Archives October 2018

So this was a different sort of weekend.  Cindy had two of her girlfriends she used to hang with in the early 2000’s staying at the house for a girl’s weekend.  I decided to give myself a break and not mow grass.  It looked only mildly shaggy at this point so I decided to leave well enough alone.  After going to get coffee mid-morning I returned home to find her friends had arrived, Carrie and Pida.  They both seemed very nice but I had stuff to attend to so I kept out of their hair.

One of those things was replacing the bushings on the front wheels of the tractor with bearings.  I had replaced the bushings a few months ago and one of them had failed already.  Supposedly these bearings were a better long term solution that didn’t require steady reapplication of grease to keep functioning.  The first side I replaced went very smoothly.  The second side did not.  The inner bearing was getting hung up on the spindle and would not slide all the way on, despite my hammering the shit out of the wheel via a 2×4 and hammer.

When I pulled the wheel off the bearing remained on the spindle and it was jammed on there tight, I couldn’t get it off.  After about 20 minutes of hammering and prying with various objects I finally got that bearing off but the process wrecked it so I put one of the old bushings back on the inside and a bearing on the outside.  It will be interesting to see how that combo works out.

The girls left for most of the day to go cruise around Naples, Carrie and Pida moved out of the Naples area a long time ago so they wanted to see how things changed.  While they were gone I worked on various things.  One of those things was really frustrating me, the generator.  All three of the girls planned to stay out in the RV over night.  I hooked up the big generator to the RV late morning so it could power the AC to cool things down in there.  It was working as it should.

Well when I went out there later in the day to check on things the generator was still running but when I went inside the RV it was hot, meaning it popped the 20A circuit breaker on the generator.  I reset it a few times only to have it pop within 60 seconds.  Damn it.  So later in the day I came up with an alternative plan to try to power the RV AC via home power, using the 110V well equipment circuit which is beefier than the other home circuits.  To do so I had to do all sorts of makeshift extension cord runs to other locations to power the well equipment and the chicken coop.

So after I was done I hooked up the RV and it seemed like it was working, however by the time I walked out to there to verify, the breaker had popped already.  I was getting really frustrated as I felt like I HAD to get this working so the girls had a comfortable place to sleep that night.  I then did some more thinking about why it was popping as I have successfully run the RV on generator and house power before.  I then realized that when I hooked up water to the RV via 250 feet of garden hose I also turned on the electric water heater.  That had to be the difference.

So after turning off the heater I once again reset the house circuit breaker.  This time when I walked out to the RV the AC was still blowing strong, I had finally got it working.  But, I was still not sure why the generator was not doing the same job.  So during my trouble shooting of the generator I wound up bringing out my volt meter, I was curious what numbers it was putting out.  When I hooked up to one of the 110 outlets I was reading between 150 and 160 volts!  WTF??

Back during the hurricane last year when I tried hooking up the generator to the coop circuit it smoked the UPS out there.  I never gave it much thought as to why but now it was coming together.  I think the generator has been outputting this type of voltage for a long time and I have just been lucky that the devices connected to it could tolerate it.  When I checked the 220V side of the generator it was reading 300 volt+, geez.  Ok so this is a problem.

So my knee jerk reaction was to just say f it and I bought a higher capacity Westinghouse generator that can support 7500 continuous watts, a full 2000 more than my old Troybilt.  My thought is with my new Generlink interface to the house bigger is better.  Plus this model has a bunch of cool features not found on 13 year old units.

Despite buying the new unit I was still interested in finding out how to adjust the voltage of my Troybilt down in case I wanted to sell or give it away.  I found it has no voltage regulator like some units do, instead the output is solely controlled by engine speed.  Later in the weekend I ripped it apart and through some repositioning of a tension spring and adjustment on a set screw I was able to get the output right around 120 volts.  Basically the generator was just running too fast but as I said, I think it has been that way for a long time.  One of the nice things about the new unit is it has an output meter display built right into it.

