Yesterday I got a text from my brother in law that I could not believe, it was their cat, Higgins, in a live trap. You may recall my mentioning that the got out of the yard a few days before I visited them in Texas. They did tons of searching for him, posted signs on poles and in social media but had no luck. Everyone pretty much resigned themselves that Higgins was gone, not knowing his fate weighed heavily on everyone, even me. Whenever I was out with them in the neighborhood I was scanning, hoping to see a tabby cat.
So seeing the picture of Higgins alive in a cage nearly a month later was pretty amazing. The story goes that an old man was in front of their house, saw the lost cat sign on the post and told my brother-in-law that he thought he saw this cat in a storm culvert nearby. Damon and the family headed there and Higgins was indeed there but scared and would not come. A friend of theirs had a live trap so they baited it with chicken and came back a little later to find the cat took the bait. I couldn’t believe it.
I wondered how he scraped by for a month being he is a domestic cat with no roughing it skills. Torrin said he lost weight as you would expect. They gave him a bath and were taking him to the vet to make sure he is ok. I was so happy for both Higgins and my sisters family, it was truly a Christmas Miracle.
Yesterday I was at our new office which is massive and beautiful. I was getting it attached to our network so it can communicate with our back end systems. This location is less than 10 miles from my house so I am trying to schedule the visits in the afternoon if possible so I can just shoot home afterward. The location is due to be open in less than a month so my tasks are going to ramp up massively until this happens.
Today is my last day as a 53 year old man. Just reading that sentence makes me cringe. It will be quite interesting to see how my 54th year on the planet works out.
Yesterday I took a nice sized chunk out of the remaining Christmas shopping I had to do. At this point I should be able to wrap it up easily this weekend without spending a ton of time. That’s a good thing because I need to give the yard a cut and trim this weekend to get the property to the end of the year without looking too ratty.
I have had a weird thing going on since last week. The sight and smell of the eggs I normally make each and every morning has been making me feel nauseous for some odd reason. I don’t get nauseous for any reason normally so for this to start out of the blue is odd. Some mornings it was bad enough that I stopped making eggs and just had PB toast or Pop Tarts because I felt dangerously close to throwing up. Why this would start out of the blue is a mystery that I will likely just write off to more of the wonders of aging. I am hoping it will simply fade away over time, my general approach to the majority of ailments I come across.
Starting Thursday night Elsa and Sadie switched roles, with Elsa being the one that developed uncontrollable diarrhea. It was pretty bad. I hoped like Sadie, the passing of time would help but there was one difference, in the pools of brown liquid there were also some bundles of grass/organic matter. I wondered just how much grass she had eaten, something she will do on the down low if I leave her unsupervised in the yard too long.
So when I got home Friday night there were more accidents on the pool deck, at least for the most part she would let loose out there. I was concerned but still hoped she just had to get it all out of her system, she wasn’t eating but she was still drinking water. Well an hour or so after I got home I saw Elsa walking in a way I recognize, it was a precursor to throwing up. I tried to get her out to the pool deck but she let loose en route, throwing up a ton of mostly water by the slider and then more outside. It was at that moment I became officially concerned.
I had scenarios in my head where potentially she ate so much organic matter that she had a GI obstruction that would not only cause the diarrhea but throwing up as well. I called Cindy to fill her in. I decided that I wanted to take her the the 24 hour vet, to be safe. If something serious would happen as a result of me being passive about the problem I would not ever be able to forgive myself. Elsa is basically my child, the reason I am able to still maintain basic life functionality at this point and time. I called the vet and told them I would be there within the hour. This was definitely not the way I anticipated my Friday night to go.
We pulled up to the vet a little after 8. I was happy to see the waiting room was empty. Cindy and I actually had been here once before a few years ago after Elsa got stung in the face and started to swell up. I described her symptoms to both the counter staff and again to a vet tech before the actual vet came in, a younger woman who seemed very nice. Despite being in a foreign environment Elsa was relatively calm and I could tell she was comfortable with the vet, which was great. After describing all the background the vet said they would take her back for an exam, Elsa went with her without a huge fuss, again somewhat surprising but welcomed.
