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.
So last night Cindy and I fell asleep after watching a couple hours of the election coverage. At that point it seemed clear that the election results were much closer than the professional pollsters predicted. You could sense the apprehension in the NBC News staff as the comfortable HRC win that was widely expected was not coming to fruition. Despite this, when I closed my eyes there was still a clear path to her securing the win, of course the plan hinged on her securing PA, a state that has voted democrat for president for nearly three decades. Well even my former home state let me down, flipping to red when I awoke this morning, along with pretty every other battleground state on the map.
I was lucky to at least sleep to a little after 5:30. Cindy awoke early in the morning and saw the result and literally cried herself to sleep eventually. I shed no tears myself once I confirmed the results as I ate my breakfast. I just sort of shook my head in both disgust and amazement, Idiocracy had actually come to be.
I can spin myself around in circles trying to analyze how a ruthless business man, reality tv star, and man of marginal intelligence that shits on gold plated toilets was somehow seen to be representative of the type of change that America really wants. To me it is representative of just how easy it is to use simple psychological warfare to steer the populace. Stalin famously said, “A lie, told often enough eventually becomes the truth”
There were two candidates this year that represented the uprising against the political status quo in the country, Trump and Bernie. Even though both of these candidates wanted to uproot the establishment, there couldn’t have been a larger difference in the way they proposed doing it. Bernie is well spoken, well versed, experienced, and knowledgeable about everything he identified as problems. He had detailed plans of action to make every one of his proposals come to fruition. Donald had none of that. He relied almost entirely on vague generalities. Everything wrong was “terrible” or “a “disaster” and his plan of action to address all of it was more or less “I will fix it, trust me” with next to no ideas or specifics on how any of it will be accomplished.
I just struggle to understand how people could dismiss the constant red flags that have come up during the Trump campaign. They were literally endless. In the end the only way I can sum it up is people wanted change so bad that they will take it any way they can get it, even if it is change for the worse evidently. I can only hope that the damage that is inflicted to civil rights, the environment, our allies, and the economy is survivable. Ironically, the only thing that may slow down the march into the abyss is that same, lobbyist controlled congress is largely still in place. In order to carry out many of his campaign vows he will require their support which I think is unlikely he will get in many cases.
So anyway, being a sore loser in the end does not really accomplish much. I will be thrilled if the doom and gloom I am feeling today proves to be ultimately misplaced. I will be happy to admit my failure in judgement if that happens. Maybe I am the idiot and the country will rally around having a reality tv star for President. History is filled with brash leaders that rallied their country to support efforts that we now view as atrocious. Of course these efforts always have a very bad ending. I can only hope we have not started writing the next chapter in that book.
The reaction to the election result from Wall Street and the rest of the world is pretty shocking, in a way mimicking 9/11 with plummeting markets and worldwide condolences.
There was one shard of good news from the election results with Florida finally passing medical marijuana. After the presidential election results we are going to need it. In the end, we will get what we deserve.
Last night after work I was again out on my MSuper without my GoPro. Instead of driving to the school I rode there, the higher top end speed of the new wheel made getting there significantly quicker. I decided to fire up Strava, an app that is normally used to track running or cycling sessions, to track my ride. It gives you mapping, time and speed tracking very easily.
While I was at the school I practiced my wheel mounting technique. Despite now logging almost 300 miles on a single wheel my mounting technique has not improved with distance, I was still hopping my grounded foot on the wheel in a somewhat frantic manner.
When you watch experienced EUC riders they can push off with one foot and then bring the other on board in a smooth and controlled manner. Well thanks to some encouragement from a fellow rider I decided to try to polish my technique. Practicing the mount involved taking single steps with one foot on the EUC and the other off where you get a feel for how to hit that balance point. Like most things, it took me longer than it should to translate the instructions to implementation. I’m not great at reading something and then executing, I operate a lot on feel and little else. Once something clicks and feels right I am good to go. Reaching that point can take awhile for me.
So anyway after a couple dozen practice steps it finally started to feel right. The key for me was allowing the knee on my left leg which is on the EUC first to bend inward slightly, wedging my leg firmly against the bot, allowing me a stable platform to roll for a second while I bring the other foot onboard. It’s hard to explain so I will try to demonstrate on video over the weekend.
During the long straight away parts of my ride I could tell I was going considerably faster than I would have been able to on my Ninebot One. I was surprised just how fast I got up to, touching 20.6 mph according to Strava at one point. That is road bike speed with a solid tailwind for me. It won’t be long until I try to do the famous DD ride on one wheel. The Msuper has the battery power to actually pull it off.
So I have kept the amount of political talk in the blog relatively light, despite this being the most disgusting election of my adult life. Outside of discussing the eventual result, I plan to try to keep it that way, however…. I wanted to take a moment to just illustrate the type of deception that goes on when portraying scenarios with fuzzy numbers.
One of the things you will hear HRC bashers say is she will continue Obama’s policies that increased the national debt more than any other president in history. That’s a pretty strong statement that will surely sway the light thinkers. After all, debt is bad. So before we dig into that statement you could factor in that when Obama took office the country was in fiscal freefall, the sky was literally falling. The federal government spent mountains of cash bailing out financial institutions and offering stimulus packages like cash for clunkers, rebates for energy efficiency upgrades, and tax cuts. Say what you will about agreeing or disagreeing with some or all of those actions, the end result was the nose of the country was unquestionably pulled up from it’s trajectory into the ground. Of course we still had the uncapped wellhead of money being burned up supporting the Iraq conflict that was created via phantom information by the Bush administration as well. So yea, doing all that cost money, a whole bunch of it.
