So for a few months the water in the house has been a little problematic. The smell of sulfur shows up sometimes, especially in the hot water and sometimes the water does not look as clear as it once did. I had the water equipment replaced around five years ago by a local company that I have a good relationship with. When they put the system in I had been dealing with around 10 years of poor water quality with the old equipment. They highly recommended the performance of this system and it lived up to their claims. The water quality in the house was much, much better than it ever was prior.
So anyway, last year the water guys were out doing well work and they said there was some maintenance that needed to be done on the water cleaners they only found about recently. I could tell their attitude about the cleaners had now turned somewhat sour, despite mine still working well.
The guy from the water company came out yesterday tasked with looking at the equipment to see if he could address the problems we were experiencing. I was not home but Cindy was. The guy spent literally a couple minutes, just long enough to verify what model of equipment I had. He briefly talked to Cindy and then left me a message to call him, which I did later.
So apparently they have now gone full tilt against the equipment I have and no longer sell it. Although my units have been more or less trouble free, evidently other customers of theirs have had a lot of problems. He said one option was to have the filtration media in my unit rebedded although it is also leaking a little bit in the top valve section. The cost to do so was $1000 but he highly recommended against that course of action.
He thought I should replace the equipment altogether. His first option was a system that sounded almost identical to what was pulled out. It has this huge holding tank that has air injected into it to separate the sulfur. Knowing how poorly that system worked for me before that was a non-option in my book.
Option two was something I was considering 5 years ago, a whole house RO (reverse osmosis) system. Small RO systems that fit under sinks are used a lot for drinking water. I had one for a number of years. The filtration for RO water is extremely thorough, giving you the best quality water possible. Of course there are downsides. The RO filtration process is slow so you need a large holding tank of purified water. The filters require regular maintenance and replacement and are costly. And the system itself is VERY expensive, the guy quoted me $6400 and a $500 trade in value for my old equipment. I already knew the approximate price from 5 years ago although I hoped the price may have come down somewhat since. It didn’t.
I told Danny that when I talked to them 5 years ago I mentioned RO and was actually steered to what I had by their recommendation. He acknowledged that they were all about those systems back then but no longer are as a result of the problems they have seen longer term. He reiterated the benefits of RO which I already know, the cleanest water possible. In a way it seems like overkill having purified water going into the toilets or out the hose bib.
I also pointed out to him that in addition to the huge up front costs, there is a lot more upkeep and maintenance costs. He said they have either monthly or quarterly maintenance plans I could pick up if I didn’t want to do it myself. If I got a system that expensive I might go for the maintenance to ensure it’s longevity. A quarterly plan might add up to close to what I pay for water softener salt per year, which would no longer be necessary.
I was a bit frustrated by my options but told Danny I wasn’t going to pull the trigger on new equipment just yet. If I decide to go that route it likely would need to wait until I see how my tax refund is shaping up for this year. If I plan to stay in the house long term, RO might make sense. We will see how things unfold in the next couple months.
My last day of my extended three day weekend was very lazy. Early in the morning I spent some energy doing additional cleaning in the chicken coop. I pulled out the stand the nesting boxes are on and worked on the mountain of feathers, dust and sand that was wedged behind them. It was pretty damn gross. I used a couple of my battery powered tools to help in the process, the blower to blast out a lot of the junk and the battery powered shop vac I got for Xmas to suck up the rest. I also dumped out the nesting boxes and refilled them with fresh shavings. Peaches was the first one in the coop laying an egg after I finished and she seemed happy with the clean up in a chicken sort of way.
Cindy was teaching a class Monday morning so I decided to take Sadie and Elsa for a DD coffee ride. This was the first time I have taken both dogs in the truck anywhere. I knew it would be interesting to see how they would work out the seating arrangements.
In the old Tacoma, when I had Nicki and Sadie along it worked out well because Nicki preferred to lay on the floor in the back of the access cab while Sadie always rode shotgun. There were multiple configurations tried during the ride, all of which were funny and cute. The funniest of all was when Sadie had her head on the door while Elsa sat on Sadie’s side. It didn’t look comfortable but Elsa stayed that way for quite awhile.
The rest of the day I only attended to some minor chores peppered in with a lot of WoW. I have been working on some other characters that refresh the game for me since their play style and objectives are very different.
I did not go out on my EUC at all yesterday. With my puffy right knee I just didn’t feel a strong urge to push it, again.
It’s nice to have two short work weeks in a row, if I could permanently swing a Howard Stern style three day work week that would be amazing.
Even though I am off tomorrow I figured I may as well get the blog knocked out after a nice Eagles win over the hated Cowboys to end the season. New Year’s eve was once again a busy day. Despite Saturday sort of being a holiday, I wanted to front load my three day weekend with the stuff I wanted to get done, as is always my preference.
Once again Cindy helped me in accomplishing that goal. The swelling in my right knee has not relented at all, if anything it may have gotten slightly worse, making house chores a slow and limp filled process. During a break in the action we went to Rural King. The last time Elsa was there she spent the entire visit being freaked out. This time we had just picked up Sadie before heading there. Having Sadie along helped Elsa do better but she still gets freaked out unexplainably in public at random times. Once she starts it is very difficult to settle her down.
During the afternoon we worked on putting away all of the indoor decorations. I normally will leave stuff up a week or even two weeks after New Year’s sometimes and I may leave the exterior stuff up that long again. Unlike a lot of years, I didn’t feel a lot of remorse or sadness taking stuff down this time. I’m not sure why that is because we sure put a lot of effort into making this holiday as good if not better than most.
Cindy made plans for us to meet up with Katie and Daniel in Naples that night. Originally the plan was we would meet prior to the fireworks and ride there together. That didn’t work out timewise so Cindy and I parked at the Publix at the corner of Golden Gate Parkway and 41 and rode our wheels down to the Naples Beach Hotel. We did not want our electronic transportation sitting in sand so we sat on a rail leading to the beach and parked our bots right under us.
Our plan seemed pretty solid until the rush of last minute people came charging in. One of them was a clueless mother with her young son. The kid had on those sneakers with embedded LEDS in them that flash constantly. They were maybe 10 feet from us. Mom was too busy taking selfies and filming the fireworks on her phone (more on that later) to give any consideration to just how annoying her son’s flashing sneakers were.
Imagine you were in a movie theater trying to watch a film and the guy in the next row held up a color pulsating flashlight. That was pretty much how it was. Cindy has a sensitivity to bright lights like that so she moved positions so my body blocked most of the lights as they annoyed me less. I told Cindy I would ask the kid to turn them off but she didn’t want to dampen the kids New Years. In retrospect I still should have just asked the kid/mom as nicely as I could muster to please turn off your f’ing flashing shoes.
Even halfway into the fireworks people were still trying to cram themselves into the beach area. It just reminded me why I generally avoid these types of events. The other thing that drives me a bit nuts is how many people filmed the ENTIRE event on their smart phone. I mean wtf, you are there, watch the fireworks with your eyes instead of via the viewfinder of your phone. If the rest of your social media circle wanted to see fireworks they would make the effort to go see them themselves, not watch your recording of it online. I just don’t get it.
As the last explosion went down I was very happy to get off the beach and felt no desire to repeat the experience any time soon. We met up with Katie and Daniel afterward. We didn’t get 5 feet until a nice group of people started asking Cindy questions about the wheels. Cindy loves telling people about them and even letting them try the MiniPro if so inclined. After the demonstration was done we started rolling around.
As you can imagine the area was very congested with people and vehicles. The nice thing is most people are so amazed by the wheels that they stop dead in their tracks and let you pass. I was riding the MCM4 which looks especially cool at night with it’s robust LED lighting. During one section of sidewalk we ran into some early sprinklers blocking the path. I tried to avoid them by hopping into the grass but immediately fell as the super deep and wet St Augustine grass swallowed the wheel up. Luckily I landed on the grass and I had my wrist guards on so no injury occurred.
