Category Anything and Everything

As I mentioned previously I have not been crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s like I would normally do for the last few months.  One of the things that has suffered as a result is my online 3D store.  I have had a number of items that have been out of stock for weeks and I just have not been paying attention to it.  In general, sales on the store in 2022 have continued to drop, a trend that started in 2021 after 3 years of growth.  There is much more competition in the space now.  So anyway I have again started making some parts and I was on the store last night cleaning some stuff up, including parts that are for older EUC’s that just don’t see use.  I also finally listed a new headlight protector I designed for the EX20S EUC I recently got.  I’m also working on a revised stand to support the extra high clearance of the KingSong S22.

I went to the gym for the first time in nearly two weeks yesterday.  It was chest day, normally my favorite workout of the week.  I did lower weights and less reps and still felt wiped out.  It’s to be expected after the layoff and covid hangover I have been slogging through.  Regardless it felt good to add another cog back into my machine of normalcy.

For all of last week the improvement in how I have been feeling has been on a very slow escalator upward.  I had already determined that regardless of my current state of wellness it was time to reengage with life.  On Friday when I got home I went out to get the weeding out of the way.  I have started to once again use the scuffle hoe as a big part of the process which for some reason I stopped doing awhile ago, which makes no sense.  It allows me to clear big areas of unwanted weeds without bending over or getting on my hands and knees, both desirable to avoid when possible.

I was feeling pooped afterward but I had to refocus my energy to finally do the live stream that I had postponed for a week due to being sick.  20 minutes before the 8:30 start time I was laying on the couch with my eyes closed.  I was able to get myself awake enough to get through the stream although it only ran for two hours, short for me.  As expected a number of people were very surprised when I pushed the huge box containing the KS22 into the field of view.  The reason for the surprise was at the beginning of July I did a video stating how I canceled my order for this wheel that I had been waiting for for almost a year.  However about a week after that happened a series of events lead to me getting one anyway, from a different source.

On Saturday Elsa and I did an errand run which included Trader Joe’s.  TJ is an excellent source for decent frozen meals for one so I loaded up.  When I got home my afternoon goal was to weed whack the property thoroughly, something that had not been done in awhile thanks to vacations and equipment issues.  This was my first run of the new Ryobi weed whacker.  It performed superbly throughout although it took FOREVER until I got through it all, over two hours of whacking.  It felt good to get it done. I even went in the pool afterwards, something I have not done the entire summer.  No I am not kidding.

Earlier in the week I had ideas about getting out to see Thor or maybe go sit at a bar Saturday night.  However by the time I was done with the marathon outdoor session all I wanted to do was veg out.  I caught up on some DVR/streaming content and then slept like a log Saturday night.

On Sunday I knocked out my bills which included paying one of the largest credit card bills I have ever had, if not the largest, thanks to the concentration of spending that has occurred over the last month or so.  A prolonged period of fiscal mindfulness will be required as a result.  I then had most of my day cleared out to go to Alison’s new place to help her with a number of things.  Shugs was out of town visiting his mom.

The first priority was looking into why her internet wasn’t working.  She has fiber coming into the house and then a Century Link wifi router connected to that.  Once I connected to the wifi network and got into the router UI I could see that it was not receiving an IP address on the WAN.  We called tech support but confirmed there is something going on that is going to require a line tech to come out.

Next I helped Ali bring in some larger items that were in the garage like the furniture and desk for her office.  We got it all in there and then I hooked up the PC equipment for her.  I then suggested I take a whack at hanging the monster 84 inch TV they bought on the wall.  This thing is a beast.  We tried to use great care in unboxing and moving it around.  Since I have hung several TV’s on walls I was relatively confident I could do this one as well, despite it’s dimensions.

After measuring more than once to determine center and an appropriate mounting height I worked on getting the bracket affixed to the wall.  When the house was built this area intentionally was fabricated with a large sheet of plywood behind it, making it convenient to wall mount onto.  The bracket we got was just barely big enough to accommodate the TV, every adjustment was maxed out.

I did everything myself except hoisting the 100lb plus set onto the wall.  For that I required Ali’s assistance, it was not an easy lift as it went pretty high on the wall.  On attempt one we bailed and then reset, putting the TV on the old TV stand to allow Ali to get more under it.  On the second attempt we were successful, getting the top hooks onto the bracket, whew.

