Archives July 2021

So I have had a dark cloud hanging over my head ever since the Tesla was picked up by Vroom. Although I was very happy to get my share of the proceeds deposited in my bank account the day after the pick up, the loan on the vehicle was not paid off.  The Fedex tracking number they gave me for that payment never showed any activity, to this day.  So of course this concerned me.  When I first called Vroom 2-3 days after I got the Fedex tracking number they had no solid explanation of why the check wasn’t sent out.  So I was told Vroom was going to cancel the first check and send another one.  I have been in a holding pattern ever since.

I have called at least a half dozen times, looking for info about this payment.  Each time the story was the same, “we don’t know, we will escalate the case”.  The only thing valuable I got from these calls is finding out that if I immediately ask the Indian call center for tier 2 support I got transferred to a call center in the US.  So anyway, yesterday I called once again, looking for the update I was promised the last time I called two days ago.  I got into tier 2 and initially was given the same BS, however I asked the rep to see if she could find any details about a new check being sent.

So as she looks through the notes she sees how the original check was cut and how supposedly it was going to be stopped and reissued.  However she said it looked to her like the check was actually submitted to the bank.  She asked me to check my loan status while we were on the phone.  I had done this early on when I saw no payment on the Chase loan but I had not done so since, since Vroom said the check was cancelled and a new one was being sent, which I never got any record of.  Imagine what I felt when I see the loan IS closed and paid off.

As I looked at the account details I see that a payment was made on July 16th, with the account being actually closed on July 26th??!! WTF….  That timeline would mean that the original check WAS sent out, was NOT cancelled, and paid off the loan.  This revelation made me happy of course as the dark cloud had now dissipated.  I thanked the rep for her efforts although I commented that I didn’t understand why this information couldn’t have been dug up on any of my previous calls. Finally that little voice in my head that said my getting 10K more than I paid had to be a mistake can be silenced.

Last night I played some VR with Cindy.  After we got done I downloaded the Olympics VR app.  Evidently they have 360 cameras all over the venues which allow you to feel like are right at the event, if you are able to ignore the rather fuzzy resolution.  I was right next to divers on the 10 meter platform, in the stands as the athletes marched in during the opening ceremony, and court side in the sand watching women’s beach volleyball.  The immersion is truly amazing, if you have a Quest and love the Olympics I highly suggest you check it out.

I have my last long weekend ahead of me, using my last three vaca days to take next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off.  I don’t have a major project on the to do list but a number of small to medium tasks that will adequately fill my plate.  I need to get some time on my wheels, which has been sorely lacking for awhile now. One of the tasks will be picking up some huge planters at Ali’s place. She is cashing in on the ridiculous real estate market in our area, selling her place for tons more than she paid.  Good for her.  I briefly thought about doing something similar but I am not in a position where I would feel comfortable doing so right now although it would be a huge financial windfall if I did. At some point downsizing will be the right move.

My last couple days have been mired in deinstalling a branch that has been in operation for at least 15 years.  As you can imagine over that amount of time tremendous amounts of crap can accumulate.  My focus was primarily on the network equipment but I also got involved with PC tear down as well. The piles upon piles of old, outdated and worthless items in the space was pretty staggering.  All of this stuff now has to be stored until the end of the year when we are scheduled to be opening a brand new building which will be it’s own tremendous undertaking.

I am still in a Vroom holding pattern, waiting for a check to be sent out to pay off my loan.  From my multiple interactions with customer support this unfortunately is a widespread problem, getting the payables department to do their work in anything resembling an expedient fashion.  Yesterday was the first time I lost my cool with one of their phone reps.  She was robotically reading me the “72 hours to respond” bullshit without taking the time to read my account notes which would have indicated that my 72 hours expired 4 days prior, still with no action.  I cut her off while she was droning on, got her name, and then asked for her supervisor as I told her I didn’t appreciate her focus being on getting me off the phone instead of helping me with my problem.  I eventually got transferred to a woman that actually gave a damn however she had no direct power to fix the problem.  I have her name and will be trying to leverage the good interaction we had to help get this damn sale to conclusion.