I did get some time on Saturday to go out for a ride.  It was a fun time on my little Mten3 that concluded with me following a car around the park that was exhibiting odd behavior.  However the end result of what looked like shady behavior at first, circling the park repeatedly with intermittent stops, I think was actually two lazy people playing Pokemon Go.

On Saturday night Cindy made a nice dinner that we all enjoyed.  I split my time between hanging with the women and my computer, consuming four Zima’s along the way to help my social interactions.  Somewhere around 10:30 I headed back to bead while the girls headed to the RV.  I felt a sense of calm that they were able to sleep in a climate controlled environment.

On Sunday morning I headed out for another ride, this time from home on the 18L.  I wanted to take my new wheel into the swamp, which is always a tough test.  I knew the swamp would still be pretty wet but we had not had consistent hard rain for awhile so i thought it wouldn’t be too bad.  Wow was I wrong.  The swamp was a wet, muddy, and overgrown mess.  I only ventured maybe a mile in before four foot high grass and thick patches of mud made me turn around.

During the morning Cindy and her girlfriends had fun in the backyard doing an impromptu workout.  I later put the video clips together for a video that is on Cindy’s channel.

The girls headed out early afternoon.  Cindy and I did a quick run to Rural King to add some semblance of normalcy to the weekend.  The rest of the day I kept myself busy until our 8PM EUC live stream that was without audio/video problems for the first time in a month.

I have a very busy week in front of me.

Last night for the first time in a long time the Eagles were part of a game where the outcome was not decided within the last 5 minutes.  They beat the Giants handily 34-13.  Despite the large margin of victory the defense still exhibited why they are the weaker link of the team, allowing the Giants rookie running back to amass over 200 yards of offense.  Jalen Mills once again got burned for big plays multiple times as well as exhibiting shitty tackling ability.  But hey, at least the offense finally got some consistent production for the first time this year.  We just need to play the Giants every week I guess.

The next ten days are going to be very busy for me from a work perspective with two large projects coming down within three days of one another. However once I get past this point the rest of the year should just be normal daily maintenance, something I look forward to.

This weekend I have some bearings to install, some weeds to pull, and some electric transportation devices to ride somewhere in the county.  Sounds good to me.

Cindy finished up painting the monster skulls.  Check it out here.

Last night was not a very restful one.  After waking up with a full bladder at 3AM I rolled around a bit until I fell back asleep, briefly.  I was awakened a half hour later by a bright flash followed by particularly ferocious sounding thunder.  It was the beginning of a hellacious storm that included moments of dump a bucket on your roof rain.  I could feel Elsa shaking in fear on the bed so I pulled the bed spread over her body to help her feel safe.  Cindy later got up and got Elsa’s sweater and put it on her.  The combo of our efforts seemed to help her and thankfully the storm eventually passed by.  I awoke this morning feeling like shit, as one would expect.

I saw some of the footage from Hurricane Michael.  It brought back the memories of our experience last year with Irma although the winds with Michael were maybe 20mph higher at the top end.  I know the type of slog those people are in for in the months to come and it will suck, badly.  Hopefully they get power restored in a timely fashion but man, that is going to be a tough job based on what I saw.  With the accelerating pace of global warming we can expect this to be a more and more frequent occurrence.

So just last week Cindy and I were saying how we were looking forward to the end of hurricane season which officially is November first.   Normally weather agencies are all over hurricanes for days if not weeks in advance, well not this one.  Out of nowhere, a tropical disturbance that was given next to no chance of amounting to anything is now a 145mph cat 4 hurricane that is poised to hit the Florida panhandle this afternoon.

It’s pretty disconcerting to see just how quickly this all came about and how late in the year the potential is still there for devastation.  Of course back in 2005 Hurricane Wilma beat the shit out of us in mid-October as well.  Since having gone through two major hurricanes since moving to Florida I can relate to the anxiety and dread people in that area are feeling right now.  It’s going to be ugly.

I shot a video last documenting the monster print I completed on the Chiron over the weekend.  I still am amazed every time I see the thing.