After maybe 15 minutes the vet returned, saying the physical exam was not bad, they said she had a slightly elevated temperature and heart rate but that was likely just from being nervous. She gave me several options, one of which included doing an xray to ensure there is no blockage. I told the vet that was the primary reason I brought her in, to make sure she did not have a GI obstruction, so I authorized her to take x-rays which again, took less time than I expected.
I was relieved when the x-rays showed no blockage. The vet suggested a few outgoing treatment things she could do, a shot to control nausea for 24 hours, a subdermal fluids injection to make sure Elsa was hydrated and a few cans of GI specific dog food, all of which I agreed to. I got home a little before 10, relieved that the news was mostly good. By Saturday morning Elsa’s appetite had returned and she hungrily devoured the canned GI food, she seems to be a big fan of it. There were no more unplanned “deposits” on the floor or pool deck either.
My Saturday was pretty busy, I did a bunch of small tasks which can add up to a good chunk of time. I got groceries, wrapped presents, and went about addressing, signing, and stamping christmas cards that I am sending out to family and friends. I used to always offload this task, this may be the first time I have done it myself, I am not quite sure. Saturday night I live streamed, which I was supposed to do originally on Friday but obviously that got postponed. I was feeling sort of tired and low energy but felt obligated to do it since I had announced the stream earlier in the week on social media. I gave away a lot of stuff which I thought was appropriate since it was two weeks from Christmas. In retrospect I probably gave away too much. I bet a third of the stream was just me managing the logistics of the giveaways.
My Sunday was relatively slow paced. I spent a lot of time at my computer desk in the morning. After doing my weekly bill paying session I then moved straight into packing/shipping all of the stuff I gave away on the stream. It took awhile, I wasn’t ready to head out for coffee until nearly 11AM.
In the middle of the afternoon I found myself outside doing a couple chicken things. Sadie and Elsa were outside with me. I took a seat in the shade on the hill by the pool cage. In short order Sadie came and laid down to the right of me and Elsa to my left. We just sat there, doing nothing but observing the scene in front of us for a good 10 to 15 minutes. I do not sit quietly in contemplation very often but in that moment I appreciated the stillness.
Ali and Shugs were coming back later in the afternoon. Sadie had been bull rushing the garage door every time I would go out it for a few days in the hope I was taking her back home. She really misses Ali when she is away for more than a few days. I loaded up Sadie and Elsa for the trip, Elsa loves Shuggs and Ali and always gets very excited to see them. We got a recap of their trip, the primary reason for it being for Ali to attend the graduation ceremony for her masters which she recently completed. They also visited New Orleans but it sounded like they had a pretty tame experience compared to what can go down on Bourbon Street. I recanted my various tales of dog diarrhea, a great conversation starter.
Last night I ignored the large volume of DVR content I was building up and just spent most of my night hanging in WoW, because I felt like it. This week is my birthday, hooray. I am not quite sure if there will be anything at all significant to mark to occasion, I may just go ride an EUC and grab dinner at a bar.
I am now in the point of December where I need to get serious about crossing names off my Xmas buying list. According to my calculations I have 10 people I still need to buy for. I am hoping by end of the weekend that list is considerably shorter.
I am walking around like an 85 year old man, the end result of squatting on Wednesday for the first time in probably three weeks. It’s crazy how severe the soreness can be after squatting if I don’t do it weekly. I am only using light weight, 135LBS. I keep the weight light to ensure I get my ROM as deep as I comfortably can which gives you the best overall benefit but also brings the pain as you are using muscles in ways they aren’t taxed in many everyday scenarios.
Last night I got around to editing the footage from my Tuesday night ride in downtown Naples. I think it turned out half decent even though a GoPro is pretty lousy normally in shooting in low light conditions.
I am doing a holiday live stream tonight where I will be giving away some surplus items, acting as a virtual Santa. I have Xmas and non-Xmas related tasks to get done over the weekend but nothing overly oppressive at this point which is fine by me.
As I hoped I left a little early yesterday to get home to deal with the end result of Sadie’s GI issues. On the way home I stopped at Target to buy boneless chicken breast, rice, and a rice cooker since I didn’t have one. After picking up that stuff I stopped at DD to get my afternoon coffee and had another shitty experience.