We eventually rode back to Rita’s, a local ice cream hangout. On our way there both Katie and Daniel demonstrated some of the new skills they have learned since both having wheels full time. Daniel can now ride one legged for short distances and hopped down and up curbs multiple times. Katie is so smooth on her new wheel as well and did a super smooth curb jump that was awesome. After ice cream we all piled back in the Prius. We drove Katie and Daniel back to their car which was a number of blocks away. They thanked us for yet another unique and fun riding experience.
Since the fireworks were early, 7:30PM, we got home by around 9:30. We had no further crazy celebration planned, in fact I consumed not one drop of alcohol. Hell I didn’t even watch Dick Clarks Rocking Eve until 11:55 or so just to watch the ball drop. Instead I watched Deadpool which was showing on HBO. 🙂 I was a little bummed I missed Mariah Carey making an idiot out of herself on live tv when her lip sync voice track died, showing the world she really can’t sing those songs that way anymore.
Sadie had a very rough time of it while we were gone. She is scared of loud noises. During thunderstorms she will either be cowering under my desk or in a closet. Well some of the idiots around us evidently were shooting off fireworks a good portion of the night. As we pulled into the garage it looked like they were going off almost on top of the back yard. Sadie was FRANTIC when we got in the door, hyperventilating. We soon discovered she had peed in several spots around the house, something she never does. She must have been terrified. Both Cindy and I felt very bad that she was so freaked out.
Despite being up late, I awoke early. Since my knee blew up my sleep has been very poor. I am unable to sleep in the position I normally do because of the knee and it makes me wake up often as I shift to relieve pressure. I was up and outside pretty early, taking on chicken coop cleaning duty, giving Cindy a one day break from the chore she winds up having to do other days. I also got out the carpet shampooer to give the areas Sadie lost control in a thorough cleaning.
I decided I wanted to go for a long EUC ride in the morning. I came up with the idea of taking Cindy’s new wheel, the MCM4 on the trip. I have not done any long distance cruising on the wheel and was curious how it would be. Well the short answer was, not great. The smaller pedals on the wheel hurt my feet very quickly. I had to stop a couple times to relieve the pain.
The wheel is pretty fast, I got up to 18mph at one point but it does not feel stable at speed. The wheel almost feels like you are repeatedly tapping the gas and then coasting non-stop as you are rolling along. It gets annoying and does not inspire confidence. The other thing I noticed was the wheel temperature reading seemed high, somewhere close to 130 degrees but I later found out this is within the normal operating range for this wheel.
So I made it to DD in one piece but was glad I arranged to have Cindy meet me there to drive me back. The MCM4 is a fun wheel to roll around on at night for relatively shorter rides but long distance cruising is definitely not what it is good at. I told Cindy after the ride I understood why she preferred the way Katie’s Inmotion wheel felt in comparison. It’s thinner, smoother, and more polished of a riding experience.
During the late morning I did my bills which included paying and reconciling my monster CC bill from the holidays. Reconciling the December statement is always the biggest pain in the ass of any month as you can imagine. I bet I spent 45 minutes going line by line, matching it up to my Quicken entries.
Cindy was going to a beach birthday party. I opted to dog sit and take in the last Eagles game of the year against the Cowboys. I knew Dallas was not going to be trying very hard since a win did not change their playoff picture. Zak Prescott played a couple series and Ezekial Elliot didnt play at all, making the Eagles job a whole lot easier.
It sure helped once the Cowboys inserted Mark Sanchez to finish out the game after Tony Romo was in for one series and threw for a TD. Sanchez was his normal stumbling, bumbling self, throwing two interceptions and taking a horrible sack, all of which set up Eagle scores. So yea, the Eagles won and I am happy about it but I am under no delusion that we beat the best Dallas has to offer.
The 2016 Eagles were a very frustrating team to watch. During the first three games they played uncharacteristically solid football, excelling at pretty much all facets of the game. The wheel then came off rather abruptly. I am sure part of it was opposing coaches game planning better but the Eagles did a lot wrong to help them. They had something insane like five games this year where they committed ten penalties or more.
On defense there were multiple problems. The defensive line stopped being able to get to the QB for a stretch of 7 or 8 games. The cornerbacks were awful in my opinion, getting burned consistently, when they weren’t committing PI penalties. The offense was a mess at times as well with the wide receivers being the biggest underperformers of all. They could cut every single wide receiver on this roster and I would not care. There isn’t a playmaker in the bunch and nobody has the speed to make defenses care.
Of course Carson Wentz was the biggest unknown going into the season and I would say he did well, sort of. He was definitely handcuffed by the shitty wide receivers with bad hands, no speed, and no ability to make the tough catch if a pass was slightly off target. However Wentz was off target a lot this year. His bad habit of throwing off the back foot resulted in a lot of interceptions and even more interceptions he was lucky defenders dropped. He made a lot of dumb throws and even dumber decisions, taking sacks for huge losses when it would have been simple to throw the ball away instead.
I also question his ability to be accurate on any thrown ball over 20 yards. I don’t have the numbers but it sure seemed like he had precious few completions where the ball was in the air that long. His touch passing seems pretty awful as well, he just never seemed to be able to get dialed in to the point where he could drop the ball into where it needed to be.
But still, even with these negatives, I like the kid. I like his attitude and the things he is doing wrong can be corrected for sure with some practice and changing of his thought process in certain situations. I still think he has a bright future as the Eagles QB of the future. Of course, I said the same thing about Nick Foles at one point in time too, just saying…..
Like Wentz, Doug Pederson had some rather bad moments during his NFL coaching debut but overall I like the way he handles a team. I like his honesty, thoughtfulness, and willingness to address pretty much any question or issue that is presented to him. Hopefully this will be looked back as the first year of a long term Eagles turn around.
I have one more day off tomorrow to enjoy myself. Hopefully I get to do exactly that.
My Christmas extended weekend got off to a good start Thursday night with the Eagles getting the first division win of the year, beating the Giants. Although the Eagles season has definitely slid downhill after a very promising start, I am hoping the team is laying the foundation for longer term success.
Friday morning Cindy and I were very busy outside. Cindy invited her family over for Christmas dinner. The yard was looking pretty ragged. I went to Home Depot and grabbed 15 pieces of sod to patch up various spots around the yard that were damaged by the chickens or just looked shitty.
While I was there I also picked up a 9 foot tall inflatable snowman to add to our already very festive outdoor decorations. It was 50% off so it was hard to pass up. I spent a lot of time securing it in the yard to make it hold up to wind. I drove two pieces of rebar into the ground on either side and used two 45 pound weight plates to give it four very strong tie down points. I was very happy with the outcome of my work. I was also very sad when the blower motor on it died three days later.
So anyway, Friday morning I was busting ass non-stop. In addition to getting the sod down I weed whacked the yard. Cindy hopped on the mower to give the grass a nice even look as well.
Friday night we made plans with Daniel and Katie to go ride out at Ave Maria. We thought with it being two days before Christmas the town would be quite cool to see. Well it was cool but not quite the way I expected. The town center itself and especially the iconic church was not as decked out as I expected. But that wasn’t the most surprising thing. The town was more or less deserted. We rode around there for at least an hour and could count the amount of people we saw on one hand. It was sort of surreal, it was almost like a scene from Walking Dead. We wheeled around freely in the middle of the street in the heart of town like we owned the place.
The residential neighborhoods had some nice decorations out so we still got our fill of lights to see. It was just a very weird experience to see so few people in a town that supposedly has 27,000 residents. Take a look below if you don’t believe me.
