Archives 2019

So my long holiday weekend was not anything like I expected it to be several days prior.  It looked like we would be seeing some significant impact from Dorian as it was forecast to drift more into the middle of the state before turning north.  I figured we would be doing some serious hurricane prep, just short of putting up the plywood.  The entire area felt the panic as gas lines sprung up all over the place last Thursday with a ton of pumps running dry, it was crazy.

On Friday the forecast path started to change with the storm being more east and north.  SW Florida was officially moved out of the “cone of danger” and you could almost hear a collective sigh of relief.  The gas lines instantly disappeared and life pretty much went back to normal.  Our good fortune was more than offset by the Bahamas bad fortune.  Dorian has basically destroyed the place that we just happened to be scheduled to cruise to in October.  I have a feeling the destination will change.  The storm is going to be a factor all week as it crawls up the coast, the damage will be proportional to how far off the coast it remains.

Despite the lack of hurricane action, the chicken area has been flooded for a good portion of the last week.  As a result we had given the birds access to high ground in the rest of the yard.  It took them very little time to start digging up landscaped beds and holes into the ground, it’s what they enjoy.  I almost felt bad when the water subsided thanks to pumping.  The hens would stand at their fence line staring at us, waiting to be granted freedom again.  I am convinced I will be unable to bring in fill and sod until wet season is completely over.  My hope is this is the last year that the chicken area and other spots around the yard are flood zones.

I did a lot of testing with the 16X demo wheel over the weekend, going down to Marco Island on Saturday and then doing my longest ride ever on Sunday to Ave Maria, over 43 miles according to my tracking app.  It was the farthest I ever rode a wheel without charging, the amazing thing is I had almost 30% battery left at the end of it.  I have really been impressed with the 16X, I didn’t think any wheel could give the Nikola a run for it’s money, I was wrong.

While I was away WoW Classic was released.  For years there has been an underground of players that continued to play the original version of the game on private servers.  The modern game has gotten “easier” with time which a lot of people didn’t like.  A couple years ago Blizzard announced they would officially re-release the original version to appease this large sector.  Well that sector apparently was much larger than anyone anticipated.

The launch of the game has been huge with Blizzard scrambling to bring additional servers online to meet demand.  Even with them doing so the wait times to get into many servers is miserably long.  Last night I waited almost an hour before I could step foot into the game.  Blizzard has done an incredible job of recreating the classic WoW experience from 2004/2005, the good and bad.  Because of the increased difficulty of the old game, teaming up with other players is more or less of a necessity if you want to progress.  In modern WoW that is rarely the case.  The end result of this in Classic is a more social experience which was part of the original appeal of the game.

I have chosen to level a druid which I thought would be good because it can perform all three roles a player can do, DPS, healer and tank, instead of the one or two other classes allow.  This versatility comes with a price, being a jack of all trades means you don’t do any role great.  I have been having a hard time getting stuff done as quickly as some of the other high damage classes like mage.  Despite the slow progress, I have been having fun jumping back into a WoW time machine to play the game as it was meant to be played, interactively with others, many, many others.

This is my first day back at work after more than a week.  Stepping back into my daily routine is something that is good for me.

Despite having off through Labor Day I don’t have tons of time to punch out a detailed recap of my week, most of which was spent up in the Orlando area for another work related conference.  The conference was attended by various staff from all of the Florida Tax Collectors so it was a big deal.  Despite a lot of the content being tech related, this is the first time someone from our department has gone to this event in at least a decade, maybe longer.

I picked up a lot of good info and got to speak with various vendors that sell products and services that we use or will be using in the future.  The hotel was incredible, I swear it was close to a 1/4 mile walk from the elevator to my room, it was that big.  I took advantage of the full service gym, getting a couple workouts in.  Most of our meals were paid for and a couple events had an open bar.  I took advantage of that one night but not the other as I felt gross and hung over.

Once again I got up and back on pure electrons, the Tesla performed great, requiring only a brief 30 minute stop at the Sarasota super charger on the way up and back.  The more I take the car on longer trips the more I think we could do a cross country road trip in the Model 3 without much hassle.

So of course while I was at the conference I heard about Dorian but it was so far away that there was no real concern.  With each passing day however Florida has become more and more of an apparent target, albeit the east coast.  The initial predictions had a much more central impact point where as the last couple days that track had started to sink south which was enough to trigger mass panic in our area.  Despite us being three to four days out from whatever the end result is, people are in full blown panic mode, mobbing gas and grocery stores.  A number of gas stations are dry, already.