This location for years used to be my favorite DD. I knew a lot of the staff, they were friendly, relatively speedy and got your order right. Every single person from that crew has moved on, the last couple years it has been a revolving door that has resulted in the place dropping from first to worst in terms of customer experience.
Extreme slowness has been the norm and yesterday was another example. Despite only four vehicles being in the drive thru line it took me 15 minutes to get to the window. People were at the menu for minutes with no communication from the staff inside. Once I was handed my large “hot” coffee and drove out of the lot the first sip revealed it was room temperature and they got the cream and sugar wrong. I didn’t have the time or energy to go inside to get a new drink so I just forced it down on the drive home. The caffeine was the most important thing I needed anyway since I got so little sleep the night before.
When I got home I cautiously stepped foot in the door, worried I would instantly smell dog shit. I didn’t. I surveyed the rooms and the lanai as well, no signs of defecation revealed themselves which was a big relief. I theorized that Sadie had emptied her tank the night before. Whatever the reason I was glad to not walk into a shit show, literally.
So believe it or not, despite being on the planet for nearly 54 years I do not believe I ever have cooked rice before. My introduction to it was pretty painless. The instructions for the cooker were simple, measure out the rice and then add the appropriate amount of water based on how much rice you added. The rice took somewhere around 45 minutes. The chicken breast prep was pretty simple too, just boil for around 15 minutes. Once both things were done I combined them in Sadie’s food dish. I took her rapid cleaning of her plate as a stamp of approval on my chicken/rice preparation skills.
Last night was a much calmer one for all involved. Once I fell asleep I stayed that way until the 5:35 AM alarm, thank goodness. Tonight I am considering throwing a wheel in the truck and riding the Greenway into Naples proper to do some Xmas light gazing. Never did it before which is a good indicator that I should do it now.
Ali and Shugs dropped off Sadie last night after work and hung around a bit to talk which was nice. When I was at Ali’s party they had mentioned that Sadie just started up with some GI issues as in explosive diarrhea. When they dropped her off last night they said it was a “little better”. Well that was not my experience.
Sadie has always had a sensitive stomach which has resulted in runny results randomly but this was not that. This was akin to what I experienced during colonoscopy prep, liquid and at regular intervals, fantastic. Sadie does let me know when she has to go which is a good thing, as long as you don’t require any sustained sleep to function that is. I may have gotten three hours of sleep last night with me taking her out every couple hours it seemed. When I would return to bed each time I couldn’t fall back asleep as my mind was thinking about how long it would be until she was waking me up again. It was pretty miserable.
After the last go round between 3-4 AM I left the bedroom door open and cracked the door on the lanai so she could get out and do her business unassisted if needed which she did not take advantage of. Instead I was startled out of my brief sleep by the sound of around a 5 second wet fart that was followed by a smell so rancid I had to hold the pillow over my face like I was trying to suffocate myself, just to insulate my nose from the stench. I did mention it was a miserable night?
Normally when Sadie’s BMs get “loose” we switch her to a rice and boiled chicken diet, neither of which I have. I don’t think I even have a rice steamer at this point. I am hoping I can get out a little early and grab rice/chicken on the way home to make this workable. I have her until Sunday night so I can’t have this be a groudhogs day scenario as I need at least some sleep to function at a base level at work.
I did not get to resume my Friday night road bike workout because I had not received the new mount for the headlight which will go on the handlebars. Having the light on my head was an absolute fail and I did not want to experience that again. Friday night I did a cliff notes versions of watching some of the DVR content that had built up while I was gone. I basically watched the first 5 minutes and last 5 minutes of several shows. It was during this exercise that I decided certain shows I have been watching for awhile are going to be cut from my viewing menu in the future. There are other things I would rather do with that time.
My Saturday was pretty open since I already weeded Wednesday and no yard work was required. Elsa and I went on a big errands run that took all of three hours to complete. The stops included Costco, which is asking for frustration if you are dumb enough to go on a Saturday. Even the far reaches of the parking lot where I normally chose to park were stuffed with vehicles. As I grabbed needed grocery items I also snagged a couple Xmas gifts.