So when you turn your attention to dollars the numbers look big. Under Obama’s administration the national debt grew 56% in the first 7 years, adding roughly 6.5 trillion to the national debt. Growing the debt 56% sounds terrible doesn’t it? But wait a second, let’s put other presidents to the same scale. If you flip back only one chapter to the W nightmare years the national debt over his term grew 101%, yes almost double the rate of what has transpired under Obama.
When you look through history the light bulb really comes on. Ronald Reagan who is still seen by many as a star and the inventor of trickle down economics that has been an absolute disaster for the middle class for the last three decades plus, grew the national debt 186% during his reign. Yes, that is correct, 186%. So hopefully this information if nothing else gives you some pause to blindly accepting information vomited at you by the people best served by you believing it.
If you would like to open your eyes a little bit, take a look at the debt numbers by president here. Yep Obama as president has hit a bunch of potholes but he absolutely has done an admirable job of turning what was a very dire situation into merely a bad one.
This weekend there will surely be a lot of EUC riding going on, the weather is supposed to be quite nice. I would like to catch Dr Strange, run, and do whatever else sounds good at the time, after chores are done of course.
I was very anxious to get home last night so I could do some extended riding on my new Gotway Msuper. Cindy said she would come along but not to ride but instead to get in some evening running around the track which was fine with me. After maybe 5 minutes on the wheel I started to feel much better than I did on my initial ride on Monday night. I rode around the school area testing myself on various obstacles that I have already conquered on my Ninebot One. There was no turn, terrain, or obstacle I couldn’t do on the Msuper although it definitely does require some different physics to achieve the same results.
Once I got more comfortable with the control I toyed more with the newfound power and speed I now had available. It felt awesome to be able to cruise comfortably between 15 and 20 mph. The added weight and size of the wheel makes moving at higher speed feel very stable. It was a great ride and I really was hoping Cindy got the sudden urge to run a half marathon so I could have kept tooling around even longer. I am looking forward to many, many miles ahead perched upon the single tire.
I have seen an interesting shift from some people that were hard core Bernie Sanders supporters, shifting their support to Trump instead of the candidate Bernie endorses, HRC. The reasoning behind the shift the best I can tell is this, an enemy of my enemy is my friend. In this case the enemy is government establishment in both major parties, the media, and conventional big money backers.
The fact that Trump has an astonishing amount of republicans that have publicly disavowed him is a positive in the eyes of these people. Bernie, despite being a long time member of Congress is definitely an atypical politician. Trump is even more atypical, with viewpoints and statements that are vague, divisive, immature and downright dangerous at times. These former Bernie supporters seem willing to dismiss/forgive all of Trump’s sins on the off chance that he will be equally disruptive to the status quo if he would be elected. To me it’s like a game of craps except the only way you win is if you roll snake eyes. To them, some chance of meaningful change is better than no chance at all I guess.
All of the smearing going around about Hilary’s corruption, emails, scandals, etc. honestly makes me shake my head. Naive people are acting like a politician lying, cheating, or doing questionable things is abnormal and outrageous. What the hell, it’s an assumption, much like assuming most lawyers are assholes. A politician lied?? Gasp. Cut me a break.
Please provide me the list of people in Congress (or Trump) that would come out looking positive if their email communications were made public. It would be a very short list that likely would result in you handing me a blank piece of paper. Hell I think you can extend that litmus test to ANY person that utilizes, email, instant messaging, or text messages. If it was made public for the world to read things would be exposed that would you would not be proud of, guaranteed.
So anyway, to get back to my original point of Bernie people flipping to the Trump train. I can understand that the desire to shake up the system could be so strong that you are willing to vote for somebody that is so woefully underqualified for the job in the off chance he doesn’t step on one of the various landmines that await. I would say two things to these people. I respect your right to vote for whomever you want but will respect you more if your vote is an ultimate contributor to a horrific scenario in the future, you are brave enough to admit your failure in judgement. Second, no matter who wins the presidency, nothing of significance will change unless both parts of congress are under the same parties control. Bi-partisanship is unfortunately dead and buried in today’s world so unless congress has the same majority nothing of real significance is going to happen in either direction, ever.
So this weekend felt like it flew by. There were so many things wedged into the two days I am unlikely to be able to recall all of it with much detail. On my way home from work on Friday I stopped at Costco to pick up a few items . I was sort of dreading the experience due to the normal mob scene I experience at the store. I was pleasantly surprised that the crowd was only moderate at worse.
Saturday morning the cool temperatures and low humidity felt incredible. Doing yard chores like weeding and weed whacking was almost pleasant because the air felt so refreshing. I only started to sweat a little bit after being out there a couple hours. Cindy and I had to head out late morning to get some stuff.
One of those things was a new cable modem. On Friday I called Comcast to ask why HBO magically disappeared from my channel line up. They said the promotional period had expired so the channel was removed. They said they would be happy to add it back in for $15 a month which is crazy. I told the rep as much, $15 for a single channel is just silly. I asked if they could do me a favor and either reduce the price of adding HBO or dropping something from my line up I don’t really need like Starz and swapping in HBO.
I was doing all of this through an online chat session. In total I spent over 45 minutes on this interaction and it accomplished absolutely nothing. The online rep said they were not authorized to give me any promotional pricing and if I wanted to pursue it further I needed to call their “customer retention department” who is able to give better deals. Of course this annoyed me and I shared my annoyance with the rep, asking if they understood why it is circle jerks like this that are responsible for Comcast having such a low customer satisfaction reputation? They had no answer for me.
