The other day I had a deal pop up on Woot for one of the original Amazon Echo devices. I actually had this same model in black and wound up giving it to Christine. I like it because it has a very good speaker in it and has a cool analog volume control where the top of it rotates. It was only $30. I bought it without being sure where exactly I was going to put it.
After some brief pondering I came up with a spot, the master bathroom. I like listening to music while getting ready for work or for bed. The Echo I have in the bedroom can’t be heard very well in the bathroom so this sounded like a good fit. An unintended added bonus was the silver finish matches the brushed nickel fixtures in the master bath. I immediately put the speaker to use last night, it was great having music accompany my shower. Since I have become single once again I listen to music more than I have at any time during my adult life, for whatever reason.
Last night I jumped into WoW for the first time in quite awhile with a half hearted hope to be able to get more of my characters leveled up. In the roughly 90 minutes I played I gained almost three levels on my Unholy Death Knight. I enjoy playing when I get around to do it but it is going to be very tough for me to find the motivation to get all 11 or 12 of my personal army up to max level.
Today is going to be a pickleball double header. I am playing at lunch with my normal crew and then this evening I will be playing with the people I met at the salsa class. We are playing at the courts at a development one of the women lives in. I am looking forward to it and hope it opens more doors into a larger circle of friends.
Last year I was finally approaching the end of my cabinet/counter project in the kitchen and master bathroom as well as knocking out a number of other home improvement purchases and tasks.
Last night my major task I wanted to accomplish was getting the ET Max and a spare S22 motor boxed up and ready to ship out. The ET Max is a very heavy wheel so getting it back in the box was a bit of a challenge. I eventually muscled it in there and used half a roll of packing tape to make sure it was sealed up tight. The motor, which is going to my buddy in NYC was already in the box so it was much simpler to manage. I decided to live stream the process, for no significant reason.
I neglected to mention in my weekend recap that I did bag up a bunch of clothes that were nice but carried negative feelings with them so I never wore them. They nearly filled a kitchen trash bag which was later dropped off at Goodwill where they can hopefully get some use. I have gone through repeated purge and cleanse sessions over the last few months. I think I am finally reaching the bottom of the barrel although there will always be visual reminders that can’t be avoided.
Today I had my 6 month dentist visit. For the second visit in a row they said I have been showing more swelling in my gums than normal. My dental hygiene routine has been the same for a long time so I’m not sure why this has become an issue. Like most other things, I will attribute it to the wonders of old age.
Friday night I went to spend happy hour at the bar with Meaghan for the second week in a row. The amount of people there for a Friday hour were light, a testament to snowbird season being over. Much like last week I just drank there and then went home to make a frozen pizza for dinner. I ate it while I worked on editing the video that I shot on Wednesday.
Both Saturday morning and Sunday I played pickleball with my friend Sue, who recently moved out of Talis Park where I had been playing on weekends for most of prior year. We played at East Naples courts which are only a few minutes away. It makes weekend wake ups more casual as before I had to set a 6:30 alarm to be at Talis by 8. We now played at 9am instead so it is far easier for me. We had a lot of fun playing both days. It’s a good opportunity to play with a more diverse set of people.
Saturday I tended to a number of small tasks around the house. I went into the raised bed garden and did a lot of ripping out. Many of the things in there had become unruly and/or bolted. All that I left was several pepper plants which are doing well. I will have to reevaluate what I want to put in there next.
I decided to skip Carrabbas Saturday night and went to Tacos and Tequila instead, it’s only a few miles from my house and I like their food. I have never gone there solo, I went there quite often with Christine in the past. I think it will regain a regular spot in my rotation now that I am single. It’s a younger crowd, a bigger bar and they have good margaritas. I got to watch the Kentucky Derby while I was there, bonus. What a crazy close finish that was.
When I got home I fired up the YouTube app on my phone and did another unscheduled, spontaneous live stream that lasted over two and a half hours. The stream meandered back and forth between PEV and non-PEV talk and had over 1000 views while it was running.
After playing pickleball Sunday morning I had sort of a lazy afternoon where I watched some more of the OJ documentary on Netflix. It’s a five part series and each episode is around 90 minutes long. I just started the last episode. Although everyone knows about the OJ murders the series does a great job of getting into the minutia surrounding it.