The consensus at this point which of course can always change, is when Dorian hits the east coast it will in short order start heading northward, which is good for us, not great for the people on the east coast.  The other favorable situation is the most dangerous side of a hurricane is the east side, being a west coaster is good with Dorian’s trajectory.  The approach is going to be slow so I really can just sort of wait until Sunday and evaluate then if more is required than making sure all loose objects around the yard are properly secured, including the chickens.

I did get out on the 16X for a ride today, during it I talked about Dorian and how people react to hurricanes in Florida.

I had a ton of things I wanted to get done last night so I left the office about an hour early to get a head start.  After giving the chickens their afternoon visit I hopped on the tractor to mow down the two front drainage ditches.  We actually have had light rain this week, light enough that these were mowable.  I also buzzed down the other past flooded areas, just in case we get another deluge soon.

Inside the house I did some more work on the KS 16X, trying to load a firmware update that I still have been unsuccessful in completing,  I also slimed the freshly installed inner tube to prevent a small puncture from forcing another wheel disassembly.

I disconnected and packed up my FlashForge Finder, the very first 3D printer I ever owned.  I am giving it to one of my co-workers to make room for the Prusa printer which has just been thrown in the middle of a desk so far.  I have given away three or four 3d printers at this point.  It always feels good to do so because it means other people get a chance to enjoy the hobby as I do.

I also compiled the video footage from the tire install fiasco which is pretty funny to watch.  I was able to unlock the speed restrictions on the 16X.  I took it out for a very quick spin down the road last night.  It feels great so far.  I am hoping to be able to get some ride time in this abbreviated weekend.

We got some fantastic news last night, the trailer has finally been sold.  Cindy is going to take the title to Camping World today and afterward I will be meeting her at the credit union so we can deposit the check.  The sale of the RV is bittersweet from Cindy’s perspective because she did really like the unit.  For me the bitterness comes from the big financial hit we are taking, selling the RV for a big loss.  However the bright side is at least I will be able to use the funds to completely pay off the Tacoma and apply the rest to the home equity line of credit.  Carrying two car payments since buying the Tesla has not been exactly fun.

Tonight we are hosting the fantasy draft party once again, just as I have the last decade or more.  Once I get home this afternoon it will be a fire drill of furniture moving, food prep, cleaning, and various other things that go into the process.  At least I don’t have to worry about waking up for work the next morning.

So like I said this weekend is abbreviated.  I leave around lunch on SUNDAY for another conference, again in Orlando.  This one is a little longer as I won’t be returning until Wednesday evening.  It’s a good opportunity to learn what is coming down the road and a chance to meet with various vendors regarding what their products and services can do for our office.  Once again I will be making the trip on pure electric power.

My replacement tubes arrived yesterday for the 16X, three of them in total.  One of them was from Ewheels and the other two I ordered from Amazon.  I was very focused on getting the EUC back up and running.  I got a tip that soaking the stiff tire in hot water may help so I filled the utility sink with water and dumped the tire in for about 15 minutes.

Once I got started I figured I needed to work fast so the tire remained as pliable as possible.  Even though it was heated, I still struggled somewhat getting the tire back on with the new tube.  I utilized my big tire spoons pretty extensively to pry the tire over the wheel.  So after some struggle I was ready to put air in the tire.  My heart sank when my Ryobi inflator got up to 7.5 PSI but went no further, indicating the new tube is leaking, undoubtedly from getting nicked by one of the prying levers.  I was pissed but I knew I had another tube.

So I ripped the tire back off the rim and struggled a second time to get the tire back on.  This time I tried to use just hand and forearm power to reseat the tire most of the way.  I only used the tire spoons for about a 10 inch section of the rim at the end.  When I hooked up the inflator this time I was confident it would shoot right up to operating pressure quickly.  It didn’t.  Once again, despite my extreme caution I had put another small hole in the new tube.  You can imagine my joy.

Well I was frustrated beyond belief.  I had one tube remaining, but despite the setbacks my determination to get this done had only hardened, because of the failures.  I needed to win.  So I pulled out my third tube.  I decided the only way I could insure I wouldn’t puncture another tube with a tire lever was to not use a tire lever at all. Instead I put the wheel down on the floor and used my bodyweight and torque generated from my hands and forearms to force the tire onto the rim without tools.  The effort was substantial, my arms were covered in sweat by the end of it.

