Cindy and I got out to see Logan Saturday night. Instead of going to Coconut Point we went to Paragon which is sort of a lower level Silverspot with preassigned “luxury” seating. The seats in Paragon are actually power recliners which on paper sound good. The reality is they don’t actually recline far enough for me to ever be comfortable. I was constantly shifting position the entire movie.
So I did zero research going into the movie. It was a Wolverine movie so I knew I would enjoy it, I always do. Well within the first couple minutes when I saw extreme gore and the F bomb being thrown around nonstop I realized that they decided to go the Deadpool route with Logan, another R rated super hero flick. I am the farthest thing from a prude you could find but it was a little over the top even for me. I never thought I would hear Patrick Stewart say “fck” in a Xmen movie, until Saturday.
I also didn’t realize the movie was intended to be the last in the Wolverine series even though I did recall Hugh Jackman saying awhile ago that he would not be able to keep playing the role for much longer because of the physical demands. So anyway I liked the movie although even at the end I was still fuzzy about exactly what caused Logan to be ailing as he was. I also was annoyed that even though this was a Marvel flick, I sat through nearly 10 minutes of post movie credits and didn’t get the mini-preview payoff of whats to come that has become the norm, just a black screen. I am going to miss the Wolverine character for sure. I’d give the movie a solid A-.
Sunday morning I got up early to run, once again increasing my distance by two laps which worked out to just over 5K distance. It felt quite challenging to complete. I am on week three of the running reboot, hopefully things get a little smoother soon. My right knee today is feeling a little tweaked.
Cindy and I met up with a mutual friend of ours from the running club and his daughter to do some EV riding at the Greenway. Mike has a HUGE off road electric skateboard that sounds like a tank as it rolls along. He let me get on it briefly in the parking lot but I felt VERY unstable on it. He thought my Msuper was extremely cool and couldn’t believe the speed and range it offers.
Mike’s daughter was very cute and quickly adapted to riding one of our Minipros that we brought along, Cindy rode the other one for most of the ride. Cindy and Mike’s daughter immediately hit it off and had a lot of fun during the ride acting silly. Once we got back to the parking lot Cindy pulled out her electric unicycle and did fantastic, not even needing a hand support. She went straight to free wheeling.
We were at the Greenway for a long time, a full two and a half hours. The weather was pretty much perfect and we took full advantage of it. We all agreed we had to get together again in the future and Mike will be looking deeper into the world of electric unicycles soon.
Mid-afternoon I headed back out to pick up Sadie, get some groceries, and go for another ride. I brought my MCM4 this time and did the big square outside the water park as well as riding inside the water park as well. When I do rides by myself I normally have a lot more to say. See for yourself.
At the store I picked up stuff for Cindy to make galumpkis, something my ex-mother in law used to make years ago. We had a bunch of healthy cabbage in the garden so it was a good way to get some use of it. Of course we didn’t use the ground beef and ground pork pure galumpkis utilize. Cindy substituted veggie crumbles and it still turned out quite tasty.
Last night we watched the latest Netflix rental, Ben Hur. Cindy was excited to see this, me, not so much. I knew absolutely nothing of the Ben Hur story and had no idea it had ties to Christianity. I was very tired and fell asleep during large chunks of the movie but what I did see was not very impressive. Perhaps knowing the back story would have helped some but as is, the best I can rate it is C+.
I’m not sure if I ever have written a blog post on a late Saturday afternoon but I guess there is a first time for everything. So the water guys showed up within 5 minutes of their expected arrival time of 10:30. I sort of thought they would need to start earlier as it seemed like a LOT of work needed to take place for this to happen. However they were coming all the way from Cape Coral so they had a 60 minute plus commute.
So two guys showed up, the main installer was named Tim with another guy that never told me his name. Tim seemed sort of quiet and reserved but evidently he is THE guy when it comes to installs. I took him out to the concrete pad where the old stuff was and where the new stuff would go. Tim seemed a bit concerned about space at first and clearance with the roof I recently installed. I told him the owner when he gave the estimate fully measured everything and said although it would be tight it all should fit. Tim said he will figure it out, he always does.
So the water to the house was cut off a few minutes later and remained that way till early evening. We made sure to do all of our water intensive activities before they showed up. During the day I used the toilet sans flush to pee and also visited a tree or two outside to help split things up.