Even though it was on the wall it wasn’t sitting evenly.  Trying to manipulate the bracket/mount with the TV on the wall was challenging.  Finally I found the culprit and the TV clicked into place assuredly.  Because of the lack of internet in the house there wasn’t much more set up that could be done but the hard part was finished, which Ali was very happy about.  She was feeling overwhelmed by the scope of work that was remaining.  The things we got done helped her feel better which I was happy about.

Ali had a special reward for me.  She went into her pantry but then backed towards me so I couldn’t see what she had.  I could hardly believe it when she revealed two boxes of grape Poptarts.

Grape was always my favorite flavor growing up however many years ago they stopped producing the flavor.  I distinctly recall looking at various grocery stores for it 10-15 years ago, while Ali and I were still married.  The reintroduction of my favorite flavor brought an instant smile to my face, almost as big as when Zima was brought back on a limited basis.  Hopefully it sticks around longer than Zima did.

Ali thanked me for all the help.  Elsa and I piled back in the truck although I had to leash her up to get  her out of there since there were some storms around.  The drive to and from Babcock Ranch is long, taking at least an hour, depending on traffic.

I got home about 5PM but I wanted to get at least a quick ride in on my new wheel to get a feel for it.  The skies looked menacing all around me but I targeted going to the nearby DD which is only 3 miles away.  I had a really good experience, adjusting to the feel of the wheel almost instantly, compared to the extreme awkwardness I felt on the EX20S a couple weeks prior.   Now that I am off the vacation circuit I should be able to focus some time on riding.

Sunday night I spent editing video, twice.  I had almost completely finished editing the footage when the software locked up, which can happen from time to time.  It isn’t a big deal because it auto-saves your progress every minute.  Normally once you restart the software it will ask if you want to reload from your last save point.  Well for some unknown reason there was no auto save file this time.  I was pisssssssed.  So I redid everything, pushing past 10PM to redo it.  Hopefully the end result was worth it.

I noticed on Friday when I saw the blog entry from last year, I talked about (in an indirect manner) the final conflict that wound up in my relationship with Cindy ending.  Seeing that entry and recalling the feelings surrounding that time period felt strange.  It’s hard to imagine that a year has passed already, a year that has been filled with many, many twists and turns which are still going on as far as I can see in the horizon. The path ahead is foggy with no clear outline.  It will be interesting to see what comes my way as time continues to march on.

YouTube has been pushing something called “Shorts” for a little while.  They are videos that are 15-60 seconds long, meant to compete in a TikTok/Instagram world where people’s attention spans are measured in seconds.  I haven’t made any as pretty much everything I do is long format, which previously was the only way to do significant monetization on the YouTube platform.  Well with Shorts I guess you are able to monetize better and ideally give people a doorway to longer format content.  Last night while I was crashed on the sofa I did my first short which promoted the live stream I finally plan to do tonight.  This live stream has been postponed for a week due to my covid crash.

I was then able to take the URL for the Short and embed it into an Instagram/FB story, just to see if I could.

Back when I was in upstate NY with my family Amazon Prime day occurred.  I grabbed an Apple Watch 7 during the event for what seemed like a good price.  It was supposed to arrive in a few days, it didn’t.  Instead I got delay email after delay email.  It only arrived a couple days ago and that was a saga in it’s own.  I received a notification on Monday evening that the package had arrived around 7:30PM.  Odd, I was home and didn’t recall hearing/seeing anything.  I looked by the front door, the normal drop spot, nothing there.  I expanded my search to in front of the garage door and even walked down to the mail box to look in there, there was no box to be found.

So when I looked at the details of the delivery notice I immediately became suspicious.  Normally it indicates where the package was left, ie. front door and is often accompanied by a picture.  The watch delivery said it was left at a “safe place”. WTF?  So now my spidey sense was tingling.  I pulled up my Ring camera history for the day and verified that no Amazon delivery occurred.  I started building a scenario in my head where the driver has simply stolen the package, the package I have been waiting weeks for.  Apple Watch’s are a pretty good snag right? I was not happy.

