All posts by Duf

On Saturday I scheduled my second sports massage, hoping it would help me get over this plateau of IT band issues. Much like last time she concentrated almost entirely on my lower body although she did work some on my back. She said the right side of my lower back felt like a rock so she did some cupping on it which I have had done before.

The theory on cupping is it breaks up whatever is hanging in the area and helps to distribute blood to promote healing. It’s a bit uncomfortable but well within my pain tolerance. It does leave you with unmistakable reminders of their use however as you can see. The massage felt great and I want to do them more often. I wish I could say it was a magic pill that made all of my IT band pain vanish but sadly it still exists.

Saturday night I did a live stream, a very long live stream. YouTube added a feature awhile back called super chat goals. Basically prior to a live stream you set a goal for super chats, which are another type of donation. If that goal is met you offer to do something. This time I offered to do a shot of tequila if my $10 goal was reached. Well it was reached twice in the first 40 minutes. I only had enough tequila to do two shots, if I had more I am sure I would have been doing more shots. I also had four Modelo’s so I I met my alcohol quota and then some. This stream went extremely long, one of my longest ever crossing the four and a half hour mark. It was a fun and entertaining stream that had a lot of good interactions.

One of the things I was working on was printing six monitor supports for the new three monitor set up I now have at work. It was a lot of printing that was a total of 18 parts. I used all three of my printers in tandem to get it all done. The A1 was able to print the same part roughly twice as fast as my Prusa.

The big event on Sunday was the Eagles playoff game against the Rams. The game was very close throughout but later in the fourth quarter the Eagles extended to a two score lead. Of course they promptly let the Rams fly down the field to score an easy touchdown and then did nothing on offense to allow the Rams to have a shot to win the game with more than two minutes to go. It looked like the Birds were poised to hand the Rams the game as they were within 20 yards of the end zone with plenty of time left. Thankfully the defense made plays on third and then fourth down to save the game. I felt very lucky but if the Eagles Super Bowl season proved anything it is that luck is an important part of a championship.

One thing that is really annoying me is Jake Elliot. He has historically been a real asset with high accuracy numbers, even from distance. I don’t know if he has some sort of injury or if it’s just in his head but he has been bad this year. He nearly cost the Eagles dearly by not missing one but two extra points in the game, inexcusable. I can only hope he gets his head on straight. Anyway the game was fun to watch, made even better by the fact that it snowed during most of it. We will see what next week brings.

The weather here on Monday was on the drab side with overcast skies and temps that actually dropped during the day. I mostly stuck around the house to get things done. I had a cheesesteak from Wawa for lunch, yes a cheesesteak. Although my diet is still mostly pescatarian I have started to have non-seafood meat products here and there. This change is one of many shifts in habits, routines and behavior that have been going on for the last couple years. There are many things that used to be core in my existence that have simply been let go for one reason or another.

I find myself doing a lot more evaluating of my actions, thoughts and decisions, putting them to two very simple tests. Is this making my life better or worse and is this making me happy or unhappy? If the honest answer to either of those questions is the latter then it’s time for me to make a change.

No I did not watch any of the inauguration ceremonies although I did see a picture of Melania wearing a bizarre hat that looked like it was straight out of a Spy vs Spy comic.

Last night I got to do my first ever test print on the Bambu A1. I chose to print a speed benchy. The benchy has long been the standard for doing test prints so I figured it would be a great way to test the A1. It only took a few seconds into the print until my mouth dropped open, it was so fast.

The print head was moving so fast it was a blur at times, putting down the layers of plastic faster than I ever saw before. In less than 15 minutes the print was done. Despite the high speed the quality of the print was still very good. The funny thing is that I did not buy this printer for it’s incredible speed, I bought it for it’s ability to make amazing multi-color prints. The fact that it prints this fast is just a cherry on top. I am looking forward to digging into this printer a lot more over my extended three day weekend. I am currently printing a “poop” bin on my Prusa which is used to catch purged filament on the A1 which happens often with color changes.

Yesterday I scheduled to have my second sports massage on Saturday. I have been doing a lot of work strengthening and stretching courtesy of yoga twice a week as well as stuff I have been doing on my own. Despite this I am still experiencing discomfort if I walk more than maybe a few hundred yards. It’s not debilitating but a little constant throb that lets me know all is not well. We will see if getting electro-stimmed, pulled, stretched and rubbed on helps at all.

