Archives June 2024

Last night they cancelled volleyball since we had our fourth consecutive day of heavy rain. When I drove home yesterday the southern end of the road that leads to our development had some pretty significant flooding. Luckily my house and seemingly the entire development sits on high ground. The only thing that holds water is the area where I have the garden and that still drains quickly.

As I was walking Elsa last night I was remembering just how miserable storm events like this would be at my old house which had a ton of low areas that would collect water. I have no doubt that right now there are spots in that yard that have close to a foot of water on them. Once the water level got that bad it would take forever to recede, weeks in some situations. It turned the property into genuine swampland and I absolutely hated it. When I had chickens it became even more aggravating.

Despite my efforts to keep the birds dry by spending a ton of money and effort on fill to raise the ground where they lived it would still flood in heavy rains. The chickens were not rocket scientists and would insist on drinking the dirty, bacteria filled ground water despite my having clean water at multiple spots. I have no doubt it contributed to more than one of them getting sick. Seeing my property inundated made me feel out of control and powerless to fix it. I don’t sit well with that feeling. Not having to deal with that mess anymore is yet another of the long list of reasons why I am so much happier with my new living situation. It’s been a year and 3 months now, I wonder how much longer I should refer to it as “new”.

Since I had a free night I got some chores done, including the laundry. Elsa for some odd reason enjoys when I cover her with folded laundry. I’m always happy to oblige as she looks ridiculously cute in the process.

I also had time to play more WoW, embarking on leveling yet another character. This time I decided to work on my warrior which was the very first character I created and played back in 2005 so I am a bit sentimental about him. His name is IronDuf.

A warrior is a tank class meaning his job in a group is to keep the attention of the bad guys and take the majority of the damage. Being the tank has a lot of responsibilities, if you screw up there is a good chance others will die. You have to know where you are going and how fights work to be a good tank. It can be a lot of pressure as it requires you to do a lot more work and thinking than a DPS class where all you do is damage. Healing classes are behind the tanks as far as stress and responsibility goes but I typically will heal before I tank.

I had not tanked dungeons in a long time so I was not all that confident how it would go. In addition my warrior has poor gear which can make the task more difficult. I wound up having a good time tanking two dungeons. I managed not to die and the only players in my groups that died were the ones that did ignorant things so I can’t do much about that. I also gained three levels during the play session which is the most I have done in one sitting in quite awhile. I’m actually looking forward to getting back in there and going again.

It looks like we should have a half decent day weather-wise, finally, today. I am hoping to play my first pickleball all week at lunch. This weekend I plan to get some more play time balanced with non-recreational things I would like to accomplish as well. If I go hard at pickleball all morning I find it drains my motivation reserves to do other things the rest of the day.

Last year I was talking about fresh beginnings, new starts and finding peace. This evidently was just lip service because I instead chose to step backwards instead of forward in reality.

The week long rain even continued yesterday, pounding our area with precipitation. I responded as I have most days this week by staying home. I finally got my first Temu package, a large bag stuffed with the several items I bought including a loud shirt for pickleball, some protective EUC gear, and a small dog bed.

The quality of the items seemed ok but not outstanding which I already expected. I am most interested in trying the EUC protective gear which looks pretty cool albeit heavier than my normal knee/shin/elbow protection. I have one more Temu package on the way. I am thinking about buying a generic Temu pickleball paddle to see how they compare. Speaking of paddles, I received yet another new paddle, the 6.0 Triple Black Diamond. It never stops.

Last night I also got some more WoW time in, finishing up leveling of my 5th character to the max level. Having five max level characters sounds like a lot. The reality is I have another 6 or 7 to go.

I walked out the door this morning and was surprised to see a for sale sign on the house two doors down from me. Those are the neighbors that I have talked to a half decent amount and the ones I ran into at Brookside a month or so ago. I knew nothing of any plans for them to sell. If anything they have indicated to me they love where they live and they always seemed happy together. I am wondering if something bad has gone down that has resulted in the house going on the market. I don’t know why else they would sell. You just never know how things are going to unfold for you in life.

Last year I was still alluding to my dealing with behind the scenes drama as well. Luckily it didn’t result in me selling my house, again.

