Yesterday I used my Monster to go pick up my Tacoma which was in for it’s 20,000 mile service. I hitched a ride with Cindy who had to go to work which got me two thirds of the way there already. I originally wanted to just ride all the way from home but Cindy felt less worried if I did it this way. The ride only took around 15 minutes and left me wanting more.
My new 3D printer showed up yesterday. I took a good chunk of the afternoon setting it up and testing it out. I was disappointed when I discovered a Z coupler was stretched out and needed to be replaced. Luckily I just happened to have a spare that I never used. Swapping it in wasn’t too tough. The printer has a large build volume which is one of the big reasons I was interested in it. It has some quirks as well that I am trying to get figured out but I think it will be a great addition to my 3D printing farm.
Today is Friday already meaning my staycation is winding down. I am planning to front load today with a couple chores that normally would be relegated to the weekend. I really have enjoyed having a full week off without a MASSIVE project dominating my time.
Yesterday was my first day of the staycation without a to do list hanging overhead. After our early morning run we cleane dup and headed out mid-morning. I actually stopped in at the office for about a half hour to say goodbye to a co-worker that was retiring after 36 years. She and I always have had a funny relationship where we pick on each other like brother-sister. It will be sad to see her go but she is still young enough to enjoy her retirement which is cool.
We stopped for lunch on the way back at Fuzzy Taco’s one of our fav eating establishments. It was nice to be able to live like a retired person for the day. Later in the afternoon we had to head back out to drop the Tacoma off for it’s 20,000 mile service, even though it is about 500 miles short of that mileage. When you buy a Tacoma they give you free maintenance for 25,000 miles or two years, whatever comes first. I did not realize that I am actually a few days past the two year mark. Since I have been daily driving the Prius, the Tacoma has been seeing a lot less mileage. My service advisor said she would still be able to get me the work done for free since it’s so close but this will be the last freebie. On the way back to the house we picked up Sadie for another long weekend.
Last night Cindy and I worked on stuff, with my attention being mostly on solving an odd 3D printing problem which turned out to be a bad SD card. I also dove into WoW hard core for the first time during the staycation.
This morning when I was cleaning the coop I saw this thing on the floor that almost looked like a hardened egg yolk. Upon researching it later I discovered it is a “lash egg” which appears to have come out of Kristen, our only white chicken. A lash egg is not an egg at all as you can see from the words on the picture. It is a symptom of a serious and potentially fatal infection in the bird’s reproductive system. There is a chance a chicken can recover on it’s own from such an ailment but I read that it is more common for this to be the ultimate demise of the animal.
I am going to see if I can find some sort of antbiotic we can give Kristen as well as getting liquid yogurt to try to help boost her immune system as well. I am crossing my fingers she can recover. She is a sweet hen, one of my favorites. She is still acting normal otherwise but that is often the case with chickens, they will hide ailments until the very end.
Yesterday the roofers were again back bright and early with a reduced workforce since there was only the front facing side of the roof to strip and prepare. After doing the chicken chores and a few other things Elsa and I headed out to Home Depot. I wanted to get a new timer for the pool pump. The old timer switch was so stiff that it actually bent the tabs that are used to turn the pump on and off.
Elsa had her normal up and down Home Depot experience. She is perfectly content as long as everyone ignores her. The second someone stops to interact with her she panics and tries to hide. It’s a weird aspect of her personality that we have not been able to cure with time. Cindy and I both wonder what happened in her past to make her so fearful of strangers.
Mid-afternoon I replaced the switch. The design is cool. I was able to remove the guts from the case mounted on the wall and simply insert the guts from the new Intermatic switch. I felt a wave of relief when I flipped the switch and the pump fired up as it should. There was secondary relief as the repair meant that I officially had finished the 15th and last item on my to do list, meaning the rest of the staycation can have a lot more of my doing what I want to do as opposed to what I feel I need to do.
During the day I did a lot of futzing around with the CR-10 which again was being problematic. I finally got it printing again, cranking out more EUC stand parts. While Cindy was teaching a class I fired up my web cam for a YouTube live stream. I wound up streaming for over 90 minutes to only a handful of people but it was still fun for me.
I made an appointment to get the Tacoma in for it’s 20k service although I am about 500 miles from that number. I figured it made sense to get it out of the way while I’m off.
I’m looking forward to a pleasant Wednesday where I can once again simulate retired life. Cindy and I started the morning right with a three and a half mile run departing from and returning to Dunkin Donuts.
