I played volleyball again last night. It had rained pretty substantially an hour or so earlier. It seems like for whatever reason this stirred up the bugs which were swarming people most of the night. Even though it was not really sunny I kept my Oakley sunglasses on all evening, even once the lights turned on. For whatever reason they seemed to keep the bugs away from my face.
The wet sand combined with my sweat covered body left most of my bare skin looking like a corn dog most of the night. I played better than I did last week for sure which made me feel better. I had a few good hits which always puts a little pep in my step. I still struggle to get out of the sand but if I commit to aggressively approaching and get a set in firing range I can convert it to a kill once in awhile.
I have mentioned a number of times both here and in various videos I have made since moving about how happy I am about my decision to move. It has made a dramatic impact on my day to day existence in a positive way. With the move behind me and the cabinet/counter project being recently completed I feel like I can now work on getting in a groove as far as the rest of this thing called life. I have been falling short in ways that I’m not happy about. No worries though, I’ll get there.
My Memorial Day weekend so far has been very productive. On Saturday I buzzed around the house knocking out things I have been wanting to do. As promised I did the faucet hardware swap between the master bath tub and shower which resulted in matching sets of chrome and brushed nickel instead of the mismatch I had previously.
When I went to Home Depot during the morning I took a shot at buying a brighter LED light for over the sink in the guest bathroom. The light they had in there was just too dim. I bought one that had something like 5 times the light output. I managed to make it fit and boy is it bright. It’s so bright that I put a second diffuser panel below it to tone it down a bit. I think it will be ok but I can always do something different down the road. I also ordered a mirror frame to clean up the visual of the mirror that was starting to look shoddy around the edges.
I finally got around to running the carpet cleaner in the bedrooms, something I wanted to do since I moved in. I don’t believe the prior owners cleaned the carpets much based on how much dirt I pulled up. Hell I feel like I should do it all a second time, it was that bad.
My second pickleball paddle arrived in as many days. This one is called The Filth. In pickleball if someone makes a really good shot it is often called “filthy” hence the name. This put my active in hand paddle collection to six with one more paddle en route to me. Yes I have a problem. Hopefully 7 paddles is enough variety for me for awhile.
Later Saturday afternoon I rode with Christine on the Greenway. Her house is close enough that you can ride to there from her front door which is great. I took the T4 which I haven’t rode in awhile.
On Saturday evening/night I got drunk, really drunk. Margaritas have sort of taken over as my main alcohol intake recently. Even with as drunk as I was I don’t seem to have severe hangover consequences with them, which is a plus. It was a fun night.
My Sunday had less chores/projects than the day prior. After paying my bills I got out my Sherman S to do a DD ride. I expanded the ride to include a lot more than just coffee because I felt like it.
Later in the day I went on a second ride with Christine, out to the swamp. I knew the terrain would be tough for her but she did surprisingly well on the uneven difficult terrain. She really is picking it up fast. I drove by my old house while out there. It’s amazing how quickly the distance I used to drive every day now feels stupid far compared to my new reality.
Tomorrow I am starting off my Memorial Day playing pickleball with my buddy Juan which should be a lot of fun. Juan and I have become closer friends over the last year even though I have known him for probably 15 years via the gyms we both used to frequent. I may also head to the gym at work since I have 24/7 access to it to get a workout in. After that the rest of my Memorial Day will be played by ear. Please take a moment to appreciate what the day is all about, the sacrifice of others, for us.
Yesterday the counter in the guest bathroom was finally installed, marking the end of a project that took somewhere in the neighborhood of a month and a half in total, much longer than anticipated. The installers yesterday took less than an hour, probably closer to 30 minutes to get the quartz top in place. Although the pace of work was slow, the quality of work done seems very, very good which is what really matters.
The plumber came in less than an hour later to reconnect everything which cost another $200. There are only two things I would like to do in that bathroom yet, replace the shitty light over the sink and put some sort of frame around the mirror, similar to what I have in the master bath.