This was my first two day weekend in awhile and I found myself immediately wanting for more time.  On Friday I got back on the Echelon bike for a 20 minute tabata ride that had my heart rate up into the 160’s repeatedly.  It was tough but felt good to subject myself to some hard cardio, something that has been off the menu for a few weeks due to various reasons.  I was also very happy to come home to a mostly mowed property as well.  Cindy hopped on the Husqy and did that for me to save me a couple hours of chore time as I still had to get the weed whacking done Saturday.

Saturday morning I buzzed around doing normal stuff and then tackled the weed whacking.  The extreme heat very quickly melts you doing this unfun task.  By the time I whacked my last weed I was lumbering.  Deb came over for a fun visit.  Her and Cindy played a bunch of Beat Saber and loved it.  Deb loved it enough that she finally broke down and bought a Quest 2 for herself.  It will be fun to have another friend that we can consistently pull into the games.  We watched the movie Jolt, streaming on Amazon Prime. It was a chick (Kate Beckensale) kicking everyone’s ass in sight.  It was a quick, action packed flick that all seemed to enjoy enough.  I’d give it a B.

Today was less “choreish”.  While out running errands we picked up a fire pit that Cindy is going to build in the zen rock garden area.  I had made the suggestion that the roughly 100 castle stones I bought years ago to add a second layer to the pool landscaping were no longer needed.  I bought them for the sole purpose of keeping the chickens from kicking mulch out when we used to let them free range the entire back yard which they have not done for years.  She will use a bunch of the stones to build a wall around the fire pit and to fix up a few landscaped areas that could actually use the stones.

I took some time to affix a set of pads to my Sherman, the first time I have ever used them.  These pads give you better acceleration and braking power than just using your feet alone.  I was surprised just how much of a difference they made.

I watched a good portion of the Olympic opening ceremony.  I thought it was cool although I fast forwarded through the two hours of people walking in.  The 1800 drones flying in precise patterns was amazing and we both really liked the human pictogram routines where performers posed through 50 olympic sport graphics.  Of course athletes performing in front of empty stadiums is old hat by now but seeing this at the olympics which is all about celebrating the athletic performance made me feel tinges of sadness.  That sadness continues each time I read a headline of another athlete failing a covid test, obliterating the dream they have worked so hard for for so many years…

Speaking of sadness, I have had a continuing back cloud hanging over my mood from losing Cupcake.  I actually called one of the birds Cupcake by mistake this weekend and it brought the sting right back.  My overall disposition has not been bright and cheery.  I haven’t looked where the moon is in it’s cycle but I’d bet it’s around full right now.  Nothing feels good with my world during these periods of time. Even the four remaining chickens seem blah.

Yesterday I did a pretty good job of keeping my mind busy so I wouldn’t dwell on the demise of Cupcake which makes me feel miserable nearly instantly.  I think about things I could have done better to protect her like making sure she had more egg/oyster shell in her diet to make her egg shells stronger so it wouldn’t have broken, or how I should have spotted the problem sooner so the infection could have been handled. Of course it is a train of thought that leads to nowhere positive.

Next week I will have no issue keeping busy as we are closing down a branch which is going to require me to be on the go for a good portion of the week.  Much like when we open a location, closing a location requires a lot of coordination and effort.

The bad news is after enjoying a number of extended weekends in a row I only have a “standard” two day variety this week.  The good news is I still have three more days of vaca to use up before August 16th which I plan to do as soon as we get through next weeks craziness.

Today was not a good day.  The vet went ahead with the X-rays that I authorized.  The results seemed to rule out water belly as the issue although we already sort of knew that since neither of us were able to extract fluid.  What the vet did see is what looked like possible egg fragments floating around which is a sign of egg peritonitis.  Basically what can happen is an egg ruptures inside the bird and the contents floating around inside quickly cause infection which can cause among other things, swelling in the abdomen.

For Cupcakes swelling to be as big as it was this probably was going on for awhile.  The vet said that a bird can still lay eggs with this condition, something that didn’t make sense to me at first, since Cupcake popped one out yesterday.  So with this information in hand I asked for options, none of which were good.

She said she could try to operate on the bird and clean her out but she said the odds of success were not good.  She then said we could try oral antibiotics for two weeks to see if it knocks back the infection which was already clearly well advanced.  If we did that she said we should keep Cupcake isolated and under a heat lamp full time which sounded logistically impossible.  We didn’t talk about option 3 yet, putting Cupcake down.