So my largest and longest 3D print ever finished up sometime early this morning, a staggering 82 hours after it started.  The print tested the vertical capabilities of my new printer to it’s absolute max and I have to say the Chiron passed that test with flying colors.  The detail on the model, despite being blown up 250% is still amazing. It simply looks fantastic.  Cindy has been chomping at the bit to paint the see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil skull stack.  Based on what she did with the smaller model, I can’t wait to see what she does with the super sized version.

Last night I felt like I was on the go doing something most of the evening outside of eating dinner.  I even got 60 minutes of WoW jammed in there along the way.

This morning I stayed home to meet up with an installer from our electric company.  I had finally managed to arrange to have a Generlink installed on our meter.  It is a device that allows you to direct connect your generator to your household wiring during a power outage, allowing you to easily control power distribution via your breaker box.  It would have been a huge help during our 10 day outage last year after Irma.

I had been thinking about doing this for several years actually, I just finally did something about that intent.  The install itself was extremely easy.  The device just plugs into the outside power box and then the meter plugs into it.  The installer spent much more time explaining to me the details of the device that the the physical install took, which was 10 minutes, maybe. If it sits unused for years that is just fine by me. I still like having the peace of mind knowing any future power outages should be much easier to work around, as long as I can get gas of course…..

On my way home from work Friday my dad called me to check in on my health status, which there was no real news to speak of.  While I had dad on the phone I asked him about the state of them trying to sell their house in Marienville.  I did not get a real rosy report card.  It seems like the shine from the prospect of getting out from under the load of isolation and seclusion of north western PA is proving to be pretty daunting although that is not a surprise to him.  They just got done putting a new roof on the house which was advised by their realtor to make it more appealing.  There is actually a lawyer that may be interested enough to make an offer but dad did not sound upbeat about it.

At the same time as they have been trying to prepare their current house to be sold they have been prospecting new places in SE PA, near my sister Meghan.  It sounds like so far it has been a Catch 22 because of the current requirement dad has to move with all of barnyard animals.  Any property that is more or less ready to move in, with all the animals, is well above what they are looking to spend.  The properties that are in their range generally would require a lot of work (and money) to fit that need, which is something that just does not work for dad at this point in his life.

My entire life I have witnessed dad go into homes where he spent countless amounts of money, time, and effort to make the property fit him and his needs to a tee.  He did it with the house in Gouglersville, the house in New Mexico, and now the Marienville home.  The unfortunate thing is the Marienville house probably has the most invested with the smallest chance of getting the money out of it, because of the area, which is just not going to be attractive to a lot of potential buyers.  But my point is it just is not realistic for him to get into another fixer upper scenario at this point.  Both he and my stepmom deserve to enjoy life more and not be pulling a heavy weighted sled of work and responsibilities 24/7.

So to the casual observer the answer is pretty simple, they need to find a good home for the barnyard animals and move towards a more conservative property that does not require all of that work and upkeep.  Moving while keeping all the animals just relocates all of that work, albeit it would be closer to my sister.  If anyone understands a deep attachment to animals it’s me.  Hell one of the big reasons we have done less road tripping in recent years is I worry about the care of the chickens in our absence.  But, if the ultimate goal is enjoying your golden years I think some hard choices are going to have to be made.

Regardless of the outcome I am not envious of the situation.  Staying put is just going to become more and more stressful, as a person’s physical capabilities generally do not increase as they age.  Moving will be a task of monumental proportions although I thought the same thing when they moved from New Mexico back east.  They had a TON of shit then as well although sheep and llamas were not part of that equation.  I hung up with dad feeling somewhat sad for their dilemma.  It’s a situation that has big barriers and challenges no matter which direction they turn.

Based on the convo I thought it was funny/ironic that the parting advice dad gave me was to relax this weekend FIRST and then do whatever work I can.  If it doesn’t get done, oh well.  Well obviously that isn’t the way I am wired.  I ALWAYS want to get tasks out of the way first and then relax, if there is any time left over for that.  Doing it any other way just leaves me unsettled and anxious.