Yesterday was a good day. The roofer arrived bright and early and got to work. It was a large crew of at least a dozen guys. Before long the inside of the house was filled with the noise of a shingle roof being removed which was a lot of scraping and banging. Later in the day it was supplemented with a lot of banging and hammering as they re-nailed all of the exposed plywood to bring it up to code level strength.
The workers seemed very efficient and meticulous, laying tarps everywhere to catch any debris, which there was a lot of. By the time they wrapped up for the day around 2PM three quarters of the roof had been stripped, renailed, and covered with the new rubberized underlayment. All that remains is the front face of the roof that they are actively tearing into as I type. After this we have around a week to wait until county inspectors check things out before the metal can be attached.
I flew my drone overhead twice yesterday to get a unique high perspective on the work and the transformation as it occurs. It may be the first time I had the Mavic in the air since the hurricane.
I busted ass on more list items yesterday. At this point out of the 15 items on my staycation to do list, only one remains, fixing the pool pump timer. I plan to look at that issue today and hopefully be able to cross it off as well. Don’t get the wrong idea, once the list is complete I won’t be sitting around doing nothing the rest of the week. I always have something to do that either needs to be done or I want to do for entertainment, always. Extended time off at home always makes me feel confident that I could retire tomorrow and not be bored at all.
Late in the afternoon yesterday I found some time to go cruise on my little Mten3 wheel, riding more backwards than forward.
So I hit the ground of my nine day staycation with both feet, literally, starting off early Saturday with 13 laps around the middle school track. My legs felt dead and heavy for most of the run. I also had a sharp pain that gradually mellowed in that same spot on my right side that hurts during dragon flags. I finished the distance, which is all that mattered.
When I got back Cindy had already cleaned the chicken coop which was nice. I jumped right into weeding the property. After finishing up I ate breakfast and started on the first of many small projects of the day. I wanted to set up my new Pentair Dorado pool cleaner. I made a video out of it although there wasn’t really much to the process. The most impactful part of the video is the appearance of the pool at the start and how it looked three hours later. The bristle design of the vacuum scrubs as well as sucks, something my Hayward Navigator could never do.
I also shot a video outlining the install of my super cheap $28.99 security camera I bought to replace a dead one. The camera mounting hardware sort of sucked and only allowed you to adjust the angle of the cam EITHER left/right OR up/down, but not both. In some situations that could be a real problem but with where I was putting the camera a downward angle was all that was required. The 1080P picture quality was good, superior to the 720P camera it replaced.
So AFTER I finished these two projects I constructed my to do list which had a total of 15 items on it. Once we got back from a late morning Home Depot/Dunkin Donuts ride with the dogs I just started digging into projects left and right. None of the projects were massive, it was just a collection of things that I have been on my “need to get done” list for awhile but had not for one reason or another.
I changed the oil on the Prius, installed new seat covers on the Tacoma, did some 3D printing work and a number of other things. By the time Saturday ended I had knocked 6 or 7 things off the list. I thought that was a good total for one day.
Sunday morning Cindy and I did our second Dunkin Donuts ride in as many weeks. However this time Cindy was on her road bike instead of the Segway and I was on my Msuper. We carried a FAST pace for most of the ride, averaging over 20 mph for a lot of the time and even touching 25 mph briefly when Cindy wanted to race. It was a fun ride for sure.
I dug back into the list, knocking off items as much as I could. One sad task was cutting down the apple tree that has been part of our property for well over a decade. Hurricane Irma partially uprooted the tree. It was already not in great shape but it never recovered after the storm and was totally dead. I had a tinge of sadness in my heart as I cut it to ground level and drug it to the fill pit to be unceremoniously tossed in with all the other organic debris.
By the time we left for dinner I had only three items left on my staycation list, all of which I hope to knock out today. Sunday night we went to Cheesecake Factory for Cindy’s neice’s 18th birthday. All of Cindy’s local family was there so it was me and five females. I had a couple Miller Lites to take the edge off and the end result was a good time by all. I don’t think I had patronized the restaurant for around three years, when Katie turned 21.
This morning the roofers arrived bright and early and are currently unleashing hell on our old roofing material. The house is one big noise factory with somewhere around a dozen guys busting ass above us. The company we are using is expensive but good, really good. I am looking forward to a life under cool, durable, and reflective metal for the foreseeable future.