Saturday afternoon I had a number of smallish things to take care of but nothing that took more than 15 minutes each. Later in the afternoon I tool my wheel and camera for a ride to Dunkin Donuts. Evidently I had something screwed up with the mic and did not catch it. The end result was audio free footage that was more or less useless. I tried to salvage it by just posting some B-roll footage with a music bed. It was frustrating.
Sunday morning I had to run to Home Depot to grab a couple things. The last time I was there with Elsa she unceremoniously shit in the store. Of course I was conscious of this and I made sure she did a two at home before we headed out. So as we were walking the store I made sure she was in front of me so I could see what was going on. When she shit the last time she was lagging behind. I noticed she was sort of fast walking, which made me a bit nervous but I was pretty confident we were in the clear since she emptied prior. Imagine how my heart swelled with Xmas spirit as she suddenly started dropping logs, again.
I couldn’t believe it. I scolded her but the damage was clearly already done. I had no employee assistance this time. I went up to the self checkout register, grabbed a plastic bag, and returned to the scene of the crime. The bag actually worked out better than the paper towels used during the accident last visit. I was also glad to see no patrons stepped in the land mine while I was getting the bag. At this point I am afraid Elsa has now made the connection that Home Depot = bathroom time, this is the third time she has done this. I don’t think I will have her walking the aisles there anytime again soon.
When we checked out we saw Sandy, the dog loving older lady that always gives Elsa treats when she sees her. Cindy and I always would have nice interactions with Sandy when we would do our near weekly Home Depot runs. Since the split my visits there have been less frequent. I had seen Sandy a couple times soon after. She asked where Cindy was but I made up some excuse for her absence, not wanting to get into it. The last few times I have gone to the store Sandy wasn’t there but this time I decided it was finally time to let her know the situation.
After giving Elsa her treat she once again asked about Cindy. I blurted out that we had split up several months ago which surprised Sandy in a major way. For some reason telling her this sent an instant wave of emotion through my body, making me pause awkwardly for a few moments while I pushed it back below the surface. Sandy said she was very sorry to hear that and that she has gone though it herself, twice. I turned the attention back to Elsa to exit the conversation. I walked away sad but feeling better that I didn’t need to be disingenuous with Sandy any longer.
Early Sunday afternoon I headed to Fort Myers to attend a luncheon/party for Ali. She is completing her Master’s degree, which she did entirely online over the course of almost three years. It was a relatively small gathering of 12-13 people, some of them I knew and had not seen for a very long time. It was held in a back room of some higher end Mexican restaurant. It was really a nice time, I enjoyed hanging, drinking and eating with those in attendance. Having the desire and commitment to reenter the higher education system at this point of life is something I would not consider, even remotely. It’s quite the accomplishment for Ali and hopefully will open up more doors for her down the road.
On the way to the party I was listening to the Eagles/Jets game. When I turned it off it was a back and forth affair. The thing that surprised me was the Eagles were starting a QB I never heard of, Gardner Minshew. Evidently he used to be on Jacksonville and became the Eagles backup when they traded Joe Flaco. Evidently Jalen Hurts is hurt, a sprained ankle. Well regardless of my lack of recognition of who the guy was, he had a great game, amassing passing statistics that were better than the vast majority of Jalen’s performances. It was cool having a pass first instead of run first QB in there although Hurts will be back after the bye week. Minshew directed the team to a convincing victory after a close start. I still don’t think the Eagles have a chance to do anything significant this year, regardless of who is taking snaps.
Tonight Ali and Shugs are dropping off Sadie for nearly a week long visit. They are going to Mississippi for Ali’s official graduation ceremony. Ali has been taking Sadie to physical therapy sessions every week and evidently they have been surprisingly helpful for her mobility. I look forward to seeing how she does walking around the property during her visit.
When I got home last night I set up a late addition to my 2021 Xmas decorations, another LED tree. I have always liked the smaller white tree I already have but it is in rough shape. The new tree is bigger, 6 feet versus 4 feet, and has full color LEDs instead of all white. I am starting to appreciate decorations that don’t require inflation for various reasons.
Last night I watched 8 Bit Christmas on HBO Max. I loved it. It was sort of a more modern take on A Christmas Story. I thought it was really well done and instantly injected itself into my stable of Xmas specials I could watch repeatedly, A+.
