6 June 2024

Not much got done the past couple days, I needed some rest, can’t keep burning the candle at both ends. Allergies are hitting hard this year as we’re not in a warmer climate, there are plants growing here that couldn’t at our previous location, I can even grow citrus now. The ball is back rolling today, I went to ACE hardware to get screws for the mower and some sandbags for an umbrella holder. As I was loading up one of the two sandbags I felt some sand on my hand and decided it wasn’t a big deal. Fast forward to when I’ve arrived at home and my trunk was a sandy mess, that’s what happens when you’re in a rush caring about time over quality. Then I had to waste more time cleaning up the sand than I would have if I swapped it for a new bag. Finishing up with the sand I had some podcast ideas I wanted to record, so I knocked that out and while I was dressed in my kingly outfit, took some photos for thumbnails. The program Canva has been helpful in a lot of image creation, it even utilizes AI. There hadn’t been a purpose for AI in my life until now, people would show different images it creates, but they had no value; it was just a trick. I believe in fine art as art where the reality of paint strokes can be felt. AI is useful to me for churning out images quickly as ascents. Now I’ll do some editing of the stuff I created and we’re recording tonight. We’re past all the shocking content, so it’ll be nice to relax with some multidimensional musings. 

4 June 2024

Today is the earliest my replacement mower belt can arrive, checking on the tracking it doesn’t seem likely. To prepare and possibly speed things up I’ll go to ACE hardware and see if they sell the belt I need, I need to go there anyway for bags of sand and to match a screw. The sand is for the base of an umbrella stand and the screw is actually mower related. Around the mower belt pulleys are metal covers held in place by two screws, I’m guessing I hadn’t been tightening them all the way and have lost two screws. Since there is a pully on each side I still have enough to attach one cover, but I’m hoping to find some replacements at the store. Since my Youtube presence has gotten off the ground I turned my attention towards Spotify today. Every platform has it’s own rules and regulations, it gets frustrating trying to fit them all. Even this website has it’s limitations. In making an ad for my podcast I needed to record a 30 second audio clip and got frustrated when I tried to upload it. I recorded on the same platform I record the podcast, so I thought it’d be easy. My first attempt was with an MP3 file, it was rejected telling me it needed to be in stereo, I don’t know what to do with that info as it seemed to be in stereo. Next I reprocessed the clip and saved it as a WAV file, when I tried to upload that, my rejection note was “check creative guidelines”. Too bad there was no link in sight to check those guidelines, I went through a couple programs to record audio until I made progress with Garageband. Thankfully I have been learning Garageband to prepare for making an intro for the show. The problem then was the audio sounded much different, but after some tweaking everything got resolved and submitted, now I can return to the physical world.

3 June 2024

Happy June everyone. Last Friday was indeed a good day, the short video I made did better than I would have ever hoped and my Youtube channel has nearly doubled in subscribers since then. The only goal I know of for Youtube subscribers is 1,000, so I had said we’ll get that by the end of the year. When I said that it felt unrealistic, as time goes on I’m figuring out how the systems work and am gaining speed to where that goal seems more possible. This doesn’t mean all I care about is views and subs, but that’s feedback. For months trying to get feedback from people is like pulling teeth, this is a new endeavor where things are far different than my normal life, any information I can get is useful. The other big event on Friday was at the end of the day I looked out my window and saw the neighbor across the street had put out a UTV for sale. We have been looking at various options for weeks, the conclusion I came to was the nice ones would cost too much and the ones in my price range would leave my mind uneasy. The other problem I was faced with was how to get it home, I don’t have a truck anymore nor a trailer. The vehicle my neighbor put out was in my price range and nicer than anything I was looking at, he even drove it to my doorstep. It’s electric and can be charged with a regular outlet, which is what I was hoping for. Being able to work on a gas engine would be a valuable skill though I’m happier to not deal with one at all. My daughter is obsessed with cars and was screaming with excitement just to sit in it. She’s already claimed it as her own and will push me out of the driver’s seat. 