On Christmas Eve I did something I don’t believe I had done since my first marriage, went to a church service. Cindy had mentioned something a day or two before about asking someone to go to church with her, something she used to always do with Katie and her mom. I told her I had a good idea. I said I would attend a Christmas Eve service with her if she would agree to go back to Victoria Park to ride the wheels Christmas Eve night. She agreed to the deal and was touched I would go with her to the service based on the void of religious beliefs that I have.
We went to Living Word Church, about 5 miles away from the house. They were holding services on the hour during the afternoon which seemed very aggressive. We targeted the 2 PM service and arrived with possibly 30 seconds to spare. The parking lot was jammed, we luckily found a spot behind the church.
When we walked in I was surprised at the layout, stadium seating. Every church I ever attended had the conventional pugh configuration. Those stadium seats almost were entirely taken. Cindy and I thought we would have to stand until one guy offered to have his kid sit on his lap so we could sit together which was very kind of him.
The room was very high tech with a huge video screen powered by three projectors. On the stage was a two person band consisting of an electric piano and a guy on a guitar. They backed up three female singers that were really, really good who sang Christmas carols. The service itself was like a fine tuned machine with the pastors words peppered with visual elements on the screen above him, all perfectly coordinated. It almost felt like I was watching a TV production and that isn’t meant to be negative, it was actually quite impressive.
With services on the hour the production had to be quite quick. It was all done in the span of 35 minutes, just short enough for the current group to get out to only be replaced by another full house for the 3PM service. Of course I felt a bit awkward being immersed in a room full of people with beliefs not aligned with mine but it was a very positive feeling regardless. I bowed my head and stood when asked and just kept quiet. Cindy really appreciated me being there which is what mattered the most.
Elsa gave me an unexpected Christmas “gift” that night. I had brought my wheel out to the kitchen earlier in anticipation of loading it up for our Christmas Eve ride. Evidently Elsa thought it would be fun to take a bite out of one of the leg supports at some point while the wheel was sitting out there. Of course I was a bit upset about it but she is so cute it is hard to stay mad long. Cindy and I are learning that there are very few things Elsa will not try to eat.
So we headed to Victoria Park for a Christmas Eve ride, me on my Gotway EUC and Cindy on her Minipro. We knew it would be crazy busy but that was part of the appeal for me. There was a long line of cars waiting to enter the development as we approached. The front yards of a ton of houses had people camped out just enjoying the sights and sounds.
We did our best to add to the fun. We had a ton of people comment and ask about what we were riding. We stopped at one house where Cindy let a few kids try out the MiniPro. The one parent whispered to me that he actually bought his kids one for Christmas which surely was an awesome surprise for them based on how much they seemed to like riding it. We took a short break during the ride to enjoy some hot chocolate as well which was very good. I really enjoyed spending my Christmas Eve that way, hopefully it becomes a psuedo-tradition.
Christmas morning we woke up later than normal. I don’t think I rolled out of bed until 7:30. We didn’t rush right into present ripping either. We let the chickens out, fed Elsa and Cindy made us some coffee to help burn off the cobwebs.
Once again we had a lot of presents under the tree, something both of us tell the other is not necessary but it continues to be that way anyway. We took turns opening up stuff. Cindy got me a lot of cute and thoughtful gifts. My “big” gift won’t actually arrive until February, a new DJI Mavic drone. In addition we were also opening presents from my family, adding to the already large pile.
This was Elsa’s first Christmas and she seemed to enjoy the scene. We gave her a fresh antler as her first present. It was hilarious watching her take it between the office and great room repeatedly while she decided which was a better chewing spot. In addition she got some dog toys which she seemed to enjoy greatly as well.
I got Cindy two big gifts peppered with a number of smaller ones. One she had already sort of guessed based on the size and weight of the box and she was not exactly thrilled by it. Yes I bought her a new electric unicycle, a Gotway MCM 4.
Cindy had said she was willing to try to learn to ride again a few weeks prior so I thought I would give her a solid option to ride once she learns on the cheap and slow training wheel. Cindy felt guilty I spent the money on another wheel and said it made her feel pressure to learn to ride. I told her that even if she never learned I would still use it so it’s no big deal.
Cindy was more enthusiastic about her other big gift, an Apple Watch 2.0. She did not expect that one and was very excited about some of the stuff it could do, a lot of which will be beneficial to her fitness instructor gig.
After present opening we had to get very busy. Cindy had a large meal to prepare and we also worked on getting the house more in order to host guests. Katie and her boyfriend showed up mid-afternoon. I finally was able to give her the electric unicycle I had been wanting to give her for the last month. She LOVED the Inmotion V5F and was extremely excited to try it out. The three of us did just that, riding around a quiet side street for several miles before the food was ready. Katie had no problem adapting to the new wheel and said she loved the way it felt. It made me happy to see her happy. Kaite got me some cool presents too, including a custom EUC Army baseball hat which was very thoughtful.
Cindy’s brother, his fiance, and his two kids showed up around 4PM. We peppered in eating lots of good food, drinking, and watching Elf with hanging in the back yard. I set up the slackline for people to try out and the chickens provided additional entertainment. By the time everyone left Cindy and I were pooped. Cindy handled the lions share of the food clean up duties which was very nice. It was quite the busy Christmas Day.
I started Monday with my long run since I missed it on Christmas Day. It felt absolutely necessary to run to help counteract some of the gluttony the day before. The run felt tough and my right knee hurt some from a fall I took off the slackline. I still hung at a 9:05 pace which is only single digits off my best for 2016.
Since I got Monday off as well as Katie and Daniel we thought we would put it to good use. Katie, Daniel and I went to the Greenway so Katie could ride her new wheel. We made arrangements for Cindy to meet us there after she was done teaching a class. We did a long ride, the farthest Katie has ever done, just short of 9 miles. She loved every minute of it.
After we finished up riding we stopped at Panera for lunch. When we got home I told Daniel I was giving him my old Ninebot One electric unicycle. I told him since we now had the wheel I bought for Cindy I have a spare if needed. I figured if both Katie and Daniel had wheels they could ride whenever they wanted, not just once a week with us.
Daniel was very appreciative of my offer and was excited to have his own wheel full time. I have no doubt he will quickly surpass me in skill level if he hasn’t already. It made my heart warm when we got reports that once they got home they were riding the wheels almost non-stop, only taking quick charge breaks. Katie put something around another 14 miles on her wheel, during the afternoon/evening. I think she is officially hooked.
On Monday afternoon we did stuff around the house mostly. Cindy got to finally dig in to her Apple Watch and seems absolutely thrilled with what it can do. It is definitely a cool piece of tech and much more than just an extension of the phone. I took my Msuper into the backyard and rode around for maybe 20 minutes as I shot a video. I always wanted to see how rideable our backyard is. The answer was, sort of.
Monday night we watched the Blu-ray version of the Warcraft movie that I got for my birthday from my step mom. It was cool watching it at home where I could make some more sense of certain scenes I may have missed in the theater.
During the night Cindy seemed to be actually getting more excited about her new unicycle. She tracked down an app that not only connects to the phone but also works on her Apple watch. Maybe seeing just how much fun Katie is having on her new wheel opened Cindy’s door to learning a little wider. As I have said multiple times, I have no doubt Cindy could eventually match or surpass my riding ability with some perseverance. She has very good natural hand eye coordination and balance.
It was sort of a draining four days but overall it was much more positive than negative. Hopefully it will be the kick start to a happy and healthy 2017.