I got on Amazon chat and told the rep I was concerned the driver stole my package as it says it was left at a “safe place” when in reality nobody was even at the house. After several minutes he came back and said my package was actually back at the depot.  When I asked why it would say it was delivered if this was the case he didn’t have a good explanation but assured me they had it.  I expressed my concern about the driver posting inaccurate delivery information and how I had heard that driver package theft happens.   The watch did arrive the next day and to compensate for the aggravation Amazon threw a $20 gift card balance on my account which was nice.

I really like the new watch.  I had a series 3 previously.  The 7 has a much bigger face and some features I appreciated.  It has expanded health monitoring capabilities.  For example it can read your blood oxygen level or do an ECG.  With my cardiac testing of 2022 it’s nice to be able to have an ongoing record of some of these vital stats.  It also has a better screen that is visible all the time.  That was always an annoyance on my 3, it only woke up when it sensed you flipped your wrist to look at it.  Sometimes it just would not do so, requiring me to flick my wrist repeatedly until the screen would come up.  The screen on the 7 is also big enough(45mm) that I can do basic QWERTY typing on it instead of relying on gestures. It’s a worthwhile upgrade for geeks.

On the way home I stopped and picked up a new Ryobi weed whacker that I bought online from Home Depot.  I mentioned how the cheap whacker I bought at Walmart a couple years ago was not running well.  I was never a fan of the thing and bought it out of convenience.  The Ryobi equipment is higher quality and presumably should be less problematic.  Weed whacking is unfun enough without having to fight with the whacker on a regular basis. The older I have become the more value I place on the idea of getting what you pay for, across multiple scenarios.

This weekend I hope to keep crawling upward in how my overall wellness level feels.  I already am planning on putting the new whacker on it’s maiden run as well as working on getting a number of things as I feel they should be.  Sunday I hope to help Alison get some of the tech aspects of her new house up and rolling.  If the stars align next week it will be the start of me once again feeling normal where I am the weed whacker, clearing out whatever issues pop up in my path.

I don’t recall if I mentioned this on the blog or not.  Shortly before I left for Roatan another set of three baby mockingbirds hatched at the same spot as before, under the solar panels.  I assume it was a different mockingbird mom this time.  She just sort of cleaned up the existing nest instead of rebuilding it.  Before I left the three babies were very small, unfeathered and helpless.

When I returned one of the first things I did when I went into the chicken yard was check on the baby’s progress.  They had grown, had feathers but there was a problem, I only saw two of them.  The nest had become somewhat dislodged and was sitting at an odd angle, presumably from not being completely renovated.  Maybe it was excessive rain or  the weight of the baby birds that dislodged it but the end result was one baby was now gone.  I scoured the ground looking for it but had no luck, of course this made me sad.  A couple days later the damaged nest was once again empty, presumably the babies were able to fly away, a process which happens amazingly quick with mockingbirds.  Well at least two made it.

So yesterday I am out tending to Kathy.  I see she is in the old chicken tractor hanging out.  As I walked over to check on her I see something else on the ground.  As I got closer I could hardly believe it, it was the third baby mockingbird.  It traversed at least 75 feet to get to there it was and was smart enough to find a spot that gave some protection/shelter.  My initial thought was I needed to do something to ensure it’s survival.  I tried putting water nearby and some dried worms.  All that did it was scare it.  It sort of tries to fly on the ground very clumsily.

As I was standing there trying to imagine what I could possibly to do to help the little thing I heard it, the sound of the mockingbird mother.  I am quite familiar with the sound as anytime I was near the nest she would fly away but make sounds letting me know she was watching.  Well I heard her up in the oak tree right above me.  I am presuming she is still flying down and tending to her baby until it is strong enough to fly on it’s own. The baby is pooping and looks healthy enough so mom must be feeding him.  Ever since this discovery I do a baby check every time I am out there.  Finding out the third was not lost helped brighten a time period that could use a little light.  I look forward to the day where he is nowhere to be found, hanging with his siblings in the sky where he belongs.