The Cinco de Mayo / Salsa dancing class I was invited to was scheduled for 6. I made arrangements to meet up with a guy I play volleyball with and his wife around 5 so we could grab some food/drink prior. I knew I needed to pre-lubricate with some alcohol to get through this. After I was couple margaritas deep there was an incident that I don’t want to go into detail about other than to say the way the universe works sometimes is crazy. For my entire life I have subscribed to the “what goes around, comes around” concept which is just another way to describe karma. It appears to be once again working it’s magic. It has to be an awful thing to go around life having the truth be your mortal enemy.
So once that mini-drama passed the salsa class began. I have a rhythm, I can keep a beat all day long but when it comes to dancing it looks like I have hips made out of granite. The class started with showing a few basic steps of the salsa. The steps are not all that hard but when I was asked to put them together it was a bit of a shit show. Once the basics were explained the rotation started. Basically the men would stay put and all of the women would rotate around and dance with each man, going through the progression.
I found myself doing way too much thinking about the steps to really relax but luckily all of the women there were happy to help guide me and were patient. The woman that invited me is a high level dancer and one of the event organizers so I didn’t get to talk to her much but it was ok. I did get to talk to various women that were at our table and it turns out several of them are really into pickleball, so much so that we made arrangements for a group of us to get together to play this week.
I wound up staying there until after 9:30 before I called it quits. Even with the unanticipated drama and my clumsy dancing attempt I was glad I put forth the effort to go. I need to keep forcing myself into these unfamiliar situations to grow, learn, and expand my circle of friends.
Earlier in the week I was debating skipping volleyball this week to let my lower body heal up a bit. Yesterday I did a self injury inventory and determined I should be good enough to go. It was very warm and humid last night. The first time I hit the sand I turned into an instant corn dog. Last week I mentioned how I was unhappy with my hitting where I was hitting either into the net or out of bounds more often than not. This week I took a different approach.
When I am missing hits normally it’s because I am trying to hit hard, trying to fool myself into thinking I can still jump like I could 25 years ago. When I try to do this nowadays I need to try to get an aggressive approach just to get out of the sand even a little bit. When I team that with an aggressive swing there is just a very small window where it times up correctly. Last night I dialed back the aggression. Instead I would take a more casual approach and just try to hit the ball with a high hand and good wrist snap. I was much more consistent that way. No it doesn’t deliver the same dopamine as hitting a ball really hard but it’s better than serving up a ton of unforced errors.
I didn’t hit a ball out or into the net the entire night. In addition I did not miss a serve, I passed well and played solid defense. I was frustrating one of the guys on the other team. For whatever reason I was able to read his hits consistently and would dig them cleanly repeatedly. I could see the frustration on his face and I enjoyed it, if I am being honest. Our team won all five games. I think I will stick with this change as it also causes less trauma to my lower body and ego.
After play last night I went to Bruninas and had dinner at the bar with Meghan. One of the other guys at the bar used to play a lot of volleyball so it was nice chatting it up with him and his much younger girlfriend/wife who apparently used to be a Hooters Girl.
This weekend I have a few things I would like to do. I will be playing pickleball Sunday morning. I was invited Sunday evening to a Cinco de Mayo party by one of the women I play volleyball with. The catch is she wants me to do the salsa class she is teaching at the beginning of this party. I told her that would require considerable drinking up front which she said was fine. We will see if I feel like embarrassing myself or not.
I neglected to mention that one of the places I stopped at over the weekend was Johnston and Murphy at the Miromar Outlets. The reason I stopped was to get a pair of brown shoes similar to the pair of black ones I have. There was another reason for the purchase that I will cover down below.
Anyway, while I was there I saw they had a blue pair of the same shoes on sale. At the time I thought getting one pair of shoes was enough. Well after work last night I went back, thinking I should have grabbed them then but I can still grab them now. These shoes fit like sneakers, have a cool tread on the bottom and are waterproof.