I thought out loud to the vet, saying that none of the treatment options she was providing me sounded like they had a probable outcome of success.  Despite that I hung up the phone after telling her we would try the antibiotics.  In the moment sentencing Cupcake to death, who still was alert, eating, and even gave us an egg the previous day, seemed like too harsh and too hasty of a decision.  Of course dollars and cents were factored into this as well since just getting to this point cost a few hundred dollars in diagnostics.

So after hanging up I texted Cindy what was up.  She was firmly in the camp that the humane thing to do was to put Cupcake down.  Obviously the bird was suffering but still, it is/was very hard for me to be ok with putting a pet to sleep that seemed totally fine only a handful of days ago.  However as I thought about it more and asking Cupcake to endure isolation and more misery for a treatment plan that had a very low probability of ultimate success just didn’t make a lot of sense if I stepped out of the circle of strong emotion I was feeling about the situation.  I told Cindy I would make the call.

I called the vet back and told her after some more consideration we felt it was best to put Cupcake to sleep.  I repeated back to her that it seemed like any option she had was not likely to succeed.  Later when I looked up egg peritonitis I saw it is almost always fatal, unless caught very early.  This obviously was not caught early.  The vet said she would follow my directive.  As I hung up the phone I again felt like an executioner, like I gave up on giving Cupcake a chance, no matter how small it was.  I tried to keep my mind busy as possible to keep from thinking about what I just set in motion.

I left work early to pick up Cupcake’s body before the vet closed.  I had a hard time thanking the staff for offering their condolences without my voice cracking.  Part of me felt silly for getting so emotional about the loss of a chicken but it is a track record that has been well established.  Once I got her still body out to the truck I lost it for a few minutes, crying in waves.  I just felt terrible for my part in all of this. Now yes I do realize in the big picture that Cupcake enjoyed a pretty stellar existence by chicken standards her entire life.  But even with all that I do/have done for the birds, I still felt responsible, like I failed her.  That feeling of failure is something I just don’t deal with well.

When I got home Cindy did her best to console me which I appreciated.  When I buried Cupcake in far rear reaches of the property the tears once again flowed freely.  It’s such an act of finality.  With as many birds as I have buried at this point you would think I would have built up more of an emotional callous but nope, every time, it just wrecks me.

I am going to miss seeing Cupcake running up to be first in line for any attention I was providing.  She was a beautiful bird with a personality.  She was always the most broody of our hens, sitting on eggs for hours because her instinct to want to have babies was so strong.  She was still doing this, despite her age.  We just had to separate her a few weeks ago during a broody episode.

I just have to do my best to focus on the good life she enjoyed, the good feelings and smiles she brought into our lives and the fact that her sudden but serious suffering is now at an end.  As I tamped the soil with one final pat of the shovel I told Cupcake one last time that Daddy loved her…..

So the last thing I had on my to do list from my long weekend was get the Tacoma aligned.  When I did my last front to back tire rotation I noticed the front tires had some wear that was indicative of bad alignment.  My plan was to take it to the nearby Tuffy Service Center who I have had do several things on my vehicles over the years.  I first called them on Friday.  When I said I needed an alignment they told me their alignment machine was broken and needed a part which was supposed to arrive on Saturday.  They advised me call back on Monday to verify it was working again, so I did.

When I called Monday the story was the same, the part did not arrive Saturday but should be there today, call tomorrow.  So I did.  For the third time in a row I got the same song and dance, part didn’t come, machine still broken, call tomorrow.  Well since Tuesday was my last day off I really wanted to get the list item crossed off.

Cindy suggested taking the truck to Tire Choice near Sam’s.  I had also taken vehicles there in the past and stopped going there after a bad experience.  I have had a ton of bad experiences with auto mechanics since moving to Florida.  Even after two decades of living here I can’t say I have found one that I actually trust to do quality work without ripping me off.  So anyway, I decided to give Tire Choice another chance.  I called and they said they had openings to do the work so Cindy followed me there so I could drop the truck off.

A few hours later I got another call saying the truck was all done.  The $125 it cost was a little more than I was expecting but at least the job was complete.  Since I will be daily driving the truck for a couple months it made sense to get the alignment correct.  So I get back out on the road and notice a couple minutes into the drive that the steering wheel is not straight.  It was about 10 degrees off center.  I pulled off at a turn and called them, intending to take it right back.  I tell them I just got the truck back from an alignment and the steering wheel is crooked, how can that be?