So I jumped through the next hoop and called the number. I briefly reviewed my situation and expressed my displeasure with it. The end result of another long block of time was me being moved onto a “Triple Play” package which includes all the premium channels and internet phone service that I won’t be using, for roughly the price I am paying now. That price is locked in for two years. I still have a feeling when I get my first bill on the new package there will be more landmines waiting for me.
So anyway, one of the attractive things about this package was it included Blast EXTREME internet which is 150 mbps down and 25-35 up, almost double my current service level. The rep said the new speed should be immediately available. Well when I did a speed test, my speeds were identical as before, requiring yet another contact with Comcast. That interaction determined that if I want the new speeds I needed to upgrade my cable modem, the Surfboard modem that I only bought a couple years ago evidently is “end of life”. Of course when the package was sold to me a thorough representative would have looked at the modem on my account and identified it was an issue up front. So anyway, these few paragraphs established why I needed to make Best Buy one of my stops on Saturday to get a new modem. Once I got it installed my speeds were now as advertised.
One of the other things we bought was garden soil to amend the garden. We bought 11 two cubic foot bags of soil. These were the heaviest two cubic foot bags of dirt I ever lifted in my life. I guess the dirt had a ton of moisture in it. I have no doubt each bag weighed at least 75 pounds. They required a major effort to lug around. I had all of them stacked on one cart. I had to have my body nearly parallel to the ground as I slowly pushed the cart to the truck in order to have enough power to move it. It was really, really, heavy. One of the other things we bought was a blow up, animated, illuminated spider for Halloween. It looks awesome at night.
So I had yet another piece of tech “break” Saturday, my Iphone 6. During the afternoon I pulled it out for something and noticed it was locked up. Hmm that’s odd, I have had the phone lock up once or twice in the past but it is normally very reliable. No big deal, I’ll force it off by holding the power and home button and it will reboot, clearing whatever ailed it. Well for the first time ever, this did not work. Sure I got it to turn off but when I turned it back on it would be eternally stuck on the Apple logo and go no further, awesome…
So I did some online research and tried a number of solutions to no avail. I finally had to blow away the phone and do a fresh OS install on it which of course removed EVERYTHING on the phone. To get the stuff back I needed to restore my most recent back up. The bad news was my latest full back up lived on my workstation at the office. Well I didn’t want to go all weekend with a blank phone so I told Cindy I had to drive into the office to get the phone restored. She was surprised my back up was on my work pc. I probably should back it up occasionally at home as well to avoid this scenario in the future.
So I was in the office until almost 7PM getting the restore done. I then hustled home as Cindy, her brother, his kids, and Katie were all going to the “Haunted and Gross Walk” that is held at the fairgrounds right down the street. Even though this event has been going on every Halloween for six or seven years I never bothered to check it out.
When we approached the fairgrounds we weren’t sure if the event was going on or not. The driveway was dark with nobody directing vehicles. We found our way into a parking space and headed into the main area, a place we normally only visit during the annual county fair. We immediately got a low budget feel for the event which was not unexpected. Because of my being late to get home we hadn’t eaten dinner, forcing us to rely on the food vendors there. There was absolutely no vegetarian sandwiches so I dined on french fries with cheese while picking at some of Cindy’s baked beans and cole slaw. It was fine.
Despite the low budget feel of the event I was sort of surprised at the kind of high budget ticket pricing. To go through the haunted walk cost 15 bucks a head. Cindy’s brother and his young son decided to lay back and not do the walk as Owen was scared. Cindy, Katie, Taylor and myself entered into the rather long line waiting to get in.
Standing in line was not exactly an enjoyable experience. The air was quite chilly by Florida standards, in the low 60’s. The structure the walk was housed in is normally occupied by livestock in warm Florida conditions. It had a number of these monster ceiling fans to promote airflow. They were running at full speed creating a constant cold wind on the people standing in line which was not a great thing.
There were cast members patrolling the line trying to scare people the best they could. The one evil clown was nice enough to pose for a picture with the girls. The line moved rather slowly as they would insert six people at a time into the walk with several minutes in between groups. When we finally got let inside I sort of expected it to be kind of lame based on the experience up to that point.
The walk was surprisingly well done with cast members that did their best to scare you. I was also surprised just how long the walk was. For a good portion of it I lead our group so I could “protect” the girls. Most of the cast would sort of ignore me and concentrate on the girls, especially Cindy, who scares easily. Later in the walk I let the girls lead so they could get more of the experience. When we finally emerged I was surprised that I actually felt I almost got my money’s worth out of the experience. It was good enough that I will look to go back next year, I’ll just make sure to eat dinner first next time.
Sunday morning I got up early to get out and run in the gloriously cool weather. By the time I got to the track the Prius showed an air temperature of 55 degrees which is just about perfect for me. I had a very solid run for my current endurance level, breaking into the high 8 minute mile pace for only the second time this year, covering about four and a quarter miles along the way.
When I got home we were playing with the neighbors new puppy named Shadow. He is super cute but of course we are concerned with his interaction with the chickens. Later in the day Cindy had him in the yard with the chickens, he seemed scared of the chickens and the chickens weren’t too thrilled with him either.
I wanted to get the oil changed on Cindy’s Prius before Katie came over to ride Segways. I headed out to the newly opened AutoZone location that is now only 8 miles from the house. In addition to the oil/filter I grabbed a number of other things like new windshield wipers, shop towels, disposable gloves, and an oil catch basin that won’t leak. The price of oil seems to have sky rocketed lately. Adding those items pushed the bill right to the $100 mark which I had to pay with my Costco Visa since Chase has not been very urgent with getting a replacement card in my hand after last weeks fraud. I headed home and had the oil changed in the car with time to spare before Katie’s arrival.