Imagine my dismay when I walked in and saw the sale signs for these shoes had been removed. The guy said that sale ended over the weekend, damn it. I had already driven 30 minutes to get there so I bought the shoes anyway at their normal price. I even bought a second white pair that was on clearance. I have been paying more attention to how I dress and a decent pair of shoes are a keystone in that effort.
When I got home last night I ate dinner and then got a call from Gladys. We caught up on the latest and greatest. Afterwards I shot the wrap up video for the ET Max demo but did not have the time or energy to do the editing.
Last week I posted a short video to Instagram demonstrating how much the Tesla actually sees with FSD enabled. It’s like a 10 second clip that just shows the real time view at a busy intersection. For some reason this has been picking up steam and at this point has been viewed by thousands of people. You just never know when something will get legs on social media platforms.
So like I mentioned above I bought the shoes this weekend. I wanted some brown shoes to facilitate my throwing out the pair of brown shoes my ex bought me. I am going to expand on that effort.
Clothing she purchased for me was the one thing that I had not purged myself of since the final split late last year. However although some of the stuff is nice, I found myself not wanting to wear it anymore because of the stigma attached to it. So if I am not going to wear it, why keep it? It’s all going in a donation bag for Goodwill that I will drop off this weekend. Any sentimental value these objects once carried has been nuked into oblivion.
Last year I had sticker shock as I received my first water and sewer bill. The number has moderated down over time but is still large due to my sprinkler system using city water. I have learned to live with it, like many things.
Last night my primary goal was to get some bulk shopping done. I piled Elsa into the Tacoma to head to Costco and Trader Joe’s, in reverse order. Since I have become single Trader Joe’s has been my go to spot to load up on frozen meals that are ideal for one and can be prepared conventionally or in the microwave in most cases. They also are healthier than conventional big brand frozen meals you see in regular grocery stores. I walked out of there with two big paper bags stuffed with enough meals to last me a couple months probably.
I then hit Costco. I had been watching the clock to make sure I timed it well, getting there about 45 minutes before closing which greatly relieves the congestion that is normally found in the store pretty much any other time of the day. I grabbed my normal bulk items and was out of there in less than 30 minutes. By the time I got home and unpacked I was pushing 9pm. I spent the rest of my evening chilling.
Yesterday I got a reminder of why I am so lucky to be where I am right now. Despite all of the bullshit that has had to be climbed over and dealt with to reach this state of mind I am happy to not have to deal anymore with situations that do nothing but drain my energy and sabotage my trust. F that.
I have found myself very turned off by women that harvest male approval and adulation by the ton as well as the men that provide it, also known as simps. It’s a dynamic that leads to absolutely nothing substantial or real.
Last year I was doing a lot of talking about Christine and I in the blog. I thought I had turned the corner finally but instead wound up running into the weeds.
After nearly a month with no sales all of a sudden a couple sales came through on my 3D store that once again cleared out my inventory. Now it’s not very hard to do that since I typically carry less than 5 stands on hand nowadays but regardless, it’s time to get back to printing. I packed and shipped the orders last night as I always try to expedite the process whenever possible.
My newest paddle purchase arrived the other day, the Joola Perseus 3. This paddle has borderline illegal performance and joins an already ridiculously large collection of paddles in my bag. Do I need to stop buying paddles? Yes. Will I? Ummmmm….
When Enrique was over he made a comment about the neighborhood I live in saying it was so nice it reminded him of a commercial. I thanked him for the compliment but as I was walking Elsa last night after work I thought about it as I walked the street. It really is that nice. All of the houses are different yet well maintained. The diverse lots are all landscaped uniquely unlike the cookie cutter and compressed layout many modern developments utilize for maximum density. The area is safe and quiet.
I remember growing up seeing commercials on TV for household products and they normally took place in these angelic looking homes and neighborhoods. That is basically where I am now. The only major component of those pie in the sky TV commercial scenarios I am missing is the happy, beautiful and loving housewife that just loved the shit out of doing laundry with Tide.
Last night I hit the wall, presumably from a very busy weekend that included less than ideal amounts of sleep. I was watching the 5 part OJ documentary on Netflix and dozed off on the sofa for nearly an hour and a half. By the time I woke up it was 9:45. I hit the shower and dove into bed. I slept pretty well considering I did so without Unisom. I have been experimenting with trying to sleep without an assist from a sleep aid a few times in the last couple weeks. It seems to be more possible than it was before.