Oh Gladys is coming into town net week. I am going to be her ground transportation from Miami. It will be nice to have her around, at least for a little bit.

Our area has been getting hammered with tropical moisture this week. I took my Tacoma to work yesterday and today and was glad I did. When I took Elsa to the vet yesterday morning I had to roll through some streets that were badly flooded out that would have made me nervous in my Tesla. The rest of the week is looking to be very wet as well. Our area was very arid prior to this so the rain is a good thing although nature turning the faucet on full blast for a week straight is a bit extreme. Luckily my new property does not suffer from the nasty standing water issue my old place had. It can rain torrentially with little to no consequence at my new place.

Last night after I did another mini-workout I started developing a slight headache. I don’t get a lot of headaches. I then started to feel a bit chilled as well. I put on a sweatshirt that I kept on while playing a WoW session where I leveled my fourth character to max level. Eventually I felt better but it was an unwell feeling for an hour or two.

Last night I finally finished up Godzilla Minus One. It took me a total of three viewing sessions to complete it. It was an old school style Godzilla movie based in the time period in Japan right after World War II. Most recent depictions of Godzilla always include some sort of heroic/decent side to him. This film went retro where Godzilla is pure monster mode with more story than typical. It was ok but I wouldn’t give it the acclaim I have heard others give the film. It’s a B in my book.

Any long time blog readers may or may have not noticed that since I split from Cindy some of the political or societal issues have taken a back seat in what I comment/write about. I used to rant hard about a lot of stuff and was very vocal about my dislike of Trump and what he represented. However once he was voted out that avenue of discontent slowly faded. However I also thought that the way Biden was magically shoved into the front runner spot after being behind in every imaginable way in the primaries was shady. I have said very little about his performance since he has been president because quite frankly, I’m not a fan. So the the idea that this election we have a choice between two candidates that I don’t like is disheartening and furthers my disposition to not care, but I digress.

I think when I was in relationships I found myself more focused on what else was going on around me. I think now that I have been primarily single since September of 2021 that focus has turned inward, focusing on how to navigate my day to day existence instead of worrying about how f’d up the rest of the world is, which it is, clearly. I have shoulder shrugged that I can’t change any of that so instead I am trying to manage my own little sphere of existence, which brings me to my actual point.

There is a lot of sentiment from older Americans, which I am officially a part of nowadays that millennials and Gen Z individuals are just lazy and not willing to work to carve out their own life. In some ways I have subscribed to that mindset if I am being honest. However I have caught a few videos from a guy that points out that the reality is the cards are stacked so high against people in this age bracket it’s nearly impossible to see over them.

In his videos he breaks down the numbers that show the correlation between average median incomes, interest rates, and home prices over the years. For most of the last 30 years they have moved up at similar rates. Yes inflation has always been around but incomes have kept pace to allow a typical family to afford a modest home if they were hard working and saved a little money. That formula in the last 2-3 years has become obliterated.

Of course everything has gone up astronomically since covid but the housing market is the most crushing obstacle for anyone trying to buy their first home with no equity from a prior home to help them (like me). When you look at these numbers it’s eye opening and ridiculous. In every way possible a younger person is getting enslaved to financial institutions because they simply can not afford to pay for even basic needs to survive.

He makes a great point how older Americans that already have their home think the economy is working well. The value of their home is way, way up, their stock market portfolio is strong so the next generation complaining about their financial reality is often disregarded as whining and insignificant. They are simply wrong. Just watch one of his short videos to see what he is talking about, it’s worth the time.

Like I said I am an example of benefiting by getting into the housing market before this went off the rails. If you would have told me five years ago that I would “downsize” into a home that costs a half million dollars I would have laughed in your face considering my original home cost a third of that. Yet that was the reality and it continues to be. I am one of the fortunate ones, those that are a couple decades behind me have an incredible mountain to climb.

So of course the question is how do we fix it? I honestly have no idea. Covid was used as an excuse across the board to raise the prices universally on everything however even now that the crisis is far behind us those prices never recovered, staying at their high levels because it’s great for the bottom line. It’s just one more reason that the future ahead looks very dark and dreary financially for so many people. If there is a light at the end of the tunnel I can’t see it.

