Don’t have much to share this morning, I guess I spent my verbal currency shooting this video.
This weekend I hope to get back into full normalcy, including restarting my weekend 5K running routine. Outside of that I expect chores and hobbies to fulfill most of the weekend.
Oh I forgot to mention that I got some good news regarding my roof replacement. Originally it was scheduled to happen sometime in June. That timeline has now been accelerated to mid-April which is cool, allowing the work to complete before rainy season begins. Replacing the shingles with a metal roof will change the look and sound of the house (when it rains) dramatically.
One good thing about the hurricane repairs taking so long is I have not had to dip into my newly reopened home equity line of credit. With the extended timeline I am hoping I may be able avoid pulling out additional money at all to complete the repair which would be cool.
So all day Friday I felt absolutely awful after the colonoscopy. Based on the symptoms which included fever, chills, and debilitating body aches, it became clear to me that this wasn’t a cold I was fighting, it was the flu. My energy level was just non-existent, watching TV was too much work, seriously. I went to bed that night feeling miserable, luckily it seems my fever broke sometime during the night.
On Saturday I was far from normal but at least I could function, even doing some normal chore stuff without having to take a 2 hour nap in between. It felt good to at least have regained some level of functionality. I got some 3D printing in, some WoW, and we watched a Hitman’s Bodyguard Saturday night with Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson. It was funny as long as you aren’t a prude. I am pretty sure the word MF’r was used triple digits in total. It was B+ for me.
Sunday morning my improvement continued from an energy perspective however I still had awful coughing fits and my red, sore nose continued to require regular blowing. Unfortunately as I was improving Cindy was sliding downhill. She obviously has whatever I have, only a day or two behind symptom-wise.
I actually felt good enough to go out on an EUC ride late morning. The weather yesterday was just about perfect with temps in the mid-70’s with low humidity. It felt so good to just be out cruising around after feeling so shitty for the last 3-4 days.
I have been having the check engine light on the Prius come on a couple times in the last week or so. My code reader indicated it was an error code that has to do with the coolant control valve. A quick internet search revealed this is a common failure in the 2nd Gen Prius. A video search revealed it was something that looks to be somewhat of a hassle but doable by someone with my mediocre mechanic skillset. I ordered a genuine Toyota part which I hope to install next weekend.
During the afternoon I got around to hanging up some stuff for Cindy in the office for her crafting. I 3D printed a bunch of roll holders to hold her Cameo vinyl rolls. I also printed these cool hexagon shaped storage cubes that we mounted on the other wall. You can add as many as you like to create a cool geometric looking storage grid. Finally we added a light over the top of her Cameo. Of course it is no ordinary light, it’s a Philips Hue bulb that you can voice control with the Echo.
I’m hoping my return to good health continues to accelerate. It seems once a year I come down with a knock me on my ass sort of illness, hopefully I will be in the clear for the rest of 2018.
So when I got home Friday evening Cindy told me she had a big surprise for me as I walked up the driveway. She pointed over to the bed of the Tacoma. I looked inside and saw a huge full size Segway laying back there. This is the Segway our friend said she didn’t want so I knew we might get it but I had no idea Cindy made the transfer during the day.
It didn’t take long for me to get the two wheeled 100 pound+ monster inside. Even though we knew the batteries were dead I plugged it in anyway just to see if it would take a charge. The Segway does look hardly used, just as advertised. It’s history of being an unwanted gift from a pro-QB to his offensive lineman which in turn was given to our friends husband who is a trainer that works with pro athletes is an interesting one. Once the trainer got it the wheel basically has sat in a garage for 5 years or more, untouched.
I dug right into doing research on the wheel to try to determine how old it was. In the process of doing so I identified that we were missing an important part, the Infokey. This device that looks like a digital watch is what interfaces with the Segway to do important things, like turn it on. Our friend is going to look and see if she can find the key, if she is unsuccessful it will cost me around $200 to get a new one. Yes, it’s expensive.
Expensive is a running theme with these Segways, brand new they cost roughly $6000. When I started digging into battery replacement costs it was a bit staggering. For a brand new set I could scrape the $2000 mark. Even refurbished batteries will set you back $1400-$1500. This was starting to look ugly. I have no idea if there is anything else wrong with the unit, to spend that kind of money just to find out seems sort of nuts.