So the moment of truth arrived, it was do or die as I had no spare tubes remaining.  I hooked up the air compressor and felt a feeling of accomplishment as the pressure shot up to 25 PSI and stayed there, finally.  It was quite the fight.  I reassembled the rest of the wheel and took it out to the driveway for a very quick test, which felt fine.  In total I spent around two and a half hours of blood (literally), sweat and tears reaching the finish line.  I now look forward to getting some time to get out on the wheel for some real testing.

So for some unknown reason starting this week, Facebook has flagged my blog as violating community standards.  When I try to post links to my daily entries, just as I have for more than a decade, it refuses to do so, saying the content violates their Community Standards. WTF??  What is more frustrating is you have absolutely no course to remedy the problem.  You have the option to let them know why you think it isn’t a violation but you get zero information regarding why the content is flagged or what you can do to fix it.

It likely is due to FB putting in new automated processes to flag content like Russian election imposters but obviously it also takes down legitimate content.  It’s not the end of the world if I can’t link my blog to FB but it still is annoying and another reason to dislike the invasive service, as if there aren’t enough already.

Today I am supposed to receive the replacement inner tube for the 16X which is on my table all torn apart.  The tire on the wheel is incredibly stiff so I am going to try a trick suggested to me by my EUC buddy Marty.  He had a lot of success after soaking a new tire in very hot water before installing.  Getting the tire warmed up should make it significantly more pliable so I am going to give it a shot.  I will fill up the utility sink with straight 115 degree water and dunk the tire in there.  I am crossing my fingers this trick works.

We are once again hosting the fantasy football draft party.  For the first time ever we are doing it on a Friday night, which is great.  They normally hold it on a weeknight which makes it rough to roll out of bed for work the next morning.  The reason we are doing it Friday is because I am out of town the first half of next week, which was when they originally wanted to do the event.

I have Cindy picking up some supplies for the party this week but we now buy much less than we did in the past.  Everyone brings stuff anyway so we are trying to have less of a mountain of food to toss at the end.  My team is off to a good start this year as my keeper is Nick Chubb who is predicted to have a big year running the ball for the Browns.  He is only costing me a 10th round pick.

Yesterday I loaded up one of the models I use for EUC stands into the Prusa slicer.  With the extruder being a direct drive unit on this printer, changing filament color mid-print is very easy.  I decided to include a filament change in the G-code which stops the printer right before the letters are printed so I can swap to a different color.  I think the end result is super cool.

The print came out fantastic and I’ll put them on the store as a premium version for a few more bucks since more is involved in their creation and they are printed on more expensive filament.  The crazy thing about the MK3S is that although the print quality seems superior to all of my other printers, it completes the prints MUCH faster due to it’s use of top notch components.  This piece normally takes over 9 hours on my other printers.  The Prusa can do it in six and a half hours.  I have a feeling that eventually, if 3D store sales support it, more Prusas could be joining the family down the road.

Now that my foldable table was cleared off from the printer build I put it back to work last night for the 16X tear down.  Although I do not yet have a new inner tube for the tire I figured I could get a head start by tearing down the wheel to the point required to change a tire.  The process was surprisingly simple compared to other electric unicycles, I was able to get the motor out after about only 15 minutes of work.

I also popped the tire off the rim, man that was tough as hell.  The tire has minimal give, I can totally see why the tube got punctured when the tire was swapped.  I had to pry my ass off with my huge tire levers.  I may have to use my heat gun and a ton of lube to get the tire back on, hopefully without damaging the inner tube.  The tube arrives Wednesday, I can hardly wait for the fun to begin.

Some weekends you just get shit done, this was one of those weekends.  A good majority of the day Saturday was consumed trying to make the water logged and ratty looking yard look half decent.  Cindy got on the tractor and mowed the non-mucky areas for me.  I was on the weed whacker forever.  Not only did I do the normal tasks but also used the whacker as a hand held brush hog more or less, walking through the back of the chicken yard and knocking down the 1-2 foot grass in a large open area.  It sucked.  The end result was the yard looking decent outside of the black mud trails from the tractor in the low lying spots.

After jumping in the pool to cool down and remove a layer of grime I turned my attention to the AC air handler.  I had a second UV light kit to install.  I was putting it where the original light was, in the supply side of the duct, right above the air handler.  As I mentioned previously, this is where my old AC contractor put the bulb which is not ideal if you only have one light.  The best spot is inside the air handler, shining directly on the coils and drip pan where shit is most likely to form.  However adding a second light up top gets the other side of the air handler giving the entire unit a UV bath.