So as you could predict, I totally ignored my dad’s advice.  I spent over 6 hours on the tractor Saturday mowing grass.  The reason it took so long was I decided to knock down areas of the property outside the fence line, some of which that have not been mowed in years.  Mowing three to four foot tall grass is a very slow process requiring you to go back and forth over each area multiple times.  It’s also a very dirty process.  I had the chute held open to allow debris to get out easier.  The side effect was that debris blowing all over me.  Any exposed skin areas had a coating of organic matter on them when I was done.

On Saturday night Cindy and I got out to see Venom, a movie I had been looking forward to for awhile.  Although it was a Marvel affiliated movie it was not a Marvel production, and I could tell.  It was entertaining and I liked the movie but it definitely was not up to par with what I expect from a Marvel film.  There was lots of funny moments in the movie and many a few too many of them to be honest.  For an origin story, I felt like there should have been more serious plot and substance.  But like I said, I liked it overall but just don’t expect it to live up to any of the Marvel stand alone character movies of the last 10 years. I’d give it a B to weak  B+.

So before we left for the movies I had to close the garage door on the big shed.  This task has been becoming more hazardous over the last month or two because of my refusal to eliminate a wasp nest that has been constructed in the door frame.  My compassion for living creatures has governed that decision.  It felt like the wasps and I had a mutual understanding.  They knew I had to open and close the door, which would bump their nest each time and I did not want to destroy their home they have been working on for weeks on end.  Each time I accessed the door the nest would get jostled which would send some of the wasps off the nest but they never were aggressive towards me, they simply landed right back on the nest.

Like I said this nest has been growing and as of this weekend it had close to 20 wasps actively working on it.  It had gotten to the point where Cindy was afraid to go in the shed.  Despite the growing size I continued to let the nest be as I would do my best to keep the door disturbance minimal and the wasps continued to ignore me, until Saturday evening.

So when I went to close the door this time a bunch of wasps came off the nest and I could instantly tell they were aggressive.  It looked like the smaller, younger wasps were actually the aggressive ones, perhaps they didn’t get the memo that I was a good guy.  So as I see the small wasps looking for a target I hunched down as I was closing the door.  As I did I felt the distinctive burn on the top of my head as one of the little bastards stung me.  Instead of anger, my initial overwhelming feeling was one of sadness, as this meant the wasps had officially broken their peace treaty with me.  I could not have them stinging me or Cindy.

I did not address the situation immediately.  Instead during the night I felt sad that I was going to have to take the nest down.  Sunday morning I did the deed however I tried to do so in a non-lethal way.  I stretched a hose over there and blasted the nest with water to knock it down and off to the side.  I figured water wouldn’t kill the wasps and possibly allow them to rebuild their nest elsewhere.  When I saw one wasp later trying to initiate a build at the same spot I hit him with some insecticidal soap that should annoy him but again not be lethal.  I’m not sure exactly when in life I developed this seemingly at times strange compassion for even the littlest of creatures but it is ingrained in my personality for sure at this point.   Pretty much the only things that die without remorse at my hand are fire ants or mosquitoes, once they bite me.

Sunday morning I did not go out riding.  Instead I hopped back on the tractor to mow the back yard that is inside the fence, consuming another couple hours.  I figured I had the time to ride in the afternoon since the Eagles game was late.  After we ran errands late morning I didn’t get out to ride until around 3.  I drove out to Ave Maria with the Meepo and One Wheel.  In the video I talk about a lot of things I mentioned here, just because I felt like it.

I got home to watch the Eagles game, which in retrospect was not a great thing.  The team again played very sloppy ball and for the second consecutive week lost to a team they shouldn’t have.  I see several differences from last year that seem to be impacting the outcome of the games.  First off the secondary, outside of Malcom Jenkins is pretty awful.  Last year the front four of the D-line was able to get pretty consistent pressure on opposing QB’s, allowing the secondary, which still was not great last year, to make some plays.  This year the pressure does not seem to be there, exposing the poor secondary play even more.