Please keep in mind this is written after being affected by covid for close to a week, your mileage may vary.  Getting sick on the end of a month that contained so many highlights from the trips to New York and Roatan has done some weird things to me mentally.  I shot a brief video for members of my YouTube channel explaining what is going on and how I have been feeling.  During that four minutes I described how when I looked around I felt behind, behind in so many ways.  I like to be ahead of most curves, not so far behind that I can hardly see the curve anymore. The feeling has been deflating my mood.

I also have this weird feeling of being disengaged which is a bit hard to quantify/describe.  I don’t feel connected to what I normally am.  I am lacking excitement about my future.  I just am not feeling positive, which is something I have put a lot of effort into working on the last several months.  I know your thoughts steer your mood and I am hoping this is just a side effect of feeling like shit for a prolonged period of time. Still, I am feeling much more robotic right now and far less human.

I was thinking I would be back at the office instead of working remotely once again today however I pulled another positive covid test last night.  The strong symptoms have faded.  I have no fever, no significant GI distress and coughing fits are rare.  What I do have is an overall sense of weakness and fatigue that does not seem to be lifting or changing.  It’s not to a debilitating level but it’s significant.  My sister’s family just got over Covid, Torrin said it took 12 days until she got a negative covid test result.

There have been so many variants of covid since this mess began.  Some have been stupidly mild but I have heard time and time again that people getting whatever thisrecent strain is have been smacked hard, and it hangs with you.  Awesome.

This covid experience has been pretty miserable.  I have had a rotation of symptoms that covers the spectrum.  They have included body aches, extreme lethargy, the chills, the sweats, coughing, a nose like a faucet and of course the lovely three days of diarrhea.  Although the physical manifestation of the illness sucks it’s the mental side effects that are most impactful for me.

I am a person that is used to being a free standing piece of granite that resists most forces imparted upon it.  I handle problems, address issues, endure hardship, and just get shit done without excuses.  Covid has incinerated that part of me.  Even the simplest task felt too large, my motivation to do most anything was null.  During this time I imagined that this is what it must feel like when you are clinically depressed.  I have never been able to imagine a reality where simply getting out of bed was a task upon itself.  I now have had a bitter taste of that, and I hate it.

There has been slow improvement over the last couple days.  My body still has that overarching feeling of being drained. I still have coughing fits but last night was the first time I did NOT have an explosive bathroom visit since Friday which is progress for sure.  I took another covid test late yesterday and it still came back positive so again I am home working remotely.  My hope is to get a clear test today so I can go back to work tomorrow to restart some semblance of normalcy.

I did cancel my hernia surgery and left it open ended, not wanting to set a new date.  I just don’t need another medical procedure in 2022, f it.  For the last few months I feel I have ridden with very loose reins in several aspects of my life, pushing my better judgement to the side, letting things slide, being careless with spending, and just not doing what I need to be doing.  It’s time to straighten up and fly right.

As I mentioned in the last blog entry I returned from Roatan not feeling great.  My energy was low, I felt tired but still functional.  There have been multiple times during the last month between the New York trip and this one where I felt off for a short period of time but was able to feel better by the next day.  With as widespread as covid is now and me injecting myself repeatedly into crowded situations I felt a little surprised that I was able to escape it.  So on Friday after dropping Gladys off I returned home and still felt off but good enough to mow the grass.  However by the time Friday evening came around things had taken a turn for the worse.

I went to bed with the shivers, feeling cold enough that I pulled the blanket up to my neck.  I woke up a couple hours later sweating, pulling all covers off me.  My nose was running, my body was feeling depleted but then the finishing shot was the diarrhea which kept me from sleeping more than an hour at a time the rest of the night.  I felt like absolute death Saturday morning.  I had no energy, even the simplest of tasks seemed like they would require too much effort.  I was barely able to do the chicken chores, I left out the extended cleaning I normally do on a Saturday, I just had nothing in my tank. Weeding? Forget it, they can grow.  Once I went back inside I laid on the couch and did not move for quite awhile.  All signs pointed to me having covid.