Installing the kit was pretty straight forward since I just helped Daniel relocate the other light the week prior.  All I had to do was connect the ballast to the transformer and stick the light into the existing hole.  I did drill a second hole in the duct and inserted a view plug, making it easy to tell if the light is still working or not.  All in all I spent maybe a half hour putting the other light in.

On Saturday I also received the 16X demo wheel for testing.  When I pulled the EUC out of the box I immediately noticed the tire was flat, weird.  Even weirder was when I looked for the valve to add air there was none, just a hole in the rim where it is supposed to be.

Evidently while the unit was in NYC for two months KingSong sent a different tire to be put on.  When one of the guys up there tried to swap it he wound up puncturing the inner tube.  Instead of putting a new tube in he was told to just ship the wheel to me and that I would take care of it.  This was very interesting since none of this was communicated to me by anyone.  I immediately sent an email to the owner of Ewheels asking what the deal was and if he planned to ship an inner tube to me.  Sure I have the ability to change a tube on the 16X but I just thought it was bizarre that I would be tasked with the job without asking first.

I still have not heard anything back from Ewheels so I just laid out my own money for a new tube which should be here mid-week.  I then get to pull the wheel apart, change the tube, and THEN hopefully get around to the business of testing it out.  I’m still scratching my head over the situation and lack of communication.

Saturday night we watched Vice, the movie depicting the rise to power of the puppet master and scum of the Earth, Dick Cheyney.  It was fascinating that Christian Bale played this role, the combo of his real life weight gain and incredible make up work transformed him into a very believable version of the most diabolical VP in history.  I learned a lot of back story on Cheyney that I did not know before and despite me despising the man, the movie was B+.  The way the story was told and who was telling it was very unique, which you will understand if you see the film.

Sunday morning I wound up doing a solo ride as Cindy was in the queue to do her first census road work.    I opted to take the Pint out to Ave Maria to ride, a perfect place for low speed and scenic cruising.  I had a great time putting over 7 miles on the board.  I love the One Wheel Pint, a lot.

Cindy did get census assignments in our local area.  She thought it would be efficient and easy to use our PEVs to do the work.  She first did a few on the Minipro which was convenient to hop on and off of but too slow with only an 11mph top speed.  She came back and instead got on the Dualtron which can go 30mph plus.

The extra speed was nice but the big scooter was not as easy to jump on and off of.  However the bigger problem was the heat with temps in the low 90s.  Cindy was burning up.  She eventually came back and got her car which I think will be the way to go from now on.  Not only will it give her cool AC to retreat to, it also will allow her to charge her Census laptop on the go which appears to not have fantastic battery life.

So a good chunk of my weekend and a couple hours Thursday and Friday night had been spent working on assembling the Prusa MK3S 3D printer kit.  This is a TRUE printer kit where you get a box full of a couple hundred parts and you put EVERYTHING together yourself.  I once did another printer kit but it was not nearly as involved or as granular as this kit is.

The good news is that Prusa includes what may be the most detailed and well written assembly manual of anything I have ever seen. It is simply amazing.  Equally amazing is the part organization and labeling, each step of the process has it’s own parts bag.  On the bag is a picture illustrating each part with accurate size depictions so you make sure you are using the correct size bolt or nut.  When I glanced at the instructions at first the task seemed daunting, if not almost impossible based on my past history with very complex, tedious, tasks.  But I had no choice, it had to get done.

On Friday night Cindy jumped in and helped me get the X and Y axis built.  The stuff after that was really only a one person job so I trudged through the remainder solo.  Despite the complexity, I tried to just focus on whatever the task was at hand.  Thanks to the great instructions with pictures I kept making steady progress.  I finally fired up the printer a little after 9 PM last night.  After going through the set up routine I embarked on my first print which actually failed about halfway in but I think that could have been avoided with different settings.

I awoke at 4:30 AM this morning.  As soon as I did I thought about how I could get more shit done like relocating the printer which was sitting on a foldable table in front of my desk, starting another print, and editing the video of the process.  I actually got it all done, including a sweet two color bottle opener print before heading to work.

Being productive feels good, real good.

Last night we had another after hours branch project to migrate their customer queuing system to the cloud, something we have already done four times prior for other locations.  All of that experience has paid off, we were completely done in less than an hour, closer to 45 minutes actually.   It’s the last conversion we have so we should be good to go for awhile.

I expected the after hours work taking longer which would mean no time to work on the Prusa printer build.  With the quick turnaround I did get a chance to work on the printer more, well Cindy and I did.  I had asked her if she was interested in participating which she was which is cool.  Last night she probably did as much if not more work on it than I did.  She enjoys the assembly process.  We completed the Y axis part of the build.  There is a long way to go but I am hoping by the end of the weekend the printer is up and running.