When I walked out to the Tesla after work yesterday I found myself annoyed by how dirty it was. 2800 miles of driving will do that to a car. Generally speaking I like to keep things neat, if you look at my vehicles there is minimal clutter and I try to keep them clean. I made the mental commitment to wash the Tesla when I got home, despite knowing it would be pitch dark. After tending to the chickens and Elsa I threw on a sweatshirt and got busy. I had the garage Alexa play some holiday music to set the mood.
The Ring floodlight cam did a decent job of illuminating a little over half of the car. The far side and rear I did mostly blind outside of the dim lighting from the Christmas lights. It felt good to get the task done, one less potential to do for the weekend.
I have started to do some Christmas shopping already although the amount of work that will be required will obviously be less than in years past. Christmas present buying is something I really like, I am a giver at heart. Hell I have a column in my budget book that is called “Gifts”, just so I would always have money set aside to buy presents for Xmas.
I am doing something some people may see as strange, buying a couple things for myself that I had wanted, wrapping them, and putting them under the tree to be opened Christmas morning. I know I will get some presents from my family as well but I wanted to have a few things under the tree that are can’t miss gifts, because I bought them, lol. The overwhelming majority of the presents under the tree will be for DJ of course.
I did the weeding around the property on Wednesday so I can skip that this weekend. The colder temps have also curtailed most yard growth so I can avoid that as well. I want to try to knock out a lot of my remaining Christmas purchasing out this weekend if possible. After almost 54 years on the planet I realize that before I know it Christmas will be here so I sleep better at night staying ahead of the curve.
Sunday afternoon I am going to a small celebration for Ali. She recently completed her masters which is quite the accomplishment, something I would never have the ambition to undertake as an adult. Hell I don’t even have a college degree for that matter. Anyway it will be nice to hang with other human beings for a little bit, something I need to force myself to do more often. Going into recluse mode comes easier and easier nowadays.
I left work about 2PM Wednesday afternoon so I could get home and tend to a handful of things before pushing off for Texas. I knew I had an arduous task in front of me although the depths of it were worse than I realized. After sitting on the sofa with Elsa for a few minutes I gave her a hug, told her I would miss her and backed out of the driveway about 3:30 PM.
My buddy at worked had said he thought traffic could be oppressive with it being Thanksgiving Eve. I didn’t think it would be bad at all. I was wrong. I sat in stop and go traffic for close to an hour over the first leg of the trip, although it was due to a couple accidents, not overall volume. As I was sitting in traffic I examined my trip details more closely in the Tesla.
When Torrin first mentioned doing this I quickly threw Naples to Dallas into Google and got back a number of less than 1100 miles. She lives in Denton but it is close to Dallas so that was good enough. My 5 second analysis was PA is 1200 miles so this is easier/less of a haul, good to go. If I was being smart I would have entered her exact address into the car ahead of time to see the full route, including routing through superchargers, which I instead did after I already left. This revealed a much uglier reality, with the trip actually being almost 1300 miles, further than PA, awesome. I knew I had two VERY long days ahead of me.
After clearing the various traffic jams things started to clear up. I was using autopilot/full self driving a lot as I was on interstate highway. The best part of FSD for me is the auto lane change, especially in this scenario. I just flip the turn signal and the car checks it’s blind spot, changes lanes and turns off the turn signal. Since you are doing hundreds of lane changes on a 2800 mile road trip, that feature alone was worth it for me.
The charge stops were mostly short, which seems non-intuitive for a Tesla novice. Most of them were in the 20-25 minute range. The reason for this is it allows you to spend most of your time charging at a very high rate. Once you approach 80% charge the rate drops off significantly. This shorter but more numerous charge stops strategy overall winds up being the most efficient way to progress.
I was getting very tired but I knew I had to go as far as I could on Wednesday if I wanted any shot of getting to Torrin’s place at a reasonable time on Thanksgiving. I finally pulled over after midnight in Madison Florida which is just inside the start of the panhandle. I needed to get some degree of sleep if I wanted to be able to handle the massive drive still ahead.
My Thanksgiving started with some very crisp air in the 30s, something I don’t experience much. When I saw the total distance I had remaining, 959, miles, I swallowed hard. I once did this sort of mileage returning from a western road trip with Cindy. We crossed Texas all in one shot which is 900 miles plus. I remember how difficult that was, with TWO people. The prospect of doing it solo put a black cloud over me from the start of the day.