The Eagles have their big divisional playoff game against the Rams Sunday afternoon so I’ll be tuned into that for sure. As far as the rest the weekend goes I may wind up live streaming Saturday night. I am anxious to try out my new mic arrangement and I can always find something to talk about. This also happens to be one of those three day weekends that I always forget about. I didn’t even realize it was coming up until a co-worker mentioned it earlier in the week. Having a bonus day to do whatever I want is never a bad thing.

You may recall I mentioned how for a couple months I have been posting “questionably valuable advice” short videos to social media. They were all based on little tidbits of wisdom/experience I have picked up along this long journey I have traveled thus far. Last night I posted a final video stating I was done doing the format. After some introspection I no longer felt motivated to share such thoughts in a focused manner and maybe even unqualified to do so, not the qualifications are required to spew advice on the internet. Will I still have personal thoughts, stories and opinions that I put out there for the world to digest? I would assume I will, but they will be nestled inside of other content where they can be discovered by those that take the time to look, think and feel.

It’s been a very long time since I bought a 3D printer. I remember a time when I had nine or ten 3D printers split between both my home and office. At that time I was making and selling a lot of EUC stands via my eucarmy.com online store. Over the years that has declined significantly as has my interest in the hobby. This was another one of them that was tied a lot to Cindy as she would often paint a lot of the cool things I used to make which was kind of a fun symbiotic set up.

Before I moved I sold/gave away a bunch of my printer farm and I have given away a couple more even after I moved. I have still been printing stands to keep a small inventory on hand as well printing things on request for others that ask but not digging into the new models that are always out there. So my buying a new printer is not something I would have predicted several months ago.

The main reason I decided to do so was my friend bought an A1 and has been showing me the cool stuff he has been making on it for quite awhile. It was cool enough to motivate me to splurge and buy myself one in December. Last night I put the printer together which took some time but was not difficult. Bambu really does a nice job making assembly clearly explained and simple. When I took the printer into my office I quickly realized I have a benchtop real estate issue.

Originally I planned to just add the Bambu into the space that currently has two Prusa printers on it. However since the A1 has a stand alone four filament holder it takes up a lot of space. I pulled one of the Prusa’s off the bench. I am going to have to do some condensing/cleaning/reorganizing over the weekend to figure out how I want to still manage to keep three printers online in there.

I got the A1 set up and let it run through it’s initial configuration and calibration. It has some very cool features out of the box including the ability to be controlled remotely via a computer, phone, or tablet as well having a built in camera to monitor prints. The Bambu filament is actually refillable meaning once you buy a spool you can reuse it and just load new filament onto it. The filament has a RFID tag that allows the printer to automatically know what type and color of filament you have loaded. It’s some very cool tech. I stopped short of doing any test prints. My eyes were burning and I felt very tired so I packed it in for the night with the intent of digging into it more this evening.

I left work early yesterday to pick up my buddy Don at the airport. He had just spent over a week in Kentucky and was subjected to snow, ice and temperatures that never crossed 32 degrees the entire time he was there. To say he was glad to be home was an understatement. Even though it still has been on the cold side by Florida standards it’s better than 95% of the country right now.

So two or three weeks ago I had my Tacoma out for a drive on the weekend. I have two sets of key fobs for the truck. One of them live on a big key chain along with a number of other keys. That one almost never gets used because of it’s bulk and weight. The other fob is stand alone so I normally just grab that one and throw it in my pocket. When I get home I have a little basket on my counter that I toss it into.

So anyway the next day after that drive I had somewhere else to go and went to grab the stand alone key. It wasn’t in there. I looked around briefly and had no luck so I just grabbed the full set of keys. Ever since then I have had multiple sessions of trying to find the key fob. I wondered if somehow it fell out of my pocket after I got home that day so I have done several back and forth inspections of the lawn next to the driveway that were fruitless. I have done laps around the house looking anywhere that I could think of that could be a potential spot where I would have tossed the key. I even went through my dirty laundry, checking the pockets to make sure I hadn’t just forgotten to take the fob out altogether. All of these efforts were unsuccessful. I was at the point where I was writing the FOB location off as an unsolved mystery.

On Sunday I needed a pen for something. I have a small little container on the kitchen counter that holds a number of them. As I snagged the pen my eyes caught it, the FOB was there, nestled in the bottom of the forest of pens! Evidently I brainlessly dropped the key in there. The sense of relief and satisfaction from finding something I thought was lost forever was real.