So although I was a little put off by the numbers I kept digging, stumbling across a message board forum for Segway owners. I determined this unit was a SegwayI2 that looked to be manufactured in 2011. On this same message board I stumbled across a guy that was selling a used set of functional batteries for less than 25% of what a new set cost. I figured this was a good compromise which would allow me to test the Segway without spending a fortune. That message board is a great source of info that I will be leaning heavily on in the future. So for now the behemoth personal transport device will just be hanging out by the front door until the parts arrive and hopefully the Infokey is found.
Saturday morning I got out for my run. It was one of those runs where every lap felt like a struggle. Part of the problem is I am running at a bodyweight of 187-188 pounds right now. Even dropping 5 pounds would make a significant difference. Carrying more poundage seems to help my strength numbers at the gym but definitely makes running much less efficient. Maybe my pre-colonscopy liquid diet and intestine purge can kick start me to dropping a few.
After I returned from running I tended to house chores including some quarterly duties like running the generators and sucking out the AC drain line with the shop-vac. We took Sadie and Elsa along to Home Depot later to pick up a few items, mostly for the chicken yard. I got some large and pretty white egg rock to fill the areas in front of the coop. The stones are really cool but super expensive at $10 for each small bag. I also dumped some mulch in the back of the coop in the chicken “playground” area so they had something to dig around in.
Later Saturday afternoon Cindy and I went back out, this time to Costco for me to pick out frames for my new glasses to help me see distance better. The selection of frames wasn’t quite as large as I thought it might be but I still didn’t have much trouble picking out a set that Cindy and I both though looked decent. I am looking forward to seeing how things will come into focus that have been blurry for so long.
We also stopped at Michael’s for Cindy to pick up more stuff for her exploding Cameo 3 habit. She bought a bunch of supplies for herself and I chipped in and bought her an awesome craft light that is fully articulated with a built in magnifying glass. It was marked down 75% so it was a sweet deal. Since there are no returns on clearance merchandise and the box looked like it was opened already we took the time to pull it out and make sure it worked before making the purchase.
Saturday night Cindy was digging into her new stuff while I dug into some WoW while having a couple things cooking on the 3d printers. We fell asleep watching some of the US curling team’s gold medal match. It’s such a bizarre but interesting sport for me to watch.
Sunday morning I just got done paying my bills when all of a sudden my mouse became unresponsive. The keyboard was fine but the mouse was locked, weird. I had no idea why it would lock but I restarted the system to clear whatever the problem was. Imagine my delight when I rebooted and still had no mouse. Ok so I went an extra step, shutting down the PC, unplugging the power cord for 15 seconds to clear the USB bus and then bringing it back up. No mouse on the screen.
It was weird, I would see the mouse light up for a few seconds and then go dark. This kicked off an intensive plugging and unplugging diagnostic series that was maddening. I used my mouse on another system, it worked fine. I plugged a different mouse into my system, it still didn’t work. I pulled EVERYTHING off the USB ports and still could not get it working. I was getting VERY frustrated, this just didn’t make sense. I finally got the mouse working again by doing not one but two system restores. The first time I only went back a day with the same results. When I dropped back to a week ago the mouse functionality returned. I am still perplexed by what happened exactly but feel fortunate I got it going.
We went out to ride wheels with Kate and Daniel. The four of us had not ridden together in quite awhile. We met up out at Ave Maria. I brought my Mten3 and utilized it’s maneuverability to spend a lot of my riding time going backwards. We were having fun tooling around when all of a sudden I heard the unmistakable sound of a wheel hitting the pavement. I look down the parking lot and see Katie on her rear end and her Mten3 doing cartwheels with a piece hanging off of it.
By the time I got up to Katie she was already standing up. I did a quick survey and didn’t see any blood on her front. I asked what happened. She said she was going fast and the wheel started to wobble. Speed wobbles do happen sometime but normally you can just ride them out. Well this wobble was bad causing Katie to come off the wheel and land on her rear end at high speed. Despite a lack of blood, a lot of the damage was concealed by her shorts, she had bad brush burns on her rear end as well as some on her hands/wrist.
Her injuries were painful for sure but we all felt lucky that she didn’t get hurt worse. Both Katie and Daniel ride with absolutely no safety gear, despite our repeated warnings about doing so. I am hopeful that this incident, which could have easily been much, much more serious, will give Katie reason to start wearing at least a helmet and wrist guards at a minimum.