Last year I yet again made commentary that was related to the ridiculous back and forth drama I contributed to and endured with my ex and how utterly ridiculous it was. Now it’s clear the truly ridiculous thing was I went through another six months of it, hitting myself in the face with a hammer and then wondering why it hurt. I was such an idiot, truly.

I had a very busy Monday night where I did laundry, got a mini-workout in, did laundry, made dinner, set up a new battery back up and ran to Costco to load up on some bulk items. By the time I got to bed I felt like my evening was extremely productive and I liked it.

This morning I had to take Elsa to the vet for a blood draw which is a prerequisite for the dental cleaning she is having done next week. She is terrified of the vet as is. To make matters worse we had torrential rain this morning which she is terrified of as well. In the 10 seconds it took to get her into the truck she was soaked and shaking.

When we got to the vet the rain had slowed a bit but once she realized where we were she really freaked out. Luckily the staff there is very sweet and patient with her. The blood test only took a few minutes before I loaded her back up in the truck and dropped her off at home where she immediately crawled under my workbench to hide from the rain.

One of the things I grabbed unexpectedly at Costco were two pair of pants. They were Banana Republic and seemed nice. I only bought two because I was unsure of how they would fit. Sometimes 32×34 fit me perfectly, sometimes they don’t. It’s a crap shoot. When I tried them on at home I was happy to see they fit great. They are comfortable as well. I like them so much I will likely subject myself to Costco again in the near future to grab a few other colors. I have some pants in my closet that are beyond their expiration date. The best part of these pants was they were $17, an incredible bargain when you look at normal clothing prices.

Speaking of bargains, a guy I know from pickleball was singing his praise of Temu. He buys all sorts of stuff there at crazy low prices. It is basically like buying from Amazon but direct from China manufacturers so you cut out the additional layer of profit padding. The catch is it can take a couple weeks to get things so if you need something fast Amazon is still king but if you don’t you should browse Temu, the pricing on stuff is nuts. Instead of paying $200 for pickleball paddles this guy has been buying $35 knockoffs that play almost identical and he loves them.

Friday after work I met up with my buddy Juan to do a happy hour at Tacos n Tequila. Usually when I go there I get the house margarita which is made with some mix. I decided to splurge and spend two dollars more for the TT margarita. Wow, what a difference.

When I have the house margaritas I can have few and only feel it mildly. With the “real” margaritas the affect was much more impactful. I wound up having four of them. Juan and I had a good time laughing and carrying on. Thankfully I was only a couple miles from my house and I have a car that drives itself, however, I had not eaten.

After getting home, taking Elsa for her walk and feeding her I was debating if I want to go over to Brunina’s, despite just getting more than my fill of alcohol at TnT. I mentally shrugged my shoulders and decided to go, drinking a couple Miller Lites while I had my dinner there. I had consumed enough alcohol that night for a normal weekend and then some, but it was only Friday.

I had told my friend Sue that instead of playing pickleball both days of the weekend that I only wanted to do one day to give my body a bit of a break. She suggested we do Sunday which was fine with me. It was nice to sleep in Saturday with no alarm, especially with how my Friday evening was. I took advantage of the free time to get some stuff done.

One of those things was taking another whack at getting a functional tire on my Master. The first street tire I installed appeared to have a permanent warp/wobble that I could not correct. I bought a Michelin street tire to replace it.

Since this was my second time removing and installing a tire in a couple weeks the process went smoothly. I got the new tire on without using any prying tools which is a rarity. The new tire spun true the first time without any f’ing around which was great.

Next I tended to installing the Clarkpad race kit which was a combination of fairing, bumpers and new pedals. The kit is well made and transformed the look of the wheel dramatically, for the better. While testing the tire I stopped to take a picture of the wheel near a bench. I noticed a bunch of bees flying around and a loud buzzing sound. When I looked up at the tree behind the bench there was a living mound of bees collected around the trunk of the tree, thousands of them. Luckily none of them seemed that interested in me so I took the picture and got the hell out of there. I made a video outlining the tire and race kit install.