Last night on the way home from the airport I had full self driving on. I captured some video demonstrating just how much the Tesla is seeing and tracking in real time. Despite having full self driving for awhile it still manages to impress me.

Today I am supposed to receive my Bambu Labs A1 printer. This was my big Christmas gift that I bought for myself. The A1 is a multi-color printer that can utilize up to four color filaments at a time. My buddy at work has one and the stuff it can make is incredible with quality so good it doesn’t even look 3D printed. For the first time in awhile I have some 3D printing excitement in my world.

Yesterday at work we had a bit of a situation. An email came into the organization that was sent to everyone that was clearly suspicious and had a potentially malicious attachment. I sent out an organization wide message instructing people to not interact with the email and to simply delete it. Well we had one employee that contacted me, saying she already clicked on the attachment.

Because of a couple conditions we escaped damage to our network but the fact that this employee carelessly clicked the file attachment was a major issue. We have utilized organization wide security training that our staff is required to complete several times a year. One of the core lessons taught is you never interact with an email that contains links or a file attachment that you are not expecting. There have been multiple cases of this behavior bringing down other offices via malware from employees being careless.

I reached out to this employee directly. Her excuse was she was trying to help a customer at the same time as she was checking her email. I told her that was not an excuse and that it is her responsibility to interact with email in a safe manner, always. I followed up sending an organization wide reminder of the importance of following these guidelines which have been reinforced repeatedly via our training programs. Our job is to make our end users as paranoid as possible when it comes to network security. I have been told that many think I am “mean” because of the tone of my communications as a result. I could care less, it’s my job. If somebody takes down our network through their negligence it could cost them their job and make me look like I am not doing mine.

Several weeks ago I noticed my small lamp in the great room was broken. My suspicion is the cleaning ladies inadvertently knocked it off the table and didn’t tell me. (has happened before) So that light which is normally on a smart switch was missing in action ever since.

For some reason I had not gotten around to getting a replacement until last night. I went to Home Goods where I have bought a number of accessories since moving into the house. I bought a simple and inexpensive lamp that appealed to me. Once I plugged it in I confirmed this was an upgrade to the space. I like it more than what it replaced.

I randomly discovered that there is a new Walking Dead series on Netflix, Those That Live. It is the story of Rick and Michon. When Rick apparently died in the original Walking Dead series it sort of marked the downhill slide of the series IMO. I have seen some of the other spin offs from the show and they lost their appeal to me. However I always loved Rick’s character so I decided to give this 6 episode series a try.

A couple shows in I am enjoying it. Of course nothing is going to capture the feeling of when the show first came out. The entire country was fascinated by it. However this spinoff appears to be decent, at least so far. Hopefully it’s good enough I can make it to the end.

On Friday night I worked on getting the Master V4 back together. It had been sitting on my workbench apart all week as I waited for a new inner tube to arrive to complete a tire swap. I used my zip tie method to make the tire installation a piece of cake. I documented the process quickly on my phone and shared it on the internet. Installing tires is generally seen universally as a pain in the ass so once others saw how much easier this was their eyes were opened.

After getting the new tire on I completed the rest of the wheel assembly and took it out on a quick test ride in the dark to make sure the wheel was functioning normally. It was. I then updated the wheel to the newest firmware which did not go as well. In total I did the exact same process three times until the upgrade worked 100% which ironically is sort of normal for these wheels. By the time I was done I didn’t have the motivation to clean up all the mess Friday night. I completed that Saturday morning.

Later Saturday morning I met up with my normal Saturday pickleball partner Sue for breakfast. She is also currently injured and has not been playing. It was nice to catch up with her as we chatted and ate for over an hour and a half. I would much rather be doing breakfast after playing a session of pickleball but you can’t always get what you want.

Saturday night I got out to see Den of Thieves 2. I had recently seen the original ironically which was several years old on HBO Max so when I found out a sequel was coming the timing was good. The movie features Gerard Butler whom I have always been a fan of since his 300 days. Unlike a lot of sequels I thought this one was on par with the original and I enjoyed it, a solid B+ for me.

Sunday morning I slept in until well after 8AM. After grabbing some coffee at DD I started working through my weekly bill pay session. I have some financial goals that I would like to get some movement on this year. These goals get focused on primarily when this weekly managing of my finances occur. The rest of the time they are fuzzy.