I also hate the soft zone the DB’s seem to play the majority of the time, lining 8-10 yard off the ball most plays.  Doing this allows receivers to get a full head of steam to either blow by you as you are back pedaling or cut in front of your back pedal for easy yardage.  I much prefer a bump and run coverage where DB’s challenge the receivers during the first 5 yards to slow down their routes while playing man coverage.  I guess Schwartz just doesn’t like that play style or thinks he doesn’t have the talent in the secondary to do that.

The offense has been very inconsistent as well and a lot of that has to do with a lack of solid pass protection.  The O-line has been pretty awful with keeping Wentz upright since he returned.  The end result has been a lot of sacks and knockdowns as well as Carson making some poor decisions and not protecting the ball, resulting in big turnovers.

I don’t know that there is any magic formula to get the team back on track.  They just are not making big plays this year when they need to.  Last year they had an uncanny ability to do exactly that as well as getting just plain lucky at times when they needed to.  So far this year, the luck has run out.

On Friday evening I started the biggest print I ever attempted.  It was estimated to take two days and a few hours.  As of this morning it was only 66% complete.  If the print is successful it will be pretty epic.  If it fails this late into the print it will be pretty damn depressing.

Hey Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed!  What an incredible, unifying and progressive move.  It’s a hugely, very, very, fantastic win for Trump and the republicans.  It was just the latest of a string of never ending examples of just how f’d up the political system is in this country and why we continue to accelerate towards the bottom of the bowl where winning an argument has now become paramount to acting for the greater good.  It’s not a #metoo world, it’s a #mefirst kind of thing.  Please register to vote for the mid-term elections and do your part to try to end the insanity.

So I have had interest in having a Generlink installed at the house for quite awhile.  It is a device that gets installed onto your electric meter that allows you to plug your generator directly into your house wiring during a power outage and then control the distribution via the fuse box.  It will be a HUGE improvement over the extension cord nightmare we have had to deal with in the past.

So I originally called our power company about this option in May.  At that time I was told they were out of stock and I should call back in September.  So I set a reminder and called almost two weeks ago.  AT that time I was told there was noone available in that department currently (huh?) but someone would call me back.  Well I called twice over the next 10 days and was told the same thing.  The second time I gave the phone rep some attitude, saying I thought it was bizarre that I wanted to pay them for a service but no one could be bothered to call me back.

Well finally yesterday I did get a call back.  I was prepared to give the woman shit for such a terrible response time but she immediately disarmed me with her pleasant attitude and friendly demeanor.  My install is now scheduled to happen sometime next week.  It’s testament to the power of how simply being nice to someone can swing a negative situation into something positive.

I had two of my printers working overnight cranking out Halloween themed models.  Having 3D printers is a little like Christmas.  You go to sleep with anticipation of what will be waiting for you the next morning.  Maybe that is part of why I like it so much.

Cindy is really good at painting the 3D models I create, as you can see.

This weekend we are going to get out to the movies and although I don’t have anything huge on the to do list there will always something worthy of my attention, in my mind.

So during my five decades on the planet I have tackled a large number of household tasks and repairs.  However somehow I managed to escape ever having to replace the faucet on a tub, until last night.  The spout fixture on our tub was beginning to rust on the trim ring and looked pretty shitty.  Cindy had bought a replacement fixture on clearance several weeks ago but it has sat around untouched.  For reasons unknown to me, I decided that last night after dinner was the time to install it.

I really had no idea what was involved with replacing a tub faucet until I watched a quick video which revealed that it is pretty straightforward.  Faucets are either attached via a slip fit with a retaining screw or threaded on.  When I looked at our old rusted fixture it appeared to be a slip fit configuration.

The position of the faucet made accessing the screw underneath tight.  I had to awkwardly lean over the edge of the tub while on my knees (always a bad position), while trying to get my head under the faucet to see what I was doing.  Eventually after some futzing I got the screw loose and was able to slide the old faucet off with some twisting and yanking.

So as I read the directions for the new fixture it indicated for a slip fit the pipe stub coming out of the wall needs to be between 2″ and 3″ long.  I took the measuring tape and confirmed our stub was 3.5″ long.  My initial reaction was “guess it won’t fit” but of course there was another option, cut the pipe.  I wasn’t in love with the idea at first.