Normally superchargers are located in retail areas with food and bathrooms readily available, which is awesome. What isn’t awesome is trying to road trip on Thanksgiving when almost every thing is closed, cutting you off from food and bathrooms. Again my poor planning came into play, I didn’t even pack any snacks. The lack of bathroom facilities meant I wound up using bushes to pee more than once. One time I pulled off the side of the highway and ran up a hill to some trees to get the job done. It was not a great situation.
So it was now mid-afternoon. I was hungry but everything around the supercharger appeared closed. I pulled out my V12 and rode around looking for ANYTHING. Well my prayers were answered, sort of when I spotted a Dollar General store that was actually open. I pushed my wheel around the store as I carefully selected my Thanksgiving meal which consisted of a bag Party Chex, popcorn, some no brand granola bars and a Yoo Hoo. Nutritional content was ignored as I scarfed down the junk food while I waited for the charge to finish.
As the day drug on I was getting more and more rammy. My lower back was starting to hurt and despite spending over 12 hours on the road I still had a ton to go. At around 6:30 I was again charging and looking for food options, which there were none. I went into the nearby hotel and asked if they knew of anything open, the nice kid did not know of anything but he suggested Uber Eats, where they bring food to you. He was nice enough to allow me to have a Hershey Bar for free, which was very cool.
I already had the Uber Eats app although I never had used it. I was surprised when it said I could actually get food delivered to me from a nearby Subway which was only 4 miles away. I placed the order, added a big tip since it was a holiday and anxiously waited for my food to arrive.
The app tells you the status the entire way, it showed my order was received, and then it was being prepared, and then “finishing up”. It showed me the delivery persons name and ETA, sweet. Well after being stuck on the finishing up status for awhile I suddenly got a notification that my order was cancelled! WTF. The details of the message explained that it was cancelled because the store was closed… So all of that realtime updating was bullshit. I dug back into my snacks to keep me going.
While I was waiting for Uber Eats I called my sister. My ETA had now slipped back to after midnight. I told her I think a better plan was for me to drive until I was a couple hours away, get another hotel and then head out early Friday. That way I wasn’t a zombie and they didn’t have to wait up until stupid late for me. Torrin agreed that sounded like a good idea.
I wound up driving until I hit Lindale Texas, getting to bed “early” which still meant after 11PM. I was really, really wiped out as you can imagine. It was certainly a Thanksgiving like no other. I did feel badly about missing my original proposed goal of getting there by Thanksgiving, partly because it also happened to be my niece Emily’s birthday as well. Bailing early was the right thing to do but I still wasn’t happy about it.
Friday I again hit the road about 7AM and drove straight to the Denton supercharger a couple hundred miles away. As I was waiting I went into the nearby Walmart and bought a bike pump. The tire on the OneWheel was almost flat and I brought no pumps with me, more poor planning. I was able to get pressure back in the tire and then ride the board around the lot in very chilly temperatures. My mileage on the car for the trip at that point was 1369 miles, even higher than what my revised number was, sheesh.
Finally I pulled into Torrin and Damons place a little after 10. I had seen them in January of 2020 when they came to Florida to visit but I had not been to a house they were living in for something like six years, when they still lived in State College, PA. Since then they have lived in Colorado for a little while before landing in Texas for the last 3 years. They move around a LOT.
Their house is in a great neighborhood and the house is very large. I got the tour shortly after arriving. My bed was set up in the upstairs room which is used for homeschooling the kids and gaming. Both of the kids were anxious to show me some games and kick my ass in others. The one downer for me was the family cat, Higgins, got out of the yard 5 days prior and has not turned up since. I felt really bad about it and found myself constantly scanning the area for any signs of him whenever we were outside.
For lunch I had the Tofurkey Torrin bought for me, it still tasted good even though it wasn’t Thanksgiving. During the afternoon we all went down to a nearby park. I had brought the V12, OneWheel, and Ninebot One E+ along for the trip. My hope was the kids would be interested in learning the Ninebot EUC and I could leave it for them.