Katie was more upset about the damage to her wheel than her body. I was able to snap back on the part that had flown off. Other than some fresh scratches on the case, the wheel worked fine afterwards, despite the pretty epic tumble. The crash cut our riding short obviously. We went to the local Publix so Katie could wash up a little and then they came to the house so Cindy could help make sure all of the parking lot debris that was ground into Katie’s skin got cleaned out.
The rest of our Sunday was pretty chill with more Cindy crafting, more 3D printing and more WoWing occupying most of the time. Last night I finally finished up my quest to get all character classes in WoW to the new current maximum level. For those of you on the outside of WoW madness this will mean very little to you. However those of you that have played WoW will realize how much effort goes into bringing 11 characters that far.
This is colonoscopy week. It started off poorly with me getting a lousy night of sleep with what felt like constant drainage running down my throat. As much as I am not looking forward to the colonoscopy, the last thing I want is to have to postpone it due to illness. Once I am finished off putting medical procedures, I am very much a “just get it over with” type of person, in case you haven’t noticed.
Cindy and I had a very nice Valentine’s Day at home enjoying our Carrabbas on the Go dinner while we caught up on some DVR’d content. Cindy made me a cool shirt, cool card, and bought me some skateboard sneakers that may work well for EUC riding as well. Everything was very thoughtful and appreciated. I only made one of my gifts to her, a 3D printed rose that came out surprisingly well. I printed the top part on my Flashforge Finder and the stem on my CR-10.
This morning I had my consult meeting for my upcoming colonoscopy which is scheduled to go down at the beginning of March. The appointment was pretty uneventful. The best news is the prep isn’t quite as awful as it once was. It used to be you spent most of the prior day chugging a gallon of this disgusting tasting liquid. With this new regimen I spend the day before on a clear liquid diet but you don’t take laxatives until 6PM the night before followed up by one last shot at 5AM the morning of the procedure. Of course it will still be an unfun experience but it sounds like it used to be worse. The doctor was very laid back and cool and didn’t give me any reasons to get more worked up about the procedure than I will be naturally.
So my eyes are not great anymore. My distance vision has been getting progressively more blurry since my early-mid 40’s. After telling myself I would get an eye exam for the last four or five years I finally am getting it done on Saturday.
In addition to the eye exam I just recently bought these blue blocking computer glasses, a clear knock off of the Gunnar glasses I tried a few years ago. These type of glasses block much of the blue light emitted from computer monitors which can cause various eye discomfort. Red and irritated eyes have been a pretty normal state for me for a long time.
When I tried the Gunnars before I bailed after a week or two because they had slight magnification as well which was causing me even more eye discomfort. These knock offs have no magnification at all so I am hoping to get better results. They cost about a third of what the Gunnars cost. Take a look if you like. http://amzn.to/2HjrN9l
So tomorrow I am planning to attempt another epic 50+ mile commute to work on my EUC. When I did this almost exactly one year ago I did so on my Gotway Msuper. If you watched the video of my ride last year you’ll see I was pushing the limits of the battery capacity of the wheel. I barely made it to work because of strong headwinds.
I plan to use my huge Gotway Monster this time around which has double the battery capacity and is able to maintain higher speeds for longer duration. I will still bring my battery charger with to charge during the day but I should be able to go as fast as I want without battery concerns which will make the ride take less time. Even with the beefier wheel between my legs I plan to leave the house a little earlier to give me more of a time pad and get out ahead of some of the normal traffic. It should be fun.
So last night after work I was outside tending to the chickens as I do most days. As I was getting ready to dump out the dried mealworms they love so much it felt very sad to not have Peaches at my big toe, front of the line, looking up at me with anticipation. It just doesn’t feel the same. Trips into the coop area are going to have a somber overtone for awhile I think. The picture on the left is from my 3000 subscriber thank you video. Peaches was the chicken I chose to hold because of course, she was right there, by my feet…
Not only is today Valentine’s Day, it is also Elsa’s birthday. Well to be honest, we don’t know exactly when her birthday is but we know it’s in this vicinity. Cindy thought making it Valentine’s Day would be fun.
For as hesitant as I was at first about adopting another dog, you would never know it now. Elsa and I are tied at the hip. She is such a funny dog but also incredibly loving and sweet. She makes every moment better, even when she is being Miss Chevious. Cindy and I love her so much.
Since Valentine’s Day is a Wednesday we aren’t going out for festivities. I do plan to stop at Carrabas on the way home to pick up dinner so Cindy doesn’t have to cook. We plan to go out to see Black Panther on Saturday as sort of a belated Vday thing.