One problem identified early on was the top outlet in my 110 circuit by the equipment did not work. It actually has never worked. I have simply gotten around it from the use of splitters. Tim said it would be best if both plugs were live for logistics. I removed the cover and looked at the receptacle. The tab that connects the two outlets internally was evidently broken. I hopped in the truck and grabbed a new receptacle at the nearby hardware store. I also made a mental note that I wanted to replace all of the outdoor outlet covers in that area with better ones. The low grade, builder installed covers were all falling apart. I am not sure if I ever replaced a receptacle before but it wasn’t all that challenging. Of course the most important part of the process is making sure you kill the power to the correct circuit ahead of time which I managed to do.
So other than replacing that outlet I had minimal interaction with the installers. We did have to talk about what to do about the drain for the system. Originally the owner talked about burying the drain and having it come out the same spot the existing one does by the corner of the fence. Tim said that may not be the best plan since RO makes a TON of waste water, three gallons to every one gallon clean H2O. He said that corner would get very water logged more than likely.
So after thinking about other options we came up with a better plan. Years ago I buried two drainage pipes by that side of the house to combat a terrible erosion problem we used to have. They exit down by the landscaped area by that side of the pool. It seemed like a great spot for it. The drainage pipe has holes all along it so it would help spread out the moisture. I figured I could throw down some fresh sod to act like a natural sponge to further assist absorption.
So right around 6 o’clock Tim was wrapping stuff up. The equipment was visually impressive. The main holding tank is massive, holding 300 gallons of fresh water. The majority of the rest of the equipment safely resides in a custom cabinet designed to protect it from the elements to help longevity.
As promised the owner showed up right around 6:30 to sterilize and flush the lines in the house. This process started with us opening up EVERY single line in the house simultaneously, including the two outside hose bibs. I was surprised the flow remained decent even with all of those faucets going.
Bleach was poured in the system to assist in the sterilization process. After letting the cold water run for quite awhile we switched over to hot water to help get as much of the old water out of the hot water tank as well.
A sort of gross part of the process was cleaning the toilet water tanks. Both tanks had a coating of brown slime in them. Our hands were actually good tools for dislodging the scum. The owner did the guest room toilet and I did the master bathroom bowl. The combo of getting that scuzz out and using super clean water should make water staining in the toilet a thing of the past.
So after all the bleach was out of the lines Rich did some testing of the water inside. He said it tested out very clean, on par with bottled water. He then took me outside to go over the system so I would have the basic knowledge to understand how the system worked and how to read certain key numbers. The water comes from the well and into a sediment filter that takes out bigger contaminants and sand. From there it goes into a membrane filter which does the heavy lifting as far as cleaning the water. From that point the water is dumped into the huge holding tank.
There is more work done to the water before it actually enters the house. From the tank it goes through a a large carbon post filter that along with removing any smell makes the water more alkaline which is better for drinking water. The final step is the water goes through a big UV light sanitizer that kills anything that would have happened to make it through the first three sources of filtration. From there the super clean water is delivered to every point in the house. It is pretty damn impressive.
After the tutorial I paid Rich and thanked him for the good work. Even though the system was more than $4000 I already feel like I am getting my moneys worth. The water from the tap is crystal clear and honestly tastes better than most bottled water I have tried. Showers are a very different experience. With the old system the water had a sort of slimy feel. You always felt like you had a residue on you. (because you did) An RO shower leaves you feeling squeaky clean. I also noticed after the bed of the Tacoma was rinsed out today there were no white water spots that used to accompany every single car wash with the old system.
So on Friday we were originally supposed to be driving to St Pete to a doctor appointment for Cindy but it was cancelled last minute. I used the day to get a head start on my weekend chores. Later in the afternoon we also used the time for Cindy to get more EUC training in, this time at North Collier Park. They have a boardwalk there as well so we thought it might be a good spot. The weather was not great with gusty winds in advance of an incoming cold front.
Cindy warmed up a little using the boardwalk rails as a support but after a little while she was free wheeling once again down the running/biking path. She had a couple times that she dumped the wheel over but they were “good bails” with minimal damage to her or the wheel. I am very impressed with just how quickly Cindy has gotten good at doing controlled and smooth mounts and dismounts. She is much better at it than I was at this point in the learning curve. I can tell she really is starting to enjoy riding her EUC because when we got back to the car instead of just throwing her wheel in the trunk she did a bunch more riding in the parking lot.