For a good portion of last year I had such turmoil in my relationships that if I woke up in the middle of the night to hit the bathroom or for any other reason my brain would not be able to quiet back down and instead would dwell mostly on that turmoil. Now that I have flushed that situation out of my life permanently it seems that I am mostly able to sleep normally without a Unisom kicker.
My lower body has been feeling beat up from the weekend as well. We rode probably 50-60 miles over those two days including a physically demanding full swamp loop. If I don’t feel significantly better I may skip volleyball this week to allow my body to heal up a little before I jump back into my what has become normal 7 day a week gym/sport schedule.
Friday I finally decided to partake in the happy hour at Bruninas. You may recall that weeks ago Meghan the bartender told me there was a woman that would come during this time period that she thought would be good for me to meet. Since then this woman has stopped coming so that was not a factor. I did have fun however just sitting there drinking Miller Lite for a couple hours. A 63 year old woman sat next to me and was talking to me. At some point she asked how old I was. When I told her my age she was in disbelief. She said I need to find myself a woman in her 30’s, I laughed and thanked her.
When I got home I got a hankering to live stream. I did the entire hour and 45 minutes on the lanai, just talking about both PEV and non-PEV topics.
Saturday morning I wanted to get tasks out of the way as George, Enrique and Adrian were coming to my house to meet up to ride. Enrique and George live on the east coast, Adrian lives up in the Fort Myers area. Adrian and I have been FB friends for awhile but I never met him in person. Enrique I have known for a few years as he came over to ride with me once before. I met George when I went to the east coast with Dawn.
Our plan was to go ride the swamp, even though I was just there the week before with the ET Max. We drove our vehicles out to the park near my old house and launched from there. I let Enrique borrow my Sherman S since it has suspension. He has an original Sherman that has no suspension. The terrain there would have punished him.
It didn’t take long until we sighted our first gator. We saw one just after leaving the boardwalk entrance. I was riding my Veteran Patton which is my favorite wheel for the swamp although it has one weakness. The street tire on the wheel is great on hard surfaces which I ride almost exclusively however in mud/sand conditions it quickly gets slippery. I came off the wheel a couple times. One of them resulted in my getting a small cut on the inside of my ankle as well as wrenching my right knee a bit.
We saw a BUNCH of gators. I did not do an official count but I am sure we saw at least 50 including this beast in the picture. The water hides his body but if you look closely you can see just how massive this guy is. We wound up riding the entire loop and doing so at probably the fastest pace ever. There were fewer mucky spots than when Wayne, Dawn and I did the ride in March. The guys all seemed to enjoy the ride.
After we left the swamp Enrique wanted us to ride to the original Dunkin Donuts that I used to go to. This was his one week belated birthday ride so I couldn’t say no. The 9 mile ride there was fast as we had a strong tailwind pushing us. I crossed 40MPH a few times. However we paid for it on the way back. The tailwind became an absolutely oppressive headwind, making it difficult to keep the wheel in the bike lane at times as it smashed relentlessly into us at an angle. That part of the ride was definitely unfun.
After the ride Adrian had to head home but George and Enrique followed me back to my place. The plan was for them to charge their wheels and then the three of us would ride around Naples later. We wound up hanging at my place for awhile before we headed out, not leaving my place until 8:30 or so.
I took Enrique and George to the Cabana where I hang out pretty regularly. We all drank a beer and then the plan was to grab dinner. Unfortunately all of the restaurants in the area close their kitchens around 9:30 so we couldn’t eat there. Instead we rode around some more before heading home where I just made us a frozen pizza instead which they were fine with.
Originally their plan was to drive back to the east coast Saturday night but by the time we ate it was getting very late. I told them I didn’t care if they stayed the night but they would have to fight over sleeping arrangements since I only have one queen size bed. George surprisingly offered to sleep on the sofa on the lanai. He said he would actually prefer sleeping out there as I also have an indoor sofa. He said he didn’t need a blanket or conventional pillow either. I brought out an oversized beach blanket just in case. It was late by the time we went to sleep, approaching 2 AM.