I suggested that we take the wheels out to Ave Maria. I had ridden my Ninebot One out there a couple times already but Cindy and Katie never had. It was absolutely beautiful weather to be out and about. Katie is a real pro on riding the Minipro at this point. We had a very enjoyable six mile plus ride around the grounds. If I didn’t want to get home for the Eagles game at one I would have been happy to cruise around even longer.
Speaking of the Eagles, I did not think they had much of a shot going into the game. The Vikings were 5-0 and people were acting like Sam Bradford was now Joe Montana, not throwing an interception this season so far. Well the game that unfolded was quite interesting with BOTH teams committing an incredible amount of turnovers. The Eagles also still seemed to be mired in penalty purgatory, hurting themselves again and again.
Despite these set backs, the defense laid a whipping on Bradford, not only forcing him into his first interception of the year but also causing him to fumble two times. They were smacking him around the entire game. The game certainly pulled back the curtain on how good Bradford actually is. He is an average NFL QB playing on a team with a stellar defense.
The game left me even more unsure of if the Eagles are actually a good team or not. The 3-0 start had a team that seemed to have their shit together in all facets of the game. The Detroit and much more the Washington game made think opposing coaches had figured out whatever the Birds were doing early on to be successful and taken it away. Now, after beating the 5-0 Vikings I am hopeful the team has some confidence as they enter a BRUTAL portion of their schedule. Time will tell but it’s all gravy to me at this point. I’m just glad Wentz looks to be the type of QB we can actually build the team around going forward.
So while I was watching the game Cindy was busy in the back yard doing an unusual art project, spray painting TRUMP SUCKS in the yard behind the chicken coop. Her hope was the republican candidate might just catch a glympse of it as he flew in to his rally at the county fairgrounds on his personal helicopter. During the afternoon there were multiple copters circling the area. I’m not sure if it was media or security copters, possibly both. I am sure someone saw Cindy’s aerial message.
We decided to head out on the PTV’s around 5:30, a half hour before the 6PM rally. We hoped to witness what was sure to be a mob scene. We first went down 10th street that dead ends to the rear of the county fairgrounds. As we approached we could hear the PA system booming with somebody warming up the crowd. As we got closer we could see two sheriff deputies on the other side of the fence at the dead end street. As we stopped I waved to the one officer who was maybe 50 feet away and he waved back. Cindy I just hung there, trying to listen to what was being said. We got to do so for less than 30 seconds before the deputy said we couldn’t stay there.
Even though I anticipated we would get this response, we asked why we couldn’t stay there. We got the catch all “security reasons” response. Cindy explained that we lived near by and we were standing on a public road. The deputy didn’t care and reiterated we couldn’t stay there. Although it was not worth a constitutional argument I said to the deputy “So we aren’t allowed to be on this side of the fence because of security concerns but we are allowed to be on the other side of the fence?” “That’s right” he said. Cindy and I rode off laughing at the lack of common sense being applied, joking that perhaps we looked threatening in some manner.
We decided to ride down Immokalee Road to see what the crowd looked like trying to get into the event. As we approached we saw what we assume was Trump’s helicopter swooping in. Unfortunately it appeared their flight path did not include Cindy’s backyard welcome message. When we got to the fairgrounds entrance we saw a massive amount of vehicles lined up trying to get into the event, hoping to catch a glimpse of the most controversial, divisive and ill equipped presidential candidate in modern history.
We rode down the length of the traffic jam, it was just under a mile in length. The people stuck in line seemed to be interested in what the two weirdos were riding down the sidewalk. When we got back to the entrance we could hear Trump was starting his speech that I am sure he repeated a few hours earlier in another part of the state.
I was trying to understand the logic of why they would hold another Trump rally in SW Florida. The area is already heavily conservative, it’s not like he is going to win over any new voters in the area with the visit. However when I thought about it further and combined it with the visual from the speech that included 80% women in the field of view behind Trump, I realized it is just all about mental manipulation, a classic bi-partisan tactic. Filling the tv with women, the demographic that should be most disgusted with a Trump presidency is a transparent effort to manipulate the weak minded. The rally itself is another calculated move where the Trump campaign can broadcast clips of their BIG LEAGUE support in Florida, an important swing state in the election.
I am so tired of all of this mess. The name calling, the accusations, the ignorance, I just want it behind us. It seems like in the end Hilary will still prevail in the election which is not an ideal outcome in the majority of American’s minds but really the only viable choice to left to us since big money steered the democratic nomination into her lap. I hope to cast my early voting ballot this week so my participation in the election can come to an end. I can only hope that someway, somehow, the general populace realizes that American politics is truly all about smoke and mirrors where candidates are tasked with distracting voters and creating divisive, explosive environments that keeps their puppet masters, big money, safely behind the curtains, pulling all the strings.
I recorded some of our Trump rally experience as well.
When I got home last night I decided to put together one of the presents I got for Cindy for her birthday, a glider/rocker chair. Cindy had said she would put it together herself but I figured I would do it for her while she was teaching a class so she could jump straight to enjoying it. The assembly looked worse up front than what it turned out to be in reality, despite pretty sparse instructions. It made me smile when I came back from my EUC ride and saw Cindy out on the lanai rocking in her new chair while watching the chickens.
So last night I finally decided to pull the trigger on buying my touring electric unicycle, a Msuper V3. The wheel has a large 18 inch tire with power, speed and range capability that is damn close to double what my Ninebot One E+ has under the hood. It is a beast. I decided to buy the wheel from SpeedyFeet, a company over in the UK run by a guy that I really like from his YouTube videos.