The printer construction is one component to what looks to be a very busy weekend.  I also need to weed whack the property, regardless of how wet it is and I have a second UV light kit for the air handler that I want to get installed.  I also may be receiving another demo wheel for me to evaluate, like I did with the KingSong 18XL and Ninebot Z10.  This wheel is the KingSong 16X, another brand new design.

I really need to find a way to have permanent three day weekends.

You may recall that I discovered that it seemed like my two security dvrs at the house were being compromised, something I only was notified up after installing the Xfi gateway.  I closed the port forward when I discovered it but around the same time I noticed that the cameras on the house DVR were no longer functioning.  I had no idea if it was related to the compromise but I tried various things to troubleshoot the problem, including swapping in other cameras but still, I had no luck.  I had no idea if the compromise somehow f’d up the camera interface on the DVR so I decided to buy a used DVR off Ebay to swap it out with, which arrived yesterday.

Imagine my surprise when I hooked up the replacement DVR and STILL had no video feeds from the camera.  Ok this is weird.  Part of my troubleshooting originally was swapping in a camera, like I said.  When I attached the camera to the power connection I saw the infrared leds flash on momentarily which indicated to me the power was indeed working.  Well just for the hell of it I swapped in a spare camera power supply.  As soon as I did all three cameras came to life, son of a bitch.  This means that the original DVR is likely fine and it was the camera power supply that was bad the entire time.  Oh well, I configured the network on the new DVR and changed the passwords and ports to nonstandard values, reducing the risk of future compromises.

I also did a little bit of work on my Prusa MK3S build.  There are a TON of parts.  This will be a much more involved build than the Ender 2, the only other 3D printer kit that I put together.  The good news is the instructions and parts labeling is nothing short of incredible.  The detail and organization would allow a complete novice to get through the construction.  It may be the best and most complete instructions I have seen on anything in my life.  I am hoping by the end of the weekend I have a functioning printer.

My dad had his second replacement hip surgery yesterday which I actually did not realize until my step mom told me it went well.  I knew it was happening in mid-August but I did not recall the actual date.  This is his second surgery on the same hip, evidently the first procedure was not done well with there being a misalignment of components that grew into more problems over time.

Once he gets through the healing process for the hip he is targeting having his knees replaced as well, one at a time meaning he is potentially looking at two years or more of being in constant recovery/rehab.  At 72 years old that is not a great scenario as staying active is a crucial part of avoiding the physical disabilities that can come from old age.  I hope dad does whatever he can to maintain some sort of balance. At his age it’s extremely hard to reverse directions if physically things slide too far downhill. He wants to do these procedures to increase his quality of life, I just hope he gets through them without digging a huge hole to climb out of.

I feel fortunate that whatever cross wiring there is in my head, the end result is a tireless determination to be active, fit, and healthy, regardless of the number of years on the calendar.  If I ever reach a point that that is no longer the case I may as well check out, I’d be miserable otherwise.

There has been some good progress in lowering the standing water at the house both thanks to natural and mechanical methods.  We managed to avoid heavy rain during the day and the pump in the backyard has been relocating water rapidly.  The sad reality is avoiding heavy rain for more than a day seems unlikely based on the current forecasts.  I am looking forward to getting some fill dumped and sod installed to finally address this long standing issue in a meaningful way.

Ironically the worst flooding on the property is the end result of us paying to have the yard graded years ago.  In an effort to increase the ground level closer to the house they wound up bowling out the area where the chickens now reside.  To remedy the situation I expect to have quite a few tons of dirt brought in, graded and then covered with some cheap bahia sod.

Yesterday I received the free fender that was part of the spiff when I bought my One Wheel Pint.  I like it because even though it does not look like it on video, it is a very close match to Eagles Midnight Green.  Installation was a piece of cake and I now have a layer of protection between my legs and the big piece of spinning rubber.

I also shot video during the day talking about some weird glitches I had with the Tesla on Monday.  In some ways you treat the car like a PC or phone that is acting up, the first trouble shooting step is normally “rebooting” the car.

So I have my unopened Prusa MK3S printer box sitting in the hobby room.  I have not started assembly yet because I know I have a pretty long haul in front of me once I do.  It is not unusual for the build to take 4-5 hours or even more so I will likely be spreading the job over several days.  I asked Cindy if she wanted to assist in the build which she said she would actually like, so it may be a tag team process.