I got busy with automotive work on Saturday morning. The first task was rotating the tires on the Prius. The front tires were getting pretty worn so I figured I would do a simple front to back rotate to hopefully buy me a little time before the tires have to be replaced. For years I have been frustrated that the air impact wrench I owned was not powerful enough to remove lugs from a wheel. However I was happy to discover my new 20V DeWalt impact driver was up to the task. It broke free the lugs with very little issue, quickly spinning them off into my hand.
The tire rotation was simple and the tread on the back tires was significantly better than the front. I had hoped the swap would result in less road noise from the tires. Instead the opposite happened, it’s actually louder now than it was before. Damn it.
After running to Rural King with Cindy and Elsa I got busy on the big project of the day, replacing the grill in the Tacoma. I had bought the TRD Pro style grill over a month ago and have been patiently awaiting it’s arrival which happened late last week. I just was not thrilled with the factory TRD Sport grill which makes me almost think of the shiny “grill” mouth appliances some celebrities wear.
The remove and install process had it’s fair share of hiccups but nothing a little patience could not over come. I may have spent a total of 45 minutes doing the work which is always extended by filming.
I am very happy with the end result. The front end now looks less more in line with the black accents found elsewhere on the truck. Cindy said the new look definitely is more male in appearance.
Saturday night we stayed in and watched The Legend of Tarzan. I found it interesting that the story line takes place after Tarzan had been reintroduced to civilization. I enjoyed the movie more than I expected to, enough to give it a B+ grade.
I once again drug myself out of bed to go run early Sunday morning. I could tell the cold that has been clinging on for going on 10 days was still a factor. My pace was about 25 seconds per mile off my recent best. Oh well, at least I got the miles in.
Katie and Daniel came over to ride wheels again mid-morning. We took them to the Naples Greenway which is a great spot to ride. They both really enjoyed it.
The Eagles game was predictably frustrating with the team doing just enough to lose.Cindy’s brother, fiance and son were over to help share in my misery. The loss continued a pretty damning streak. The last 18 or 19 games that the Eagles have entered the fourth quarter of a game behind, they have lost, every, single time. Talk about a lack of resiliency and execution. Until the Eagles rediscover a way to make plays when it matters most their fans are going to continue to feel the pain. Say what you will about the McNabb years, at least he was able to pull out some games at the end. So far this squad just comes unglued when the pressure is on.
It felt weird on Thanksgiving morning to be getting up so “late” at 4:45 am since this was the first time in years I was attending a race as a participant and not a timer. We left the house around 5:30 for the race scheduled to start at 7:30. I wanted to get there early to lend a hand where needed. Once I got there it didn’t take long for me to track down my timer buddy John who was handling the event. I wound up spending almost all of the time pre-race talking and helping John, it just felt like the natural place for me to be.
The atmosphere at the Gobble Gobble was so much different from what I became accustomed to at the running club Thanksgiving race. I would compare the feel of that race to a mob waiting to beat in the doors on Black Friday. It was just chaotic as hell from start to finish. The club race has over 3000 participants, the Gobble has less than half of that. This race breaks the event apart into a chip timed and fun run division which further helps with congestion. They had a woman doing announcements on a small stage during the entire time leading up to the race which made it very clear and easy to figure out what was going on instead of just herds of people following other herds of people, hoping they are going the right way.
Cindy and I were in the timed event which took off first, 5 minutes before the fun runners started. Cindy has not been been able to do consistent running leading up to the race so I knew it was going to be tough for her. Despite her saying I should just go ahead and run whatever pace I wanted , I stayed with her for the majority of the race. She was struggling at points and I tried to give her encouragement to keep pushing ahead.
When we got to the 3.5 mile mark I told her I was going to push for the last half mile which she was fine with. It gave me a chance to briefly indulge in my normal race mode mindset where I acquire targets ahead of me to run down and pass. My official time of 38:30 was slower than most of my training runs but I could have cared less, it just felt good to be a participant instead of an organizer. Cindy came across the line pushing hard about 45 seconds after I did.
The post race scene again was far less chaotic than I was accustomed to due to less people and the simple awards structure where only the top three finishers of each gender get anything. Instead of posting paper results John just had a couple laptops set up that runners could use to print out their individual time slips, further relieving congestion. Cindy and I indulged in some of the post race refreshments. I hung at the finish line with John for a little while before we called it a morning. It was good that I got to see the race director, Matt, who I had not seen in person for a long time although I chat to him online on a regular basis. Cindy and I left the parking lot both feeling very good about the experience, it was such a refreshing change from what I had become used to.
When we got home there was no equipment to put away, no data to be massaged and no results to be uploaded. Instead I got to just flip on the Macy’s Parade and chill. I had not seen more than a few minutes of the parade for the past five or six years. I got to watch almost two hours of it this year and loved every minute of it. The rest of Thanksgiving followed the same general feel good vibe. Cindy did most of the heavy lifting for the day, preparing a hybrid tofurkey/turkey Thanksgiving dinner that we enjoyed with Katie and Daniel. Before dinner I actually shot over to the school with the kids to get some more EUC riding in where Katie once again showed massive improvements in her ability to ride the electric unicycle. The meal Cindy prepared was very, very good. We relived the meal via warm ups during the weekend and it was still delicious.
On Friday I was outside early trying to get chores down to free up the weekend since Randall was rolling in for a visit. After I finished up we headed out for some errands. Since it was Black Friday I didn’t expect it to be a pleasant experience. We stopped at Sam’s Club first which was busy but not a mob scene, I saw some good deals but nothing I wanted for myself or others. I was a bit annoyed that the 4K tv I bought at Sam’s in May was now like 400 bucks less on Black Friday.
We then headed to Lowe’s and Home Depot with a primary goal of securing a new artificial Christmas tree. The tree I have is about 5-6 years old and works fine but I am not thrilled that the built in lights are incandescent which eat a lot of power. I wanted a tree that used controllable LED lighting. Getting into the Home Depot parking lot was just ridiculous. As annoying as it was, I just reminded myself of what date on the calendar it was. I knew what I was getting myself into.
The interior of the store was no better with mobs of people clogging the aisles. Cindy swooped in and claimed the last box of a tree model that seemed to have the specs we wanted, a seven and a half footer with led lights that could be color, white or cycle between the two, perfect. While we were there we picked up a few other items. I felt relieved when we finally got out the door, the Black Friday mindset is just something that leaves me feeling unsettled.
Later in the day we actually went back out to the Bonita Home Depot, bringing Elsa along this time. I wanted to pick up a spot light I could install on the water equipment shelter to provide night illumination for that side of the house since it is where we normally walk Elsa. We took Elsa to Home Depot with Sadie the week before and she seemed to like it. Well without Sadie around it was a different story. Elsa seemed scared most of the time, I felt bad for her. Hopefully more exposure to more people, sights, and sounds will help her not react in such a scared manner.
We did our exterior decorations on Friday. I totally abandoned the all white exterior lights that I used to decorate the house with, replacing them exclusively with colored LED lights. We strung lights on the front palm trees and the opposite front fence lines. When combined with our other color/pattern changing decorations the house looks incredibly colorful. I like it.
Randall did not arrive on Saturday until early in the afternoon giving us time to get stuff done in the morning. One of those things was me installing the new flood light. It was an LED model so I was a bit concerned about it’s ability to light up the yard compared to conventional lighting. When it got dark those fears evaporated, the lights were extremely bright, it almost looked like stadium lighting. I also shaved my head Saturday morning. When Elsa first saw me with the buzz cut she barked in fear, thinking somebody new had replaced me. Once she heard my voice her stubby tail started wagging again.
Randall pulled up in his Prius with his road bike in the back. Even though I wasn’t planning to ride my road bike with him I had an idea of riding my Gotway Msuper with him instead. We hung out for a bit catching up although Randall is usually up to date with most aspects of my life via the blog. It didn’t take long until I was ready to load up the car with PTVs to take to the school, hopefully to get Randall rolling.