So I hop on his site and place the order. As soon as I try to complete the order I get a payment error. I waited a few minutes and tried again, same deal. I immediately assumed it was my CC company flagging the transaction as suspicious since it is overseas. I logged into my Chase account to see if I could authorize the transaction easily but didn’t see a way to do so. I decided to just use Paypal instead to complete the order. The wheel probably won’t show up for a couple weeks so I will have a lot of time to build up anticipation.
So this morning I wake up and see an email from Chase regarding card activity as I expected. I figured I would just call them when I got to work and say false alarm, it was me. So I make the call and am surprised the transaction they first ask me about is not SpeedyFeet, it is Sunshine Grocery Store for $275. Huh, excuse me? I had never heard of the store. When the rep looked at the transaction he said it was in Naples. I quickly looked online and saw the store was the shitty market about five miles from me at the corner of Wilson and Golden Gate Blvd.
After confirming with Cindy she didn’t for some reason go on a wild spending spree there, I logged into my account to look at all the recent activity. I was not pleased. There was a second visit to Sunshine as well as another local small supermarket as well as over $400 of charges at two local gas stations. To round things out there were two Amazon transactions that I did not make. In total, somewhere around $700 had been thrown on my card fraudulently since Friday.
So I started going over the transactions with the Chase rep, indicating what I did and did not charge. I told him that it looked like most of these were in person transactions. I said I have my card on me, how would they be doing over the counter transactions. He said all of these transactions were via magnetic swipes, not using the chip that is part of the EMV cards. The roll out of EMV tech seems totally half baked if so many retailers, including ALL gas stations still only accept the magnetic strip swipe for payment. My assumption is that either Cindy or I swiped our card at a gas station that has a card skimmer. Cindy did get gas at one station she never normally uses in the past week so that is the number one suspect on the list.
So after identifying the fraudulent transactions the rep said my card was frozen/cancelled and that I would be getting a brand new one with a new account in the mail shortly which will end this asshole’s joy ride. Of course my frustration ride is just beginning as I now have to update the dozens of places that I regularly use that card as a payment source for. The most frustrating thing is these skimmer criminals basically get a free pass. If they are able to install the skimmer without being detected they are free to steal card info as they see fit since credit card companies make zero effort to prosecute them.
Nailing these people would take nothing more than a basic investigation in many cases. You have the exact time the transaction came across the counter. Pretty much any retailer has a security camera pointed at the counter. Match the transaction to the video and BAM, there is your bad guy/girl. Because of the scale of credit card fraud banks have decided this is basically just a cost of doing business and write it off. As long as that environment exists the scammers will continue to run rampant.
Even if EMV chips were fully implemented, RFID readers would be able to accomplish the same sort of deception. It just doesn’t seem right that the guy shoplifting a few steaks will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law but the credit card thief that steals thousands of dollars of merchandise from countless individuals is not even pursued.
I left work a little early to meet my dad and step mom since they were supposed to arrive mid to late afternoon. I actually got home shortly before they arrived, followed shortly after that by Cindy. I was first greeted my by their dogs, Maggie and Clara who both seemed to remember me. Once everyone was there I needed to come up with a game plan to go get the Prius, which had it’s wheel bearing replaced during the day. Once I got the Prius I wanted to go pick up Sadie.
Katie was also at the house and was heading out. I asked her if she could give me a ride to where she turns on Golden Gate Blvd, I could ride my EUC the remaining 5 or 6 miles. So that was the plan, I threw my wheel in her trunk and did my first ever riding on GG Blvd, all on the sidewalk. When I got down to Collier Blvd I was actually in the bike lane for around a mile which was a bit hairy with rush hour traffic but I survived. I arrived in one piece at Tuffy, threw the wheel in the trunk and went to pick up Sadie. I told her I had a very big surprise for her while we were driving.
When we got back it was funny seeing all three dogs reacclimate which didn’t take very long at all. They were happily running around the house. We spent the majority of the evening just hanging out. Dad, who did a poor job of bringing any Florida appropriate clothing (brought long pants only), made many, many comments about how hot and humid it was. Cindy made a great vegetable lasagna that we all enjoyed.
On Saturday morning I was outside early attending to a few things. Dad had asked me about any good oil change places nearby, their Outback was due for one. I told him I’ll just change it. We went to the nearby Autozone where I dumped my two containers of old oil and we bought the stuff for dad’s car. When we got back I wasted little time getting the Subaru up on ramps.
Of course I used the oil change as an opportunity to add to my already pretty extensive automotive section on my YouTube channel. Changing the oil on the Outback was not very difficult although turning the oil filter in/out was a bit challenging with the hot exhaust pipe surrounding it. I was done in less than 20 minutes. It was dad’s first ever appearance on YouTube.
Late morning we all piled into the Subaru to head to Rural King. Getting four people and three dogs in there was a bit of a challenge with all laps taken except mine as I was driving. The dogs had a lot of fun surveying the store. We needed a few supplies and dad wanted to pick up some shorts, realizing that jeans just were not going to be a comfortable way to spend the next week. On the way home from RK we had a nice lunch at Panera which allows dogs in their outdoor seating areas.