I also finally got around to reviewing a smart charger that I was sent a couple months ago for free to review. I don’t really need it which is probably why I have not been in a rush to review it but it was nice to check it off my to do list.

Saturday afternoon I reached out to my buddy Don to see if he wanted to grab dinner, I had not seen him in at least 5 months. We wound up going to Shea’s, a place I went to once before. It was surprisingly busy for being out of season but we found a few empty spots at the bar. We had a good time downing a few beers with our meal as we caught up on what is new. Don has had an issue being bored in his retirement which is a problem I am almost certain I can avoid since I have a lot of hobbies/interest to keep me going.

Sunday morning I played pickleball for two hours and was drenched from doing so. Even with starting at 8AM, the heat and humidity is oppressive. I kept switching paddles between games because of how wet the grips were getting. It was good to get out and play regardless.

During the afternoon I paid my bills and did the editing for the videos you see above. I had agreed to do another one of the salsa classes at the same place I did a month ago. I didn’t agree to go because I have any delusion about becoming adept at salsa, it’s more about just hanging with my friends and having a good time. I drank for my 3rd day in a row and it was a lot. In total I put away six margaritas over the three hours plus I was there, something that feels required for me to stop caring how dumb I look dancing. I was maybe a tiny bit better than last time but still was basically awful. The good news is there were other men there that were around my skill level. Some of the people are such good dancers, it amazes me how they are able to just flow from move to move effortlessly. Full self driving was once again very useful in ensuring I get home without incident.

Over the weekend I watched a movie that was suggested by Netflix, Atlas. Netflix knows I am a sci-fi fan. I thought it was odd that Jennifer Lopez was the star of the film but the premise sounded interesting to me. As it’s 18% Rotten Tomatoes score indicates, it was awful. To me the plot was potentially cool but Jennifer was just horrible. Her character spent most of her time being manic, crying, screaming and losing her shit yet somehow she managed to save the day. It was stupid and not worth the two hours I spent watching it. I’d give it a C-. I’m fine if I never see her in another movie again but at the very least she should stay out of sci-fi/action films, she does not belong.

Last night I upped my normal pre-volleyball Advil consumption 50%, popping three pills instead of two to give me some pain relief from my sore knees. It was hot and humid as hell which will now be the norm for the next 6 months. We played 4’s all night. My team had two of the players that are among my least favorite to play with along with one that I love playing with. I played pretty well overall and our team finished 4-2. After play I headed to Carrabas to grab dinner with Helen. The place was a ghost town by 8:45. My truck was one of only a handful of cars in the parking lot.

My new tire for the Master arrived yesterday. The way it arrived was funny to me. The tire was unpackaged other than a piece of cardboard that was looped around it which had the shipping label affixed to it. I have bought a number of tires for my EUCs over the years but never received one like this. Some others chimed in, including my brother Patrick saying they have gotten bare rubber before as well. I guess it’s a thing.

I forgot to mention that when I got home from the casual birthday drinks and dinner at Tacos and Tequila Wednesday night for some odd reason I got motivated to see if I could do a one arm pull up negative. When I was hard core into calisthenics I could hold myself up with my right arm and them descend in a somewhat controlled fashion. I’m obviously not hard core into calisthenics now.

I got myself up into the top position and tried to lock my right elbow against my side as I would in the past. When I let go of the bar with my left hand I could only stay up there for a fraction of a second before gravity quickly pulled me to the ground. I was trying to resist on the way down as you are supposed to but all I managed to do is make it feel like I stretched/strained every bit of connective tissue in my right arm. Yesterday at the gym I could hardly do tricep exercises because my elbow hurt too much. I made a mental note that I should not try extreme calisthenics movements after margaritas in the future.

This weekend I already have decided to only play pickleball one of the two days to give my body a break. It’s also nice to have at least one day a week where I am not setting the alarm clock. I have a couple tasks I would like to accomplish this weekend, mounting the new tire on the Master and installing wheel protectors I bought for the Tesla. The Uberturbine wheels on the car are cool looking but also extremely vulnerable to curb rash. These wheel protectors blend in well but will take the abuse if I inadvertently would get too close to something. I also have to get around to doing a review on a charging device I have had for a couple months. The reality is I don’t need it but it was sent for free so I feel obligated to make a video on it.