I brought a Minipro along as well, thinking it would be good for him to cut his teeth on the far easier to master vehicle. I was surprised that at first Randall was very unstable on the Segway. When he stepped on he was lurching forward awkwardly with the frame of the bot bouncing up and down. He soon became more accustomed to how the gyro felt, balancing for you. Within 5 minutes he was able to roll around pretty comfortably. I tooled around on my Msuper while he followed me for awhile. At first I was thinking it might make sense to just stick to the Minipro on Saturday and maybe let him try the training EUC on Sunday but when I asked him if he was up to trying the unicycle he was ready to give it a go.
We used the same game plan as what seemed to work well for Katie and Daniel, setting up the wheel next to the fenced in bike corral, giving Randall ample hand support as needed. Slowly he was able to go further in between touches and had a number of step offs as he lost balance. Within maybe 20 minutes of trying and falling he was doing better. Randall left the safety of the fence and headed down the sidewalk. He wore his helmet at the start of the EUC training but removed it later, stating he felt like it affected his balance, despite my encouragement to wear it. Randall gave me a verbal waiver of liability, claiming that his mountain biking experience has taught him how to fall. He got to put that experience to the test.
I felt nervous as I trailed Randall around the parking lot. He would have moments of extreme shakiness, sometimes he recovered, sometimes he didn’t. Most of the time he was able to jump off the wheel and let it roll to a tumbling stop. A few times he was the one that went tumbling, hitting the ground hard. To Randall’s credit, the spills didn’t slow him down, he got right back on every time. By the time we left the school some two hours later Randall was still shaky but able to ride around, turn, mount and dismount at a decent level. He said he now understood why I found riding PTVs so much fun.
On Saturday night we enjoyed more Thanksgiving warm ups while watching the latest Netflix rental, Purge, Election Year. I had already seen the first two Purge installments so I sort of knew what to expect. Randall had not seen any of them but knew the general premise. The movie was not bad by Purge standards and in some ways made me think about the 2016 election which is a bit disturbing. If you don’t deal well with movie violence, steer clear. I’d give it a B as is.
Sunday morning I was up early to run, despite logging four miles on Thanksgiving. I let Randall sleep as he isn’t doing much running nowadays. He had indicated he might get up and ride to Ave Maria and then meet me on the way back on my unicycle to head to DD. The air was nice and cool which felt refreshing as I circled the track 16 times. I wound up averaging an 8:55 pace, almost 45 seconds better than Thursday.
When I got back I saw Randall’s bike was still in the garage so I figured he scrapped the Ave Maria ride idea. We instead shoved off for Dunkin Donuts with Randall on two wheels and me on one. At first my intention was to handle the ride like I did the first time I tried it, almost exclusively on sidewalk. I started off that way but found it annoying to have to slow down at the crosswalks as Randall would be able to keep cruising along in the bike lane. About a mile and a half in I swung into the bike lane and just stayed there, riding within a few feet of Randall, taking advantage of his wind breaking.
I told Randall that if he could keep his speed around 18 mph I should be ok, well within the 25mph+ top speed of the wheel. I had never cruised this fast for this long. The wheel felt very stable at speed although I was obviously a bit nervous having nothing between me and vehicles other than a painted line. Randall said he was surprised how easily I was able to keep up. At one point his bike computer was showing we were over 20 mph and I was still right there.
After enjoying a large coffee at DD we headed the opposite direction and it was much more challenging. A strong head wind which was more like a cross wind made Randall ineffective as a wind blocker. There were periods of time where I was struggling big time to stay in place as the wind was pushing me towards the curb. I was worried that the additional wind pressure could gobble up battery life to the point where I may have an issue. The Msuper chugged along, I still had about 30% battery life when we pulled back into the driveway. The video of the ride is pretty interesting. It looks like we are going VERY fast at times.
Late morning Katie and Daniel showed up for us to go for our Sunday ride. Despite logging 20 hard miles a couple hours earlier I was happy to go back out. I had just enough vehicles to cover all of us although we are running into an electric unicycle issue. Both Katie and Daniel have advanced enough that the training wheel is just not enough machine for them. At first she rode the black MiniPro with Cindy who was on the white one. I was on my Msuper with Daniel on the Ninebot One, while Randall continued his learning curve on the training wheel. Randall was already feeling beat up from his day one of training. After a pretty bad spill he said his back was really bothering him. We switched things up and had Katie get on the training wheel while Randall got on the less physically demanding MiniPro. Once again Katie did fantastic, she was able to actually navigate the boardwalk at North Collier Park on one wheel. After the ride we all headed to Panera for a nice late lunch. It was quite busy but fun first half of the day with me logging four plus miles by foot and another 25 miles or so by wheel.
Late in the afternoon Randall, Cindy and I headed to the Miromar Outlets, a sort of holiday tradition when Randall visits. He wanted to primarily check out the Oakley outlet but we ducked into a few other stores. It was crowded but not a madhouse so my skin wasn’t crawling to leave immediately. We picked up a few heavily discounted items before calling it a day.
Before Randall left I asked him if he was interested in my Phantom drone. I plan to get a new Mavic Pro drone once they become available again and I knew in the past he had expressed interest in drones. Randall was surprised by and accepted my offer. I was happy to let him have it as opposed to selling it. I have been through a lot with the drone that Cindy so generously surprised me with years ago. It last saw consistent use when we went out west last year, capturing the footage that resulted in my prosecution by the national park service which was one of the more aggravating experiences of my life. In some ways I am sad to see it go but glad to give it to Randall instead of selling it to a stranger. I put the drone up in the air once last time Saturday morning just to make sure it was in good working order.
We thanked Randall for his visit. Elsa had up and down moments with Randall, mostly erring on the side of caution when he was around. He still had fun interacting with her.
So this weekend had two noticeable deaths on far opposite sides of the popularity spectrum, Florence Henderson and Fidel Castro. I was a big Brady Bunch fan and always thought Florence was the blueprint for the perfect mother. She remained somewhat relevant late into life which I thought was cool. Fidel, who was rumored to have died several times over the last decade finally kicked the bucket for real which has been celebrated wildly in south Florida which has a large Cuban population. The guy was a piece of shit without a doubt.
The Eagles play the Packers tonight. I have no idea which team will show up, the one that dismantled the Steelers or the team that looked so overmatched against the Seahawks.
The weather this weekend was great with cool, crisp air most of the time. It was good weather for dogs to play. On Friday Sadie, Elsa, and the neighbor’s puppy Shadow had a rigorous play session. The end result of it was Sadie walking around with a severe limp Friday night. She gets excited and tries to run around like she weighs 20 pounds less than she does, which usually results in her hurting herself. Luckily Saturday morning the limp was less severe but we tried to limit her running the rest of the weekend with some limited success.
It felt weird that as I was completing chores outside Saturday morning that the final race I was contracted to time was going on. My timer buddy John had offered to time the race for me in a barter arrangement which was fine with me. With the completion of the event my plate is officially cleared of Green Machine Timing business. I have sold almost all of the equipment already and feel no regret in doing so. The motivation I had for starting GMT was fueled by a lot of “f u” energy that has faded over time. With that change along with the lack of financial pressure to supplement my income, it just feels good to let it all go.
Saturday afternoon we took the dogs on their first tandem road trip, hitting up Rural King and Home Depot. It was weird that we just randomly met Elsa unexpectedly a week prior at Rural King and a week later she was living in our home. Both dogs behaved well as we walked around the stores.