31 May 2024

The end of the week, the end of the month, and so far it’s a good day. Often on Fridays the baby doesn’t go down for her nap since she doesn’t nap at daycare and it usually takes a day for her to get into our rhythm. She’s sleeping right now which is always the best feeling of accomplishment to get her down. There was also a new Eminem song released today, which if people don’t know I’m an Em stan and am excited that he’s got a new album coming out this Summer. There was some news released yesterday about a former president, since we were recording the podcast last night I shot a video to use on social media and it has been already paid off. In the future I’d like to make at least one relevant short a week since that stuff is popular and what I talk about leans closer to esoteric. A slight negative I came across was that I’ve been trying to get an achievement of five Instagram stories and I learned that it was five in a week, so the ones I had previously done don’t count. Luckily their new week started today and I’ll try to make one everyday for a week and I think that will be another achievement. At this point I rest, I especially need to rest my right arm. My default is to hold the baby in my right arm and lately my elbow has been hurting, consciously shifting her to the left will hopefully be enough to let it recover. There’s a box spring being delivered today, the new bedframe has gaps that cause our mattress and pillows to fall through and a box spring should close that up. Have a good weekend everyone!

30 May 2024

Last night my wife and I was sitting in the bedroom starring at the new furniture, trying to process our life as it still doesn’t make sense. Before the podcast last week I was asking my brother if he remembers the first time he experienced central air. When we were young I remember all of my siblings pilling on my parent’s bed with our faces next to the air conditioner because that was the only AC in the house. At that time my bedroom was shared with my three older brothers and the room itself might have been half the size of the one I’m in now. I still remember those days and try to live like I did then, waste not want not. Today I was putting together an outdoor table and the table was inherited from the previous owners of our previous house, that’s how we acquired a lot of our possessions.  We’ve lived in a lot of places over the years and people leave things behind, or friends will give us something they’re about to throw out. Their trash is our treasure. As I write this I’m sitting at a table that belonged to my wife’s grandmother, we keep it not because it’s special, but because it still works. Avoid unnecessary purchases, I always tell people there’s two ways to get rich, make more money or spend less than you make. It’s nice to be able to buy our own things, I’ll remain cautious not to make a habit of spending. Most of my joy comes from doing work and building something of value anyway. When the moving truck was almost full I told the movers that tools are the most important thing. As a teacher told me, tools don’t cost you money they make you money. 

29 May 2024

We’re getting bedroom furniture today, I’m currently waiting for the delivery. My wife and I have had an expression for years, “it’s happening”, we’d say whenever our plans are becoming real life. We said it last night while getting ready for the delivery and it struck me how much has happened, that we’ve been through so much together. When we started dating everything I owned fit into my car, and it wasn’t a big car, we had to move around the country a couple times as part of the plan. Our last house seemed like a forever home and led us to have a kid, but the job wasn’t right yet. That’s been corrected and in terms of the big stuff it seems like we’ve got everything we wanted from 10 years ago. Now we’re finally settling in with the small stuff. We’ll have dressers, currently my clothes get dumped in a rubbermaid bin after washing them and I think my wife’s sit in a pile. It’s not good to create a pile of warm fabric in your house, I know because over the years there’s been a number of pests found in them. And we’ve faced a couple natural disasters with the places we’ve lived. A flood in Houston had the right up to our doorstep and trapped in the Summer heat with no electricity. We put up with all the bad stuff and kept our eye on the prize, I’m grateful we made it through and to be where we are now. None of it feels real and I’m still processing our life. Most of my time is spent outside because sleeping in the dirt makes more sense to me than living in a nice house. People always talk about wanting their kids to have a better life, I’m happy they get to, but wonder about what is lost by not having to go through those struggles. 

28 May 2024

As the immortal Jadakiss said, “It’s gonna be a real hot Summer.” It’s before noon and I was doing some light yardwork, maybe cut 10 branches with the loopers, when I came inside my clothes were soaked in sweat from head to toe. We’re not even into June yet. Since infantry training in Fort Benning Georgia I’ve said there was the hottest I’ve ever experienced and I’ve seen 134 fahrenheit in Iraq. What happened that day was rain on a sunny day, the rain was gone after a short period and the humidity remained. We then went marching through the woods where more humidity was trapped, it’s a similar feeling doing work in my woods now. I do enjoy the struggle though. My hair is finally long enough to start pulling it back, it’s a relief to not be blinded and battered with wet hair. The project I was working on this morning was creating a pull up bar. When I moved to my new house there wasn’t room for my old bar on the truck, I’ve been without one for awhile and now that life is settling down I’d like to incorporate more exercise into my life. Buying a new one would be the easy but boring solution, so I found a tree with a strong horizontal limb and cleaned off an area for me to do pull ups. The branch should do fine and the only struggle getting up there as the rootball around the tree makes the ground uneven for a ladder. Some day I might hammer some wood onto the trunk for a ladder, but I’m happy with the current set up. An additional benefit to the branch over a bar is that the branch is so thick I can’t wrap my hands around it forcing me to use a gorilla grip which improves grip strength. 