Yesterday was my buddy Brian’s birthday. Brian is the guy I play volleyball with and who has recently taken a big interest to pickleball as well. They invited me to play again last night but I passed to let me knees recover a bit more since I am supposed to play volleyball tonight. I did however join him and his wife afterward at the Tacos n Tequila up in North Naples after they got done playing.

It was Brian’s 57th birthday, making him a few months older than I am. As usual we had a good time hanging out while enjoying food and drink. I wound up not getting out of there until shortly before 10PM. When I got home I didn’t get to bed until close to midnight. On the bright side I was so tired that I went to sleep without a sleep aid for the second night in a row and managed to sleep relatively well, albeit for less time than optimal.

Last year I posted some esoteric shit about water, rocks and ripples. As was the case for pretty much all of 2023, most negative things that went down were connected to the same source material which is what this was in regards to.

Yesterday I pulled the trigger on buying tickets to fly to California in the middle of July. The main reason behind it was to attend Larry’s summer party. I have attended his Christmas party in the past so I figured why not? I’ll be out there for 5 days which should give me plenty of time to see, ride and hangout with my friends on the west coast. I haven’t decided where I am going to stay while there yet but I have a little time to figure that out.

This will be the third time I am going out there and the first time I will be doing so solo. The last two trips I went with my ex. Last years trip was an absolute cluster f where I basically had to hide the fact I was going from the world because of her issues. We broke it off around a week after returning. Looking back, it was pure insanity which is the way I would categorize much of my decision making when referring to her. I am approaching 6 months post madness and still am finding myself dwelling on aspects of that mess.

I did a rather brief live stream last night whose primary focus was to promote people joining Dawn’s YouTube channel as members. She had just turned that option on a day or two prior. I have had membership for a number of years and currently have 24 members. Being an attractive female, I am expecting Dawn to get many more members than I have pretty quickly which is a good thing.

Overall the live stream was a bit on the lame side. I didn’t have a ton of people in it since it was unannounced and a Tuesday night. My energy also was lacking due to my overall poor state of mind. I found myself just wanting to go to bed. I talked a bit about my funk during the stream, not that it will correct anything.

For the first time in a very long time I went to bed without any sort of sleep aid, no unisom, no edibles. I have been feeling plenty tired lately so I thought I would see how it would go. Surprisingly it went well. I slept pretty soundly through the night and was even able to go back to sleep rather easily after getting up to pee. I will see if I can continue to sleep normally without an assist. It would be my preference to do so.

Last year I was tacking patching the multitude of holes in the walls and trying to match up the paint afterward, with varying degrees of success and failure.

Between my pushing myself too far physically and the pattern of staying up late I have been feeling a bit run over recently. When I got home yesterday I was in the bedroom changing. It started to rain so I laid in my bed just to watch the much needed precipitation fall in the back yard for a couple minutes. Almost 90 minutes later I woke up. Luckily I didn’t have any firm commitments for last night or else I may have slept through them. To me the unexpected nap was a testament to just how beat up I am feeling in multiple ways, both physically and mentally.

There is no full moon in the sky to attribute any of this to, I’m just not in a good or positive state of mind recently. When this type of valley occurs my typical response is to just try to keep busy, occupying my mind until the positive energy switch once again is flipped on. Until then I can fake it until I make it.

I once again extended myself too far with pickleball. Last night as I tried to walk I wound up sliding my right foot under me instead of trying to take a normal stride, it hurt that much, but let me rewind the clock.

Friday night instead of doing a happy hour I was quite content to just stay at home, make a pizza and enjoy a Mexican Coke. I had to stay awake until almost midnight to initiate a process at work. I stayed awake by playing WoW and watching some 1980 Shogun. I fell asleep very quickly after the remote process was done. I have been going to bed late consistently in the last few weeks which has been leaving me in a sleepy state more often than I wish.

On Saturday morning I played pickleball. My knees already had a degree of soreness from the prior week of activity but I was out there for another three hours almost. I was feeling beat up, my knees had had enough. To add to the fun I accidentally kicked the leg of a table with my left foot, leaving my left pinky toe painful and a gross shade of purple.