Sunday I woke up around 7:30. Enrique was still asleep but George had been up for awhile. We drank coffee and chatted for awhile. Once Enrique woke up we decided to do one more group ride over to the nearby DD to grab breakfast. Once we returned they packed up their stuff to head East. Both of them thanked me for the rides and hospitality. They both seemed to really enjoy themselves which I was happy for. It was a pretty packed 24 hours.
During the afternoon I was doing some video editing before I headed out to go pick up Elsa who spent a long weekend with Ali and Shuggs. As usual she was a perfect angel for them and they were sad to see her go. I don’t think Elsa was thrilled to leave either.
When I got back I finished up the editing. In total I posted three videos this weekend. I managed to stay awake long enough to catch the finale of Shogun but felt exhausted while doing so. I am hoping to rebound this week. My knees took a beating from the riding, replacing the abuse they take during pickleball. I am hoping to get on a more solid platform physically in the upcoming weeks. It would be nice to not feel like I am being held together with rubber bands and scotch tape.
Last night I played volleyball. Luckily it was a better experience than last week. I played ok. I didn’t miss a single serve, I passed accurately more often than not and made some nice saves on defense. However I am still struggling with hitting. My knees have been especially creaky the last month or so and it is making it tough for me to jump with any sort of effectiveness. Hitting the ball with authority has always been the most satisfying part of volleyball for me. Not being able to do it consistently frustrates me. Of course the fact that I am out there still swinging away at 56 should be enough but I always am pushing to keep my expectations ahead/above of me. It can be a good and bad thing at the same time.
On Saturday I have two and possibly three of the guys I rode with on the east coast coming over to ride with me. We are going to do the swamp ride and then ride around Naples. I have a feeling it could be a long evening as I am thinking alcohol may be consumed as well.
Last night was my first one at home without Elsa. I definitely felt her absence. Sure I am used to not seeing her when I go away on a trip but to have it just be a normal Thursday night and not have her around impacted me more than I anticipated. The house felt very empty. You always hear that sometimes you don’t appreciate presence until it is absent. That was definitely how I was feeling.
Of course I have had scenarios where the absence of someone is more appreciated than their presence too. You know, those situations where you thank the powers that be for allowing you to finally rid yourself of a presence that caused you to be absent in more ways than one. I still beat myself up on a regular basis for not removing my presence from the scenarios I encountered last year, time and again.
Last year I was referring to a new profile picture I posted that was a photoshop of me ascending a treacherous rock formation and the symbolism it represented. I can affirm that I have moved less than I would like towards the summit and still have a difficult climb ahead of me, although I have shed a heavy imagined backpack to at least make my progress easier…
Yesterday we only had three people from our group available to play pickleball so when we got there I asked if anyone wanted to join us. An old man said he would play which at first seemed less than ideal. When he came on the court he asked who the best player was, the other two guys pointed at me. He said he would play with me then since he is 80 years old! However he wasn’t just any 80 year old.
He told us he just played in the 80+ division in the US Open and took a bronze medal. He said he even played singles at the Open. I could not believe 80 year olds even played singles. His name was Jerry. Jerry was surprisingly agile for his age and had good dexterity. I had fun playing with him and we actually did well, beating the other guys pretty easily three straight games. My one buddy was pretty upset about getting his ass handed to him by a team that included an 80 year old. I enjoyed the end result , of course.
I made the more than two hour round trip last night up to Babcock Ranch to drop off Elsa for her four day visit with Ali and Shugs. When we pulled up Elsa made her normal noises of excitement and almost wagged her tail off as she came in the door. It was cute. This time I was more thoughtful and brought not only one of her beds but also one of her favorite toys and her nylobone to chew on. She almost immediately was up on their couch chewing away, funny.
I hung out and caught up with Ali and Shugs for a little while as I had not seen them since mid-January. I stayed until around 8:30 which was late enough since it was a school night. Even though I was hauling ass most of the way it still took a full hour to get home.
Last year I was shining in the glow of fresh gutters being installed on the house in only a couple of hours. I also was mentioning Christine regularly as things were looking and feeling good at that time.