Later in the afternoon I got the itch to go get the grass mowed, the precipitation from Matthew had pretty much dried up and the grass was looking shaggy. As I was finishing up mowing the first of my four quadrants the tractor all of a sudden got VERY noisy. It was bad enough that I immediately stopped and got off to see what was going on. It was something related to the transmission drive. When I stepped on the brake the noise stopped, when I released it it sounded like something was ready to fly apart. I got back on and mowed a little bit more. Despite the noise, the tractor was cutting and moving ok so I said f it and finished up the mowing session, hoping it held together until I finished. It did.
I did some research afterward and found that defective idler pulleys were a common cause of this problem which makes sense. I ordered replacements online. I thought it was odd these pulleys were made of plastic. They hopefully will show up this week so I can get the tractor back in action before it is called upon for it’s next mowing duties.
Saturday night we decided to go see The Magnificent Seven at Silverspot. It was a movie that I would normally just rent but it was the consensus to be the best available option out right now. I am certainly not typically a western movie kind of guy. The theater was pretty full but with assigned seating it doesnt really matter. I thought the movie was entertaining and had a strong cast. I did not realize it was based on a prior movie that had Yule Brenner until after Cindy, my dad and Teresa told me afterward. Anyway, I thought it was a B+ flick.
On Sunday morning I drug myself out of bed with the alarm to get out and run. I was solo this time. I once again logged four miles in the humid early morning air. When I got back I wanted to remain productive so I pulled out the Tacoma and gave it a well needed bath. I was sort of stuck at home all morning because DirecTv was supposed to be sending out a tech to give me the new B band filter I needed. Their arrival window was 8-12. Of course the guy didn’t show up until the last 25 minutes of the window.
So it didn’t take me long to realize this guy was odd. He was eastern European with a heavy accent that was difficult to navigate. Before he walked in the door he had located my dish and was already telling me how the tree that is in front of it is a problem. I told him that actually all I need from him is a new b band filter. I tried to explainin to him the sequence of events leading up to now. He seemed to either not understand me or not care to listen. He was focused on the tree.
I became somewhat irritated and forceful, telling him the tree is not the problem as the old receiver was working just fine. I said all I needed was a new filter. He eventually relented and got a filter and hooked it up which allowed me to see the channels I could not see before. The only problem was when he went to the Sunday Ticket channels it said I was not authorized for them. The tech said I must not have the Sunday Ticket. I was really annoyed with this guy already. His lack of understanding, poor communication skills and an odor that was a mix of BO and cigarettes was just really aggravating me. I tried to calmly explain to him that I do have the Sunday Ticket and the new receiver just needs to be authorized for it.
So he pulls out his cell phone and calls in to Directv. Even though he tried to identify himself as a technician, the woman on the phone was acting like he was a customer because she couldn’t understand him either. Eventually he just handed me his cell phone I and worked with the woman to get my Sunday Ticket channels activated. I figured I was in the clear. I found the tech, who was out sitting in his vehicle. I told him it’s working now.
So instead of leaving he comes in and starts futzing with the remote control. He was trying to get it programmed to also control the tv which I didn’t need but fine, if he wants to do it… But then he was trying to get it to work with my surround sound and couldn’t get it to work. I told him more than once that I didn’t need that functionality and either didn’t hear me, didn’t understand me, or didn’t care. It was then that I got the definite feeling that this guy was just trying to intentionally waste time. I was not sure what the reason would be why he wouldn’t just pack up and head to his next call.
He then went out on the lanai and was talking on his phone to somebody for another 10 minutes or more. When he came back in he said he wanted to change the LNBs on my satellite dish (the receivers). I asked why since it was working. He just mumbled something about it should be done. I asked him how long it would take since the Eagles game was coming on in 20 minutes. He said 10 minutes so I said fine, go ahead.
He completes the unnecessary work and then comes back in to run another test on the receiver which shows it was getting no signal from the satellites at 103 degrees. He said unless he can verify signal on this satellite he cant close the call. I told him as long as I get the Sunday Ticket I don’t care. He said he then had no choice but to cancel the call which seemed odd. I said whatever and the guy finally left. It was a bizarre, unpleasant, and annoying experience. It annoyed me enough that I spent another 20 minutes on the phone later in the day waiting to get a hold of someone at Directv to tell them how bad the guy sucked.
So ironically I did not even need the Sunday Ticket to watch the Eagles/Lions game. It was being locally broadcast. The outcome of the game was disappointing with Ryan Matthews literally giving the game away with a crucial late game fumble. The officiating seemed to have a very heavy Detroit bias with multiple situations where questionable flags wiped out big plays for the Eagles. But whatever, the Eagles weren’t going to go undefeated and overall, I saw more positive than negative in the game so it isn’t worth ranting about. I still feel much better about the 2016 Eagles than I ever expected to.
Cindy and I rode our PTVs a little bit last night, running into a couple that Cindy knows from the gym which was ironic. When we got home we enjoyed some tofu sausage dogs with baked beans and sauerkraut, good stuff.
Of course we watched the debate and laughed and gasped our way through it. Seeing Donald come out in full deflection mode was funny as hell, using the term “locker room talk” repeatedly to explain his actions where he described some sex acts/situations that were very, um, unpresidential. As entertaining as the debate was, there is part of me that feels very sad that this is what American politics has now become where you literally have a three ring circus going on. It made me ill when Trump would repeatedly bring up Bernie Sanders name as if Sanders supporters would somehow think Trump was their best option. Anyone that knows Bernie knows Donald Trump is the last person he would want sitting in the White House.
Gladly there is only one debate to go. I can’t wait till this political nightmare is behind us so Americans can go back to doing what they do best, not knowing, not understanding, and not caring.