During the day I worked on several things including taking apart my Master for the second time, hoping I would find an obvious reason why the tire was rolling crooked. I did not. The wheel will remain in it’s current form until the new tire I ordered shows up and I get a chance to install it.

So Saturday evening the other group of people that I have been playing pickleball with asked me to play, again. At first I declined, citing that I played earlier in the day and was already hurting. However they didn’t give up easily and I eventually agreed to go. I popped my second set of Advil for the day and headed to Veterans Park to play in North Naples, a place I had not played at in a long time.

Play was fun. Instead of filling up my water bottle with water I chose to use Cayman Jack instead to hydrate. The six of us had fun playing and then went to the Tacos and Tequilla up there for more drinks and dinner. By the time we got up from our high top table I could hardly walk. Each step with my right leg radiated pain, I knew I had pushed it too far. I also knew I was supposed to play Sunday morning once again as well as do a swamp ride Sunday afternoon with Garrett who was visiting from out of town. I was not quite sure how I was going to get through both of those obligations with how I was feeling. The answer was, with Advil.

I was up really late once again Saturday night and was not happy to hear the 6:30 alarm go off. I felt like shit. The first 10 minutes out of bed I shuffled around with my right leg and lower back feeling like hell. However I just kept moving, took more Advil and headed to the courts thinking how if I was a sane individual I would have just texted my friend Sue and told her I couldn’t make it. Nope, my sense of obligation over ruled my personal aches and pains.

I did not play particularly well which did not surprise me. I was just looking to survive the session, conserving whatever I had left to do the swamp ride later. Once the Advil wore off I was back to limping around but I didn’t have much time before I took round two as Garrett showed up around 2PM. He flew down from western PA but had his wheel shipped to my house ahead of time which worked out well. He is actually going to be spending most of this week in the Orlando area with his girlfriend but he came right from the airport to my place to start his trip off with a swamp ride.

Shortly before we were ready to drive to the swamp in the truck it started to rain hard at my place. I assured Garrett that just because it was raining here that does not mean it would be raining at the swamp. I told him I wasn’t worried about getting rained on anyway which he was glad to hear because he was really looking forward to the ride.

When we parked at the nearby park out there it was not raining although there were threatening skies very close by. We rolled into the swamp knowing it could be a wet experience. Ironically the swamp itself was quite dry. The water levels had dropped dramatically since I went in there with the ET Max somewhere around a month ago. We barely have had any rain during that time period.

The trail was in good shape with only a mild amount of gators spotted, somewhere close to 20. Instead of staying by the path as we approached all the gators instead decided to jump in the water as we got near. About half way into the ride it started to rain, light but steady. The rough terrain was hell on my lower body, even with suspension. Once we exited the 13 mile swamp loop and got back on hard surfaces the rain intensified. By the time we got back to the truck both Garrett and I were pretty soaked but neither of us really cared. He really enjoyed the ride.

On the way back we stopped at my original DD to grab some coffee before heading back to the house. When we did get back we had a bit of a show and tell session. I let Garrett try out my Mten Mini as well as the One Wheel. He put together his off road unicycle, yes the type you pedal, and showed me how he rides it. He started riding regular unicycles late last year and has been loving it.

After an hour or so he packed up his rental car to head out. I presented him with this gator ride sticker that I have been handing out to swamp riders. He again expressed his great appreciation for riding with him which was nice and mutually appreciated. It was yet another positive experience when I meet up with people that know me from my YouTube channel.

I spent the rest of the evening editing the video from the ride. By the time I got out of my office chair the advil had worn off and I could hardly walk, again.

This weekend made it clear that I simply have to be more reasonable when it comes to what I expect my body told hold up to. In addition to the sore knees and back my feet hurt as well from all of the play. Hell even my right elbow and forearm are feeling tender from all of the paddle swinging. It’s going to be hard to say no to playing but if I keep on the path I am currently I could wind up injuring myself in a way that a couple Advil will no longer mask.

The good news is between the various activities and limping around in pain this weekend it left less time for me to dwell on thoughts that don’t serve my greater good.