Last night Ali showed up to do an inverse dog sitting pick up. Instead of dropping off Sadie for the weekend she was picking her up to stay the weekend as her construction project is a weekday only thing. During the afternoon Cindy and I did a Home Depot run so I could pick up three heavy duty outdoor outlet covers. Installing them proved to be rather difficult since all the equipment was in front of them now. Two of the three were awkwardly installed while I laid on the lid of the RO equipment, no joke.
Late in the day I went to run one of the sprinkler zones and realized they weren’t working. Of course my immediate reaction was to wonder if the water guys inadvertently messed something up however I resisted the knee jerk reaction to send the owner an email. I dug into the problem some more and realized that somehow the shared ground wire connection for the solenoids half came apart. Maybe somebody bumped it hard but I redid the connection today in a more robust way, hopefully avoiding the issue in the future.
Even with the normal chores out of the way there was a lot of labor today. I did another dirt/sod load at HD to primarily cover the now wet drain field area as well as shoring up a couple other spots. I think the ample waste water should get soaked up pretty well by the sod.
I also attended to my weekly bill paying session. The addition of the RO system put a nice dent in my account balance which I hope to even out through less spending than what has become the norm. My monthly credit card balance, which I pay in full has been rather crazy for most of the last 12 months.
I hope to keep more work a low priority for my Sunday. We are heading out to go see Logan shortly, hope it’s epic.
Katie’s dog Bowser seems to have really taken to being my buddy. He follows me around the house and seems to enjoy using me as a pillow whenever possible. He is a handful to deal with for sure. His large size, tendency to not listen very well, and affinity for random loud barking all present challenges to the household. However he is a very expressive and lovable dog at the same time. The interactions and play between he and Elsa is hilarious at times.
Today is the last day of my work week as the reverse osmosis system is scheduled to be installed tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers everything goes smoothly. I have a good feeling about the company doing the install so hopefully my intuition proves to be accurate.
So Friday afternoon I received an email from YouTube which both took me by surprise and angered me instantly. The email stated that the “brand channel” I created a few months ago dedicated to electric unicycle videos, EUC Army, was suspended. It said the reason had something to do with “spam, scams or commercially deceptive content” which made no sense whatsoever.
Since I went through something similar years ago with my original YouTube channel I knew how frustrating it is trying to get it corrected. Basically your only option is to appeal the claim and wait anywhere from 2-4 weeks for someone to get back to you. For a company built on the cutting edge of the internet to be so ridiculously slow addressing issues like that seems idiotic to me.
I also immediately sent a tweet to the YouTube support Twitter account. While I was there I saw a number of other people complaining of the exact same thing, sudden, unexpected termination of their channel. Back in December there was some sort of “bug” that caused a number of channels to be suspended without cause. I asked if possibly this was something similar. I received no response to any of my questions, thanks @TeamYouTube!
So now I just have to sit back and wait, having no idea what on the channel would have triggered the suspension. I think it is absolutely ridiculous the way YT handles these things, especially suspending a channel with no prior warning of any sort of problem. Surely a lot of people abuse the system but I don’t think that justifies not giving people the courtesy of a detailed explanation of what the actual problem is instead of vague categories of abuse. If there is one thing to be thankful for is that they didn’t hit my main channel that I have invested so much time and effort into. I am however paranoid that the same lunacy could strike at any time.
So after riding my EUC into work Friday I at first was up in the air regarding if I wanted to ride it home or just have Cindy pick me up. By mid-afternoon I decided I was going to make it a round trip and ride home on one wheel as well. The ride home was different as I didn’t have a time crunch on me. As a result I did not try to push my speed as much. The combination of lower speed and less headwind resulted in much better battery efficiency. I arrived home with 30-40% battery reserve instead of the 10% I had left in the morning. My feet and calves were totally numb, the end result of spending more than double the amount of time on a wheel than I ever had previously in one day. It was a cool experience that I might do again if the conditions are right.
