All posts by Duf

Yesterday during the day things were slower paced than Tuesday where I had three meet ups with friends in addition to an extended pickleball session. I did get out in the afternoon to ride my OneWheel around the path at Grings Mill.  The gravel trail along the water was a blast to ride, I absolutely loved it.  I also got to see the volleyball courts I used to play on 20+ years ago as well as get a brief workout in on their outdoor exercise stations.  I had a great time in the crisp but not cold weather.

I got back and cleaned up for my trip down to Lancaster to meet up with my longtime friend Troy. I communicate with Troy regularly but had not seen him in person for at least 7 years, possibly longer.  This was not just a regular visit, I also was going to be participating in the podcast Troy hosts for his fantasy football league.

I got there around five.  I got to finally meet Troy’s girlfriend Jess in person.  I could sense immediately she was a good person and was comfortable talking to her immediately.  The other two co-hosts showed up 20-30 minutes later.  It was funny, they had no idea I was going to be there.

For two decades plus I have been involved with this league but only in a comical way.  My communication was always electronic, so much so that some league owners thought I was a made up person that existed only in Troy’s mind.  I never met Mike and Jerry before but again, I almost felt like I already knew them from my interactions from afar.

So normally the podcast is an audio only production but I told Troy I would bring my laptop so we could livestream the broadcast as well.  I set up my computer in the corner of the room and let it capture the nearly two hours of silliness that followed.  Jess was sweet and ran alcohol to us as needed and there was a lot of need.  I am not quite sure how many alcoholic beverages I consumed but I think I hit double digits.  I thought the podcast went really well and was pretty funny, at least to those of us in the room.

After we wrapped up Jerry and Mike shoved off but I stuck around.  I had already mentioned to Troy the idea that if I drank a lot I could crash in his spare room which he was fine with.  Troy, Jess and I stayed up late just talking about a wide variety of subjects that flowed one into the other. By the time we went to bed it was midnight.  The evening had definitely lived up to my expectations and was a reminder of why I needed to get face to face with my friends more often.

I woke up in the morning feeling extremely dehydrated but not as hung over as I feared based on what I drank.  Jess made Troy and I coffee and breakfast. (did I mention she is a sweetheart) We sat around the dining room table and jumped right back into talking about things freely.  Part of me wished I had more time to hang but I had to get back to get ready to go our big get together this afternoon which supposedly will have something like 16 people.  If that number is accurate it will be the largest Thanksgiving group I have ever been a part of.

I’m expecting another good experience to pile on top of the sizeable amount I have already accumulated.  I hope anyone reading this has a great Thanksgiving where you get to share time with those you love and cherish.

For the majority of my visits back to PA in the last 10 years they have been pretty in and out, meaning I would arrive for a specific event and then have very little time to just hang with anyone else.  I’m not sure if I did this because I always felt the need to get back as soon as possible to resume household duties, like the chickens specifically, or if it was just my general overall avoidance of extended contact with others.  However now, with no more responsibilities at home that I feel guilty about putting on others shoulders, I wanted to embrace seeing my friends. This is one reason I shifted my departure time a day earlier, to give me more flexibility. The end result was today being one of the best and fulfilling days I have felt in a long time.  I was out the entire day, leaving at 9AM and not getting back after 7:30.

My first stop was Dunkin Donuts followed by the supercharger.  Last night I plugged into Todd’s garage but only gained about 11% of charge even after going all night.  After topping off the battery I stopped at my buddy Charlie’s sports simulation shop.  He has a bunch of indoor simulators for golf and other sports.  This was his dream after being a programmer for most of his life.

He has had a rough go of it, covid almost shut him down but he has endured.  I hung out there for over two hours, just hanging and talking.  I also brought my One Wheel inside to show Charlie.  I had to let it sit for at least a half hour until the battery was warm enough to allow it to be ridden.  In the past I have described Charlie as one of the nicest human beings I know.  He still holds the title.  I gave him a a hug and headed out for my next reunion.

I contacted my long time friend Cheryl on my way to Charlie’s, also asking if she wanted to meet up, this time for lunch.  She had a lunch date planned but said she could meet me right afterward at 3rd and Spruce, a place I had not been to in well over a decade.  I had not seen Cheryl in about 5 years.  Like Charlie, we met when she worked in IT with me.  Like Charlie, she decided to leave IT and became a real estate agent instead, which she has become very good at.