I feel like I have had a significant issue with lack of control lately. Perhaps it is having a big number in my bank account right now from the sale of my house, perhaps it is something else, I don’t know. It manifested itself again in the last 36 hours where I bought not one, but three more pickleball paddles.
Each of these paddles had a different appeal for me but it’s not like I am a high level player that needs all of these options. It’s fun to try different paddles as they definitely impact your game in different ways. Hopefully I can start to regain more semblance of control in my life soon.
One of my tasks this upcoming weekend will be a faucet swap between the tub and shower in my master bathroom. When I replaced the fixture on the tub a couple weeks ago the only kit Home Depot had was a brushed nickel finish. I used it even though the spout and drain on the tub are chrome. When I replaced the fixture in the shower, Ace Hardware only had chrome finish, which I used despite the shower head being brushed nickel. The other day I realized my stupidity. I could have just swapped. I will atone for that oversight, matching up fixture finishes so all can be well with the world again.
Last night I played volleyball. I was rushing a bit to get out the door and I wound up forgetting to take my normal two Advil which seem to insulate me a bit from aches and pains. It was hot as hell, by the end of the first game I was soaked already. I didn’t play all that well compared to some of my recent outings. My biggest issue was I kept passing too tight to the net making it very tough to set the ball. By the time the evening was done I had a thick coating of sand on both arms and legs from being soaked in sweat. To make matters worse I got pretty banged up playing, this morning both knees and my lower back are feeling tweaked.
Normally I would head right home, shower and collapse in bed after vball but last night I wound up instead not getting home until damn close to midnight. I had a number of drinks with an unexpected trip as a passenger to exit 131 and back. My life is in a very strange place right now. It’s interesting for sure but very, very strange.
Last night after work I rode my Sherman S over to Christine’s place to help her with assembling a bed platform. I have never ridden over there and since I was too lazy to do a ride on the weekend it was a good opportunity to atone. I had to cross a couple major roadways to get there but otherwise the ride was fast and smooth. I really love my Sherman S, I wish I made more time to get out on it.
Last night I finished up the third and final season of Narcos. I really binged it hard the last few days. In total I have digested somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 episodes. I found the show very well done. There is another spin off called Narcos Mexico, I have to decide if I want to get locked into another series.
Hey there I am still here despite a lack of entries over the last six days. I just have not felt like posting.
On Friday night I wound up playing pickleball with Jeff, one of the guys that plays with us over lunch hour as well. We had actually played Friday at lunch as well in the sweltering heat. Playing at 7:30 in the evening at least got the brutal sun off us but it was still super humid with temps in the high 80’s. I was a sweaty mess when done.
On Saturday after going to the grocery store I worked on getting some small things done around the house that I have been putting off for no good reason. One of those was to finally go through the last cardboard boxes I have from the move. In total there was maybe around 10 of them. Since I have not had a pressing need for anything in those boxes in the 2 months I have been in the new house I knew I would be throwing a lot of it out, which I did.
Evidently my brain is still in hardcore throw it out mode as I threw away some things that I had held onto for 30-40 years, trophies. I have had around a dozen trophies that have followed me on my travels as an adult, they are a combo of bowling, baseball, and one volleyball trophy from when Rich and I won the Pottstown Rumble. I had more bowling trophies than anything.
At first I started stuffing them into one of the cabinets in the garage but then I stopped, looked at them and thought to myself if these actually mattered to me. The answer was, mostly no. I only kept the couple baseball and the volleyball trophy. All the others got tossed into the trash bin. I felt little remorse in doing so. Shawn from 5 years ago would have looked at such an act as blasphemy. The trophies were far from the only casualty. I bet almost half of what was in those boxes got tossed. It felt good in the end to have all of the temporary boxes off my garage shelves.
On Sunday my main accomplishment was replacing the hardware for the shower faucet. The old fixture was corroded and loose. I have done this task three times now. This was the most challenging because the old hardware was somewhat stuck due to the corrosion. I eventually got everything worked out. Unfortunately ACE only had a chrome set which doesn’t match the brushed nickel shower head I have, oh well.