I had visions of me trying to cut it with the Sawzall which would be insane, trying to keep the pipe from vibrating while working in such a confined space. However when I went out into the garage I saw the brand new DeWalt hacksaw that I bought when I installed some shelving for Cindy’s mom.  I determined that was a much better way to cut the pipe.  It took awhile but the saw made slow and steady progress through the copper pipe.  I lopped about 3/4 of an inch off.

So as I worked on getting the new faucet ready I tasked Cindy with sanding down the end of the pipe stub to remove burs and expose fresh copper as the instructions directed. So I found myself getting confused as I followed the directions.  According to what I was seeing/reading there were couplers and washers that I was supposed to be assembling but I didn’t see them in the parts packaging.  Everything seemed to already be installed and inside the new faucet.  I questioned Cindy if the the package looked like it was opened before because it didn’t make sense.  She said it was not.  So after a couple rounds of head scratching I took apart the pieces that were inside the faucet and assembled them as the directions said, just to be thorough.

There were some more minor confusion at the final steps but we got it all sorted out.  The end result of maybe 60 minutes of work was a functional, unblemished, and modern looking replacement faucet. Who knows we may go nuts and try to replace the tub valve next.

The last two nights I have spent tending to multiple small issues.  Monday night I worked on fixing up the technical difficulties we have had with our EUC livestream the last two episodes.  I think I finally have the problems corrected and did some real world testing to verify it.  Last night I was working again on in the hobby room, getting some Halloween 3D prints started and recording a one week review of my new monster printer.  I just feel like I have so many things I can be doing at any given point in time.

So Friday evening around 8PM the Segway buyers from Kansas arrived in their Ford Focus.  They looked tired as anyone would be after an 1100 mile drive which they did basically non-stop except for pulling over very briefly for a very short nap.  I really had no idea what to expect since I only corresponded with Jarod via the Ebay messaging platform and a couple text messages.  I could tell very quickly he was the type of person I like, hard working and hard headed.

He told us a little bit about his journey and himself.  Before we even turned our attention to the i2 we took him into the hobby room so he could see my collection of PEVs as well as my 3D printer setup, which he found instantly intriguing, so much so that he asked I forward him info on one of my printers and where I get a lot of my models from.

Well when it comes to the adult toys department Jarod has me beat by a mile.  He has a ton of vehicles and is one of those guys that has the prized ability to do both mechanical repairs and body work.  The 2012 Ford Focus they drove down in was a wreck with a salvage title.  He repaired/replaced the front clip and repainted the car.  It looks great.  I lost track of how many different vehicles he has/had but a few stuck out like the motorcycle trike, an Airstream, and a hovercraft.

In addition they have two MiniPros like Cindy and I have.  Jarod has a spinal disease that causes him a lot of issues, one of which is poor balance and weak ankles.  The i2 is going to be fulfilling a specific need.  His job entails overseeing four warehouses, instead of doing this all on foot, which is increasingly difficult for him, he will be using the i2 to get around the grounds.  We took the I2 out on the driveway and let him take it for a spin, he never rode one before but liked it immediately.

I was amazed he was able to get the i2 in the back of the Focus without taking the steering bar off, considering there was already a huge subwoofer and some luggage back there.  There was no exchanging of money since it was all handled on Ebay courtesy of Paypal.  They were staying one night in Naples before pushing back to Kansas on Saturday as he had to be back to work on Monday.  I was happy that he texted me Saturday saying he had a blast riding the I2 around Naples Saturday morning.  This transaction, which at first I thought was going to at the very least be problematic and likely be impossible, instead turned out just about perfectly.

Saturday morning parts of the property still had standing water but it was manageable enough that we could mow.  I am just so sick of wet, humid, and hot conditions I don’t think I can adequately describe it.  I just keep telling myself that 30 days from now summer should finally be ending for us.