When we got to the park Emily took more of a liking to the OneWheel and within a few minutes was cruising around on it pretty well. Griffin wasn’t very into the OneWheel or Ninebot so he stuck to the Segway Minipro I got him last year for his birthday. Damon really liked the OneWheel but he was also intrigued to try the Ninebot One. After a pretty short learning curve he was up and rolling which was impressive. He picked it up super fast and really liked the challenge of riding it.
I forgot to mention a very important family member, Ozzy. Ozzy is around a year old and he is a crazy bundle of energy. He seemed to immediately take to me, wanting to be in my face constantly. At first Damon and Torrin would keep disciplining him for crawling all over me but I assured them it was ok, I didn’t mind. Before long Ozzy presented me with his thick rope which he loves to play pull with. He is a really a great dog.
The rest of Friday was chill with me eating more of the Thanksgiving leftovers, us watching a movie and spending a lot of time upstairs with the kids watching/playing games.
My first night of sleep was ok except for the ticking of a clock on the wall. I kept telling myself there was no need to get up and pull the batteries out. Surely I should be too tired to have it bother me. I regretted that decision later but I still got the most sleep of the trip so far. Ozzy was my alarm clock as he flew onto the bed with the rope in his mouth, I laughed out loud.
On Saturday the weather was downright awful. It was cold with steady to hard rain for almost the entire day. I spent some of the time working on the 3D printer I bought them last Christmas. They got a few prints out initially but then had some problems. I was able to walk through a few steps to get it printing well. I was so frustrated when I saw the end result of UPS not giving a shit with the computer I sent to the kids. It looked like they dropped it off a truck, the frame of the bottom is bent to the point where the side no longer fits on the case. Luckily the computer still works 100% but it looks like it was whacked with a bat.
I loaded up software on it for the 3D printer as well as demonstrating Tinkercad for everyone so they could design and print their own stuff. It will be great if they get more use out of the printer. Of course we played more games as well.
During the afternoon Damon arranged for us to go to an escape room, something I heard about but never experienced before. He and Emily had done it once before and liked it. You are given a back story and an objective and then are inserted into a room where you have an hour to solve all of it’s secrets. Our scenario was very involved, or at least it seemed it to me. Solving all of the puzzles and opening the associated locks was definitely a team effort with all of us figuring out some parts of the room at one point. You could also ask the game master for hints if you hit a dead end. We had to do that 4-5 times which I didn’t think was too bad considering how much stuff we figured out ourselves.
We thought we were done but realized there was more to do when a secret room was revealed, requiring more problem solving. We just barely solved the room in time, we had 39 seconds to spare. I think we all felt a sense of accomplishment. It was a unique and fun way to spend an hour, I would do it again.
Saturday night we went to dinner at a real nice place that Torrin and Damon have enjoyed many times. We got there early enough to avoid waiting. The wait staff was very friendly and the food was good all the way around. It almost gave me the feeling I used to get at the Naples Carrabas before they sterilized it. When we got back home we watched the original Home Alone and of course more video games were played.
Early Sunday morning Damon took me to his “office”. His office is a huge data center for Schwab. The security, scale, and scope of this data center is pretty amazing, far beyond anything I have ever seen in person. It’s a 1000 square feet of server racks stuffed with millions of dollars in equipment. He is in the middle of setting up a second room of the same size in the same building. Working in a huge corporate network like that was never appealing to me, the closest I got to that was when I worked for a bank back in the 90’s but it still was nothing remotely as complex as what I saw. Damon loves the challenge and he excels at what he does. On the way back we drove by a new Facebook data center. It was enormous, covering something around a square MILE. If you want to feel shitty about Facebook and just how incredibly deep their pockets go thanks to your data, look up their data centers.
The weather was better Sunday so we did another ride to the park which was fun. Both Emily and Damon really impressed with me with how quickly they got up and rolling. The rest of the day was a mix of activities. I helped Damon with Christmas lights, we ran to Home Depot, played video games, watched Home Alone 2, picked up Chinese food for dinner and just hung out, something I don’t get to do much. Oh yea, Torrin and I actually got to watch the Eagles/Giants game as well which surprisingly was being broadcast locally. The Eagles made a ton of mistakes which lead to them losing in an embarrassing fashion to the the Giants. It was a depressing game to watch but fun that I got to do it with Torrin. I can’t tell you the last time I watched a football game with her, if ever.