Early in the afternoon I rode over at the Greenway. I was on my S22 and Christine rode the One Wheel, which she has picked up very quickly. It was hot as hell but a fun ride, as long as you kept moving to keep the air flowing.
When I got home later in the afternoon I found myself feeling down. I turned on Netflix and continued watching Narcos. I binge watched the hell out of it. I just felt lazy and blah until my eyes finally shut somewhere around 11. I had to watch at least six episodes yesterday, almost non-stop.
Yesterday was not the only episode of my feeling off, it has been a pretty steady state for a week or more. As always, only I have the power to change that.
Last night I had dinner at Bruninas, a place I have eaten a number of times. I was eating with Christine after playing some pickleball. I was still wearing my sweaty clothes. When it came time to pay I realized I didn’t have my wallet on me. I figured I left it in the truck by mistake. I wanted to run out and get it but Christine insisted on paying. So when we went out to the truck I did a quick glance around and didn’t see it but I figured I just had it stuffed in my pickleball bag somewhere.
So when we stopped somewhere else I looked again for my wallet and could not find it. Now I was a bit worried. I opened up the FindMY app on my phone since I have an Apple AirTag in my wallet. It identified the last time it saw my wallet was somewhere in the parking lot of the restaurant, fck…. The gym shorts I have on are shallow so I can only assume I stuffed my wallet in them only to have it fall out without my noticing, great. I went back to the restaurant parking lot hoping to see my wallet lying there somewhere. It wasn’t.
I walked around using the app to try to aid in tracking the wallet but it kept saying the air tag was not nearby. The doom scenario of someone picking up the wallet and making off with it was now a very possible reality. I went back home and kept checking the app to see if a new ping came in. For those of you that don’t know, the way an air tag works is any time it is close to any Apple device it phones home to report it’s location. If I saw a new location pop up I would know someone has it. The location never updated.
So somewhere around 9:30 I decided to go back to that parking lot and look some more. I turned on the tracker function on the phone which is sort of like a metal detector. If you get in range of the tag it will tell you and as you get closer it will show you exactly the direction and distance it is. As I walked the lot I had no luck however I decided I should completely trace where I walked so I moved up towards the restaurant.
As I did I suddenly got a hit, I was far away but it detected the tag in the vicinity. As I kept moving towards the entrance I then started getting distance info. Eventually I had a strong signal that pointed just inside the door to the hostess station, only 3 feet away. Unfortunately by this time the restaurant was closed and nobody was there but I called the number on the door and left a message letting them know they had my wallet. I plan to get there just as the doors open today to reclaim it. If all ends well technology will have saved my ass, again.
Last night I did something I had not done for almost two months, a public live stream. On the stream I talked about how despite streamlining my life and making chores and tasks less of a dominating factor in my life I still have been busy doing other things. These things have pushed my PEV hobby into the background for the most part. I have not been riding nearly as much as I would have expected and the lack of live streaming is probably an extension of that.
On the stream I talked about both life and PEV topics. I started off drinking water but quickly switched to Cayman Jack’s margaritas, a new favorite of mine. I was on air for over two hours. It was good to get back out there but I have no idea how regularly this will or will not be occurring.
Today I have my pest control company coming in. For a long time I have been seeing what I believe are ghost ants in certain areas of the house. They are tiny, tiny little ants that I also had at my old house once or twice. I have been seeing them for quite awhile but I wanted to wait until the counters were in place to get it handled.
The only significant project I would like to get handled at this point is securing someone to install removable storm panels on the house. The guy that gave me one quote wanted something stupid like 400-500 per window for the light aluminum panels which in my estimation was ridiculous.
Since you last heard from me I have been to the Space Center for three days of training with a weekend thrown on the tail end as well, let’s see what I can remember.
I left work around 11 on Wednesday so I could get home and head to Titusville. I had not even completed my packing so I had a lot of things to knock out at home in a short period of time. I wound up leaving my house right around 1. The drive north and east went pretty well, the Tesla is very comfortable to cruise long distances in. I made the trip in almost exactly 5 hours. If I wanted to push my luck I might have made it on one charge but I stopped in Orlando to charge for literally 5 minutes, just to make sure.