I was hoping to get out on my electric unicycle early in the afternoon since I hardly had any ride time during the week due to lack of daylight and other time commitments. However I wound up getting sidetracked for over two hours working on a computer problem. For some reason Windows file explorer kept crashing whenever I did anything that required browsing the file system. There had been no major changes recently so I had no idea why the behavior would start all of a sudden. I looked the problem up online and saw three possible remedies, I tried them all and none of them worked. I even went so far as to do a system restore from Wednesday, still no dice.
I then logged on as a different user and saw explorer was working just fine so at least it meant my problem was profile specific and not system wide. I decided to back up my documents and data and blow away my profile to start a new one. Doing so fixed my problem but then required me to do a lot of tweaking to get things in the new profile working correctly. I was quite frustrated by the entire process.
I finally got out on my wheel around 4PM. I drove to the Target shopping center and parked there. I then rode the 10K big loop that surrounds the North Collier Regional Park. I entered the park as part of the ride and tooled around for awhile. During the ride I rambled on about a bunch of various topics you may or may not find interesting.
On Saturday night we stayed in and watched Concussion, the movie Will Smith felt he deserved an Oscar nomination for. It was an interesting movie that dealt with just how horrible the side effects of repetitive head trauma can be. There were a number of players named in the film that died/killed themselves as a result. The only two I was aware of before the movie were Mike Webster and Junior Seau. I was shocked and amazed that I didn’t know the infamous Eagles safety from the Buddy Ryan years, Andre Waters, was another player that took his own life after battles with mental illness. The film, although slow at times, does make me look at the only professional sport that I actively root for differently. B+
So overall, Elsa has been pretty easy to merge into our daily routine except for one thing, house breaking. A handful of times she has done number one and two in the house which I guess is expected, however the way it has been happening is a bit maddening. Twice she has taken a dump in the dining room literally minutes after we just had her outside to go to the bathroom. Last night Cindy was walking her around out front for a good 10 minutes to avoid this exact scenario. She did nothing outdoors and promptly shit in the exact same spot in the dining room a few minutes after coming back inside. Obviously this behavior needs to be corrected but other than that, she has been an ideal addition.
Sunday morning I got out for another 4+ mile run. The temperature actually dropped 5 degrees between me arriving at the track and leaving. Some cool air was blowing into town. The run was challenging as the incoming cool air meant that half of every lap I was running into a pretty stiff headwind.
Katie and her boyfriend were unable to join is for our Sunday morning PTV ride because they had to run their dog to the vet. Cindy and I wound up riding around the Barron Collier high school area for maybe 5 miles or so. Riding in the cool air required a sweatshirt but it still felt great.
After the ride we stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Their ad had a cool Christmas LED projector that I wanted to enhance our 2016 X-mas display. The projector literally blankets the front of your house with clear laser red and green images that cycle and move. We tried it out last night, it is coooool.
Katie and Daniel must really enjoy our Sunday rides, they asked if we could still go out Sunday afternoon, after they got back from the vet. The Eagles didn’t play until 4:30 so I was fine with it. We went back to the middle school I run at since they had closed in basketball courts that would be good for unicycle training. At this point Daniel had the basics mastered, Katie was now the one trying to get up and rolling on one wheel.
She had very early success, being able to ride from one side of the basketball court to the other. Within 15 minutes of that it had “clicked” for her. She was rolling along impressively, turning, starting, and stopping at a level that took me several weeks to achieve. It was another testament to the power of youth. She quickly got to the point where she was maxxing out the speed of the training wheel which was tilting her back hard. We had her get on the Ninebot One which she again quickly adapted to. It was amazing. She did have a wipe out that ended her riding session. I didn’t see the whole fall but I think she ran off the edge of the asphalt momentarily. Luckily she was wearing the new safety equipment we had bought for her so she escaped without any serious injuries. I was very impressed with her progress. Both her and Daniel picked up the skill much faster than I ever would have expected.
So that Eagles game was pretty brutal to watch, the Seahawks really did a good job of putting a spotlight on the Eagles weaknesses like their corner backs and wide receivers whom are both below average, at best. Carson Wentz had his worst game of the season. His numbers look better than they really were from junk yards at the end once the Seahawks went into prevent. To add injury to insult, the top two Eagles running backs, Ryan Matthew and Darren Sproles left the game with injuries. It was just a depressing game to watch and was a reality check for the team. Although the Eagles are better than expected this year, they have several key problems that will prevent them from becoming a contender.
So I was up and outside early Friday morning, hoping to take advantage of the temps in the lower 60’s for as long as I could. I had a long day of tree trimming ahead of me. In recent years Cindy has assisted me in this horribly laborious job. She hurt her back last week so picking up hundreds of branches all day would have only made it worse. I was 100% on my own.
I had the bright idea to rent a 32 foot ladder from Home Depot to allow me to more safely reach a couple of the trees on the property that are very tall. I originally figured I would just use the 32 footer to trim everything. That plan changed quickly after trying to move the ladder around early on. Not only is the ladder 32 feet long, it’s also a heavy duty ladder with a weight limit of 300 pounds. My 20 foot ladder has a much lower weight limit, closer to 200 pounds. The rented ladder was MUCH heavier than my 20 footer, I would estimate at least triple the weight. When combined with the additional length, moving and placing the ladder by myself was absolutely miserable, requiring the very limit of my strength to manage. I eventually decided I would use the monster ladder for JUST the couple spots I needed and pulled out my 20 footer to do the rest.
I also made an on the fly adjustment as far as trimming the branches. I started out using my heavy duty loppers, just as I always have in the past. Using loppers while up high on a ladder is a pain in the ass and dangerous, requiring you to put your body in awkward angles to be able to cut in between the palm fronds. When I did the first of the two extra high trees I pulled out my battery powered DeWalt Sawz All. Although holding the power tool was tough on the hands and forearms, it buzzed through branches in a couple seconds and overall was a big time saver. Since I now have four battery packs I was able to stay juiced all morning, something I wasn’t able to do in the past when I only had two smaller capacity batteries.
So I busted ass all morning and managed to get all of the trimming done by lunch time. However that is only half the battle, the afternoon was when I had to pick up the mountains of debris that was now laying on the ground. This is the part of the job that Cindy had been so helpful with in the past. This was the first time I did this job with the new Tacoma. I could not use the same disregard as I had in the past where I would overload the bed of the 99 Tacoma with brush, not caring if it scraped or scratched the weather beaten paint. The bed of the new Tacoma is all composite plastic with covers over the top edges to protect from damage. Still I was much more careful loading it up, trying to make sure everything touched plastic and not paint.
By the afternoon the temperatures had warmed up quite a bit. I was miserable. I was so sore and tired. I just kept plodding along, keeping my eyes on the finish line. I did not finish up until about 4PM. I still wasn’t done though, I had to load the monster ladder back into the Tacoma and take it back to Home Depot. I felt like I was run over by a truck. I wondered just how long I can ask my body to endure these sort of grueling all day grindfests.
On Saturday morning I didn’t have as many morning chores as normal as Cindy tried to get most of them handled for me. We headed out in the beautiful weather later in the morning to get some riding in, heading to a new location, the Vineyards. The running club used to have a race at the Vineyards but other than that I have not really spent much time in the area. I was surprised just how much was going on Saturday morning, the parking lot was filled. There was a large flea market going on along with all sorts of sporting events. Cindy and I really liked cruising the sidewalk which was lined with all sorts of mature trees and landscaping. Vineyards has been around for awhile by Naples standards.
We stopped at Rural King during the day. We were surprised to see a bunch of dogs hanging out there. Evidently a rescue organization was there with a bunch of their dogs that were up for adoption. Of course Cindy immediately gravitated towards the dogs, loving all of them. Cindy has been saying she would love a dog for awhile. I have not shared her enthusiasm, despite my love of dogs and animals in general.