Sunday was my last night with them and I tried to not dwell on it. Even with a short 3 day visit I had a chance to interact and bond with the kids. Knowing I would be back on the road the following day was a bit sad for me. I had my best sleep of the trip on the my last day there, ironically.
I woke up without an alarm around 6. I was already mostly packed so I spent some time playing the game that Griffin was demonstrating to me all weekend, the new Zelda game on the Nintendo Switch. I was able to progress through a few levels and left the game paused so Griff could see my progress. Everybody crawled out of bed early to see me off. It was great seeing everyone but sad that it was time to go. I played one last quick game of rope with Ozzy and then headed east, somewhere around 7:30.
My hope was to hit the road hard on Monday, making the Tuesday portion less oppressive. I hit a lot of the same charging stops as the way out. The big difference was now everything was open which made the stops much more enjoyable as I could freely use the facilities. The weather was perfect with cool temps and blue skies. I did a lot of documenting of the trip on Instagram, taking some odd/funny shots like this one where I sat in a sleigh with seemingly no one around me. All of the malls I went to on the way back were almost empty, it makes you wonder how they keep the lights on.
I pushed deep into Monday night not stopping until I was about 30 miles east of Pensacola in a town named Crestview. I had a decent night of sleep but set another 6AM alarm to get things rolling on Tuesday. I had 580 miles to go which is still a ton.
The weather was again great for the drive but I found myself getting frustrated as the ETA kept slipping backwards. I did make a stop at one of the nicest rest stops I have ever seen. The bathrooms were high end, meticulously clean, and nicer than you would see in most restaurants.
The place had a Burger King AND Dunkin Donuts along with a ton of unique crafts and souvenirs. It worked out well that my charging time at that spot was one of the longer ones.
I finally arrived at my last charge stop at Land O Lakes. It also was my longest charge, I was there close to an hour getting the necessary juice to go all the way back to Naples. I spent the time rolling on the One Wheel and watching videos on YouTube. My entertainment with all that driving consisted of podcasts and listening to Howard 101 which has infinite clips from his 40 years of radio.
During the last segment I was putting the pedal to the metal, pretty much ignoring speed limits. As long as there were other vehicles going the same speed as me or faster I was ok with it. I just wanted this trip over at this point. Over the two days I spent somewhere around 27 hours traveling, excessive, in anyone’s book.
It felt a little surreal as I pulled into the driveway, knowing how much had occurred in the 6 days since I left. Elsa of course was manic, beyond excited to see me again. It felt good to get such a loving welcome. I systematically emptied the car, going from back to front, trying to handle things as they come. I got laundry going quickly and put everything away that I could. After feeding Elsa and checking on the chickens I stayed up until after 11 getting the video of the trip to Texas edited which you can see below.
I took Wednesday off as well to get things back in order. Luckily Cindy handled things around here so there wasn’t all that much I had to do. I got the second video edited/uploaded and have been cramming through this blog entry which takes a loooong time. Of course doing these things gives me ample opportunities to reflect on the trip. I am glad I didn’t go with my initial knee jerk reaction of “it would be too much trouble” when Torrin suggested the trip to me a month or so ago. Some things are worth the trouble.
Being around Torrin and her family gave me an appreciation for the connection family gives you, something I sorely needed in this time of general upheaval in my life. Since my siblings and I have been geographically separated for most of our adult lives, family interactions become a casualty of that reality and I felt that more now than ever after the visit. I am very grateful for the hospitality, love and caring that was shown to me. It makes me wish that thousands of miles weren’t a constant obstacle. (maybe fly more) The trip was an adventure, just like all road trips are. It’s why I hope to find a way to make them a more regular part of my existence.
Yesterday I got a text from my brother in law that I could not believe, it was their cat, Higgins, in a live trap. You may recall my mentioning that the got out of the yard a few days before I visited them in Texas. They did tons of searching for him, posted signs on poles and in social media but had no luck. Everyone pretty much resigned themselves that Higgins was gone, not knowing his fate weighed heavily on everyone, even me. Whenever I was out with them in the neighborhood I was scanning, hoping to see a tabby cat.