I checked into the hotel which was a beautiful Marriot, it seemed very new. When I got into my room I wanted to use the bathroom but I couldn’t get the lights to turn on. Just as I was about to call down to the front desk I saw a device by the front door that looked like it would fit the room key. Above it was a sign that said in order to activate lights put the room card in. I did and the lights in the bathroom came on. That was a first for me.
Even though I was tired I had no time to waste. There was a kickoff dinner event nearby at a steakhouse on the water. I arrived maybe 20 minutes after the event kickoff but no one had even gotten their food yet so it was fine.
I drank two of these large beers you see in the picture, the first one being downed quickly before eating. I was definitely a bit drunk but it was somewhat helpful to deal with the need for continuous social interaction. There were a lot of new faces that I did not recognize from previous conferences. I had a good meal and was happy to simply return to my room, shower and veg out. A number of people went to the Space Bar on the roof of the hotel where they got to pay outrageous prices for alcohol.
Thursday was the first day of the conference. I got there early, probably too early as I wound up waiting a half hour for the Space Center to open. I had my free ticket in the lanyard we were all given. Once inside I and a bunch of other attendees managed to find the education center where the event was being held. They had a great spread of food which was welcomed since the hotel gave you absolutely nothing for breakfast, unless you wanted to pay for it.
We moved to an adjacent space where the sessions were held. There were various presentations, some held my interest, some did not which is a normal situation. Afterward we again were presented with a nice spread for lunch and then we all headed over to the bus area for a free tour of the space center.
This was my fourth time at the space center and I was just there a couple years ago with Cindy so not much had changed since then. The fact that it was the last trip I did with her made for some odd feelings while I was there, so much so that I really had no interest in doing the full tour. After getting off the bus and seeing the two mandatory presentations before entering the Apollo center I did a quick walk around of the facility before getting back on a bus to take me back to the main part of the space center. Once I got back and grabbed my laptop bag and headed out. I was not alone, I saw a number of other guys that were in the class following the same path.
I decided instead of looking to do something with the members of the group I would instead hop in the Tesla and head to Cocoa Beach. I wanted to stop at the Ron Jon headquarters there and I had my One Wheel and gear in the trunk.
I hopped on the One Wheel and did a 6 or 7 mile ride that was basically a straight line paralleling the coast. It was not the most exciting ride and again I had weird feelings because Cindy and I rode that area as well when we were there. It wasn’t feelings of remorse I was experiencing it’s sort of hard to explain. I did shoot video of the ride where I talk about those feelings a bit.
When I finished up I found a very cool dive bar that was along the beach. I sat at the bar and enjoyed a couple beers along with fish tacos. It was a very chill vibe and a place I could have spent more time at if I wasn’t solo. I headed back to the hotel and again chose to just relax the rest of the evening instead of seek out more social interaction at the bar on the roof.
The sessions on Friday were more interesting for me because it was more or less the various county staff sharing ideas, issues, and solutions as a group. When I got to talk some of the things I brought up had other guys talk to me during a break to discuss further. The tech sharing is normally the most valuable thing I take away from these events.
The sessions ran up until almost one, there was one more free lunch provided and then that was it, we were free to go. You were able to continue touring the park or just get the hell on the road. I chose the latter. The drive home was much rougher than the trip up. I hit the fangs of I-4 traffic which resulted in a 6+ hour journey instead of 5.
During the day on Friday I got the call from the cabinet guy. I let him in remotely so he could install the new cabinet in the guest bathroom. When I got home I checked it out, it looks great. All that remains in the counter install and plumbing reconnect in there, thank goodness.
Saturday morning I headed up to Babcock early to pick up Elsa. As usual she had a fantastic time with Ali and Shugs. I know since Sadie passed they really love having Elsa around. On the way back I grabbed groceries. During the day I worked on a number of clean up tasks around the house as I still had not put everything back post-counter install.