Since she just ate Cheryl had a few drinks while I ordered some food.  Despite the lapse in face to face contact it didn’t take long for us to fall back into a place where we just talking freely, catching each other up with the latest and greatest in each others lives.  We were there until after three, past the lunch rush.  By the time we left we were the only two patrons in the entire establishment, it was a bit surreal.  I gave Cheryl a big hug and told her how nice it was to see her, because it was.  Despite being in Florida for over 22 years I only have a few friends down there that I am close to like the people I have seen today.  Cheryl sent me a text after she left reiterating how nice it was to see me which made me happy.

So during our talk I mentioned how pickleball was a new thing for me.  She mentioned there were new courts in West Reading that I could check out.  Oh really???? I was not supposed to meet up with Rich until 6 so I decided to go check it out.  What I found was pretty amazing. The courts were teeming with players, despite temperatures in the upper 40’s.  I walked down and mingled for a bit before asking if it was open play, he said it was.  They had a simple system where you just put your paddle in a holster, when courts came free whomever paddles are next play.

Even though I was not dressed to play, with jeans and normal sneakers I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  I always have my paddle in the Tesla so I grabbed it and got into a game within a few minutes.  I thought I would play a game or two and be good.  Instead I played for a couple hours almost, right up to 15 minutes before I was supposed to meet Rich.  Despite it being the coldest weather I ever played in once I got moving the temps didnt bother me much.

There were a lot of solid players there.  I had wins and losses with a mixed bag of decent to bad play on my side.  It didn’t really matter though, I had fun.  There is a solid chance I will wind up back there before I head back south and I won’t be wearing jeans the next time.

Whenever I am back in PA it always amazes me how compact everything feels.  In Florida pretty much anything takes a half hour to get to.  The place I was meeting Rich at seemed like it was on the other side of town but I still managed to make it in 15 minutes right on time at 6.

I snuck in behind Rich and tapped his shoulder followed by a hug.  I had not seen him in 5 years as well.  Rich was a little quiet at first which I understood because of some tough things he has been dealing with for awhile.  However I slowly got him talking and then got him laughing.  Before the session was over I got to see the friend that I played volleyball with for so many years.  It was good to get through to him and he thanked me for doing so.  It felt great to connect with my friend in a non-virtual way.

The day was really about as good as I could have asked for.  I had meaningful, prolonged time with three of my friends that I shared so many moments with in the past.  I am thankful for some of the work I have put in during the last year plus that made me more appreciative of opportunities like this and made me reach out to initiate them.  I’m hoping the trip has more of the same.

Tomorrow evening I am hanging with Troy with whom I have shared some of the most crazy moments of my life with.  I have a feeling tomorrow night might be making that list.

This is going to be a very abridged version of the last two days that contained something like 24 hours of time on the road. It’s late and I’m tired.  I also shot some video along the way that you can check out in the future.  I dropped off Elsa late Saturday morning at Ali’s after I buzzed around mowing the property earlier in the morning.  I thought it would be good to get her dropped off early so I could focus on what I needed to get done before leaving.  It was good in that regard.  What was not good was just how empty the house felt Saturday night without her there, it made me sad.

I left the house Sunday about 7:45, steeling myself for what I knew would be a very, very long day.  The long range battery did well.  I made it out of the state while only having to charge once, I think that is the first time that has happened.  I decided to spend the $200 to get full self driving turned back on for a month.  The automatic lane change feature it includes is very welcome during long road trips as it makes changing lanes easy and safer.

One thing I was not happy about was for the first time ever I had to pay to supercharge.  In the past I had free supercharging because of all of the Tesla referrals I had.  Tesla has now killed that program and also killed any miles that had not been used yet which I think really sucks.  I had over 20K free miles that got evaporated.  As a result I will likely be spending a couple hundred dollars on charging on the trip.

I did get to stop at some different supercharger spots which resulted in a bunch of different random encounters like having dinner at a bowling alley and shopping at a Food Lion late at night.  I really like the rolling of the dice that occurs when hitting the open road.

I knew I wanted to push to see how far I could get the first day so day 2 was easier.  I wound up going until after 11PM, winding up about 20 miles inside the North Carolina border.  I booked a room at Holiday Inn, showered and was out.  It was a grind you into the dirt sort of day.

I woke up today without an alarm a little after 6, eager to roll.  The cold weather stung my skin when I went outside with temps in the 20s.  The Tesla seat heater came in handy.  The drive today started out gloriously with clear blue skies.  A little of that luster was lost during the afternoon when I was ensnared in awful traffic in the DC/Baltimore area, resulting in my getting to Todd’s place an hour later than originally expected.

It was great to see Todd, Mindy and the girls.  I last saw them briefly in July when we met for dinner after the upstate NY trip.  I also got a very excited hello from their two huge dogs Bailey and Oakley.  Even though it had been a couple years since I saw them they seemed to remember who their favorite uncle was.