So I was not very well stocked for illness treatment at the house.  I had no cold medicine, no decongestant, no cough medicine, and not even a thermometer.  Getting myself off the couch and into the truck to drive to CVS required a stupid amount of mental pushing.  My body just did not want to do ANYTHING. I finally got my ass in the truck and made the 3 mile drive.  I masked up to go into the store, not wanting to share this misery with anyone else.  I grabbed NyQuil/Dayquil, the thermometer, Imodium, and a covid test.  Shortly after getting home I did the test and got a no doubt about it positive result.  I also took my temperature several times, the highest I read was 99.5 so it was not dangerously high.

The first person I told was Gladys since she had spent face to face time with me for the past week.  She was not feeling badly but did a home test anyway which came up negative which I was happy to hear.  I also let Alison and Torrin know.  Ali had covid a month or two ago and was pretty hammered by it.  My sister and her entire family had it as well recently.  The universal advice I got is to rest which I had absolutely no choice but to obey.  My body was done.  I spent the rest of the day alternating between sleeping and watching tv, although at times watching tv felt like too much work.  It’s crazy.

I started dosing with DayQuil and then took a NyQuil before bed (although I never really left bed)  My sleep last night was better than Friday for sure, I think I only got out of bed once.  I awoke this morning in better condition than Saturday, albeit still feeling like shit.  The combo of diarrhea and not eating much had me down to 175lbs on the scale last night.  Gladys has been concerned about me and reached out a number of times which was sweet.  She said her sister, who is a nurse, suggested I take some pills and an anti-viral shot she has used on others with covid.  It has had good results in shortening the time you are down.  I was open to anything to make getting back to normal come sooner rather than later so I stopped at Gladys’s place while I was out to get basic groceries.  Her sister gave me the shot.  Even though the needle was really long I didn’t feel all that much.  It was weird being around everyone with masks on but necessary.  I’m thankful for the support Gladys’s family has shown me, they are special people.

I masked up again to grab the handful of groceries I needed.  I was literally the only person in Publix wearing a mask that I saw.  I know that the approach to covid is now basically a shoulder shrug but I still would not want to wish this last 24 hours on anyone.  It’s been a very long time since I have been flattened by illness to this level.

So there are going to be some additional side effects from testing positive with covid.  First I can’t go back to work without a negative test.  I plan to work from home tomorrow and retest then to see if I am still generating the virus.  Second I plan to cancel the hernia surgery that I had scheduled for Friday.  I am pretty sure you aren’t allowed to even have surgery if you had recent covid infection but even if that wasn’t the case I would cancel anyway.  The hernia is not significant right now and my life has felt in upheaval enough recently, throwing a surgery into the mix is not something I want or need right now.  There are a lot of ducks that need to be lined up in my world.

After finishing up the blog yesterday morning I got the rest of my stuff packed which as predicted, did not take long.  Gladys had a lot more to pack considering she is doing so with a trip to Holland and Montana back to back.  When it came time to leave I paused and took one more glance out over the water, appreciating the view that I had the chance to enjoy for the last week.  If I said it didn’t stir up some sort of emotion inside me, I’d be lying.

Dustin and Kat again were gracious, just like they have been during my entire visit, and agreed to drop us off at the airport.  I said my goodbyes to them and thanked them for everything.  I pulled Dustin in for an awkward hug which made me laugh afterwards.  Having Gladys along as a travel buddy made getting processed at the Roatan airport stupid easy since she has done it so often.  Gladys was also nice to sit next to in the plane.  We split her travel pillow and split her airpods to watch a free movie on the plane.

I knew Miami was going to be far more aggravating than Roatan but again Gladys is a pro in how everything goes there so it made it once again easier.  When we approached the immigration area where you check back into the country it was a pretty daunting site.  There was this tremendous snaking line of human beings that doubled back on itself at least a dozen times.  The line did keep moving but it’s pure length was amazing.  However, if I utilize some of G’s (what I call Gladys most of the time), positive thinking, 15 minutes after we entered the line it had backed up far worse and was spilling into the entrance.  So we were lucky we got there when we did, there is your positive spin.  The funny thing is the reason you stand in line was for a security guard to look at your passport, look at you and move on.  I think my interaction with the guy was less than 10 seconds.

So next up was grabbing our bags which we did NOT have to wait for thankfully.  By the time we exited the building it was somewhere around 90 minutes after we got off the plane.  The next mission was to find the truck.  Luckily I took a picture of the nearby sign when I parked so we knew where to go.  On the way there we saw signage that indicated you should use a pay station before exiting the garage.  Hmm weird but ok.  The way we took it, this was the main way to get out of there.

