28 June 2024

It’s early morning and the princess is still asleep, so not much has happened today. I’ll tell you about my blunder last night while editing. We recorded the podcast at noon and I was able to edit the video at night after the baby went to sleep. It was about 40 minutes long and I had done some cool new techniques I’ve learned since there was a moment where Flizo, who was recording in his car while vacationing with his family, turned off his car and it started beeping, I had to edit out the noise. There was another scene about 30 minutes in where I edited in an image we were talking about. After I was finished I wanted to cut off the last literal second of the video, I pressed delete to remove it. Apparently I had the wrong section highlighted and deleted the last 10 minutes of the video, because I was tired and wanting to be done with it I exported the file. At that point I can’t do edits to that video anymore, if I had noticed before I clicked export I could have hit undo and saved myself some headache. The situation is resolved now, it just meant I had to go back and re-edit the last 10 minutes, then I had to make a new video that put together the 30 minutes with 10 minute ending where I ran into some more problems. I couldn’t upload the ending since it was too large a file, there was another route I could take, that’s the great thing about computers is they can do anything you want it’s only a matter of knowing the different paths. Finding that new path was a learning experience and I learned a lot, like to be patient and triple check.

27 June 2024

Last night the queen and I used the pool for the first time officially. We’ve gotten in the pool already, that was before it was clean and the chemicals figured out. Additionally the water is fairly warm now where it’s been a little chilly anytime we got in before. Chilly water and uncertain of it’s cleanliness made it less enjoyable, now I can jump in without a care. As the pendulum swings good, it will swing bad, I was messing around with the pool remote and turned the light on. The light was on all night and attracted a lot of bugs into the pool, so this morning I had to spend some time cleaning them out, not that bad. My Army friend who’s coming to visit for 4th of July called yesterday to discuss his travel dates, I’m glad he called since I thought he was coming at the end of the week and he’s arriving on Monday. This is the beginning of our Summer activities, I don’t think there will be time for anymore prepwork, guests will take the house as it is. We might be recording the podcast in a couple hours as one of the co-hosts is traveling, we’ll see. My brain is scattered right now trying to keep track of what needs to get done, what needs to be prepared, and what I’m currently doing. I need to shave before recording and I’d like to do some pull ups as my daily exercise. Over the last couple weeks I’ve been introducing exercise into my routine, it’s been going well. This week will hopefully have five days where I’ve done something, though for now the exercising is small, I’m mostly concerned with the habit.

26 June 2024

The grass got mowed and the screw I was concerned about got lost. There’s a cover for the pulleys on each side and each cover has two screws, I even tightened all the screws before starting. In the comments I saw loctite will help, I also thought about getting a nut on the other end. For the time being I removed the cover on the problematic side since I’m not going to continue losing screws and with only one I worry about the cover rubbing against the pulley. Luckily the belt is inside the pulley and doesn’t get touched, I would get crazy if I had another belt break so soon, but it looked like the pulley was rubbing the cover and metal on metal is never good. Some riding mowers are built without any covers so it’s not the end of the world, just part of the long term relationship with my mower. The work bench got moved to the poll barn without any trouble, I’m still astonished at how light that thing feels since it didn’t always feel that way. My muay thai heavy bag also got delivered yesterday and that gave me more difficulty to move. The queen and I were joking that it was a body bag since it’s 6 ft long and 150 lbs, getting it in the buggie felt like weekend at Bernie’s. After everything was moved I assembled a stand for my dumbbells, which are 90 lbs each. I used to have the 52 lbs dumbbells, this is why the old feels lighter, the weights I deal with regularly have gotten heavier and the distances I need to travel have gotten longer. Looking at the next couple weeks, things are going to get pretty hectic, people will be visiting almost every week. Once we’re passed all the visitors a new chapter begins, count down to the new born.

25 June 2024

Got some mowing to do today, I’ve been told my sister the dutchess is coming to visit this weekend and I’d like for the lawns to be about even and walkable if anyone wanted to walk around. When I lived on two acres, no one but me ever walked it, now I have the buggie though and can at least give people a driving tour. Last time I mowed I remember one of my new screws on the mower fell out, I still have some of the old ones that I’ll put in, still those screws are a problem I would like permanent fix for. Maybe tightening the screws as much as I can will keep them in place, I only hope they aren’t stuck when I need to remove them. There’s a work bench I’ll be attempting to move to the pole barn as well, we’ll see if I’ll be able to get it in the back of the buggie on my own. Having a table in the barn will be nice, it’ll give an area to do work on too. There is a stand for the dumbbells that needs to be assembled and having a workbench for that will be helpful, maybe I’ll even put the stand together today, I’m not trying to though. The rain from yesterday caused another big branch from my dead tree to fall, thankfully everything is still out of the way. The more that tree loses branches before finally falling the better, depending on where it falls I might let it lay there forever. On the forest side of the property there are places where trees lay, the landscape evolves around it and a big tree like that would be good for inoculating mushrooms. 

