Recently spent a few days customizing my old track day helmet. Got a trip to DirtFish coming up, and figured it’d be nicer to use my own helmet if possible. And that the old decoration I had on it, which was mostly plastidip and electrical tape, was falling apart. So I basically stripped the whole thing, and did this style of doodling I used to do a lot in high school w/ sharpie. This is a WIP picture, but in the end, I sprayed it with matte clearcoat. It turned out way better than I would have expected. The other side is blue, and it’s got a half-Japanese half-Finnish vibe going on for, you know, reasons.

Other than that, most of my time has been rehabbing an injured shoulder. It’s been since the beginning of March, but finally things are starting to turn a corner. I’d been lax about doing a particular type of lateral raise because it was excruciating, but the PT clarified that the pain wasn’t causing any kind of damage, and until I worked my way up from a very light weight and pushed through some level of pain, I’d be stuck. So the last week, I’ve been diligent about doing even this particularly miserable exercise, and it has made the difference. Hopefully back to being able to swim & wingfoil soon. The weather’s been great, and it’s been torture to not be able to go make use of it.

The end of the school year’s rapidly approaching, which is pretty weird. Feels like only yesterday the kids started their new schools. Now it already feels old hat. Lots of testing going on, and J’s gonna take a geometry course over the summer to try to get to Algebra 2 next year, which will be an interesting challenge. I hope it’s a.) challenging and b.) he enjoys it. I think both of the kids have had a bit too easy of a time at school, so it’ll be interesting to see if we can get him in a place where he feels like he needs to work, but that it’s not crushing.

Still chugging along learning guitar. Still mostly terrible, but definitely getting to a point where I can play things that would have taken me a *lot* longer to pick up. It’s been a satisfying experience, and nice to get back to an analog instrument instead of just bleeps and blorps.

I’ve also been seeing a trainer sporadically – sometimes 2x/wk sometimes 1x – he’s mostly helping with mobility and shoulder stuff, but we’ve finally gotten to a point where I’m doing some stuff that’s *hard* rather than just stuff that is geared towards stability. It’s still comically low levels of weight/exertion compared to what I’m used to re: “working hard”, but I’ve gotta start somewhere and not jump into crazy shit. Also started riding my bike more – not just the eBike, but the regular analog bike bike. It’s strange, because after the eBike, it’s almost more of a mindset change – it’s less “go fast”, and more like “advantaged walking”. Which goes to show how long it’s been since I’ve done it. But it’s good. Weather’s been great, and it’s a way to get some effort, enjoying the outdoors, and not trashing a busted shoulder.