On Saturday I attended to outside chores for awhile before heading to Home Depot for another load of mulch. I have been slowly refreshing the landscaped beds that had been ravaged by the chickens for a couple years. It has been very nice to have the beds continue to look nice afterwards instead of being dug apart within an hour.
Later in the afternoon, despite putting over 50 miles on one wheel Friday, I went back out solo. I took Cindy’s wheel just for something different. Her 14 inch Inmotion EUC feels so small and jittery compared to my Msuper. I eventually got more used to it and put almost 10 miles on the odometer. Saturday night Cindy and I watched our latest DVD, Eddie the Eagle. I really enjoyed the true life story. Of course I remembered Eddie from his 15 minutes of fame during the 88 Olympics but the movie filled in the backstory in a way that you couldn’t help but feel good about. A-
Sunday morning I got up early for week two of my running comeback. I added two laps to the distance from last week, hoping a slow build up in distance will yield the most injury free results long term. Unlike last week I wore my Garmin for the run. I was very surprised by the numbers it showed at the end with an average pace of 8:37 which is faster than any run I have posted in years. My Garmin however is old and sometimes doesn’t do well with accuracy so I am skeptical that those numbers are legit. Regardless I felt decent about my effort.
I wanted to get out on our EUC ride earlier this week. We have been getting out late morning which winds up eating up the heart of the day which is a pain in the ass. We managed to get out the door at a decent time, headed back to the Greenway so Cindy could continue her electric unicycle progress. For whatever reason she prefers learning there to anywhere else.
Last week Cindy made great progress, doing long rides alongside the handrail without touching it. I was a bit worried that since she didn’t do any practice since she may have had to take a step or two back before moving forward again. Instead she continued her rapid improvement. Not only was she able to do extended riding without touching the rail, she did extended riding with no rail at all, out on the asphalt path part of the trail! In addition she got much better at getting on and off the wheel without holding onto something, doing it at least a couple dozen times.
I felt excitement by proxy from her smiles as she rode by me repeatedly. It obviously has taken her a long time to get over the fear from falling on the Ninebot One months ago but in a way I think it has made the satisfaction of being able to ride even greater for her. She still has a lot of practice to go until she will feel confident and comfortable but she has the basic skill set now and based on my experience, once you have that things get even better quickly. I knew for sure she finally felt good about riding as she allowed me to film her for the first time.
The weather on Sunday was just about perfect with temps around 80 with low humidity. The rest of the day had a chill out vibe. Cindy was quite tired from the riding, something I recall clearly when I was learning. Your body feels like it is constant tension when you are unsure of your ability to stay on the wheel. As she gets more and more comfortable it should get less draining.
Ali and her boyfriend dropped off Sadie late in the afternoon. Ali is having some work done on her place that will last around three weeks so we will be watching Sadie during those weeks and returning her for the weekends, the reverse of the norm. Elsa and Bowser were very excited by Sadie’s arrival although I can tell Sadie can only take so much of the other dog’s off the charts excitement level.
I didn’t watch the Oscars but heard about the f up regarding the best picture winner where inexplicably the wrong winner was announced, handed the award and then had to be whisked off stage when the real winner was discovered. Crazy shit.
I have a short week due to the RO system that is scheduled to be installed on Thursday. Three day weeks are something I can fully support.
I forgot to mention that I received my tax refund incredibly quick this year. It took less than a week which I think is some sort of personal record. Of course I already have the refund spent in it’s entirety on the new whole house RO system that is supposed to be installed next week.
Yesterday at the gym I had this sudden increase in strength that came out of nowhere while doing decline bench press. I felt stronger than I had in months. I have always had monthly strength fluctuations to some degree but this was the most noticeable week to week change I can ever recall.
I followed up my strange strength gains with an equally strange wrist sprain when waking up this morning. I recall doing nothing that would have caused such an injury yet I now have pain in the right wrist that feels like I punched a wall. Mystery aches and pains are something that seem to happen quite often as you get older. For the most part I just ignore them and keep limping along.
Yesterday we received a SpotBot that I ordered. When we first adopted Nicki years ago we got an older style SpotBot shortly afterward. It became a valuable tool in the constant battle of pet excrement versus carpet. When Ali and I separated the SpotBot went with her since she had the dogs primarily.
