adding 10-15 minutes of cardio to each session to try to get some extra caloric burn to help drop those 5 pounds or so that I have been looking to get rid off for the last year or more. I still do not feel normal physically but at least I haven’t been feeling the side pain lately and I can function within my daily routine which is good enough for now, I guess.
So yesterday I was back at our branch office in Marco Island which was just remodeled. On Saturday I had most of the network connectivity issues sorted out so most of the day yesterday was spent just physically setting up desktop equipment, printers, and lugging stuff around. I did not return to our main office until almost 4PM. I was beat. I was too tired to even bask in the glory that I was finally at the end of a two year tunnel of non-stop projects which started with remodeling our main office, ripping out and replacing our entire back end software systems, redesign and launch of a new web site, and finally the remodeling of this branch. Of course peppered in there were other smaller projects, just to make sure I didn’t have anymore than a week of normalcy. It’s ironic that the start of tax season next week, which used to be the BIG thing around here is now looked at as a rest period. I am hoping I can enjoy some smooth sailing in the months to come.
Yesterday the new monster generator was delivered. It is large both in size, at nearly 250 pounds, and capacity, supporting 7500 watts of continuous load, almost 2000 watts more than my current, 13 year old Troy Bilt model. This Westinghouse unit also has cool features like an output/run time meter, push button start, and even a remote control for those days you really feel lazy.
Last night I was lacking the enthusiasm to fully unbox and set up the new power source but I did pull out the instructions to read them before bed. Tonight after work I expect to complete the process and turn it over for the first time. My plan is to give my old generator to the neighbor across the street if she wants it. I know during Irma she did not have one so if that is still the case, getting one for free is always a good thing.
As I mentioned several times this past week, I have been in the midst of a shitty week at work. To compound matters, Cindy has been having her own stress from trying to do the majority of the double bathroom vanity project herself. It has just been a lot of shit going on. On Friday I left the office a little early so I could attend to some chores at home, since I had to work a good portion of the day Saturday. I also needed to bring home materials needed to do the last prep work before Ray came in to install the new vanity on Saturday morning.
Cindy had made a ton of progress during the day, redoing the drywall box behind the tub, so that it now can accommodate the full 60 inches required for the new vanity. She had been busting her ass all week since the vanity showed up. I felt badly she worked so much on the project with only minimal assistance from me but had my own battles at work I was dealing with at the same time.
So Saturday I was out the door around 8 and did not get home until close to 1:30. By the time I walked in the door Ray and Doug had just about finished up with the install. Taking a look at the plumbing work they had to do made me glad I did not elect to tackle this project myself. The vanity looked good in it’s new home and of course the bathroom felt entirely different.
So despite working at the office for half the day, I had to turn on the reserve gas tank to help Cindy get things back in order. As you can imagine a project like this requires a lot of tools and creates a lot of mess. Hell I spent 30 minutes just cutting up all of the cardboard from the work outside. We diligently worked our way through it and eventually got things mostly back in shape. There were two things that needed to get done, glue on the backsplash and hang the new frameless mirror. We got the back splash glued up Saturday night. The install could really use two side splashes as well but we haven’t really figured out how to make that work yet thanks to the horrible workmanship on the walls in that bathroom. Not only are the corners not square, the back wall has a nasty bow in it.
Saturday night we watched the last 50 Shades of Grey movie. It may have been one of the worst written movies I ever saw. Of course they tried to prop it up by inserting sex scenes every five or six minutes. The origin story for the villain in the movie is laughable. I’m glad the series is over. C+
So this morning we wanted to get the mirror on the wall. Like I said the bowed surface meant we already knew the mirror would only be glued in place on the high spots. We helped offset the poor adhesion surface by making sure the bottom edge of the mirror was on the backsplash, to help shed weight. I applied large amounts of adhesive to the wall and then Cindy and I pressed the five foot mirror into place. After holding it there for a little while Cindy applied some painter’s tape to keep it against the surface to cure. Later in the morning I miter cut a piece of floor molding to replace one that was removed during demo.
We are both happy with the end result. There may be a few minor tweaks remaining but it is 99% there. Despite dealing with a lot of hand pain from all of the gripping, Cindy plowed through the project and got it done. As always I am appreciative of having someone in the household that works as hard as I do.
We did get out for a brief ride in the morning to Max Hasse park. We never rode the area before. It was small but scenic. I had a good time rolling around on my One Wheel while Cindy was on her MiniPro.