So today I finished the last of my medical requirements for being a half century old, getting my physical at our on campus med center. The visit included a urine sample, EKG, sex organ exam and of course the dreaded DRE, although out of the four times I have had it done this was probably the least uncomfortable session. I managed to stay calmer than is the norm with most doctor visits, I didn’t detect any sweat building up on my back. The nurse practitioner that did the physical was nice and we laughed our way through anything that could be potentially awkward. I also had them give me a tetanus shot while I was there since with work around the house I quite often will cut or stab myself with metal objects. I don’t believe I have had one since moving to Florida nearly 18 years ago so I was looooong overdue. It feels good to have all required medical procedures behind me. I should be in the clear for the next two years.
I am looking forward to my staycation which begins tomorrow. I do not have rigid schedules for things I want to do but rest assured there are a lot of things I will be knocking out. We also should have our old roof ripped off and prepped for metal by this time next week.
I shot another 3D printing video last night, enjoy.
On the way home last night I picked up my new pool vacuum cleaner from Pinch-a-Penny. I didn’t set it up yet as I want to do a proper unboxing/review video for it. You will find that once you have a YouTube creator mindset, every thing you do gets analyzed for it’s viability as content. I’m not saying that is a good thing, but it is definitely a thing.
Speaking of content I also shot a video outlining my latest issue with my CR-10 that I am fixing with money instead of the time and frustration to troubleshoot it in depth. I have been having symptoms of a partial clog in my hot end where a print will start normally but will fail after a short time period. In the past I went through almost a month of f’ing with the printer until I finally fixed it by replacing the entire hot end assembly.
When I did it back then it was still annoying because I had to splice/solder the new part into place which I honestly didn’t do a very good job with. They now have plug and play complete hot end assemblies where you just unbolt the old one and bolt in the new one, no soldering required. I ordered two.
The CR-10 and the AnyCubic I3 are my only printers that are big enough to print the large side pieces for the EUC stands. Having the CR-10 out of commission really limits my ability to make the stands so I wanted to make sure the problem was fixed, the first time. I also pulled the trigger on ANOTHER 3D printer, no, not a Prusa I3 MK3, a Jguarora A5.
This printer has a print area that is the same size as the CR-10 on the X and Y planes and only a little shorter on the Z axis. I like it’s sturdy frame and compact design where the control box is integrated into the main body instead of being it’s own stand alone box that consumes space. I know a few people that have these and they have been very happy with them. It seems like a printer that is very similar to the AnyCubic I3 Mega which I love with a bigger build area. As part of this plan I will be moving my Dagoma Neva to my office at work where it can print projects and be a good conversation starter.
Saturday morning I was up and out the door to get my track run in. It went ok with the normal “I hate this” feeling the first three laps, followed by “stop whining and run” for the next 8 laps, and finally “I can do anything for two laps” at the end. The bad thing about only running once a week is it doesn’t ever seem to get any easier.
Saturday was a go day, meaning I had a long list and the motivation to do it. I wasted little time before heading out to start weeding the yard which then rolled into weed whacking while Cindy got on the tractor to mow. It felt like my weed whacking muscles were out of shape. Towards the end of it I had to stop and try to stretch my middle back a few times.
We then took Elsa along to run errands. I had been waiting almost a month for the big Pinch-a-Penny spring sale to finally buy a new pool vacuum. My Hayward Navigator was falling apart, literally. I was a bit disappointed to see that they had sold out of the model I was going to buy but I still got the promo pricing, I just have to wait until Tuesday to pick it up. We also hit Home Depot where I had a list of several items needed for several different needs.
The biggest thing I wanted to get done was get my security cameras back online in the coop. Seven of the eight cameras were taken out by palm rats chewing the wires. I have had replacement cables for weeks but I wanted to make sure that we got rid of the rodents first. I don’t think they are totally gone but I think the ultrasonic device inside the coop has made them relocate mostly, I have not seen/heard any of them at night when putting the chickens to bed in weeks.
So I first had to pull all of the old wires out which were stapled to the wood in the run. I used a lot of staples. I had Cindy help me with installing the new cables. I decided to use wood screws mostly to hang/support the new cables which would be easier to replace if need be. I only used the staple gun to attach the cables to the roof near the entrance into the coop. I decided to use the existing hole that the rats chewed on but I left my big 3D printed nut and bolt in place, mostly covering the wires. I later added a wire loom around them as well as encasing the hole in expanding foam to further deter future chewing.
During the process we also relocated one of the two cameras that were pointing towards the back to the west side of the coop where we had nothing. The coop now has a 360 degree ring of vision around it. Even a ninja would have a hard time sneaking in there without detection.
Saturday night Cindy and I went to see Ready Player One, a movie based on a popular book. If you grew up playing video games as I did there is pretty much no way you can’t love this movie. Even Cindy, who is not nearly the gamer I am really liked the film as well. It was great, a solid A flick in my book, if you are a nerd like me.