Caroline and I went to go pick up food they ordered for dinner.  It was a nice opportunity for us to catch up on what the latest and greatest is with her.  She is a big fan of the Tesla.  I had a sweet surprise waiting for me in the bathroom. Caroline laid out everything for me hotel style to make me feel at home.  It was thoughtful and I appreciated it, a lot.

Todd and Mindy have to work some tomorrow.  I am going to see two of my friends during the day, Charlie in the morning and Rich around dinner.  I have not seen Charlie in at least 3 years and the last time I saw Rich was for my 50th birthday party.  I look forward to catching up with both of my long term and dear friends.

This week will be all about appreciation and gratitude.

Sorry this isn’t longer but it’s all I got….

With only two full days remaining before I pull out for PA I have a lot of things on my mental to do list to address before I leave.  Tonight I hope to get the weeding done somehow before all daylight is gone.  Tomorrow I need to mow, wash the Tesla, drop Elsa off at Ali’s and then of course pack for the trip.  I was a bit surprised at just how cold the forecast temperatures are for Reading next week.  I will definitely need to be bringing full on winter wear. As I have been trying to do for most trips anymore, I’ll have my laptop(s) with so I can document the trip as it progresses instead of trying to do one large and historically incomplete brain dump at the end.

This week I have had several posts that included windows into some of the ongoing personal challenges and self analysis that I have been and will continue doing as I move forward.  My hope is putting in the work pays dividends in the long term happiness department.  The journey never ends.

Last night on my way home from work I decided I wanted to stop at SportClips and get a fresh “skin fade” hair cut for my trip to PA next week.  I was hoping to see the stylist I had the first time but she was busy so I got called back by a woman named Suzanne instead.  Suzanne was older than me, I think, she could have just had a rough road.  She sat me down and within the first couple minutes she asked me if I had heard if Trump declared to run for president or not, evidently she didn’t hear the news.  I told her he did officially declare which she seemed excited about.  I then mentioned how there is already controversy between him and Desantis.  She did not seem to know of the rumors of Ron potentially running for president.

So there were times when just the revelation of someone’s affinity for Trump would hit the immediate off switch for me.  I would close the door to any further significant communication.  However I did not choose to dwell on her political preferences.  I noticed she was limping so I asked her what was wrong.  She said her feet have been a mess for years from a lifetime of being on them, she said she has been a hairdresser her entire life.  In an attempt to get by she has been getting steroid injections but she evidently had some sort of reaction that now has caused extreme pain in one of her feet.  I immediately felt compassion for her.

We continued to talk about her history, where she is from, what she drives, where she lives and a variety of other things.  She buzzed me down, probably a little more aggressively than the other woman but it still looked better than anything I could muster.  When I checked out I decided to leave her a 50% tip.  Cutting through to the human being inside of political facades felt good.  Her life sounded anything but easy and I hoped to help in a tiny way. I definitely do enjoy having someone else cut my hair.

I had a weird revelation last night while I was in bed listening to a guided meditation.  In these exercises you are just trying to unplug your brain, not think about the countless things that normally occupy the space.  I have been asked and have talked about the weird phenomenon where in normal human conversation I typically am very terse and to the point, rarely communicating more than the bare minimum with a few exceptions.  However stick me in front of camera shooting a video or live streaming, the gag comes off and I talk incessantly.  It has always been a bizarre contrast that I never really understood the reason behind, until now.

What I realized during meditation is my overly active brain is once again the culprit.  When I am talking to people I find myself instantly analyzing their facial expressions, body language and demeanor towards me.  I use this information to gauge their level of interest in what I am saying.  Because I have a loud inner critic more often than not my analysis will be they are tuned out, uninterested, or something else with a negative aspect. The normal end result of this is getting out of the conversation, at times awkwardly.  Some times I will also be scrambling to figure out what to say next when the conversation swings back my way.  Depending on what state my brain is and the person I am speaking to, this can be another difficult/awkward sticking point.

So what I realized last night is when I am talking to a recording device that roadblock and analysis is removed.  My brain is not required to analyze my interaction/words and their affect on somebody else.  I can just, talk.  It may seem like an odd revelation to most but it was a moment of clarity for myself, how my overactive brain is the root cause of a lot of dysfunction in multiple aspects of my life.  I think my efforts to quiet, slow, and calm it is time well spent.