The Eagles game was a throwback, a throwback to how the team has played more often than not the last 10 years. After amassing a 17 point lead going into the fourth quarter I thought the team would be able to close out the Panthers. That was a key difference with last year’s team, they knew how to close out games. That skill set seems to be missing from this year’s squad.
The defensive mindset is maddening where they rush four and drop seven in coverage. However most of these seven players are not in actual coverage, they are just standing around trying to read the play, which they seem to be pretty awful at doing. During the Panther’s three straight touchdown drives, time and again I saw guys standing there flat footed as receivers easily ran free around them. I think this scheme blows or it at least blows with the personnel the team is putting out there. The fourth quarter was basically prevent defense the entire time.
I just don’t get it. Last year the Eagles flipped the script in these situations and continued to be aggressive, even when carrying a lead. Why Pederson seems to be willing to abandon what got them to the pinnacle of the league last year is very confusing and annoying to me. The team desperately needs at least one quality cornerback out there and needs to realize this front four is not getting enough pressure by themselves to be relied on so heavily.
It takes a special kind of suck to blow a 17 point lead in 15 minutes. Grats to the Eagles for finding a way to do it.
The blog is hitting the streets tonight because I once again have a jam packed day ahead of me tomorrow. The good news is that if I get through the next 24 hours things should be more or less back to normal through Christmas.
So
for some reason I have failed to mention a project that we started a few weeks ago when we ordered a new vanity online from Costco. For a long time Cindy has asked about putting a double vanity in the bathroom (and Ali before her). I had resisted all this time for a very logical reason, the amount of times that our schedules coincide that we need to use the sink at the same time are very, very small. I didn’t see the need to undergo the hassle and expense of replacing a solution that worked fine 99.5% of the time.
Well I finally relented but I gave Cindy some financial parameters I was willing to work inside of and I wanted her to find someone to do the work inside of those parameters. I just did not have the time or motivation to take on ANOTHER task at this point. So we ordered the vanity and it arrived via a freight carrier yesterday, which also happened to be Cindy’s birthday.
So the understanding I had was Cindy’s neice’s boyfriend, who works for a plumbing company was doing the work, all of the work. Well it turned out he only agreed to do the plumbing and vanity install but not all of the associated work that was required, like making the physical space available. You see, when the builders did the house, for some stupid reason they made the opening 59 inches, instead of the 60 inches typically required for a double vanity. So in order to make this work, a small section of the more or less useless “box” behind the tub was going to have to be demo’d and redone.
So Cindy looked into the prices of having another contractor do this part of the project but got some ridiculous quotes to do so. Without my knowledge, she decided to try to do the work herself. When I came home last night it was to a demo’d bathroom. She did an impressive job, exposing the top surface, removing the problem drywall, relocating the metal framing, and buying the supplies needed to rebuild it.
She was extremely proud of what she accomplished courtesy of watching videos online and some direction she got from one of the contractors she talked to. After work Ray and his friend Doug showed up to complete the removal of the old vanity and start on redoing the plumbing to support two sinks.
My biggest contribution last night was getting the old mirror popped off the wall, in one piece no less, and prepping a small section of the floor where I will need to insert a small piece of ceramic tile. The problem is Ray is coming back Saturday to finish the vanity install so all of the prep work we have to do needs to be done by then. The fact that I have to work late tonight at a branch office makes Friday evening my only window to accomplish this as on Saturday I have to work once again at another branch office for a good portion of the day.
The new vanity is really nice and should make a great addition to the bathroom. I just feel a lot of anxiety having so many balls up in the air between this project and my work commitments. As I said a few days prior, hopefully this time next week the crunch should be over and I can get back to business as usual.
This project reemphasized the corners that were cut during the home’s construction. The corner we are working on is not square and the drywall behind the mirror has a HUGE bow in it. We never realized that the old mirror on one side was about a half inch off the wall from the wall curve. There is a lump behind the mirror drywall that Cindy is going to cut into to see what it is. I guess when they were building houses in three months back in the early 2000’s, quality took a back seat to speed.
So part of the plumbing work required turning off all water to the house for a period of time. While I was out there I wanted to show Ray the reverse osmosis equipment that is housed in a storage box. When I pulled open the lid I was stunned as I was attacked by wasps, instantly I felt a burn on my finger and neck. There was a sizeable nest being built on the underside of the box lid. The neck sting was particularly painful as it swelled and red discoloration extended down my chest.
Last night after Ray and Doug left I took Cindy for a late dinner for her birthday at The Warehouse which is only 9 miles from the house. Katie, who was working joined us for the tail end of meal which was nice. I felt like a zombie by the end of it. I am running on fumes this week. I hope the next 72 hours passes by quickly.