I did my first longer print on my new AnyCubic printer, a glue gun holder for Cindy. Just like my initial test print, it came out fantastic. The I3 Mega is very quickly becoming my favorite printer in my stable of five.
The other night I had a dream about one of my EUC buddies, Marty. I posted it on his YouTube channel but thought I would share it here as well.
I had a dream that you (marty) and some other EUC enthusiasts were in my backyard riding around. For some reason you got warm and decided to go for a swim in one of the fill pits filled with rain water in the back yard. As you dove in I saw a large alligator slide into the water behind you. I came running towards the water, screaming for you to get out. You heard me, saw the gator closing in and swam like mad towards the far side. As you were climbing up out of the water I saw the gator rise up and grab your leg. I was still running towards you looking for a weapon when I woke up about 4AM, sweating.
This weekend felt like one big blur of activity that never really stopped. I hit the track again first thing Saturday for a run that felt more like May than February. The temperature at 6AM was almost 70 degrees and it was humid. I get enough of those temps for 6-7 months out of the year, I wasn’t happy running in the soupy air in the middle of winter. The 13 laps felt like a struggle, just like it normally does.
Cindy did me a favor and knocked out the weeding for me on Friday. She also had the chicken coop clean by the time I got home from the run so it felt odd to not have my normal plate of work to attend to first thing. We instead spent a good portion of Saturday morning doing something fun. We took the MiniPro and my Msuper to the nearby school and parked there. We then road into the adjacent Waterways development to browse through the community yard sale they were holding. We did this last year as well and it was fun. It was again this year. We didn’t buy anything although Cindy did make a lowball offer on a used kayak that the seller didn’t quite bite on.
We stopped home to go grab Elsa and then went to walk a friend’s dog. By the time we got home the morning had been consumed. It was nice to not have work and more work be the start of my Saturday for once.
Saturday afternoon I dug into my automotive project, replacing the headlights on the Prius, again. Instead of throwing another set of halogens in there I spent big bucks and got some LED headlights because they are rated to last much, much longer. Because of the design of the LED bulbs I thought replacement was going to be significantly easier than what I normally have to do. Well as the video depicts, that was not the case but a lot of my pain and suffering was from not paying close enough attention to the directions.
After I uploaded the Prius video, I was finally able to upload another video, my 1000 video, something I actually had recorded over the last two weeks. Yes, believe it or not my YouTube channel actually has 1000 videos in it’s catalog. Like I said this video was a bit different as it was shot over multiple days which gives it a unique and interesting (if I do say so myself) feel. Take a peek at if you have 15 minutes and of course, don’t forget to like and subscribe!
I spent most of Saturday evening in the hobby room. First I rearranged all of my printers. The big CR-10 had to be moved because the workbench height was a potential problem with the shelves above it. On a high print the CR-10 print head would actually hit the shelf. I also wanted to make room for the new printer I was sent by GearBest. So after a lot of shuffling I got around to opening and setting up my AnyCubic I3 Mega.
Unlike my last printer, the Ender 2, which was a kit with dozens of parts whcih required 3-4 hours of assembly time, the AnyCubic printer was a dream. I had to attach two parts with 8 screws and I was basically done. Within a half hour I was ready to do my first test print which turned out perfectly. I really like the new printer for many reasons which I outline in the video.
So Sunday morning we “slept in” until 7:20 or so. As is often the case I put my clothes on and headed out to tend to the chickens. I opened the door to their run and they came scurrying out full of energy as normal. I then walked over to the coop itself and opened up the doors to begin the unfun job of daily clean up. I froze in my tracks when on the floor to the left of the perch I saw a motionless chicken. I felt a rush of emotion as I quickly realized it was Peaches. I looked closer to verify she was indeed dead which she clearly was.
Cindy came out to help me but I instead had to yell to her that Peaches was dead. She gasped in horror, feeling the same weight of shock that I was already bearing. I felt terrible sadness as I bent down to pick up her stiff body and carried it outside. I laid her on top of the chicken tractor run temporarily. “What the hell happened?” ran through my mind. I then realized that although the palm rats have knocked 7 of my 8 coop cams offline, the interior camera did still work. I knew I would be able to see what happened.