Well with two dogs in the house now and Elsa’s recent run of bathroom accidents a SpotBot once again made sense. I saw they made some changes to the design over the years but it seems to still work well. I sat through a cycle or two on the bed just watching it do it’s thing.
Saturday morning I was up and outside early. After doing the chicken clean up I hit the yard chores like weeding and weed whacking. I turned the pool equipment back on after leaving it off overnight as the pool guy recommended so the freshly cemented joints could dry. I was not thrilled when later in the day I noticed another wet spot by the plumbing. It was coming from the back flow valve that was part of the heater install. There was a very steady drip.
I sent pictures of the leak to the pool guy along with a description. He called me back and suggested I try to tighten the connector on the valve as it is threaded. He said it was possible his other work may have caused it to loosen up. Luckily I had a big pipe wrench. I turned the valve very slightly, skeptical that I would be successful. However it appeared the drip did cease as the concrete pad stayed dry from that point on.
After I was done in the yard Cindy and I did a Rural King/Home Depot run. At Home Depot we just planned to get some mulch, both the conventional and the rubber variety to refresh more landscaped areas that were chicken casualties. We wound up getting some shelving material as well for a seat of the pants project, building a shelf in the master bathroom.
The bathroom counter in our bedroom has a large chunk of dead space under the drawer. It’s something that always bugged me to some degree for the last 16 years but I never acted on it. Well since Cindy repainted the bathroom and we installed the new faucet this seemed as good of a time as any to do it. Cindy had been looking at some stuff online but none of it was a great fit to the dimensions we had so building something seemed like a good option.
I have built other things out of this shelving material before, most notably the dog food platforms. We had a drawing of the approximate dimensions we were going to use. The construction process took place outside the large shed. We used the Honda generator for power for the saw. Like most projects I do, this one was organic where construction plans change on the fly.
When we thought we were done the first time I stood back and eyeballed the shelf. One of the rectangles formed by the shelving was whacked, despite us using a level to try to keep everything squared up. Luckily we were able to just remove the screws of the affected shelves and reattach them in a more visually congruent method. The shelf looked good in the bathroom although I miscalculated slightly. When we picked the width of the shelf which would leave just enough room for the trashcan we forgot to add in the width of the shelving pieces, meaning the trash can no longer would fit. That problem will be addressed by a new trash can.
I was tired of doing work so late afternoon I threw two of my wheels in the back of the truck. I brought my low end $200 wheel to do some going backwards practice, not wanting to damage my expensive Msuper from all the falling that is part of learning to ride the opposite direction. As expected I struggled a lot, not able to go more than a couple feet before falling off the wheel. Once I scraped open my ankle I called it quits. In addition to the EUC video I also shot a 10,000 mile review of the Tacoma.
Saturday night Cindy and I stayed home and watched The BFG. I thought the movie was sweet, endearing and very well done, an A rental.
Saturday night was a rough one in the sleep department due to dog activity. Since Katie has moved in with us most weekends she is out late at night. Well Bowser does not do well if left alone so Cindy has been trying to stay up with him. Katie was out extra late Saturday night and Cindy was exhausted so she tried leaving Bowser in Katie’s room which seemed ok at first however he eventually started barking. Elsa, who has been having some bathroom accidents lately had another one in early in the AM which was another prolonged sleep disturbance. If I was lucky I may have gotten four hours of sleep Saturday night.
When we were up from the dogs I turned off the 6AM alarm to go run as I did not want to wake up Cindy if at all possible. I instead woke up on my own around 7 and headed out. I planned a very conservative run of two miles to see how my knee/IT band would respond.
I was hoping for some nice cool weather to run in. Instead it was warm, humid and incredibly foggy. The thermometer in the truck read 74 degrees. I could instantly tell the nearly two month layoff from running was impacting me. The run was slow and steady with some pain in my right leg early on that evened out as I continued. Today it doesn’t feel horrible which is a positive.
When I got home Cindy was still in bed so I wanted to allow her to sleep as much as possible. I went straight outside and did the chicken clean up in just my running shorts, the sweaty shirt went right in the laundry.
We had talked Saturday about going for a ride Sunday but it took until late morning for that to happen until Katie woke up from her late night. We decided to go to the Greenway again since Cindy said she likes practicing there. I brought both her wheel and the Minipro just in case she changed her mind.