“Jeff” at least was immediately apologetic.  He said this was the third call back they had gotten that day about crooked steering wheels after alignment.  He said their machine must need a calibration of some sort.  He told me to call back next Monday and they will get me back in to align it again. Ok great, that’s nice that they admit their screw up but it is ironic that after waiting all weekend for another place to get this done, the place I wind up going to screws it up anyway.  After I hung up I kicked myself for not asking Jeff why their alignment procedure doesn’t include a brief road test afterward to make sure everything is good.  I was frustrated as you can imagine.

So Cupcake was not improved yesterday, still carrying a large and uncomfortable sack between her legs.  I was amazed that somehow she managed to get up into a nesting box yesterday AND laid an egg.  She has really been the only chicken laying any eggs at all over the last several months.  To have her lay one in her current condition was unbelievable.

So when I woke up this morning I made the decision I was going to call the vet to have Cupcake looked at.  My hope was she would have success extracting the fluid where I failed, although this is only a temporary way to address the underlying issue which would likely kill her sooner or later.  Of course vet visits are never cheap either but I would feel badly if I didn’t at least try to help Cupcake.  She has been one of our most energetic, friendly and healthy chickens from day one.  Whenever I walk outside Cupcake is almost always the first one waiting at the gate for me to come in.

So I called the vet after they opened.  They said they were booked solid all day but asked what was up.  When I explained the situation they were nice enough to try to squeeze Cupcake into the schedule.  So once I got the green light to take her I had to quickly drive all the way home from work, corral Cupcake into the pet carrier and then drive her to the vet.  When I got home I just tossed my work clothes on the counter, put on shorts, t-shirt, and boots to do the deed and then changed back into my work duds once I had the hen in the truck.

She looks healthy in the face although you can tell she is not nearly as talkative as she is when she is feeling ok.  She just sat quietly during the truck ride.  It was the first time she had been in the truck since we picked her up as one week old chick from Rural King.  The front desk staff at the vet was very sweet when I dropped her off.  They said they actually had a rooster in the back to be looked at as well.  Not many would care enough about a farm animal to take them to the vet and not many vets even will look at farm animals. I am glad this one does.  We took Lola and Lucy both to her years ago.

So I got a call from the vet a couple hours later.  She was also unsuccessful in getting any appreciable amount of fluid out of Cupcake which was not the news I wanted to hear.  She had suspicions that she could be egg bound but I told her Cupcake just laid yesterday so that was unlikely.  They gave me two options, they could do X-rays which are expensive but will give them a better idea of what exactly is going on in there.  The second option was to just give her antibiotics as a hail mary that it will address whatever is going on in there.  A third option which I didn’t talk about yet was to just have her put down so she doesn’t suffer.  After some pause with spending a decent chunk of change for x-rays, I still opted to go that route in the hope that we can at least get an answer.  The way this came on seemingly out of nowhere is really, really strange.  She seemed absolutely fine Sunday and was sitting like a duck on Monday although it is possible it had been slowly growing and she had been able to function.

I am hoping for a resolution to Cupcake’s ailment but I certainly am not optimistic about it happening.  Regardless, to me she at least deserves the effort after being such a long standing and bright spot in the flock for so many years.  If you don’t understand why I feel attachment, affection and responsibility for my chickens, you are not alone.

Friday I deemed my mowing day and I am glad I did so as a couple torrential rain episodes since then have left standing water in areas around the yard.  I made a video Friday morning about the Tesla transaction.  All that remained was for the payment to be sent to the bank for the loan and the remainder to my bank account.  Well one of those thing happened, a big fat 11k plus deposit hit my bank late Friday afternoon, great!  However when I checked the Fedex number for the bank loan payment that was sent to my email on Wednesday night there was no activity other than the label being generated.  This was like a bad version of Groundhog Day.

Those of you that have been following this story closely will know that I had a similar issue when it came to Vroom sending me the paperwork I needed to sign.  I got a tracking number but no activity, it appeared to have never been picked up and I had to have them resend the paperwork.  Well this was the exact same deal, someone at Vroom is really bad at making sure their Fedex envelopes get in the right hands.  As of today, Monday there still has been absolutely no status change on the bank payoff check.  I called the Indian help desk once again and got a shoulder shrug as to why this is.  The guy said that sometimes Fedex doesn’t update the status.  That has never been the case  for me, ever.  Supposedly the original check will be cancelled and a new one sent out along with a fresh tracking number for me.  I just want this 100% done.  Sure it’s great I have my money but paying off the bank loan is a detail that I can not ignore.