It just seemed surreal to me that the bird would be dead, she was acting 100% normal on Saturday, energetic, and looking to be first in line as always. However there had been one odd thing about Peaches in the last few weeks. For some reason she would not go up on the perch with the other birds on her own. Instead she would set up over on the nesting boxes. I never thought much of it more than just one of the weird quirks chickens have, they have a lot of them. Each night when I put them to bed I would simply pick Peaches up, put her on the perch and she would be fine.
After cleaning up the coop Cindy and I went through the somber and sad task of burying Peaches. As I dug a couple foot deep grave with tears in my eyes I thought about all the funny moments Peaches brought to us. Like I said she was always first in line when it came to food. She followed us around like a disciple. When Cindy would put down plates of yogurt and crushed shells Peaches would hop right into the middle of the plate to try to keep the other birds from getting at it.
She also was the first chicken that actually found the lawn mower as an opportunity instead of something to be feared. She would follow me around, closely, so close that at times I had to shoosh her away so I wouldn’t run into her. She learned that the freshly cut grass was an opportunity to harvest bugs by the bushel. She always made me smile. As we laid her still body, wrapped in burlap into the grave it was a very sad moment.
So after I returned inside we reviewed the coop footage. She was fine until right around 3AM. She started having issues balancing on the perch and then all of a sudden fell backwards. Once she hit the ground there was only a second or two of movement and then stillness. It was imagery that I didn’t enjoy seeing.
The video also brought immediate guilt. Seeing her lose balance made me wonder if the reason she was standing on the nesting boxes was because she felt unstable for awhile. I wondered that if I left her off the perch if she would still be alive. We also wonder if it wasn’t whatever was making her wobble that killed her but the fall itself. She could have very easily broken her neck depending on how she went down, which gave me yet another avenue of guilt. We had talked a bit in the past about making the perch lower to facilitate older birds. If the fall wasn’t so far she may have survived it. So yea, I felt and still feel pretty responsible for the whole thing.
Each time we have lost chickens there has been some sort of immediate response to hopefully avoid the scenario in the future. When the racoon broke into the chicken tractor and killed our first three hens I immediately double latched both side doors of the tractor so they were coon-proof. That attack also was the basis for us building the new coop to be as predator proof as it is. When Cocoa was taken by a coyote we installed a new security DVR system that gave full view of the coop perimeter so we would know of any weak spots. With Peaches demise we once again took action.
During the afternoon I cut a full foot of the height of the perch. The birds now are sitting at two feet or less off the ground which hopefully makes a fall less treacherous. It has the side effect of possibly making cleanup less of a mess as excrement has less time to accelerate before hitting the rubber mats below. I hope the changes help avoid this scenario playing out again. The image of Peaches still on the floor ran through my head all day long.
We tried to keep rolling along in the day instead of dwelling on the sadness. We hit Home Depot and Sam’s Club. I had been at Sam’s Saturday to grab a UPS for my hobby room shuffle. When I was there I saw they had huge 32 inch Samsung curved monitors for $219, super cheap. I joked to Cindy on Saturday that maybe once I get my tax refund I would grab a couple. Well when I did my bills Sunday morning I saw my tax refund was already in my account, which was amazing since it was only submitted a few days prior. So anyway, I grabbed two of these monster monitors.
During the afternoon in addition to reworking the perch I also drug out the gas pressure washer. Cindy had cleaned the lower areas of the pool cage but can’t reach the high stuff. Since the cage is due to be rescreened in the next week or two I wanted to make sure it got done before that happens. It was about an hour of less than fun work but the cage once again looks white instead of a greenish hue.
I finally got around to unboxing the first of my two monitors when I hit my first snag, the inputs were only HDMI and Display Port. Although my video card has a DP output I did not have the cable required. I immediately shot out to get one, striking out at Wal-mart and then having to drive another 5 miles to Best Buy to overpay for one. So when I got home I was anxious to get my new massive monitors set up. I opened up the second box and was in disbelief, the screen had a crack in it.
I was not pleased as you can imagine. I angrily reboxed the monitor and immediately retraced the route I just took 30 minutes prior, going back to Sam’s. I luckily just missed what could have been another incredibly frustrating scenario as I walked in the store at 5:55. I had no idea they closed at 6PM. If I was a few minutes later I can’t imagine what my blood pressure would have been. Anyway, my replacement monitor was undamaged and I got everything hooked up. The huge curved screens take some getting used to but damn it’s awesome.
Sunday evening both Cindy and I were busy with hobby stuff. Cindy has really been getting good with her Cameo and I had video footage for a couple different things that I needed to edit and get published. We ended our weekend late Sunday night watching our first curling match of the Olympics, it was glorious.
