Running, Building, Fixing, Riding, Introverts
I started off the weekend with a run at the track, my third week in a row that involved running. Sadly that may almost be a record for 2019 where my running program has been blown to bits by injury and old age. The temps in the low 70’s combined with darkness was a perfect combo for me. I wound up breaking a 10 minute mile pace for the first time since early 2019. I’ll be ready for the Olympics in no time. Seriously though, the off and on fatigue and lack of energy that has plagued me for over a year has definitely subsided for now. I have been feeling more like myself physically for the last couple months.
Saturday morning it was enjoyable tending to chicken and yard chores in the cool air, I really wish I was able to do that more than two months out of the year. We then headed out for errands which included a bunch of stops including Tractor Supply, our alternative source for chicken food.
Saturday afternoon I sat down to build my Creality Ender 3 printer. When I opened the box I realized I had more of a task ahead of me than I first realized. For some reason I thought the printer only required a few bolts to secure the frame together. Instead I had a box full of parts, albeit not nearly as many as with the Prusa.
A large portion of the printer was assembled but I did spend about an hour putting the rest together. The assembly instructions compared to Prusa were awful, consisting only of pictures that left out some important detail. Luckily I watched a brief assembly video before attempting the build to fill in the blanks.
After leveling the bed I started one of the test prints that was on the included SD card. It printed really well which made me happy as I didn’t feel like dealing with a lot of fine tuning or trouble shooting out of the box. This was my first printer purchase from Tiny Machines, a company based in Texas that takes in mostly Chinese made printers and tweaks them, making sure what the customer gets is working as it should be. I have bought accessories from them before and had a good experience so I thought I would try a printer as well. So far the slightly extra cost for dealing with a US based business has been worth it.
On Sunday morning Cindy and I pulled out for a DD ride, me on the 16X and Cindy on her Dualtron. It was on the chilly side with temps in the upper 60’s but it already felt warmer in the sunshine. Less than a mile into the ride we stopped, Cindy was already freezing. I told her it was no big deal, she could U-turn home and I would continue the ride solo. My new full face helmet totally insulated my head from cool air if need be. The ride was enjoyable. By the time I got to Dunkin Donuts it had warmed up considerably.
After I got home I wasted minimal time before I headed out to Home Depot. For some reason I finally decided to get the materials to rebuild the landings on both sides of the pool deck. These were originally built somewhere around 15 years ago and were both suffering from significant rot. I identified this as needing to be replaced somewhere around three years ago but it never percolated to the top of my to do list. The pressure treated 2×4’s I use to build the frame were pretty cheap bu the Trex decking I bought for the top was not, each 12 foot board was something crazy like $30. I can not imagine how much it would cost to do an entire deck in Trex.
Even though the official temperature was in the low 80’s, the sun felt extremely intense and warm. I donned my new mega-brim hat we got at the sand sculpture event the week before. Removing the old steps required a lot of work with my huge metal post bar and good old fashioned pulling which brought on some waves of back pain. Once I had the old rotting structure out I took a couple measurements. I built the new frame to the same spec except for adding one inch in length to the bottom stair to better support the decking.
I also added a mid support to the frame this time, something the original landings were missing. The end result of this was the treads sinking in the middle over time. With the new set up there will be no more opportunity for sag. I drove two pieces of rebar into the frame to give it some sort of anchor although the sandy soil doesn’t provide much stability. After a couple hours of work I had the new landing in place. It felt solid and looked good. I asked Cindy if she could hit the exposed 2×4’s with some brown waterproofing at some point.
Originally I had ideas of completing both landings the same day. That idea was quickly tossed out the window as I only finished up with the first one around 4PM. The second landing will have to wait until another day and until I buy one more expensive piece of Trek board.
Despite feeling beat up, I asked Cindy if she wanted to do a twilight skateboard ride over at the school. I rode the Meepo while Cindy was on the Backfire Ranger X1. We had a short but nice ride that included rolling around the next door development for a bit, checking out Xmas light displays. The ride was brought to a hasty conclusion when we started riding through swarms of gnats.
I forgot to mention a surprise email I received Saturday morning from Tesla announcing they were finally offering a premium connectivity subscription service. Premium connectivity was something I mistakenly thought I already had with my car, when I realized it was only included on the long range and up vehicles I was bummed. Tesla had a subscription service listed on their website as coming soon but with no update for months. To have it sprung on me with no warning was like an early Tesla Christmas present. I thoroughly enjoyed my commute to work today with the satellite maps which included a live overlay of traffic congestion. I really love my car.
My uncle posted a link to a site talking about the qualities of an introvert, something I am without a doubt. If you are not an introvert yourself, meeting up with one can be off putting as we generally don’t like “shallow social interactions”. As I read the article I found myself saying yep, that’s me again and again.