We headed out to run errands after chores.  At Home Depot I picked up this year’s addition to the Halloween decorations, a cheesy pumpkin headed witch.  Buying this sort of stuff now means you pay a premium for it but for whatever reason, I don’t mind it.  Putting out Halloween decorations means the holidays have officially started.

Saturday night we watched the latest and I assume the final movie in the Maze Runner series.  To be honest I remembered far less of the plots of the first two movies so a lot stuff made little sense to me.   Even if I did remember I don’t know if it would make a huge difference.  The movie had lots of action and good special effects but I really found myself not giving an F about the eventual outcome.  I’d give it a B.

Sunday morning I did a LONG ride on the One Wheel.  Cindy joined me for the first 6.6 miles of it on the MiniPro.  At that point she went into Target to do some shopping and I pushed back out on the One Wheel, heading to North Collier Park to ride around.  This doesn’t happen often but I actually was tired of riding by the time Cindy came and got me.  My feet hurt, it was melt your face hot, and I was just beat.  In total I traveled just under 16 miles.

So I got home in time for the Eagles/Titans game.  Early on the Eagles looked sluggish but seemed to establish themselves in the second and early third quarter, building a 17-3 lead.  I thought to myself, wow how nice, we might finally have a game where I don’t have to be screaming at the TV the last two minutes of the game.  Well of course I was incorrect.

The Titans came back in a big way, all the way back to a 20-17 lead.   That charge made the Eagles defense, especially their secondary look very overwhelmed.  Besides Malcolm Jenkins, nobody back there impresses me.  Of all of the defensive backs, Jalen Mills annoys me the most.  Somehow he has bamboozled some people into thinking he is a strong cornerback.

From his very first game as a rookie I couldn’t stand him.  He is one of those guys that boasts loudly whenever a pass thrown his way is not complete, even if he was completely burned and the receiver just dropped the ball.  And getting completely burned is something he does quite routinely.  I can’t tell you how many times during the game number 31 was in coverage when Tennessee ripped off long pass plays.  When he isn’t getting beat downfield he likes to participate in one of his other big hobbies, getting called for pass interference.  I think the guy just sucks and is more of a liability to the defense than an asset.  They could cut him tomorrow and I would be thrilled.

So anyway the Eagles managed to kick a late field goal to send the game into overtime and then another during the first drive in OT to put the pressure on the Titans who had to either kick a matching field goal or score a TD.  Well the secondary was absolutely dreadful on this drive but nothing was more horrific than the 4th and 15 they gave up for a first down.  The Titan receiver was allowed to run past TWO Eagles defenders that were just looking into the backfield, allowing the receiver to make an EASY catch with SEVEN Eagles back on coverage.  It was maddening.  The Eagles DB’s failed again committing another penalty on what would have been a game ending 4th down stop, giving the Titans the third chance which they used to burn the secondary one more time with a game ending TD pass.

Now I know I have said that the Eagles Super Bowl win should allow me to not care so much about the team’s 2019 performance.  But you know what, I guess I was kidding myself.  Playing and losing that way bothered the hell out of me and continues to bother me as I type this out.  They need some real cover corners that can tackle.

We had our EUC live stream Sunday night and for the second consecutive time it was plagued by bad audio.  The problem is a combination of different hardware (my headphone/mic) and some software upgrades that have made things act differently than they used to.  It frustrated the hell out of me.  I was hoping to get the problems sorted out before by testing with Marty but he was only available a few minutes prior to the show going live.  I plan on configuring a second PC here that I can use to simulate his side of the connection so I can nail down what needs to be done to get things running smoothly again.

Today at work was an inservice day where we close the offices to the public but all of the employees meet at a central location for a seminar which included speakers on various topics.  One of those speakers was actually me as I was pegged to give a 20-25 minutes talk regarding network security.  I had two Powerpoint presentations I was working off of.

Generally speaking I am not a fan of nor am I good at group speaking.  As I expected I had several times during the presentation where things didn’t come out as I hoped but I think most of the information was presented ok.  Public speaking is something that I would do better at if I was called upon to do it more often.  As is, this was my first time talking to 150+ people.  It probably won’t be the last.