My big task for Saturday was pressure washing.  I did both sheds and all of the castle stones.  The castle stones are the biggest pain in the ass as they get coated with black slime that winds up covering me from head to toe as I clean them.  The process was made worse by all of the fire ants that have retreated to higher elevation.  Repeatedly I would wind up blowing fire ants onto my legs which I couldn’t see because they were coated with the black slime.  The way I handled it was with quick pressurized water blasts to my body to blow the ants off, while being careful to have the wand far enough away that it doesn’t start peeling off flesh.  I was about 15 minutes away from finishing the four hour task when the sky opened up with close lightning, forcing me indoors.  However the second there was a brief break I was back out there to finish the aggravating and dirty as hell chore up.  Holding a high PSI hose all day will wear you out.

Saturday night we watched The Way Back, starring Ben Affleck.  Ben plays a former high school basketball star that turned into a raving alcoholic after his daughters death.  For some reason the plot felt disjointed to me.  I would only give it a B but your mileage may vary.  Cindy liked it more than I did.

I had been making steady progress on my list and I even did some other non-list items like cleaning the bathrooms and changing the oil in the Tacoma.  The list item I wanted to cross off yesterday was fixing the one robot vacuum.  It had one wheel that was locked in place.  I found a replacement wheel assembly on Ebay for a little less than $40.  It’s been awhile since I ripped into a robovac, the last thing I recall fixing was the laser scan motor in one of my Neatos.  Years ago I used to rip apart/fix Roomba’s like crazy.  I had 7 or 8 of them both working and for parts.

I couldn’t find an exact tear down guide for my model.  The one I did find had some key differences to mine but to my surprise I was able to fill in the blanks and get the vacuum operational again.  It turns out the “bad” motor actually just had hair bound up around the pinion gear.  Once I removed the hair it spun freely so I kept it as a spare, just in case.

I played BTD6 with Griffin multiple times over my staycation so far.  Last night we discovered we can do voice communications through the Steam client, making game play even more fun.  It’s crazy how well he knows every last detail about that game.  I know enough to do basic game play but most of my decisions are just best guesses.

Today when I went out to tend to the chickens Cupcake was by the fence waiting for me, just like she normally is.  She has always been one of the most energetic birds we have and has never had any sort of serious ailment, until now….  So I immediately noticed she was sitting in an odd way.  Once I got closer I saw that it looked like she was sitting on a balloon, her belly was all blown up.  I am pretty dialed into the chickens and notice very quickly if something is wrong, however prior to today I saw absolutely no abnormal behavior from Cupcake.  To go from seemingly normal to this in one day was insane.

So of course I was very concerned.  When I went inside I looked up the condition and quickly came up with a condition called Water Belly, also known as Ascites.  In a nutshell it happens when there is some sort of serious health issue with the birds organs which produces all of this fluid.  What I didn’t get was it seemed to be something that happened over a period of time, not overnight.  It’s possible this was going on for a little while and perhaps she just didn’t show it.

The news with this condition was not good.  If nothing at all is done the bird is likely to die however some chicken owners have had success draining the fluid periodically to prolong the birds life.  I immediately felt compelled to look into this, hell I already had my finger up a chickens rear end twice, this can’t be much worse.

So I watched a video of a women doing this to her hen.  She slowly drew out a bunch of yellowish fluid.  They say you want to drain a good amount but not all of it as it could cause the hen to go into shock.  I got the specs on the syringe and the needle that was used and picked one up on my home from dropping off Sadie.  I needed to ask Cindy to hold Cupcake still as I would try to pull fluid.  I did not have the success I was hoping for.  I got a little bit of clear fluid but mostly nothing at all when I would draw back on the plunger which was bizarre.  I poked her several times in the area that was advised but it really did nothing except made her bleed a bit from the injection spots.  I couldn’t draw any appreciable amount of fluid.