Early Sunday afternoon I got out on my freshly repaired V13. I wanted to put the new shocks to a more extended test. The air was on the cool side outside but the hoodie and jeans I was wearing was enough to keep me comfortable during the ride.

I rode in a bit of a random fashion, compiling my route as I went. I wound up hitting a number of spots including the beach, a location where the V13 never visited before. The work on the suspension seemed to have resulted in improvements in both the feel and noise level of the wheel when the suspension is engaged. This was also the first time I rode seated in 2025, something I could not do last time I tried because of the knee/IT band issues I have been having.

The ride was somewhere close to 25 miles and I topped 40MPH during one stretch. Both of these numbers represent new watermarks in both distance and speed since my crash in October. After that crash I did not feel like I was going to allow it to affect me significantly despite the very real possibility that I could have been killed during that incident. I have continued to ride since then but all of the rides have been shortish and mostly slower paced, rarely crossing over 30MPH. I think despite my intent I do have some lingering side effects from that day. Like anything time should lessen that impact.

I got home and edited the video I shot right up until the Eagles playoff game. The Eagles beat the Packers in a rather ugly win. The offense was on the anemic side and the Packers had a ton of injuries, turnovers and penalties that should have resulted in a blow out but the game remained close throughout. Hey a win is a win, especially in the playoffs. My expectations have been and continue to be guarded, at best.

Yesterday a moveable mic mount I ordered arrived. Since I moved to my new house I have been just using a normal stand configuration for my mic which is ok but sort of limited in it’s positioning. With the arm I can put the mic exactly where it needs to be when I am using it and when I am not I can swing it totally out of my way.

I used to have this set up with my old desk at the old house but it was not great because the mount point was high, making the arm itself become part of what the camera saw. With the arm being mounted lower as it is now that should no longer be an issue. This new configuration should work out better for live streaming. I am also thinking about starting to play WoW again and if I do there is a possibility I could be streaming some of that as well. This mic mount will give me the flexibility that I need.

Yesterday I received an unexpected email from the Florida Department of Management Services. It was to officially notify me that I was now less than 5 years from my potential retirement date. It took me by surprise. Although I knew I was approximately this close to retirement seeing this email made it feel more tangible.

The email included a number of suggestions that will help me get myself aligned and ready to retire when that day comes. A lot of people I know that have worked here take advantage of a program called DROP. Basically it is a way the state incentivizes employees to stay on longer so they can hold on to all of that experience a long term employee offers. Basically after you reach full retirement age you can stay up to an additional 8 years in DROP. Your reward for doing so is a big lump sum of cash when you do finally leave.

It’s very tempting to a lot of people to extend their employment to get this cash bonus. To me the temptation of being freed from the constraints of a job, free to do what I want, when I want and where I want is far more tempting. The light at the end of the tunnel is clearly visible now, I just want to get there without my wheels falling off so I can enjoy what life has to offer me at that point in time.

This weekend I hope to have a productive couple of days with a good mix of fun mixed in, maybe getting out on a ride on my V13. I need to do some work on my Master V4. My kitchen has looked like an EUC chop shop for quite awhile between the work I was doing first on the V13 followed by the Master. My intent is to have all of that cleaned up by the end of the weekend.

My pickleball hiatus will continue this weekend despite my desire to get out there and hit the ball around. I had my second yoga class of the week yesterday and my mini-workout I do at home now also includes exercises to strengthen the muscles that are IT band essential. I have had enough of this issue.

Anything and everything I do will include an extra layer of clothing as the chilly air is forecast to be in place for quite awhile yet.

Yesterday was the first time I skipped a pickleball play session with my crew from work. Normally we play twice a week on our lunch hour. I am the designated organizer of the group, sending out texts to see who can play and trying to recruit more if needed. Despite taking myself off the roster for at least the next two weeks I still coordinated the play session. Staying on the sidelines is something that doesn’t sit well with me. I keep reminding myself that if taking a break results in my being able to participate pain free or at least with less of it in the future, it will be worth it.

The deep chill in our area continued last night. Instead of turning on the heat I decided to add another blanket to my bedding. This is a “fuzzy” blanket, something that Dawn suggested was a crucial addition to every man’s accessories back when she visited last March. I have never actually utilized one in my home until last night. It did the job as I have no recollection of “I’m cold” feelings during the night. It will stay on my bed ready for deployment until the night time temperatures pop up a few degrees.

