Archives June 2021

So I have had a lot of anticipation about a package ship notice I got direct from China via Fedex last week.  I assumed the new wheel I was supposedly going to be sent to review was on it’s way as there wasn’t anything else I could think of that would come to me in this manner.  I had disappointment when the package didn’t show up on Wednesday as originally intended, however it was on the truck for delivery yesterday.

Cindy was going to be in and out yesterday so I put the sign on the door for Fedex, indicating if they needed a signature for the big box they could get it at the neighbor next door.  I was excited when I got back from the gym yesterday to see an email from Fedex saying the package was delivered!  I fired up my Ring app to the time of delivery to see the glorious box arrive.  What I see is a minivan pull into the driveway with a small temporary Fedex sign affixed to it’s side. Weird, but ok an EUC box could fit in there still.  I then see a woman open up the side door and retrieve the box, which fits in the palm of her hand….wtf….

Obviously this was not an EUC.  I asked Cindy to open the box for me.  The package that I assumed was a wheel instead was a set of four Apple Air Tags.  For some reason they were drop shipped from China.  Sure it was nice to have them show up but man, was I disappointed.  Oh well, you know what happens when you assume, making an ass out of u and me.

I did set up one of my air tags last night, putting it into my wallet to give me a solid chance to retrieve it if something bad went down.  I have three more remaining, I need to decide what items are worthy of being tracked on Apple’s super secret mesh network.  I also received the part I needed to fix one of my printers that was sitting eviscerated on my work bench.  I put the printer back together before bed, it felt good to do so.  I have two more printers that need some attention.

Today is the last day of my tortuously long two day work week.  Our quick trip to the space center starts tomorrow but it’s only for a couple days.  I took off next Mon-Wed to give me some extra time to attend to normal things before heading back for another 2 day slog.  We are taking the Model Y.  It will be the longest road trip Cindy has done with me in the Tesla.  I look forward to at least getting a small taste of a road trip.  I would love to be able to get a real cross country road trip in next year.

On Tuesday Cindy and I went to ride at the abandoned golf course.  I brought three PEVs, the Minipro, the OneWheel XR and the Backfire Ranger X1, which has not been ridden in 2021.  I started out on the One Wheel while Cindy rode the Ranger.  She was very cautious on it at first as it had been a long time since she rode the skateboard. After maybe 15 minutes or so she was more confident.  The large rubber tires on the skateboard made on and off path riding possible.  We then switched up with Cindy on the Minipro and me on the Ranger.  I had not ridden the X1 in a looong time but it did not take long until I was able to traverse the paths at a reasonable speed.

Cindy enjoyed the varied terrain and the mature trees.  She stumbled across an amazing find, a large tree that had become encased in a dragon fruit plant, a cactus looking vine.  We pulled a couple plants that had rooted near the base of the tree to see if Cindy could propagate them.  It was an enjoyable ride for sure, I didn’t even have to bring a video camera with to prove it.

I was excited because I supposedly was going to have a new wheel delivered yesterday.  Unfortunately when I checked the FedEx tracking I saw the box was sitting in Nashville all day so that didn’t happen.  Instead I had one of my lazier days on record.  Sure I did all the chicken maintenance and took a ride to the nearby DD to test out the end result of all of that mod work on my Sherman, which thankfully seemed to be all good.  I also set up yet another Ring cam inside the chicken coop.

I now unplugged the DVR out there and will be pulling the system completely out.  The system had 3 cameras out and was no longer viable to be checked away from home since the UI is insecure and a target for hackers.  I would need two more Ring cameras to give me the same coverage I had on the DVR ( when it was fully operational)

So other than those items listed above I did a lot of loafing.  I watched some shows, played some WoW and hung in VR.  I also watched Army of the Dead on Netflix, an entertaining and gory Zack Snyder interpretation of the zombie apocalypse. It was silly, mindless entertainment, enough for a B+ in my book.

Doing that much relaxing was a bit uncomfortable for me, as weird as that may sound to many.  I have a mini two day work week followed by another extended weekend for our visit to the Kennedy Space Center, a sweet schedule for sure.

On Saturday I cleared out all normal tasks in the morning to make way for an afternoon and evening of EUC repair madness. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to get done on my Veteran Sherman.  The wheel was not “broke” in any way, these were more like “mod” or preventative maintenance, including swapping over to the knobby tire.

It was a big enough tear down that I brought my old Workmate in from the small shed to assist in the task.  In total I spent between five and six hours on the project.  For the most part it went ok except for a few snafu’s that are part of any task I take on it seems.  Part of this project involved pulling the motor apart.  As you can imagine, attention to detail is very important when reassembling as your safety and well being is only as good as the tight and secure electrical connections that have to be made when putting stuff back together.

I did a quick test spin when the work was done.  All felt well, I hope to take a longer ride before my vacation expires. Editing this video took forever.

Sunday was DJ’s official birthday party, although his actual birthday was the 25th.  Cindy and I went over early to help get stuff set up at Katie’s.  We then went back home briefly before returning for the celebration.  The party was attended only by Daniel’s family members, most of which I had not seen since Katie’s baby shower.  Some of that of course is covid related.

It was hellishly hot when the sun was out.  Luckily some clouds and even brief rain rolled in.  There were some other kids there, the two little girls were very cute.  At first they were shy but by the end of the party they both had warmed up to me.  It was a pretty buzzing party with a total of at least 15 people in attendance.  As usual I kept my social skills lubricated with a steady flow of alcohol.  I think DJ had a lot of fun which is what matters most.

Our Memorial Day didn’t really have an official celebration.  Cindy was off helping her mom pick out furniture a good portion of the day and I decided to set off for another EUC swamp tour that turned out to be much messier than planned.  I had been told multiple times of a connector path between our swamp and the Bonita trail.  The couple times I looked for it previously I could not find it.  I was told it’s clearly marked now so it sounded like it was time to try again.

I also brought my Skydio 2 drone along.  The last time I took it to the swamp it freaked out, flying above the treetops and refusing to come back down automatically.  The swamp was extremely dry which you would think is a good thing compared to when Dan and I had to lug wheels across tons of standing water in December.  However I was encountering a new issue.  The dry conditions meant a bunch of the sugar sand was super loose.  Hitting loose sand with an EUC is never good, the tire digs in and the odds of falling are highly elevated.

Once I discovered the now clearly marked connector path things went from bad to worse. 3/4 of the trail was exactly what I described, loose sugar sand.  Repeatedly I tried to ride and repeatedly I fell, several of which are captured on video.  I wound up pushing the wheel for miles which became extremely arduous once the sun broke back out from behind the clouds.  I originally planned to ride back from Bonita but I was too spent to do so.  I had no idea where I emerged on the other side, I sent Cindy my phone location so she could track me that way.  The two part video tells a pretty funny, aggravating, and curse word filled story.

I was spent last night as you can imagine.  Luckily editing video doesn’t take a lot of physical effort.

Today I have a number of small like to do’s, not must do’s.  We will see how many I can knock out.  It’s been a fun extended weekend thus far, here’s hoping for more of the same for today and tomorrow.