It was a big day, Cindy made her most progress to date, riding at least a couple hundred feet without support multiple times as well as pulling off a couple free standing mount and goes in addition to some clean dismounts. Her wheel hit the ground a few times but for the most part Cindy was able to bail cleanly which is another important skill. It was funny, for the first time ever it was Cindy being the one extending the riding timeline. She was actually having fun and excited as she kept building on her accomplishments. Katie was sitting on a bench as Cindy kept chugging along. I was proud of her. On the drive home Cindy talked a lot about how much fun she had. Even though she had been able to stay upright prior to yesterday, I think yesterday was her true “click” moment where she actually was able to feel the fun instead of the fear.
Yesterday afternoon I made a run to Autozone to get coolant for Katie’s truck. The Ram is losing coolant somewhere and more than once Katie has had to stop because the truck overheated as a result. I could not see an obvious coolant leak but I wanted to make sure she at least had coolant on hand so she doesn’t get stranded.
To be honest her truck is a mess. It costs a ton to operate between gas and repairs and is pretty much the worst possible vehicle she could own based on her current circumstances. Cindy has tried to urge Katie to think about getting more sensible transportation but so far that effort has been unsuccessful. If I have learned one thing living with a 23 year old is they don’t welcome advice much at all, regardless of the experience that leads to it.
The rest of the day I mostly chilled out with a lot of WoW thrown in. I am hoping today is filled with a lot of what I feel like doing, my work quota for the three day weekend has been fulfilled.
So this morning the pool guy is supposed to show up to hopefully fix the leak at the pool pump as well doing a total replumb of most of the stuff on the concrete pad. The pool heater is getting ripped out and the pool filter is going to be moved to it’s spot to allow as much room as possible for the RO system when it is installed. I am hoping the work proceeds without incident.
I have another one of those wonderful government perks this weekend, getting off Monday for President’s Day. After beating myself up pretty severely the last couple weekends with chicken fencing related projects I hope to have a less laborious three days ahead of me.
So even though we went out to our V-day dinner Saturday night I came up with the idea of picking up Carrabbas to Go for dinner last night so Cindy didn’t have to cook. Evidently my idea was not unique, I sat in a line 10 cars deep at the restaurant waiting to pick up the food. They seemed unprepared for the business as a single girl was running back and forth trying to sort out who got what. I eventually just got out of my truck and walked inside to grab the food myself. My bag was sitting on the counter along with a dozen other bags. The drive home was miserable. Evidently an accident on 75 had diverted a ton of cars back into the non-interstate roadways causing a quagmire. I didn’t get home till close to 6:30.
We had a nice night at home. Cindy got me a couple practical gifts and I gave her a cool pair of white gold earrings I got from Costco. The have a tiny leaf pattern in them which I thought was pretty and unique.
Today I am meeting a guy to get an estimate on whole house reverse osmosis. I had the company that installed our current system give us a number and it was significantly higher than what this company advertises. I heard about these guys from a friend that had their system replaced with RO and have been very pleased. Not only is the up front costs less, they include one free year of monthly maintenance which I wasn’t getting from the first company either. The expense for either system is considerable but what you are getting for the money is top quality water without any maintenance by the homeowner whatsoever. They handle it all. That scenario sounds pretty attractive at this stage in my life.
I have not really been commenting on the three ring circus which has been the Trump administration thus far. I expected it to be a mess and it has been, perhaps even more so than I could have imagined. Via a FB friend I stumbled across a site that allows you to track the buffoonery on a daily basis, whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com
As you flip through the day by day recollection of Trump administration events it seems rather surreal. Check it out.
So Saturday I had another back breaking session of labor. I loaded up the back of the Tacoma with 10 bags of mulch 10, bags of top soil, and 25 pieces of sod. I was a bit annoyed and a little more amazed by the Hispanic family that was parked in front of both the mulch and sod, making my loading process more of a hassle.
They jammed an INCREDIBLE amount of things into their Ford Expedition SUV. I saw at least 6 patio chairs, a table, a bunch of mulch, at least 20 pieces of sod, and at least a dozen medium sized potted variegated plants. The vehicle had to be stuffed from ceiling to floor. Oh, and the couple had to jam their three children in there as well somehow.