I was very frustrated and told Cindy to let her go.  With the return of standing water we have had the return of the chickens preferring to drink filthy ground water instead of clean water we have placed around their coop.  Who knows if this is related to Cupcake’s problem but it certainly isn’t a good thing.  Later I soaked Cupcake in an epsom salt solution for a little bit just to clean her up a bit.  At this point my game plan is to see how she is tomorrow and I may try to pull fluid one more time since I have all the tools to do it.  It sounds bad I know but in a way I will feel a sense of relief when our last chickens pass.  I look at them as one of the pet family and having to go through all of the suffering, illness and loss with the birds again and again carries too much emotional weight to be offset by some free eggs.

The only remaining list item I have is to get the Tacoma aligned.  I hope to do that tomorrow but the place I normally have do my work has had their alignment machine broken for the last several days.

After repeated delays, the Model Y has finally been picked up.  Yesterday had it’s share of frustrations as well as the driver didn’t arrive until almost 45 minutes after the promised arrival window closed.  We had storms all day so I was hoping we could send the Model Y off during a break in the precipitation.  When he arrived we had one of those breaks, by the time we were loading the car rain had resumed in earnest.

It became instantly clear that this guy had never picked up a Tesla before, he had no clue how to start it with the key card.  I walked him through the process.  I also had to hop on the car trailer to verify the car was properly in park.  I told him I needed a bill of lading to send to Vroom to verify the car was picked up.  He handed me a hand scribbled form with very minimal info.  I later got a more detailed form emailed to me.

It felt weird seeing the car I was so excited to pick up in February getting hauled away less than 5 months later.  I just reminded myself of the sweet payoff that awaits in August or September, a brand new, faster and longer range equipped car.  Now all that remains is making sure the cash is transferred both to the bank and myself in a timely fashion, the most important detail of all.

It didn’t take long for me to verify that my Apple Air Tag was functioning properly.  I have been tracking the car’s progress, right now it is a little north of the Orlando area.  For me sacrificing one $30 air tag is worth the fun of being able to see exactly where the car winds up.

Today is the last day of my my 3 day work week.  I have off Friday, Monday and Tuesday.  I have several small projects/large chores on the docket for that time period.  I also hope the huge influx of rain water that has reintroduced standing water on the property dries out a bit.

So yesterday after lunch I sent a text message to the auto transport company verifying that we were still good to go for pick up.  Well it was a good thing I checked.  The woman from the company called me and said now the driver that was supposed to do my pick up was out sick and went to the doctor.  She vaulted past the TMI line to let me know that the ailment was diarrhea.  Ok then.  She said the car should definitely be picked up today by either diarrhea boy or another driver.  So far I have been patient and calm with the repeated instances of over promising/underdelivering by this company.  However if they again fail to deliver today it’s strike three and they will get the full court press from me.

I heard some very sad news yesterday. Mark McGarity who I knew from my affiliation with the running club for around a decade passed away yesterday from cancer.  Mark was a teacher and cross country coach at a local high school for decades.  He was the type of person that you had no choice but to like.  He had a smile for everyone and really cared about anything and anyone he was involved with.  There were three events per year that he and I worked together closely on and it was that involvement that endeared the man to me.

The most memorable races were the cross country events where I got to see Mark wearing his coach hat.  He was so upbeat and supportive of his kids.  You could tell the kids appreciated Mark immensely, it was touching to see first hand.  I also know Mark’s wife, a very sweet woman.  The loss for her has to be crushing.  Mark was not an old man, I believe he was 69 when he passed.

Since I left the running club I had only seen Mark a handful times, the most recent within the last year or two.  I heard about his illness at that time but I got the sense he was doing well.  He still had a smile, firm handshake and a slap on the arm for me, just like he always did.  My grandfather used to always do the same thing, perhaps part of the reason I found Mark so endearing as well.

It was a painful reminder of how we are all running around on borrowed time.  Hopefully more of us can be like Mark and use that time cultivating warm feelings, smiles, and good energy.  Rest in peace buddy.

So if things go as currently planned my Tesla Model Y will get picked up today by a car carrier.  Once it is loaded up I need to take a picture of the paperwork the driver has as well as my car on the back of the truck to get Vroom to start the process of electronic payment for the vehicle, both to the bank and myself.  Until that payment occurs I will still be suffering from mild anxiety.  The whole situation still feels rather surreal.

I have a lot to cram into this three day work week.