The other day I talked about how I had received a mental lashing from my inner taskmaster, admonishing me for allowing my brain to go off on stupid tangents that do nothing but make me feel poorly.  It seems like such a stupidly simple concept, if you think negative thoughts, negative things are the result.  If you focus on happy, positive things your mind will reside there instead.  As simple as it sounds it’s consistent execution has not been easy for me, ever. This inability to keep my thoughts off the guard rails can affect multiple areas of my life, none of it with a good end result.  It can be borderline maddening at times.  I have been and continue to work on these issues.  Sometimes it feels like I run out of ideas of where to turn to for help.  Asking for help is something I am historically terrible at doing.  I think somehow I treat emotional or mental issues like most other hurdles in my life, something you just plow into, beating into submission with hard work, determination or brute force.  It’s not a good plan.

Today would have been my mom’s 75th birthday.  For all of my life it was always an interesting anomaly for me that my sisters birthday is October 16th, my mom’s was November 16th and mine is December 16th.  My grandmother just missed the pattern by a day as her birthday was September 17th.  Of course I think of Mom often but today will be more than the rest.  I miss her.

The Eagles took their first loss of the season last night to the Washington Commanders, a team they beat earlier in the year and was expected to beat again. Instead it was a sort of ugly game where the Eagles committed 3 turnovers which equals what they committed in the prior 8 games combined.  In addition the defense simply could not stop the Commanders, allowing them to run long drive after drive consuming tons of time.  I think Washington only punted once the entire game.  Even with all of those screw ups the Eagles still had a chance at the end of the game.  The Washington QB was hemmed in on a 3rd and long and instead of taking the hit decided to quickly take a knee.  Two Eagles defenders were already sliding towards him as he took the knee and knocked him over drawing a roughing the passer penalty.  It was an awful way to end the game.  It was a disappointing loss for sure but hopefully one the Birds can learn from and continue moving forward.

As I was watching the game I found myself flipping through my phone on various social media apps, mindlessly looking for stimulus I suppose.  Checking my various messaging apps serve a different need, the one where I am looking for a virtual connection to a human being.  This is not a recent change, since I became single my phone has become a much more integrated part of my existence and to be quite honest, I don’t particularly like it.

In the past when I was in a relationship my phone sat untouched on a counter somewhere, silenced and only checked periodically as needed.  Now I am wired in full time partly because of my Apple Watch, partly because of whatever it is that I feel is lacking in my existence right now.  I am hoping this holiday season has an opposite outcome of last year which was my first in this new state.  That time was filled with a lot of sorrow, anger and frustration.  I want this next month and a half with the two trips to be the exact opposite where I can focus on brighter futures and happier outcomes.  I need to be less connected to become more connected, if you know what I mean.

My three day weekend was pretty busy but not overwhelmingly so.  My Veterans Day was pretty nuts with my throwing caution to the wind.  In the morning Kerri and I played pickleball for a couple hours.  We played an older but clearly more experienced pair a number of games.  The first game they beat us like 11-2 or 11-3. The last game we played, we won.  You have to love a good comeback story.

Kerri also plays a ton of beach volleyball.  She had been encouraging me to come bump the ball around since she knows I used to play a ton of volleyball.  The issue is I have not touched a ball in over a decade, no that is not an exaggeration.  I was already a bit beat up from pickleball but I was committed to get back out there, even it killed me.  The good news is it didn’t.  Just doing simple bumping during warm ups was erratic/difficult at times for me.  Although I have basic volleyball skills muscle memory there is so much rust that can only be knocked off by repetition.

The best path would have probably been to just practice basic skills at first, not try to play a game but I am not known for choosing the best path consistently.  So I played a total of three games.  Most aspects of my game improved from game 1 to game 3.  The one exception was hitting, which was the thing I loved most about playing back in the day.  My timing and ability to jump out of the sand is just horrific at this point.  The only thing that trains you to jump out of the sand is jumping out of the sand.  I still had fun getting out on the court as the gang Kerri plays with are all very cool.

I came out of it with a couple injuries, albeit not serious ones.  My left elbow felt really sore, almost like tennis elbow.  I think I have tried to dig a ball with one arm and it bent it back somewhat awkwardly.  My left knee also had an awkward moment when I fell down and wound up compressing it further than it normally wants to go when stretching.  Again neither injury was bad enough to make me stop playing.  The other thing I noticed was I gassed really fast.  Granted playing a couple hours of pickleball prior is not ideal but I was sucking wind big time.  The good news is all of these things get better with time and reps. We will see if invest in them going down the road.

Friday night I made a spur of the moment decision to live stream.  A lot of the stream had to do with my trip to California to ride with the EUC crew out there.  Two of the key guys I will be hanging with on the trip, Marty and Larry, were on the stream talking logistics with me. The stream went for a couple hours and was fun, despite the limited notice.