I had one of those impulse urges to buy a wheel last night. It came on out of nowhere and was not based on any need. I think it originates from more of a desire to distract myself. I resisted the pull to click the buy now button despite the less disciplined portion of my mind telling me otherwise. The reality is I have some obligations that need to be taken care of before I start feeling like I have disposable income to throw at a whim like that. Could I do it, of course. Should I do it, no. Much like knowing a break from pickleball is ultimately the right move at this point in time, suppressing this urge is as well. Needs versus wants can be a boring but important guideline to adhere to.

I finally connected with my buddy at the gym who used to be a sniper, telling him I bought a gun. He was in disbelief but welcomed the idea of going to a range with me to give me some training. In addition one of my pickleball and volleyball friends is an ex-state trooper. He also is happy to show me the ropes. I think it will be interesting to dig into the world of firearms more, especially with friends that can help me do so safely.

My project for last night was getting my V13 100% back to normal which meant reattaching the Clark Pad fairing kit. After a few minor difficulties I had the wheel back to it’s original state which felt good. In total the project took over two weeks which was much longer than anticipated. I’m looking forward to getting out on a longer test ride this weekend although I will have to bundle up to do so.

Speaking of bundling up the arctic air is fully settled in which left my house in a chilly state with temperatures inside somewhere in the mid 60’s while outside the air temp was in the upper 40s. Thus far I have resisted the urge to flip the thermostat to the heat mode instead relying on a hoodie to keep me comfortable indoors. I did notice a chill in bed last night however. I have a single bedspread that is not very substantial at all when it comes to providing warmth. It is proving to be inadequate at these temperatures. Adjustments will be made.

Yesterday Facebook popped up an image from 9 years ago of the finish line arch I had made when I decided to branch out on my own to do independent race timing as opposed to doing it exclusively for the running club. It was an odd decision in retrospect.

Timing races was a demanding, high pressure, and stressful responsibility that really did not pay me anywhere near what it should have. Despite this combination of the reward not meeting the effort required I continued to do the work for years not because I enjoyed it but because I felt responsible and obligated to do it and felt I couldn’t trust anyone else to shoulder that responsibility.

It took a long time but eventually I reached the point where I said enough is enough and stepped away from timing races for the club because of some interpersonal relationships that frustrated and angered me, repeatedly. The idea of doing timing on my own I think might have had a good bit of “f u” involved but within a year I realized it was more hassle than it was worth. This was one of the early moments in the last 10 years where I started to put more value in my quality of life, an effort which has continued.

Despite timing my last race in 2016 I have kept the Green Machine Timing website online to this very day for no solid reason other than nostalgia I guess. There have been a number of examples in my life where I walked away from something that I invested a ton of time and energy into. In every example I can think of I have zero regret for doing so in the end. Race timing is clearly one of them.

Yesterday I received the final parts I needed to complete the repair on my V13 EUC. This has been a long process that has covered more than two weeks as I encountered issues that required several rounds of ordering parts. I did the final work last night in the garage as my kitchen workbench already had the Master V4 on it in a disassembled state. The work did not take long and afterwards I did a quick test ride with no gear in the chilly January air. Things felt and sounded better than they ever have. This upcoming weekend I hope to take an extended ride to confirm the improvements.

Last night I made an effort to get to sleep earlier than what has become normal recently. I was feeling like I was on fumes physically and mentally. I slept well but even after getting roughly seven and a half hours of sleep I awoke this morning with my body desiring more. I need to listen to what my body is telling me much more consistently than I have been.

Speaking of which I think I am going to make a hard choice and give myself an unwelcomed break from pickleball for at least a couple weeks. My IT band issue is now approaching it’s second month and I am getting very frustrated with my inability to make it disappear. However I have been trying to do that while keeping a reduced schedule of pickleball in my routine which I know is hindering my progress. So I am going to do the hard thing and stop playing for a bit to see what sort of gains I can make. This is the perfect time of year to be playing and not being able to take advantage is really, really pissing me off. If after continuing to do stretching/strengthening and not playing I still have issues I may begrudgingly need to escalate the issue to an orthopedist or PT.

Today a pretty significant wave of arctic air moves in and stays put for at least a week sending our area into it’s version of a deep freeze. I don’t particularly mind lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s but there are a lot of people here that will be dressing like Eskimos until the temps moderate.