So I did a quick survey of the top floor where we were parked, no pay stations were there.  So we started driving downward, thinking perhaps they are only on lower floors for weather protection.  When I saw no indication of a pay station on the 5th or 4th floor I was confused.  Why was there a sign instructing to use a pay station if pay stations are not spread around everywhere??

So we continued downward, finally I saw a pay station sign on the 3rd floor.  I put on my 4 way flashers and jumped out.  I was behind a guy that was getting frustrated because the machine would not take his credit card.  Instead he had to feed it cash to cover the $60+ fee.  So once he cleared out I put my ticket in and saw the charge to park for a week, $136, sheesh.  I was really hoping the credit card failure was a fluke because I wasn’t sure if I had that amount of money in smaller bills.  So I start feeding in my cash, not counting it ahead of time, brilliant, I know.  So my wallet keeps getting thinner and thinner.  By the time I paid the bill I had $1 left, insane.  So at least we were finally good to go, I headed down to the exit and literally blurt out WTF??! What I see is 10 spots or more where you could pay with your credit card and 3 or 4 where you used your pay station ticket.  I guess I know for next time as I never parked at Miami International before.

The ride across Alligator Alley went well.  I got us out of Miami and to the rest station halfway across.  I let Gladys take over because she likes driving and because I was feeling really wiped out from whatever illness had overtaken me. I had the chills, a runny nose, and all of that fun stuff.  We got back to my house around nine where we shared a cauliflower crust pizza and watched the ending of the movie we started on the plane.  Gladys was really sweet to me, knowing I didn’t feel well. It was appreciated.

Elsa was of course very excited to see me and after a short while remembered who Gladys was, hanging by her side more than once. I slept pretty well although when I did wake up in the middle of the night it was with a t-shirt that was sweat drenched.  I woke up this morning not feeling significantly better or worse.  The guy arrived to do the final service on the new windows on time which was appreciated.  He was a friendly and funny guy named Pedro.  I thought this service would take less time so once he was done inside Gladys and I took off so she could get home to see her family.  When we pulled up to her driveway her niece and sister Margaret were already outside.  Because I am sick I steered clear of any close interactions with them which is a bummer as I would have liked to say hi to everyone.  Watching Gladys embrace her family was touching to bear witness to.  Gladys gave me a big hug, thanked me for everything, and I was off.

I had one pit stop to make, picking up another EUC, yes you read that right.  There is a backstory about it that I plan to talk about on a live stream tomorrow night. When I got home despite feeling pretty shitty I felt like I had to get out and mow the grass. The standing water was gone for now so I figured I needed to take advantage of the circumstance.  I expect my weekend to be pretty packed as you can imagine.  Yea it would be nice to be able to just rest but ever since I have become a lone wolf, there is no option B when it comes to getting stuff done.  What I am going to have to juggle after my upcoming hernia surgery is going to be a challenge, for sure.

So here I am on the other side of two big trips in a very short duration, something I have never done in my entire life.  The trip to Roatan exposed me to such a different way of living where you rarely look at a clock, eat when your hungry, enjoy other people and experiences without the shackles of a modern American life, at least my version of it.  My time there had some ups and downs but I learned from all of it.  Gladys and I will always be dear friends, even as our paths diverge.

Yesterday morning Gladys and I once again tried doing the snorkel journey around the point, the same path we abandoned yesterday due to bad conditions.  This time we had much better visibility for 2/3 of the swim and saw some beautiful fish along the way.  Once again I exited the water feeling like my nose was encased in sea water which has had some consequences I’ll talk about later.

Since it was the second to last day here I wanted to make sure I gave Gladys a hand with the things I said I would.  One of those things was hooking up an old TV with a built in DVD player to external speakers.  The internal speakers appeared to be bad so we hoped this was a way around it, using the audio out RCA jack on the TV to feed the speakers.  Well the plan failed, even with the speakers attached there was no external sound output.  I was bummed out.  It seems like the sound driver board in the TV is toast so unfortunately a new TV will likely be the solution, especially with as inexpensive as they are.