24 June 2024

Heavy rains falling this morning, everyone knows watching the rain is one of my favorite pastimes, this morning I had to get the princess to daycare. The roads around us are not great for rain, it seemed like they’d be worn down where car tires go and water gathers there to the point it felt like I was hydroplaning the whole time I was driving in the lines. My queen returned to work today after time off from her surgery, I hope everything goes well for her. The house feels strangely empty since I had gotten used to her being around. We had a good weekend with the family though. The princess continues to learn new words almost everyday, I do the best I can to narrate my life out loud so she can hear more words. Eventually I’ll strike the right word and she’ll repeat it back, then I repeat it a couple time to help solidify it in her memory. She’s been going through phases of shows she likes and I’m interested how she becomes all about one show then it’s almost forgotten, first it was Mickey mouse and I thought it would last forever. Then Cars made an appearance and we watched those movies on repeat, now Curious George is the hit, she’s always asking for the monkey. George is a good show for kids since he acts similar to a kid that gets in to everything and wants to explore. The princess spent less than a minute behind my speakers and now I can’t figure out how to get them working again. She certainly keeps me on my toes and constantly striving to improve.

21 June 2024

Happy first day of Summer everyone, I know it’s starting to feel like Summer where I am today’s high is going to be in the low 90s. This morning I rushed out to the pole barn to take a photo of the heavy bag stand for the customer service rep to show what I received. As I thought might be the case they ship the other parts separating and that’s what they confirmed. Glad to have that resolved. A Youtube short I posted yesterday got some good traction, in the beginning it was getting a thousand views an hour. Of course I’ve got to compete with Kim and Kanye who made a million a minute. I’ve been very pleased with how my new social media has been going and am grateful that I started it up again. When I stopped the podcast last time I was left with the regret that I wouldn’t get to see how it changes me. The change I’m specifically talking about is the change from talking aloud for years, like I’ve been doing these writings since 2018 I think and my ability to write is amazing compared to what I was doing then. The struggle to write is no longer there, I’ve already notice the preshow jitters of recording have gone away. As things grow it will morph into something different and I don’t know what that will be. 

20 June 2024

A lot of weeks I notice myself needing to take off on Wednesday, when I’m tired and doing a lot of rest I don’t have much desire or content to write around that time. There was no mowing or yard work this week, mostly all I’ve done is move heavy stuff to my pole barn like dumbbell weights, a punching bag, and a bag holder made of steel. There was a problem with the bag holder as the one I ordered was meant to hold two bags and they sent me the single. The bags I have planned are a six feet long muay thai bag for kicking and a 200 lbs heavy bag from realistic weight. At my previous house I had a 100 lbs bag and which is normally considered heavy since a lot of people get 88 lbs bags, but I knew I needed something more. The 200 lbs bag has arrived and that got moved back with everything, the UTV I got from the neighbor has been crucial in moving stuff. About five years ago I built a sturdy work bench out of woods, I’ve been hesitant to move it to the barn since it’s so heavy. After moving my 200 lbs bag and steel beams I picked up the workbench to see how it compared and it was feeling light now which makes me very happy, I can move it on my own and I’m stronger than I was. The Bois and I are going to be recording our weekly episode today at noon, usually it’s at 8 PM. Alex had said before that it feels weird recording when there’s day light, late sun during the Summer didn’t feel too weird, but today will definitely feel different. Strange looking fungus in the picture today.

18 June 2024

My princess had her second year doctor’s appointment yesterday. In keeping with my character of being a king, I’m going to start referring to my wife as queen and daughters as princesses. The appointment went well, she’s healthy, they did need to draw blood. The princess did great though, I had to hold her on the examination table while the nurses worked. They had me completely wrap her up with my body, it even reminded me of a jiu jitsu move. In the end she hardly acted out, of course there was crying, but that would have happened regardless due to everyone in the room acting so weird. The princess will start crying if I even pretend to be upset. During the blood draw she didn’t try to get away or fight at all, we had a harder time holding still for the doctor to look in her ears. Yesterday I learned another reason why my right elbow sprained from holding the princess, when she wants to get out of my arms and starts squirming, she’s developed a technique to put her feet on my forearm and push my elbow open. My lone bicep is not as strong as her legs when she’s on the inside. It came as a shock because I was carrying her like normal trying to remember what needs to get done when it felt like she was getting so heavy I couldn’t keep my arm up anymore. It’s a wild ride watching her personality develop and see what interesting ideas she comes up with. 

17 June 2024

We had a whirlwind weekend, my wife went to the hospital from work on Friday, then had an appendectomy on Saturday and we got her home on Sunday. Friday was also my daughters second birthday, we celebrated with mom once she was home. I can’t remember much of what happened this weekend aside from when my body would be at it’s limit. The first time I visited the hospital I parked on the wrong side of the building at walked all the way around carrying a toddler and a suitcase. When my arms felt like giving out I thought up a time during infantry school, it was the last night and filled with activities, the one I thought of was having to carry ammo cans down the road at night for an unknown distance. Ignore the pain and keep moving, it’ll be over eventually. This morning it seems like life is fairly normal with the addition of sore muscles. After I did pull ups on my tree my right elbow was a little sprained, I figured I had been carrying the baby primarily on my right, so I switched to carrying on the left. The was a moment yesterday when I was making eggs on a cast iron pan and my left wrist ran out of energy unable to lift the pan. My hand muscles are also tired and I can feel their weakness when I squeeze, this type of exhaustion excites me. If I’m doing alright when I’m this tired, imagine how strong I’ll be when I’m rested. That thinking I keep on my mind with my five year plan, the babies will keep me at my lowest energy, but in about five years they’ll both be going to school and I’ll be a king.