After they were done I was commenting to another customer about how amazing it was they managed to get all of that stuff inside the Ford. The sod went on the back seat, that must have been neat and tidy.
So once I got home I got busy. I parked the truck right outside the front gate of the new chicken grounds and used our little pull behind wagon to cart stuff into the fenced area. I spread the mulch first. A bunch of it went into the center of the chicken play area we created. My thinking was I knew they loved digging through mulch around the yard so I wanted them to have their own collection of it.
The rest of the mulch was used around the pond and the small area that has the birds of paradise. In the past couple years it had become pretty pointless to add mulch to landscaped beds because the chickens would destroy it with their endless scratching shortly thereafter. It felt sort of strange to place mulch down and realize it would actually stay put, making those areas look nicer than they have in quite awhile.
I then worked on getting the top soil and sod down. A lot of the grass went around the perimeter of the coop. When the chickens dig, quite often they like to do it against some sort of structure. Putting a thick sod border around the coop is one way to encourage the chickens to excavate elsewhere. Even though the temperatures were nice and cool to start the day it quickly got warm. I was out there a good five hours plodding away. Even though I certainly did not enjoy it, having the chickens mulling around me wondering what I was doing most of the time made it less annoying.
I picked up Sadie Saturday morning so she had a bunch of crazy play time with Bowser and Elsa. It seemed most of the time Bowser and Elsa would tag team Sadie which for the most part Sadie was ok with. A couple times it got a little out of hand and Sadie let out a quick warning snarl that let the other dogs know a boundary had been reached.
I have had an issue with the connection to the outlet of the pool pump leaking for awhile. I have tried to fix it by applying fresh pvc cement to the outside of the joint but it accomplished nothing. The only way to fix it correctly is to rip that section out and replumb it to the input of the filter. If pressed I could probably do it but with something like this my preference is to just pay a professional to do it to minimize the potential for future leaks.
So when I got more chlorine at Pinch-a-Penny I made arrangements to have someone come out to do the work. In addition to fixing that section I am also going to have them pull out the pool heater that has been broken for at least five years. Once it is pulled out they will have to replumb the lines some more. Even when the pool is warm in the summer we hardly use it, putting in a new pool heater would be a huge waste of money not only in up front costs but also the ridiculous impact it has on my electric bill.
On Saturday night Cindy and I went on our Valentines Day dinner early to Stir Crazy. We invited Katie along as well as we didn’t want her sitting home being bummed out. The food was good but our waitress, Nicole was pretty awful. From the first word out of her mouth you could tell she hated being a waitress. Although the entrees came out lightning fast, things that seemingly did not require much preparation like draft beer and desert had these inexplicable delays. She brought out plates and forks for desert 10 minutes before the desert actually arrived. We actually got the check before we got desert. It was bizarre. Nicole did not clean up in the tip department as a result.
Sunday morning I was up pretty early. I gave Cindy a break from chicken duties since she does it pretty much every other day. Katie had said she was interested in riding EUCs Sunday morning but was still asleep so I kept myself busy for awhile. First I put my Mavic up to get some more updated aerial video of the additional improvements we made to the chicken area. I am still fumbling around trying to figure out everything the drone can do. I have only grazed the surface thus far.
I then sat down and paid my bills for the week which took extra long since it was credit card reconciliation time which is tedious and annoying. Katie was still asleep so I grew tired of waiting, I didn’t want to have half the day pass before getting out. I was just loading the truck up to head out on my own when she came out of the room. She said she still wanted to go so instead of a solo trek, Cindy and her piled in the truck for a ride at the Greenway.
The weather was really nice for riding and we were having a great time. When people see us on the wheels it is very common to get comments like “Wow, that’s cool!”, “What is that??” and other statements of intrigue or interest. Well as I was exiting one of the boardwalk areas I passed an older couple whom were obviously not born in the US based on their accent. As I was passing them the old man says, “the sign (at entrance of the boardwalk) says no motor vehicles” I at first thought the guy was just being funny as universally, we have never had anyone be negative about our EUC riding. I told him in a friendly voice, “well this is basically like an electric bicycle” (bikes are allowed).