My Saturday was not bad, I worked on various small tasks around the house. Saturday evening I made arrangements to go ride bikes with Monique at the Greenway.  Normally when I come to see them I bring coffee which has become a fun tradition.  I also got to see Leilani which is always a highlight for me.  What makes it awesome is she actually gets excited to see me too now. Monique and I had a diverse ride in the dark where we covered around 7 miles in over an hour.  I forgot to strap a light on my mountain bike that I just replaced two tubes on the day prior.  One thing I did not like was the hard narrow seat on my bike.  My ass was killing me, I need to get some supplemental padding involved.

Today again I tended to smaller chores.  For example I noticed how cruddy the rear sliders were so I cleaned them.  I noticed how the spider webs in the garage were piling up, so I vacuumed them.  I also cleaned the filters on my Shark stick vac, the exhaust had smelled badly of dog. Of course I recorded the process.

After my coffee run in the morning I stopped at the park with Elsa to get a mile walk in around the perimeter.  As always she was terrified to get out of the truck but then is fine 30 seconds later.

I went back to the park mid-afternoon this time with OneWheel GT.  I did a number of “extreme” stunts with my tongue in my cheek.  It was a funny video, at least I think so.

Over the weekend I had a serious conversation with myself.  I was chastising some of the things my brain was doing, going down mental paths that made no sense and did not serve me in any positive manner.  The internal taskmaster, the same guy that drives me to do, do, do, barked how I need to snap out of it and abandon thought patterns that make me feel poorly.  The self talk felt like it worked, I felt like cold water was thrown in my face, opening my eyes to what reality is and how I control it. I have a long and muddy history of caring too much about things or people when it/they might not merit it for a number of reasons.  Acknowledgement of the issue is the first step to recovery.

Yesterday I finally pulled the trigger on my trip to LA, something I originally was going to do in mid-October.  I’m not quite sure why yesterday was the day I decided to take action but I am now locked in to fly out to southern CA on December 17th, returning on the 22nd.  I managed to secure a direct flight but even so it will be a long one so I shelled out extra bucks for the seats with additional leg room.  In addition I reserved a guest house on AirBnB in Downey which is the area my EUC buddy Marty lives.

My other SoCal friend Larry mentioned he had a holiday party the 18th that I was invited to, hence why I wanted to get out there the day prior. It sounds like it is quite the get together and something I would rarely get to experience.  Larry also offered to be my transport from and to the airport which is awesome.  I can either hitch rides locally to get around as needed, Uber or maybe ride a wheel to get where I need to be. No I’m not flying with a wheel, I again hope to benefit from the charity of others out there (Marty or Larry) to borrow one of their fleet.  Trying to pack my safety and camera gear for the trip which I plan to document heavily could push me into needing to check a second bag. I think it will be an awesome experience and a great Xmas present to myself.

So this will be the second time in the same calendar year where I have out of state travel twice in a short period of time.  The first time was in July when I was in upstate NY with my family and Roatan with Gladys in the span of less than two weeks.  This go round the travel will be a little less compressed with me returning from PA on November 27th so I have more like three weeks between the trips.  Mixing in that it is the holiday season should make it more fun for me.  I never saw LA at Christmas.

It will take me almost smack up to the conclusion of 2022 which thus far has proven to be one of the most challenging of my nearly 55 years on the planet.  That which does not kill you makes you stronger, right?

Oh I was up stupid late trying to finish the edit of part one of my S22 modification project.  You can experience the agony of defeat with me.

I am off tomorrow for Veterans Day.  I have small, yet flexible mental checklists in my brain of what I would like to do during this three day weekend.  We will see how they fall in place in reality.

I did not watch a single second of election coverage last night.  From perusing some headlines this morning the results were not as catastrophic for democrats as some predicted.  In Florida Ron Desantis crushed Charlie Crist as myself and everyone else knew hew would, cruising to a 20 point victory.  I heard he even won the Miami-Dade vote which is ALWAYS blue, pretty impressive.  Florida is definitely no longer a purple state, it’s red and will likely remain that way.  What I do like is the possibility of Desantis taking a big dump on Trump’s delusions about 2024.  It seems more and more republicans would prefer Ron to Don, by an increasingly large margin.

Ever since I became single in many ways I have felt like I was navigating through a dense fog.  I have continued to move forward with no clear visibility of anything on the other side or even an idea of what I hope to eventually find.  It’s a weird headspace to be in, especially for someone like me that has spent the overwhelming majority of his life having his ducks more or less in a row and realities pretty clearly defined.  I have been trying to embrace the “it is what it is” mentality, trying to navigate life without expectation the best that I can.  I do yearn for the day, if it comes, where the fog clears and my path is once again visible in front of me, a path which leads to contentment, fulfillment and joy.