Yesterday was a first for me as the office held it’s first in service day, closing all of our offices to have a day long employee meeting. The meeting was held at the same place we hold the tax certificate sale, the school administration building. Just for the heck of it I threw my Ninebot in the truck in the off chance I got a chance to ride it, surprisingly, I did. I rode during the morning break and at lunch I rode it a couple miles to the nearby Panera since the office had no meat free lunch options available to us. As you can imagine I got some confused looks as I walked in Panera carrying my orange wheel, leaning it on my booth.
So the meeting had a number of speakers, all of which would have been more interesting if they were allocated shorter periods of time. As it was planned, the sessions just seemed to drag on, way beyond the attention span of most of the employees in attendance, including me. There were a few things I cherry picked from the sessions that I found interesting.
One of the speakers taught a session on ethics. Part of the discussion was citing two interesting experiments that demonstrated just how much like lemmings human beings can become when skillfully manipulated, something political strategists are masters at. In the first experiment there were seven subjects. Six of them were planted, the seventh was the test subject. All seven people were shown two sets of flash cards with lines of varying length. Each line was labeled A, B, or C. A second flash card was then shown with a single line that matched one of the lines on the first flash card. The subjects then simply had to say what line was on the second flash card, A, B, or C. The difference in line length was substantial so there was no doubt in which line was on the second card.
The subjects were seated in such a way that the six planted subjects were always asked their answer first, the test subject was always last to answer. They did a total of 24 rounds of testing. For the first 12 rounds the six planted subjects gave the correct answer and of course the test subject did as well. However for the last 12 rounds the six planted subjects all gave an incorrect answer. The test was to see if the number 7 subject would go along with the group, even though they were obviously giving the wrong answer. Believe it or not, on average, nearly 40% of the test subjects went along with the group, giving the obvious incorrect answer for the last 12 rounds solely because the previous six planted subjects did.
He also showed some funny videos demonstrating the same behavior. In one of them, an unknowing person was joined in an elevator by three plants. The three plants faced the back of the elevator. The test subject in multiple cases would turn around and face backwards as well, even though it made no sense to do so.
In a recent video, it showed a waiting room full of people at a doctors office. There were about a dozen plants and one unknowing woman, sitting there, waiting. At random intervals a bell would sound which would trigger the dozen plants to stand up briefly and sit back down. The first two cycles the woman remained seated, looking around with confusion as to why this behavior was occurring. However the third time the bell rang she got up and sat down just like the rest of the room. To make things more interesting they slowly removed the dozen people in the room until it was just this woman. She continued to get up and sit down by the bell, even though she was now alone.
The second experiment was even more disturbing. In this situation there were three people involved, two plants and one test subject. There was a man in a lab coat that directed the test. The other plant was in the next room where he could be heard but not seen. The test subject, who was paid a small amount of money to be a participant in the experiment was put in front of a device with a number of switches. The subject was told that this test was to see how negative reinforcement affected memory performance.
The guy in the other room was given a series of word associations and was then asked to repeat back one of them. If the answer was incorrect, the test subject was instructed to flip one of the levers on the device in front of him which supposedly delivered a shock of increasing severity to the man in the other room. Each switch increased the shock level by 15 volts, all the way up to 450 volts. Of course the device was fake but the test subject did not know this.
So as the plant answered questions wrong the test subject was instructed to shock him. As the imaginary shock levels got higher the plant would react more and more strongly, eventually screaming in agony at the higher levels. If the test subject objected to administering the shocks the guy in the lab coat would tell them in varying levels of authority to continue, starting at the lowest level with “Please continue” and ending with “The experiment requires that you continue”. Of course the test subjects were not required to administer the shocks and could have left at any time, they already received their small amount of pay. After performing this test with 500 individuals an incredible 65% of them continued to shock the planted “victim”, despite his screams of pain, all the way up to the maximum of 450 volts. Oh by the way, the test subjects were also told that the person they were shocking had some degree of a heart condition ahead of time.
These two experiments give a disturbing look at just how easy it is to manipulate a person’s behavior and thought patterns. If you don’t think this sort of manipulation is being used on the American populace on a daily basis you may as well just stand up and sit down right now. I just heard the bell.
Last night I had a very aggravating evening. Apparently during an extremely bad afternoon storm with severe lightning some of my AV equipment got taken out, most notably my nearly brand new 70 inch 4K TV. The Xfinity X1 DVR appeared to be the source and was killed as well as it had no signs of life other than the sound of a fan inside. The TV had it’s red power LED on but would not turn on at all by any means. My initial theory is the surge came in via the coax cable, taking out the DVR and the TV via the HDMI cable. I was somewhat surprised that if this was the case, why my internet cable modem, tv, and X1 box in the bedroom would appear to be unscathed.
Well I had to take action quickly. I first contacted Comcast. After a lengthy on the phone verification that the box was dead, they said I could simply exchange the X1 box for a new one. When I looked at my watch I saw it was 6:25. When I looked online I saw the local Xfinity center was open till 7. I calculated if I hauled ass I could get there with 5-10 minutes to spare.
I had never been to this Xfinity location. The last time I went to a Comcast store it was a shitty, small, overcrowded space in a strip mall. When I parked in the lot last night I did a double take, unsure if I was at a Comcast place. It almost looked like an Apple store inside, complete with a friendly person signing you in at the front counter. There were only three customers in the store at the time so it only took a couple minutes till I was helped. I explained the situation, she said no problem and handed me a new DVR, complete with a voice controlled remote, something I was trying to score for quite awhile.
I couldn’t believe how pleasant of an experience the exchange was. I have never been shy of criticizing Comcast in the past for their generally shitty customer service and overpriced services. However I have to give credit where credit is due. That new facility is awesome and the exchange experience was great.