I also hung three curtain rods for Gladys.  She has a decent collection of tools so it wasn’t much of a challenge.  I tried to be a hero and help Gladys drill a hole in a 4 gang outlet cover so she could feed some coax through it.  She was going very slow (intentionally) but I asked her to let me try.  So I crank the speed to max, pop through the other side and plate instantly cracks in half, it was a pretty hard/brittle type of plastic.  I felt like an idiot.  I’ll get her a replacement cover that doesn’t require drilling back in the states.

The final thing was to navigate Gladys’s tiny DJI drone to do a fly away shot that she will use as part of other content.  It was my first time flying that model.  Despite it’s small size it delivers high quality and stable video.  I think the shots turned out well.

I joined Gladys for her to run more errands connected to her property management position.  Seeing her daily routine makes me feel assured I would not be a great property manager.  The job requires countless phone calls/messages while running around as required to take care of the needs of the properties and the clients who rent them.

On the way back we stopped at the same coffee shop as the prior day, the one with the outdoor dock seating area.  We enjoyed our coffee inside this time but did it front of the back glass wall that had a big section slid open.  I really like the vibe of that place.

So I was feeling increasingly shitty as the day progressed.  At first I wrote it off to a side effect of Taco Tuesday.  I also have been doing a poor job of hydrating down here.  With how much you sweat in the intense heat and humidity you have to keep drinking.  However by the afternoon I was feeling something else that was unwelcomed but familiar, discomfort in my head.  My assumption is it is related to all of sea water that has gone into my head the past week, awesome.

Last night we went out to dinner again with Kat and Dustin, doing yet another thing I have not done in years, eat sushi.  The food was good although the service was a little on the slow side.  It was an interesting night for me where I found out a little more background about Gladys, Dustin and Kat.  I am extremely appreciative of the kindness and inclusion they have shown me during my week here.  I understand more clearly why Gladys speaks so positively of both of them.

When we got back Gladys did some significant packing while laid there on the bed hanging out, it was nice, for some reason.  I still have to finish packing but I am pretty sure I can do the entire process in 15 minutes.

Unfortunately I had a pretty rough night of sleep.  My head was filling up.  When I got out of bed this morning I dumped peroxide in both ears to hopefully give me enough relief to at least get through the day.

It has certainly been a magical week here on the island and of course I owe that to Gladys.  Her willingness to share her home with me and show me why this place is so special to her is something I will carry with me from this point forward.  That being said, being back in my own stomping grounds this evening will be good as well.  One thing I have always liked about living in Florida is instead of feeling all depressed about vacations completing, I get to look forward to coming back to a place many people dream of.

Thank you Gladys…..

Tuesday was again a mixed bag of weather with some rain and clouds.  I decided to start the morning with a solo snorkel.  I also decided to do this without fins, just wearing my water shoes instead.  I felt somewhat clunky and uncomfortable in the fins the other day and I appeared to be able to get around the water just using a modified breast stroke where I just used my upper body.

I had a very peaceful journey around the bay and was out there for quite a while.  Being inches away from all of these beautiful fish feels surreal, like I am swimming in the biggest salt water aquarium of all time.  The constant change in water temperature was interesting depending on the depth of water and currents around me.  At one moment it would feel bathtub warm and then a blast of wake you up cooler water would wash over me.  It was a serene way to start my day.

Gladys made homemade pancakes for breakfast among other things.  I watched the process and pitched in where I could.  The food was really good. We got ready and then headed out for another day of zipping around the island.  There were a number of fun moments.

We stopped and went to the top of a mini-lighthouse looking structure that held beautiful views of the surrounding  area.  I thought I had lost the mic cover on my GoPro while I was up top but it turned out it fell off in the car, thankfully.

We stopped at a shopping area that was very cool, it was made primarily out of shipping containers.  The really cool thing was the face of the structure had two of them that were stacked on end vertically.  There were some interesting gift shops where we grabbed a couple things.  We also stopped at a coffee house that also sold chocolate made in Honduras.  The mocha coffee I got was good.  We tasted a bunch of the chocolate samples and liked them so much we bought a few bars to bring back to Gladys’s family.