I did not see one second of the state of the union address and don’t feel like I missed anything. I heard the speech went on for nearly 80 minutes and followed the pattern you would expect. Most SOTU speeches are pretty cleanly broken into 50 percent looking at what has been accomplished and the other half talking about what is to be done. From all accounts Donald spent 80 percent or more of the time in self congratulatory fashion which is to be expected. I am so very tired of politics and reading the inane ramblings of Trump enthusiasts on social media. It just makes me feel worse about the world than I already do.
Instead of watching Trump I had three of my 3D printers chugging away making Eagles cookie cutters, recording two videos in the process, a much better use of my time, in my opinion.
I finally got around to doing a video review of the laser engraver I was sent by GearBest a month or so ago. It is not a high end device at all and has a very small (38MM square) burn area but it does indeed work. I have done a number of test burns on cardboard and they have turned out well. Like most Chinese products there are some odd and quirky aspects to the device but for what it costs, it does the job.
Wow ever since Logan Paul decided it would be funny to shoot video of a guy that hung himself in Japan’s “Suicide Forest”, my ad revenue has got hammered. A similar thing happened when PewDiPie was accused of making racist remarks on his channel last year. Advertisers knee jerk reaction to this shit is to stay away and seems like that is once again the case. My predicted monthly revenue since the Logan Paul video has dropped almost exactly by a third. When you combine this with the recently changed partner program announcement that rips monetization away from channels with less than 1000 subscribers it adds up to a whole lot of suck.
You will notice that I have started to include my standard affiliate links at the bottom of my blog posts. It’s just another way to diversify and get more exposure. Feel free to ignore them or check them out, whatever floats your boat.
Saturday morning Cindy and I were up early to head out to the Run for the Paws, the race Ali started a dozen years ago mostly due to our experience with adopting Nicki. Cindy and Sadie came as well. We sadly left Elsa at home but she would have been absolutely terrified the entire time and it would have been miserable. Cindy and I both were wearing Eagles jerseys which drew more praise than negativity at the race.
We arrived close to an hour and a half before the 8Am start. It was nice to see a lot of the old familiar running club crew although some of the key roles are now being handled by other people. I primarily let Cindy tend to Sadie while I lent a hand here and there in a very minor way. It certainly felt odd to have so little responsibility in a situation where I used to have a ton of weight on my shoulders, but I’m certainly not complaining. I have not missed timing races at all with the only caveat being the positive interactions with race organizers and participants.
So the plan was for Cindy to walk Sadie with a friend of ours and I would just run it, my first chip timed 5K in years. With my weekly runs, a fast pace has dropped off the radar as one of the goals so I didn’t really know what to expect. I ran the race like I normally do, see people in front of me I identify as targets to pass, and then try to do so. For the most part I took down all targets but overall my pace was slower than I expected. My chip time just barely got into the 29’s. I knew I would be slow, I didn’t think I would be that slow. Oh well, good thing I’m not qualifying for the Olympics.
Once I finished I stood at the finish line with Ali for awhile waiting for Cindy and Sadie to finish. After waiting 10 minutes or so I started walking back out on the course to make sure everything was ok and to walk/run in with them. Everything was fine and Sadie seemed to be holding up well, much better than last year, to the 5K distance. We slowly jogged across the finish line where Sadie was greeted very enthusiastically.
Last year after the race I stuck around for the entire awards and even helped clean up some but I was there by myself. This year we had to let out a friend’s dog on the way home and we wanted to get back to Elsa who was likely very unhappy. We just stayed long enough for Ali to introduce Sadie at the start of the awards and then headed out. We didn’t go around to do a round of goodbyes but we will see a number of the people at our Super Bowl party so it’s all good.
So on the way home like I mentioned we had to stop to walk our friend’s dog but before that we wanted to do a DD pit stop. I was on Airport Road turning left onto Pine Ridge. I was behind a cargo van. As I approached the light the van partially blocked my view of the light but just as I started making the turn the turning arrow went from yellow to red. Oh well, I still cleared the intersection before opposing traffic got a green.
Well as I am sitting on Pine Ridge I see flashing red and blue lights in the mirror. I then realize the lights are directly behind me and not trying to get anywhere else. Yep, I was getting pulled over. I think the only other time I can recall being pulled over was early in my Florida residency when they had a speed trap out by my house. I got off that time with a warning. Well this certainly wasn’t what I needed for my post race celebration.