We enjoyed dinner at the theater before the movie. You can really tell the exodus of snowbirds has begun. It was dramatically less full than the last time we went to the movies a month or so ago. Cindy was a little grossed out by the lack of cleanliness of the reclining leather chairs. The arm rests had various sorts of organic matter left on them. She went out and said something. One of the managers came in and wiped them down and was genuinely apologetic, saying his staff was going to be getting reprimanded for it. I imagine it is rather hard to get typical theater employees making minimum wage to be very conscientious about their job duties.
Sunday morning we “slept in” till 7:30 which felt well needed. After tending to the chickens and paying my bills we suited up for a potentially problematic ride. I suggested to Cindy that we try riding the big Segway I2 all the way to Dunkin Donuts and back. The 20 mile ride is far further than we have ever pushed the big Segway and the batteries in there are 11 and 12 years old. Expecting them to give that sort of range is unlikely, but Cindy was down for the challenge. We figured worst case it dies and I haul ass home on my Monster to pick her up with the truck.
So the ride out had a lot of headwind. As we monitored the battery indicator on the I2 we were concerned it was going down faster than we hoped. By the time we got to Dunkin Donuts it was showing half full which would be cutting it close at best. I brought the charging cord for the Segway. We wheeled it inside and parked it near an outlet where I plugged it in, hoping a 30 minute charge session would ensure we make it all the way home. We pushed back east with 5 bars of battery instead of 4 but that extra bar disappeared a mile or two into the return journey.
When we left I was honestly assuming the I2 would run out of power before we got back. The unit surprised me and made the trip back with 2 bars showing on the battery meter. It wasn’t the sort of ride you would want to normally do on the I2. It’s slower speed made the trip feel really long. Plus the I2 is most fun when you are going on varied terrain, not endless straightaways. Of course the journey is on video.
Sunday afternoon an old co-worker and friend of Cindy’s stopped by for a visit. It was nice for them to catch up. I mostly kept myself busy doing my stuff, namely 3D printing, video editing and some WoW. We had a hellacious storm blow through last night, dumping a ton of rain in a very short period of time, temporarily flooding out some areas. It’s a preview of wet season will contain.
Having a YouTube channel means dealing with idiots on the internet, it’s unavoidable. This comes in the form of comments on videos. I actually don’t get a lot of terrible comments but when I do I pretty much treat each and every one exactly the same, “Thanks for the insightful, well thought out, and helpful comment. Please don’t forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!”
Casey Ruff 13 hours ago you’re a fucking failure you cunt faced twat
Last night had a lot of 3D store related activity. I built some stands, disassembled some stands for shipping, and then packed those same stands to be sent out today. I also scavenged a couple of the stands I was using for my wheels and listed them on the store, replacing them with some of the older style stands that weren’t selling. I have a bunch of filament on it’s way to fulfill a couple custom orders. My CR-10 needs some work, leaving the only printer capable of printing the large side pieces being my AnyCubic I3. I can see my printer inventory switching up in the future.
This weekend I have a lot on my mental to do list, hopefully I am not biting off more than I can chew.
So our only white chicken, Kristen, was not acting normal yesterday. I had noticed the night before that she may have “pasty butt”, a rather disgusting scenario where the back end of a chicken gets clogged up with dried “organic matter”. Not only is it gross but it can also be lethal if not cleared. Cindy is the one that does all the leg work when this comes up, I usually just serve a support role.
Cindy said Kristen did not want to come out from under the coop, even for treats which is a big warning flag. She eventually got her out by using a hose and then worked on cleaning the hens backside. When I came home I noticed Kristen was back under the coop and still not responding to me like she normally would. I asked Cindy if we could try cleaning her some more with me helping to hold her so a more thorough inspection could be done. Kristen was pretty calm as petted her softly while saying sweet chicken things to her.
Cindy saw some pieces of stuck on broken egg back there. It seems like possibly an egg broke on the way out, dried, and caused the problem. Cindy worked diligently cleaning things up. I was worried that when I went to put the chickens to be that Kristen wouldn’t be up on the perch but she was. This morning I checked again on the coop DVR to verify she was still doing ok. Cindy said this morning Kristen seemed to be doing well and was out and about with the other birds. It’s things like this that make me nervous about leaving the hens to go out of town for an extended period of time.
My 3D stands are selling well. Last night I had one person order three stands, the last three of the the newer 2.1 models I had. I may wind up putting some of the stands I am using for my own wheels up in the store if I can’t keep up with demand. 🙂