So we did our shopping and as I was waiting in a slow checkout line Cindy headed over to the dogs again. When I finally got over there she had latched onto one in particular named Elsa, a cute female mix that only weighed something like 30 pounds. Cindy put on her best pouty lips, telling me the virtues of the dog. She is fixed, has her shots and has been on a 5 acre farm with a bunch of farm animals which would hopefully mean she would be ok with the chickens like Sadie is. I told her that was all great but I was not ready to adopt a dog. Despite having dogs in the house for over a dozen years, since the separation and divorce I have become accustomed to only having dogs for shorter periods of time, not 24/7. It is nice to not have to worry about the welfare of a dog if you want to go somewhere. The house obviously stays cleaner without an animal around as well. Plus, much of the last few years I have been making moves to try to simplify my life. Agreeing to adopt a dog would be a step in the opposite direction.
Of course I feel guilty saying no to Cindy. She always enjoys when Sadie is over. Cindy grabbed the card from the organization and said goodbye to Elsa with tears in her eyes, making feel even shittier.
Late in the afternoon I got the urge to take on an EUC challenge that was in my mind for awhile since I got the Msuper which sports significantly more range, speed and power. I wanted to ride to and from Dunkin Donuts. I told Cindy of my plans and despite her hesitations about the safety of such a journey I assured her it would be fine. It was. The ride there was smooth with me averaging between 14-17 mph most of the way. In a couple spots I was stuck in the shoulder/bike lane but I was safely on the sidewalk the majority of the time. The ride back was even faster since I had a tail wind. Despite 20 miles on the MSuper my feet did not feel awful, a testament to the larger pedals.
Saturday night I was feeling very beat up from the tree trimming trauma. We stayed home and watched Free State of Jones, a real life based story that took place during the civil war. I thought the movie was interesting and exposed an element of the civil war that I did not know existed. Early on there seemed to be an unnecessary level of gore that did nothing to advance the film. As I watched the events unfold I thought about just how divided the country had to be in order for it’s citizens to inflict such pain and suffering upon the other. I then thought about how present day is the closest I can recall to feeling we are moving back that direction in my lifetime. The movie was well done and well acted. A-
Sunday morning I headed out for my long run solo. It was the first time I ran without any walkers showing up late in the run. As I ran I did more thinking about Cindy’s desire to adopt a dog. I ran through pros and cons, remembering clearly how I felt when Ali and I adopted Nicki. I was firmly against it and after a sleepless first night with her in the house I was ranting that we made a mistake. Thankfully Ali was more patient than I was and Nicki became our pseudo-child for the next dozen years. However I also recalled some of the handicaps along the way, being limited by being responsible for and limited by owning dogs. I also recalled the crushing sadness when Nicki died last year. I had a lengthy, silent, internal debate about it as I completed lap after lap. In the end, the guilty, people pleasing part of my personality won the argument.
When I got home I told Cindy that if we could foster Elsa first so we can see how she gets along with Sadie and the chickens first I would be ok with it. Cindy’s eyes welled up with tears when I said it, making it even harder to think about not going through with it. So Cindy got the ball rolling, receiving an application that is needed to start the foster/adoption process. I am sure my unsettled feeling will continue for the forseeable future.
Later in the morning Katie and her boyfriend came over for more PTV riding. We went to the Vineyards for the second day in a row, figuring it was a good spot for Daniel to continue his amazing progress on electric unicycle riding. Daniel was worried about losing his progress in the week that has passed but instead he continued his amazing advancement in skills. Daniel was an avid skate boarder in his youth which I think has helped him greatly in his EUC learning process. By the end of the morning he was off the cheap $200 training wheel and on my Ninebot One, doing great. At one point he was actually on the basketball court shooting baskets while on the wheel, amazing. Katie and Cindy were on the training wheel as well, without training wheels. Cindy made some nice progress and Katie at one point rode at least 100 feet on a tennis court without falling. It was a lot of fun.
The Eagles game continued the teams very up and down season where they can’t beat any team in their division but seem to beat everyone else. They beat the Falcons and their top rated offense 24-15. The Eagles defense played well, despite having two cornerbacks that drive me crazy. To me the defense is successful in spite of their weak corner backs who have given up close to the top amount of TD passes in the league. I can not stand that both of them are prone to gloating and grandstanding when opposing receivers drop passes on their own. If the team had better cornerbacks and a true number one wide receiver I think we could really have something special.
Carson Wentz had a solid game although he still makes some dumb mistakes like taking totally unnecessary sacks and delay of game penalties. When he threw the ball away on 4th down at the end of the first half with a few seconds on the clock instead of running it out I was screaming at the tv. It was just a brain fart which is expected I guess, hopefully he learns and makes less as the season goes on. So anyway it was a strong win that builds on top of the other strong wins against the Steelers and Vikings. For the first time in a long time the Eagles actually seem to have a home field advantage, something that seemed to be missing most of the time since they moved into the Linc.
The rest of the weekend I wound down playing a lot of WoW to just disconnect and chill. It was a fast three days which opens the gate to the whirlwind holiday season to come.
Yesterday I was in a sour mood all day for obvious reasons. I had thrown my EUC in the trunk of the Prius with the intent of riding it after work at the Naples Greenway. Well I decided to also take the wheel out at lunch as well, riding the Msuper just felt like it would be a better mood elevator than the gym. I rode over 8 miles over my lunch hour and enjoyed every minute of it. The ride after work at the Greenway was awesome with cool temperatures and beautiful skies. It’s hard to explain what riding an EUC feels like to someone that has never rode one. It’s a different experience from riding a bike, perhaps because it allows you to focus more on your surroundings and less on the effort required to push you through the surroundings. In total I put between 16-17 miles on the wheel during the day and still had over half of the battery charge remaining, amazing.
So for some reason I have never in my lifetime educated myself as to why the electoral college system exists. This year was the second time in my lifetime where the presidential candidate that won the popular vote did not win the electoral vote. I would think when it happened back in 2000 I would have looked into the college but I cared less about most things back then.
So anyway, one of my friends posted an article explaining the origin of the electoral college and why it is basically ridiculous it is still in use today, some 200+ years later. Believe it or not the electoral college was enacted to account for slavery. Yes in 2016 we are still using a system that was made so slave owners could get additional voting power for the slaves they owned. Even though the slaves themselves could not vote, each one counted as 2/5 of a vote that would be attributed to the slave owner, allowing them to gain voting influence based on the size of their slavery endeavors. I am amazed and disgusted that a system that has such a dark origin is still in use.
There is absolutely no reason for it at this point in time and evidently there is some movement to do away with it. A number of states have agreed to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which would ensure that whatever candidate wins the popular vote is the winner, regardless of electoral college shenanigans. Feel free to read up on it here. It makes no sense that every other elected office is a reflection of the popular vote yet the most influential position in government is not.
Sure, Trump enthusiasts will see this point as simply sour grapes which is understandable but it doesn’t change the fundamentals. Whomever gets the most votes should win, period, no matter what party that benefits. The same simple logic should apply to the presidential primaries. It was absolutely maddening watching the super delegate stacked deck system in the democratic primaries, making it nearly impossible for Bernie to win, despite Trump-like grass root support with MASSIVE numbers everywhere he went. If you get more votes than everyone else you win, keep it simple, stupid.
So with the election fun going on I neglected to mention my Tacoma is back at the dealer. Cindy took it there Tuesday after the ABS warning light came on once again along with odd brake pedal feel, not something to screw around with. The dealer gave Cindy a loaner Corolla to use. The truck was there all Tuesday afternoon so I called Wednesday morning between 9 and 10, wanting to get an update on what they found. I got my “service advisors” voice mail so I politely asked him to give me a call back to fill me in.