Memorial day 2024

Let me tell you about my friend Lukasz Rogowski, more affectionately know as Rogo. We served together in 1st platoon, Delta company, 4th battalion 31st infantry, 2nd brigade combat team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum. We were some of the first new soldiers assigned to the unit when they returned from their previous deployment. Those were the tough days that made us into men, we were doing push ups all day long as punishment for our big mistake of being new guys. We shared a lot of painful experiences, but Rogo managed to always keep smiling. He must of had the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, it helped lightened the load. One time on CQ our squad leader had us holding our hand like binoculars against the window all night constantly scanning and he kept smiling. At JRTC in Louisiana we got in a fight and I said things I still regret, it’s was so hot our brains got fried. That sort of thing was typical and didn’t effect our friendship. Years after I was discharged he reached out asking life advice questions and when he signed off said “don’t be a stranger”, I try to be better at communicating with people now thanks to him. When I saw some odd behavior from him I reached out, knowing what I’ve been through I was afraid he was experiencing a similar situation, I wish I could have done more for him. When he first got to Drum I remember his POV looking like a monster truck, he loved his cars, so I was happy to see after he passed his family had his current vehicle fixed up and it looked great, he would have loved it. I want to give these men more of the honor they deserve so if anyone has stories of Rogo, feel free to share.

24 May 2024

With the riding mower down I still managed to get some smaller tasks done, like the smaller lawn that’s fenced in around the pool. The electric push mower is good for that since I can’t get the riding mower in there anyway. The fenced in grass is probably closer to what most people would consider a normal sized lawn and I’m able to mow it fairly quickly either because it’s so much smaller than what I’m used to or because I’ve spend so many hours mowing now that I’ve got my systems down. Some firsts of lawn care at this place are trimming the weeds and grass that grow around the fence and house, as well as using my new sprayer to hopefully knock back the weeds for a couple weeks. I have a gas weedwacker since I have a lot of use for it. At the old house I’d run through two batteries and still have more work to do, so I needed to switch to gas for that. Electric is nice since it’s just pushing a button to run where gas takes a bit of knowledge of soft touch, I’ve gotten much better at starting the weedwacker which makes me feel good about my progress. As I went around the fence I noticed that getting too closer to the fence would get the cutting strings caught on a chicken wire that’s laid against it. The chicken wire would get cut up, so I have to be more cautious of that in the future. Staying on top of spraying the weed killer solution would keep me from needing to wack over there, so we’ll see. This was also my first time with the new sprayer, my previous one was a pump where this one has a battery and a lock in for the sprayer. My biggest complaint with the old one was my hand getting tired from holding down the lever.

23 May 2024

Good news comes with the bad, I finally made it to the furthest corner of my property only to have another lawn mower belt break seconds later. I know I’m buying cheap belts, but I’m also driving like wild in the forest. There are even mulching blades for the mower that I don’t have, from now on I will stick to mowing grass. Maybe in the future I’ll get a bush hog to make quick work clearing small trees. The problem is I walk around the woods and get excited to clean things up, there’s been many nights I take the dog out for a walk only to go get some tool and start clearing until nightfall. After I had parked the mower I discovered what happened, a vine at least half an inch thick wrapped itself around the back bumper and was rubbing against the pulley system for the belt. The vine was behind me, so I couldn’t see it while riding and still took some struggling to get it free. Once I had the vine in hand I threw it back in the woods, but it made one last move grabbing my wrist and giving a cut. Nature always fights back. It leaves me asking what am I doing, I don’t know why I’m drawn to this and in 10, 20 years things will look unrecognizably different. I don’t know what the end result will be, I’m just following the plan. Reaching the furthest corner, marked by the painted 4×4 in the photo is exciting. Next I can work on clearing that Eastern edge, that will be a lot of chainsaw work, that area is mostly trees that grow in clusters that have bent over the neighbors fence. They will be frustrating to move, so it goes.