Part of the counter install was a new kitchen sink fixture. I got a touch free model again, this time with the sensor on the left side. When I first tested it it did not appear to work. My first thought was the controller did not come with batteries. When I popped the lid I saw it did have batteries so I wondered if just the included batteries were shit, so I bought more.
When I put the new batteries in and had the same non-results I was frustrated. I started wondering if the plumber installed the faucet and never tested it. I turned the faucet on and then waved my hand in front of it repeatedly, expecting it to turn off, just like my faucet at the old house did. Well this wasn’t the same faucet model. What I discovered was you leave the handle in the off position with this faucet, which is actually a better solution. Once I did that it worked perfectly. I felt dumb for not realizing this earlier.
The Tacoma was due for an oil change. I did not have all of the supplies on hand so I thought just this once I would go to an oil change place and get it done. There is a Valvoline shop close to my house. When I pulled in both bays had a line of four cars waiting to get in but I figured it should go pretty quickly. It did not. Instead I spent at least an hour and a half on the process. When I got the bill it once again reminded me why I started doing all my own oil changes some 15 years ago. I wound up paying probably triple what it would have cost me to buy the oil/filter and do it myself. I was not happy with my decision.
During the afternoon I also ran out to get a haircut. My stylist, Princess, told me all about the challenges she is having with her 13 year old boy with some school issues. I listened, but did not say much. My hair was feeling shaggy based on my norm, it felt good to clean things up a bit.
Saturday night I went to see the latest Guardians of the Galaxy movie with Christine. We went to the Cinebistro, the fanciest theater in town. We had nice dinners and both really enjoyed the movie. The Guardians series always has a lot of laughs. I would give it a solid A.
On Sunday I wanted to tackle the biggest challenge with getting things back to normal post cabinet/counter install, reinstalling the master bathroom mirror. This mirror is huge with a wood border around it. I slid it back to the bathroom with stupid ideas of doing it myself but I soon realized this would be physically impossible.
I had to have Christine come over to lend me a hand. On the first hoist it was obvious I didn’t have enough space. I thought removing the second medicine cabinet would provide it. I was wrong. What I realized was the issue were the new faucets that were installed which sit several inches higher than the old fixtures. There was literally no way to get the mirror in place as is so that left me one option, remove the faucets.
I didn’t totally disconnect them but I removed the hardware that held them in place, undoing what I paid the plumber to do. Once I did that I was able to pull the fixtures up and lay them in the sink. Once I did that Christine and I were able to finally get the mirror back on the wall, what a PIA. I then re-secured the faucets and reinstalled the two medicine cabinets. Finally I had a mirror in the bathroom once again, negating the need for me to go to other areas of the house to see what my hair looks like. I felt bad having Christine do grunt work on Mother’s Day.
During the afternoon I worked on a few things including emptying a a couple more boxes in the garage. As has been the case with most box openings at this point, more stuff found it’s way into the trash can as it’s use to me did not merit keeping it around. Later I went to a Mother’s Day dinner with Christine and her boys which everyone seemed to enjoy.
This should be my first “normal” week in awhile. I was able to use my dishwasher for the first time in over a month last night. It was glorious.
Yesterday the plumber arrived close to his scheduled time to reconnect everything so my master bathroom and kitchen are once again fully functional. It cost a lot more than the disconnect but he had a second guy this time and had to do a couple additional things. I was too happy to have everything back together to fuss much about it. In addition he disconnected the guest bathroom plumbing so that cabinet counter swap can get rolling soon. I absolutely love the final outcome. Everything looks great, it appears the installers did a very professional job. I saw zero flaws.
Last night I ran Elsa to Ali’s place. It took me roughly the same amount of time as it did from the old house which surprised me a bit since I am further south. Elsa was thrilled to see Ali and Shugs as always. I enjoyed a taco dinner with them before pushing back for home.
I have a brief work day before I leave to drive up to Titusville for an IT conference which runs until Friday. It will be a good chance for me to reset and reflect in surroundings different than I am accustomed to.