The deputy, who was probably a guy in his late 20’s, early 30’s was pleasant. He said I ran the light but it “wasn’t bad”. I had my registration and insurance in hand and apologized, saying the van partially obstructed my view. After running my plate he returned with a piece of paper, luckily it was only a warning. I thanked him for cutting me a break. If he was a Yellowstone Park Ranger he surely would have thrown the book at me.
So when we got home we dug right into chores with chicken clean up being first on the list. Earlier in the week Cindy had noticed all of the cameras but one in the coop were showing offline. I figured I just needed to reboot the DVR as this sometimes can happen. Well when I was out in the coop run I realized that no amount of reboots would fix the problem.
I had drilled a small hole in the side of the coop that I ran the camera wires through to the head unit inside. I filled the remaining gap with pipe foam insulation. Well when I glanced at that hole I saw it as empty with 7 sets of chewed through wires hanging there, the damn mice were at it again. They evidently destroyed the wires and insulation in order to give themselves free entry into the coop. I have already ordered new wire sets but I will need to modify my installation to make it mouse proof. I have been live trapping and relocating the pests. I have caught three so far but evidently more remain.
Despite the early rise and 5K I deemed Saturday afternoon as the time I would pressure wash the two sheds which were both various shades of green/black. I used the gas pressure washer which has much more crud blasting power than our electric model. It’s always a bit hairy standing on the wet roof of the big shed as I lean awkwardly over the edge to blast a few of the panels. But hey I haven’t fallen yet in 15 years of doing the task, I’m a pro at this point.
Saturday night we watched our latest Netflix dvd, the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Johnny Depp has been a bit of a joke recently with an embarrassing string of box office failures. I hoped one of his most iconic roles could reverse the trend. Well the best I could offer is, sort of. I thought the movie was ok. I once again dozed off a few times due to being up early for the race. My general feeling at the end of it was that hopefully I had seen the last of the series. It was a shrug my shoulders B flick, I guess. I just didn’t care.
Sunday I started off with chicken cleaning and bill paying. Mid-morning I hopped on the Monster to ride to Dunkin Donuts. I arranged with Cindy to meet me there with the dogs so we could go run errands afterward. I was carrying some major speed during the ride. I did not have a tracking app running but I am pretty sure most of the ride was at 20mph+. I got there faster than expected, so fast that I had an extra 10-15 minutes to roll around the side paths and roads until Cindy got there.
We then hit Pinch-a-Penny, Rural King and Home Depot to pick up several things. One of the things I grabbed were some longer weather proof roof panel screws to replace a few I saw that were loose and/or missing from the big shed. I replaced them later in the day.
The rest of Sunday was pretty chill. Cindy spent a lot of time working with her Cameo. She just loves creating things on the platform and I encourage her to do so. I too messed with my laser engraver as well as playing a nice chunk of WoW to wind down my weekend. All was well with the world…
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I picked up Sadie on my way home from work on Friday. When we got home Elsa went absolutely bat shit crazy to see Sadie emerge from the Prius. She loves having Sadie around.
On Saturday morning I started out once again with my 13 lap run around the track. During the last half of the run some kids were getting dropped off presumably for some athletic event. About a dozen of them joined me on the track, doing one high speed lap, easily blowing past me. Some of the kids were wearing flip flops and still left me eating their dust.
My chore load for Saturday was pretty light with weeding being the primary must do. We headed out to Rural King and Home Depot with the dogs mid-morning. I grabbed 15 more bags of top soil to continue my primitive ground level elevation project behind the coop.
My 3D printers were working hard on Saturday finishing up another colorful EUC stand. I also printed a blue version of my knife model to use at work. On Sunday I put my rudimentary Fusion 360 skills to work to design a little clip I could put on my pool vacuum hoses to keep them from falling off the holder I have on the wall.
Late last week I passed another milestone on my main YouTube channel, crossing the 3000 subscriber mark. I thought I would celebrate the occasion by making a short montage video that touched on the core subject matter my channel is about.
Saturday night Cindy and I headed out to see 12 Strong, once again opting for the VIP theater experience at The Prado. We decided to eat dinner there as well since we had a good experience eating there with Randall a few weeks ago. Cindy and I ordered the exact same items off the menu and had the same praise for the end result. The only negative was the super slow service at the bar where they had one woman back there that didn’t seem to know what she was doing. Eventually we just bailed on the idea of getting a beer after waiting for more than 5 minutes with no movement in the line.