Well the old prick continued “well that thing still has a motor doesn’t it???” Instantly I lost all patience with this guy. I now used my overtly sarcastic, fake friendly voice as I told him. “well why don’t you go ahead and report us then. Have a great day!” as I rode away from him. They walked by me again when I was stopped by Cindy who was practicing on Katie’s EUC. The guy had no additional commentary for me, good for him.
Like I said, Cindy who rode the MiniPro for most of the ride got more practice in on the boardwalk on Katie’s wheel. Cindy likes the height of the rail as a support if needed. She did well, riding without support for 50-75 feet a couple times. She stepped off it a bit awkwardly during her last roll and called it quits. When I was learning I always made sure the last ride I did was not a fail. I think it helps a lot to get right back on and have one more small success before stopping. It just helps build confidence going forward.
After the ride we stopped and grabbed lunch at a pizza place. The main pizza maker used to work with Katie at her old waitress job, his name was Tommy. I could immediately tell he was from NYC. I don’t know if you could find a more stereotypical pizza guy. He looked and talked exactly as you would imagine. He was very funny and had all of us laughing throughout the meal. The pizza was very good.
We didn’t get home until after two. Cindy was shocked when she discovered Kristen, our white chicken outside the fence. She was able to quickly grab her and put her back before Bowser could react. When reviewing the security dvr she saw the escape on video. Kristin was able to simply fly up to the cross post and jump over.
Well obviously we can’t have that and chickens have a lemming mentality, when they see one do something they are apt to try it as well. We had to do some wing clipping. We only trimmed the wings of four of the ten chickens, Pumpkin, Peaches, Stephie, and of course Kristin. They are the smaller birds with good flying/jumping ability. The process only takes 30 seconds per bird so it wasn’t bad. Early on when the chickens became adults we had issues with a few of them flying over the main fence but they eventually stopped trying. We are hoping they come to the same conclusion with the new fence as well.
I got some WoW time in the rest of the day as well as some backyard EUC riding just for fun. Tonight I need to go to a jewelry repair place to get my beloved Casio G-shock watch repaired. I broke the main pin that connects the band to the watch body when I was chasing down Bowser a couple weeks ago. The attempts I made to replace the pin myself have been utter fails.
Last night before dinner I wanted to get a quick ride in before dinner so I hopped on my Msuper and headed to the first cross street. I quietly carved back and forth as I traveled both ends of the street under the bright full moon. It always feels good to just get out and ride. Even brief 10-15 minute sessions like last night helps clear the mind and dull some of the sharp things jabbing me in my daily grind.
I was surprised and happy to hear that Cindy was actually out on her wheel in the backyard yesterday practicing, using the new chicken fence as a support. She said she actually launched herself away from the safety of the fence a few times and free wheeled it. She said she feels less danger when the potential for falling is on grass instead of asphalt or concrete.
So today on my way to work I had two annoying things happen with my Tacoma. Shortly after pulling out of the driveway the RPMs on the truck jumped way up, it almost felt like the truck was in neutral. I immediately backed off the gas. After doing so when I reapplied the gas the truck felt normal but it concerns me because of the widespread transmission issues that have been reported with the new Tacomas. I already had mine at the dealer once to have a reprogramming done to the transmission controller to address shifting problems.
Then about five minutes later my information center lights up with alternating ABS/BSM warning lights, the same problem the truck spent 3-4 days at the dealer for a couple months ago. At that time they replaced the driver side wheel sensor and the problem had not reappeared, until today.
I have to say my new Tacoma ownership experience has not been as smooth as I had hoped it would be. These various electronic gremlins, transmission issues, and dealing with a shitty dealer have been the source of a lot of frustration, the sort of frustration you hope to avoid by buying a new vehicle. I turned the truck off and on which made the error disappear but I am pretty sure it will be back.
This weekend I hope to do one more big load of sod and topsoil to raise certain areas in the new chicken run and patch up areas that are bare. It is always dirty, unfun work but I am hoping it will be the last of it for a little while. I’d like to take the wheels down to Marco this weekend to try riding around the hilly areas. We will see how that works out.
Cindy and I met up with a mutual friend of ours from the running club and his daughter to do some EV riding at the Greenway. Mike has a HUGE off road electric skateboard that sounds like a tank as it rolls along. He let me get on it briefly in the parking lot but I felt VERY unstable on it. He thought my Msuper was extremely cool and couldn’t believe the speed and range it offers.