We eventually made our way to the West Bay area , the same place we wound up when we took the boat ride with Dustin and Kat.  Gladys wanted us to get massages on the beach from a woman she knows and has used before.  I had not received a real massage in at least a decade and of course never on a beach so I was down to do it.

Originally I said I would be ok just doing a 30 minute session but Gladys soon convinced me to do a full hour.  Immediately the woman recognized what a knot filled mess my back was.  As she was applying pressure down the length of my back it felt like she was running over countless speed bumps.  She told Gladys in spanish that I must have a lot of stress.  Spoiler, I do.  She spent the most time on my back which was good.  Gladys also told her I like I having my head rubbed so she did a lot of work there too, which was fantastic.  By the end of the session she had gotten a lot of the knots pushed out, which was a painful process for me at times.  There was a lot of wincing going on but overall I really enjoyed it.

After we got back we decided to go back out for another snorkel session.  Gladys suggested going around the point and exiting on Kat and Dustins deck.  I was up for the challenge.  Once again I went finless while Gladys had on her set, unlike me she is very adept with her fins.

So the water looked rough from afar but we thought it would still be ok.  It didn’t take long to see that this was going to be challenging.  There were some decent waves smacking us around.  A few times the end result was me getting pushed into some sharp coral which left a few bloody marks on me.  The other issue was visibility was poor due to the multiple episodes of hard rain we have been having.  A couple times Gladys asked me if I was good to keep going, which I was.  Even though I was a bit tired this had now become a challenge in my head and I was willing to push till the end.  Eventually Gladys made the call that we should turn around.  The rough water combined with very poor visibility where you couldn’t really see much around you made up her mind it wasn’t worth the effort.  Of course I trusted her judgement in this environment that has been foreign to me up until a couple days ago.

I have had a weird thing going on as a result of snorkeling, random episodes of water pouring from my nose hours afterward.  When I have the mask on the separate compartment where your nose goes fills up with water for me.  I thought it was normal but evidently it isn’t.  Because of this I guess I wind up with water in my sinuses that does not appear to come out easily.  What happens later is I will be bending over and suddenly a stream of water comes pouring out of my nose, it’s ridiculous and probably not a good thing to have sea water sloshing around inside your head.

So Gladys, Kat and Dustin have had this tradition called Taco Tuesday.  They go out and get food and then head to a place that offers live music and dancing.  This was going to be my chance to experience it.

We first went to a place that sells poopoosas, a food that Gladys and I saw on the Food channel a day or two prior.  Kat, Dustin, Gladys and I slid into the seats along the bar rail that faces the street.  Not once but twice I managed to bang my head into a box that housed a tv.  I have skills.

We then walked down to the party bar.  I immediately saw a lot of familiar faces from our trip to Papa Bones.  I started buying more Salvas to keep the fun flowing, Dustin and I already had a couple at dinner.  This bar is two stories, I could hear the party going on up top but had no idea how crazy it was until we ventured up there.  The band featured Lesandro, the same guy I talked about previously that has amazing guitar skills.  Unlike the other night he was singing as well.

The space was packed with people, all bouncing to the beat of the music.  I kept downing Salvas to the point where I started moving as well.  Seeing me dance is almost as rare as me getting a massage.  It was impossible to not be swept up by the energy in the room.  At one point a woman hopped on a table and was going nuts.  Gladys is an incredible dancer, it was something to see.  We hung there for a decent amount of time.  Just like most of this trip, even though this was an environment I have never found myself in, I embraced the moment and enjoyed it.

When we got back we went out on the dock to see if we could spot the octopus.  The search was intensive and long but without success. Everyone was very happy and drunk.  Again, despite being affected by the alcohol I did not lose out on appreciating the moment as the moments from this trip are winding down.

To make things even more memorable the power went out for an hour or two.  At one point Gladys and I went back out on the deck, taking the complete darkness as an opportunity to take in the stars, it was beautiful.  We were up late, very late just talking about life like we often do.  Gladys has been and always will be a dear friend in my life.  The time I have spent here has been good for me in many, many ways.

With this being our last full day here (Gladys flies back to Miami with me), we will be getting all of our ducks lined up for the return trip but I am sure there will still be many gems of happy moments to collect during the day.