I had hope of getting home and at least having one of my two issues corrected. However when I plugged in the new DVR I still could not get the tv service back online, the box threw an error that indicated it still had some sort of line problem. I even connected the new DVR to the bedroom connection just to see if it made a difference, it didn’t. I had to call Xfinity back and had a decent interaction with the phone rep although I had to wait over 10 minutes to speak to them. I now have a tech scheduled to come out today to try to get my tv service up and running again. My diagnosis has now shifted. I suspect that the powered splitter in the attic was another casualty of the surge , the fact that the cable modem does not use this splitter reinforces my theory. I guess I will find out how good of a guess it was this afternoon.
As far as the tv goes, I placed an online warranty service request. I have no idea how that will all shake out or how long it will take. In the meantime I have the much smaller tv from the guest bedroom in there. It looks disgustingly underwhelming in the huge AV nook.
So Cindy was teaching a class last night, meaning supper was going to be later than normal. When I considered that along with the fact that Dunkin Donuts was running a promotion for 66 cent medium coffee’s to celebrate 66 years of business, I figured I would alter my route to pick up a cheap cup of coffee to help control my appetite. Well it didn’t take very long for me to regret that decision, a lot.
I decided I would hit the DD at the corner of Livingston Road and Pine Ridge. As I got within about a 1/4 mile to the light, traffic in the lane was already grinding to a halt. The light for that direction of traffic is already stupidly short considering the volume of vehicles but this was far worse than normal. I saw two light cycles come and go with hardly any movement but I was too far away to see what the deal was. As I got closer a much clearer explanation was before me, assholes.
Pine Ridge connects to the interstate which is about a mile to the east of where I was. For some reason traffic on Pine Ridge was backed up all the way to us. So what I witnessed was the opposing traffic that was turning left onto Pine Ridge blocking the intersection. You had people inserting themselves into the intersection even though the traffic ahead of them was at a dead stop. So when the light for our direction turned green, nobody could move because the turning assholes were blocking the road. It was maddening and infuriating as I despise people on the road with this degree of cluelessness. Of course the lemming mentality kicked in. When one idiot turned into the clogged intersection, two or three more followed suit.
I probably spent at least 15 minutes trying to get through the intersection. When I did finally get there I still had to swing around one more asshole that was still sticking out into the intersection. This person received a loud and long horn applause from me, recognizing their effort. The delay there snowballed as I was now in the middle of the worst rush hour traffic. When I hit Immokalee Road I got encased in wall to wall traffic that was absolutely miserable, again filled with inconsiderate assholes, cutting off, blocking, and annoying at every opportunity they are given. The 66 cent coffee resulted in an additional 45 minutes of travel time. I won’t be doing that again.
When I finally got home I again mounted the tractor for more mowing. On Wednesday night I mowed the grass inside the fence. Last night I wanted to tackle the grass on the outside perimeter of the fence. That grass was even higher than what I faced the night before, four feet plus in some sections. To mow it down required multiple passes with the tractor along with me holding open the chute guard to allow the cut grass to fly out at high velocity. I would mow a 10 foot section, back up that same 10 feet and then pull forward again. I rinsed a repeated down the entire fence line. The experience has me considering getting one of those brush mowers that are designed to knock down this sort of crap.
When I got inside I pulled out everything I should need for Saturday’s race so I can in turn pack it in the truck tonight. Tonight on my way home I will be dropping off race stuff at the church where they are doing packet pick up and then swinging back there at 7 to pick it up. Saturday will start with my the last 4AM alarm to get on site by 5. I can hardly wait, for it to be all over.
Cindy’s daughter was over last night for dinner. While she was there she hopped on Cindy’s computer to look at some stuff. At the time I was on my computer mowing down an army of demons in WoW. Cindy suggested to Katie that she takes a look at some YouTube videos that might have the info she was looking for. Katie said she didn’t like YouTube because half the time she has invested four minutes into the video and it turns out it didn’t have what she was looking for.
For me it was a snapshot into the mind of today’s youth where four minutes is looked upon as an eternity. In the Vine, SnapChat, Instagram, and Persicope world where people are trained to pay attention in 6-15 second bursts, asking a young person to focus on something that doesn’t involve their smart phone for more than a commercial break is a big deal.
In some ways I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a much less connected, tech infused society where I was forced to use my mind, body and imagination to pull entertainment and stimulation into my sphere of life. Because of that experience I am able to still enjoy and appreciate the simpler things without drowning in the sea of technology that surrounds us all. When I am at home my smart phone 90% of the time sits on a table with the speaker silenced.
I’m not sure why the four minute comment stuck with me so much. I feel bad for the younger generation that have become so hopelessly addicted to tech that they literally don’t know how to function without it.
Yesterday I was part of the interview process for a position we are looking to fill. It was the first time I was on the other side of the table. It gave me some anxiety as I never had been put in the position to make judgements on people that could potentially have a large impact on their lives. The two candidates we interviewed yesterday were vastly different. I was surprised to hear that the IT job field in our area evidently is very tight. Both people had been looking for work for months, despite both having sizeable job experience. In all honesty they were over qualified for the position that is available.
We received around 20 applicants so far. Out of those 20, only a half dozen or so were worth talking to from what we determined. Like anything, I am confident the more people we talk to, the less stressful the interview process will become from my end. One unexpected side effect has been reaffirming my good fortune to be secure in a job with benefits that are evaporating in today’s typical workforce.
I’m still sleeping like shit, something that started with the prednisone and has persisted despite being off it for a few weeks.
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.