The movie was about a seemingly crazy true story at the beginning of the Afghanistan conflict. A small US team was sent in to work with a local Afghan faction to overtake a Taliban controlled area. The soldiers literally at some points were fighting Taliban in tanks and truck mounted rocket launchers on horseback. Yes it seemed sort of insane. Their original intent was to serve as a cross hairs for US targeted airstrikes but it morphed into horses versus tanks in the end. I am not sure how much of the scenario was exaggerated for the movie, but if it went down pretty much as depicted, it’s an amazing example of heroism and bravery. It’s a solid A flick.
After the movie we stopped at the cute little ice cream shoppe next door and enjoyed small cups of ice cream as we sat by the cool fire/water feature. We both really enjoy watching movies at Prado.
On Sunday morning Cindy and I went out for an EUC ride, parking in the Super Target lot since Cindy had a few things she wanted to pick up there. We brought the Msuper and Mten3 for the ride. It was a fun ride and the longest distance I have taken the Mten3 as we looped all the way to North Collier Park and back.
So on the way back we came in behind Target like we did on the way out, to avoid the busy parking lot traffic. As we were wheeling along a white SUV was approaching us from the other direction. As it got closer instead of following the curve in the road it kept going straight in our general direction. The driver of the vehicle had his face in his phone, of course, and was not paying attention.
Cindy yelled out and gestured at the guy who then immediately jerked the wheel to change direction. We had plenty of room to avoid an impact but the guy was clearly not paying attention. Well after we passed I saw the reverse lights on the SUV light up in my rear view mirror. Cindy looked back and saw it as well and was worried he was going to try to hit us which I assured her he would not do. Instead he sped past us in an adjacent lane and then gave us the finger as he drove by, what an idiot.
It would have been interesting if he would have stopped and gotten out of the vehicle. I am normally not the type of person to overreact to a situation or go looking for conflict. However if someone brings it to my doorstep then things can get a little scary. So anyway, the dumb ass drove away and we had a funny ending to the ride video as I had the camera rolling, just in case.
Sunday afternoon we did our own thing. Cindy did a lot of crafting over the weekend. She is getting really good with her Cameo and made a very pro looking t-shirt decal that she applied with her new heat press machine. I edited the ride video and then watched a good portion of the Patriots/Jaguar game.
Man although I have no love for the Patriots it is impossible to not respect how much they have accomplished. Once again they came back from a double digit deficit to beat the Jaguars. The fact that Tom Brady accomplished this without Gronkowski, who was knocked out with a head injury late in the first half, made it even more impressive. Brady’s list of accomplishments are simply staggering. To me, there is not a doubt that he is the best QB of my lifetime.
I of course was more interested in the next game. Once again, despite having the best record in the league, for the second time in as many weeks the Eagles were an underdog, at home, which is almost unheard of. Most people, myself included thought that once Carson Wentz got hurt the Eagles chances of success dropped way down. However the team has managed to use that as a rallying cry, using the underdog role to fuel their efforts.
The way the game started did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. The Vikings marched straight down the field and scored a TD with little resistance. The sick feeling in my stomach was amplified by the stat that they flashed on the screen stating that no team with an indoor stadium has ever played an outdoor game in the championship game and won, their record is 0-12. In the past the Eagles have had a bad habit of bucking these trends so I was worried that we were again headed in that direction.
If you would have told me that the Birds would turn things around to score 38 unanswered points at that time I would have called you crazy however that is what happened. I was so used to Eagle teams in the past collapsing with big leads that I was still not confident when the score was 31-7. Only once they got the final touchdown did I know for sure they were going to the Superbowl. What an amazing game.
I was so happy for Nick Foles, he had a superb game. I always liked the guy when he was with the Eagles. From the start he struck me as a quality human being and for him to succeed at this level after struggling when he was traded was heart warming. He played like his amazing year under Chip Kelly when he threw 27 TDs with only two interceptions. He was calm and in control.
The Eagles defense came up big after looking like a doormat on the first drive. The Vikings did move the ball somewhat but some big takeaways kept them from scoring again which was huge. This game will go down as one of the all timers in my book as far as satisfaction and level of play goes.
The Super Bowl party we are hosting once again after a one year hiatus suddenly has taken on a whole new level of excitement. To have the team I have lived and died with my entire life in the big game will be special indeed. I can only hope somehow they are able to keep the magic going just one more time…