Well around 2pm I still heard nothing so I called again, annoyed that the guy couldn’t take 60 seconds to give me a call, even if nothing was determined yet. This time I got a person on the phone. I said I called in the morning and asked for a call back and got none. The woman checked in the computer about the status of the truck and could only tell me it was still being worked on. She said she would again tell my service advisor to call me back.
So now it is 4pm and the guy has not called me. WTF. So I call back once more with more anger in my voice. I explain that twice I have called asking for an update and have been ignored. I wanted to know what was going on with the truck. Just because I have a loaner doesn’t mean I don’t want my truck back asap. I get another woman that says my service advisor is not at his desk. I tell her that I will be at the office until 4:30 and I need the guy to call me back before I leave. She assures me she will get the message to him and she is sure he will call me back. Well of course you know the next part, he didn’t call.
I didn’t realize that Cindy had also sent the guy a text message around the same time as my last call. She had his cell from our first trip to the dealer. The info in the text was a bit confusing but the last thing was the guy was meeting with the shop foreman at 10 am today about it. Huh? You have to schedule a time with the garage to find out what the fck is going on with a vehicle? So anyway, I am now ready for a not so friendly exchange when I call the dealer later in the morning to sort through exactly what the hell they have been doing with my truck for the last 48 hours. I need the truck back today in order to complete the tree trimming project that is on the books for tomorrow. How I get to that point is probably going to be aggravating for sure.
So anyway, the big monster on my three day weekend is doing the annual tree trimming project where we trim 25+ trees all in one day. It is one of the more miserable tasks I endure each year. The only positive is the 32 foot ladder I plan to rent should at least make some of the high tree trimming less dangerous. After the task is done the rest of the weekend should hopefully be downhill and more enjoyable. Trimming the trees is the precursor to putting up the Christmas lights in a couple weeks so I will look at that as the light at the end of the tunnel, even though hanging the lights is a pain in the ass as well.
Cindy spotted the coyote yesterday morning pacing the back fence line, surely considering jumping the fence to pick off another one of our birds. Cindy ran at the animal screaming bloody murder which was enough to send it running the other direction. It was a clear warning that we need to pick up our awareness of what is lurking outside the confine of the back yard.
On Friday evening I hopped on my latest electric unicycle, a cheap $200 unit whose only purpose was to give Cindy something safer to learn on. The wheel is small and slow which is a good thing when learning. It also comes with detachable training wheels that you bolt to the foot pedals to keep the bot upright while you get a feel for the balance point. Cindy did not react favorably to my surprise purchase which I already expected. However through a careful negotiation she agreed to try once again to learn.
She has a big advantage now that neither of us had when the Ninebot One arrived. First she has someone in the household that has absorbed a lot of bumps and bruises so I can help guide her on ways to avoid them. Second, this cheap wheel is better suited to learning. In addition to the training wheels it also has a strap that can be used to further assist keeping the wheel upright. I of course had to take the wheel out for a test ride myself. It felt like a child’s toy compared to what I was used to but the basic functionality was all there. You can see my test ride below.
Saturday morning I was outside bright and early to get the basic chores done, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and lower humidity. I wanted to get done early because Cindy had indicated she wanted to cruise two nearby community yard sales on the PTV’s. We drove to the gas station and used it as a launching point since it split the difference between the two developments. We spent nearly two hours cruising around in the beautiful weather. We got TONS of comments about the wheels, everyone was curious and interested in them.
I was very interested in an absolutely beautiful 1970 Chevelle we saw that had a 502 engine in it, something I had never seen but evidently is a popular aftermarket choice. He actually had TWO of these motors, one in the car and another he built to sell which was on display in his garage. It was awesome.
While we were riding around I spotted a large black bird that at first almost looked like a chicken walking near the sidewalk. As I got closer I realized it was a buzzard. As I got even closer I realized the reason he was walking was his left wing was injured, it was hanging low awkwardly. Of course my initial instinct was I wanted to help the bird but being on an electric unicycle far from the car made that trying to capture/aid the bird not logistically possible, buzzards are very large birds. As we rode away from the bird I felt very guilty. The guilt continues as I recall it now.
Later in the afternoon Cindy and I headed to Home Depot. The primary intent was I wanted to scope out the price of new extension ladders. The 20 footer I have just is not long enough to safely reach the top of several of the trees on the property. Since I plan to tackle that project Friday I wanted to be prepared. Well when I saw I would have to spend around $300 to upgrade to a ladder that won’t easily fit in my storage sheds I shit canned that idea but Cindy came up with a better one. She recalled that ladders were among the tools you can rent from Home Depot. We went into the tool rental department and saw I can rent a monster 32 foot ladder for 24 hours for $50. It was a perfect solution. I plan to pick one one up on my way home from work Thursday.
Later in the afternoon Cindy and I erected the inflatable arch for the last time. I wanted to take measurements so I could list the arch for sale. I felt a bit bittersweet about it but still confident that it was a good move for me to let race timing behind. I was surprised I got some immediate interest int the arch and sold it for my asking price. I dropped the two large boxes off at FedEx this morning.
Saturday night Cindy and I went to see Dr Strange. My knowledge of Dr Strange was very, very slim. I knew of the character and that was about it, I never read any Dr Strange comics. The movie is an origin story which I thought was well done. We saw the 3D version of the film and this was actually a situation where it was merited. The crazy visuals associated with the mystical world was well served with an extra dimension.I have liked pretty much every Marvel movie of the last 10 years and Dr Strange did not break that streak however I would rate it in the bottom third of those films. I’d give it a strong B+. Don’t forget to stay till the end. The ending bonus content got me excited about what is to come.
Saturday night was the clock switch meaning my Sunday run was no longer starting in utter darkness. Instead when I pulled into the parking lot at 6:45 the sun was already rising which felt a bit weird. The temps weren’t bad and I completed the four plus miles at a pace within a few seconds of the previous week although it did not feel like it during the run, which was a bit of a struggle.
Katie and her boyfriend Daniel joined us for our Sunday morning ride. I brought my training EUC with for Cindy to start learning on. Not only did Cindy try it (and did well), so did Katie and Daniel. Daniel’s progress was the most amazing. He went from not ever riding an electric unicycle to being able to roll without training wheels down the sidewalk within an hour. To be young again, sheesh. Like I mentioned, Cindy did well, I am hoping we can keep her moving forward in her progress. Once it clicks for her I am pretty sure she will be better than I am.
So I got to watch the Eagles for the fourth time this year go down, continuing their winless streak in the NFC east. Carson Wentz, despite putting up the most passing yeards of his young career, did not play great, throwing two consecutive bad interceptions in the first quarter that put the Eagles in a quick 14 point hole. As positive as I am about Wentz he definitely does not seem good at touch passes. I don’t think I have seen him hit a receiver in stride on a long pass all season and his endzone post pattern throws just do not have the trajectory or accuracy that is required. Hopefully he can clean up that part of his game eventually.
The decision by Doug Pederson to twice go for it on 4th down when the team was in easy field goal range will be questioned. I do like the aggressiveness but you have to have the personnel to pull it off. Both failed 4th down attempts not only failed but failed miserably. Of course those 6 lost points were exactly the margin that would have secured a one point win for the team. If there is a bright side to losing three of the last four games, I would say every loss, except the Washington game, the team played well enough to win. My expectations for the rest of the season have shifted back down closer to where they were week one. If we split wins and losses the rest of the way it will still be a more successful year than what I first thought.
Last night we watched our latest Netflix rental, Neighbors 2. It was much like the first iteration with a few spots of laugh out loud laughter back filled by a lot of silly shit. I think I gave the first one a B. I will stick with that rating for 2.0
