All posts by James DeVol

Darn, the day got away from me…

Well…man, I don’t know how the heck I always have so much to do but that seems to be every darn day…like today…3 rides in that I finished at 11am, then straight into making potato soup and went out to shovel the walks and the alley while the veggies cooked so I can get my car out later in the week…then made the ruax  and thickened the milk to finished the soup…had lunch and did the weight work and now I’m almost done for the day at 2:40pm…but I should go down and clean the bike room with all of the dust that has accumulated on the indoor bike…I started to lubricate it yesterday and need to finish that, too…and I need to make dinner for today, too…and that will take some time since I’m making chicken and roasted potatoes to try to use up the 6 pounds of potatoes I got last week for two bucks…but I also want to read some but I guess that will have to wait til after dinner…oh, and there is some soccer I want to watch but don’t have time for it…oh, well…

December 3rd

Well…darn…we got a few more inches of snow out here last night and I really hope it’s not the pattern for the winter setting up…we do have a warm up coming over the weekend and it looks like into the 40′s and then settling into upper 30′s for highs for most of December and I can live with that…going to put the bird feeder up this weekend when it will be warm enough for the suction cups to grab the window…and the doves have already been looking for the feeder so I need to get it done….I do have to cook today with all of the leftovers gone so it looks like a day for making some potato soup and cooking some chicken leg quarters that I took out of the freezer the other day…it will be nice to not have turkey for a change…now I’m waiting for the ham for the holidays to go one sale next week….will be eating out of the freezer for the next couple of weeks and need to make the turkey soup over the weekend to get some room in there and I need to remember that I have ham bones for soup in there, too…that I will be adding to…even bought some more containers so I’ll have enough for at least two each of turkey and ham going in the freezer…not much to do today…need to get on the bike in a few minutes to get three rides in and get to the soup for lunch…will need to get to the weights since I skipped them yesterday…just forgot but I won’t today….more later…

Another BP machine…

Well…after getting nothing but 200 Bp readings on the new B
P machine, and having an appointment to calibrate it next Monday morning, I had to order a better one today…but to get it here before Monday, I had to sign up for the free 30 day trial of Prime and then it will be here Friday for no shipping charges…just have to remember to cancel it before they charge me the 139 bucks it costs…I may just take advantage of it for the next month and order stuff that I could use like food since there is no 35 buck minimum order to get free shipping…so I’ll start looking tomorrow for stuff that I am going to buy anyway…and the new BP machine normally goes for 49 bucks and I got it for 27 on sale, only 5 bucks more than the first one…and this one comes with bluetooth and an app that graphs the readings and gives you trends, etc…now I just need to figure out how to return the other one since I’ve never returned anything to Amazon in all the years I’ve been buying from them…

Stupid trump tricks…

Well…if you are planning on buying a house soon, you’d better get it done before the idiot trump gets in office in January…in one of the things that repubs always want to do, they are floating the idea of privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the organizations that guarantees bonds that are used to make home loans that the government took a stake in during the great recession to keep the mortgage market from collapsing…and they want to remove the regulations that keep people from getting gouged when they buy a home…without those regulations, economists are already weighing in that it would add thousands of interest costs yearly to all 30 year mortgages that are taken out after these changes…and that is another attack on people in this country who are not rich and can barely afford a home as it is…and this will take another 50 million people out of the market…and it will cause a housing led recession that will suck trillions of dollars in equity out of real estate…so now we have another trump tax on all homeowners in this country…how do you feel now trumpers when the only place you’ve made money in the past decade is going to go away? Smart voters, huh?

Grocery run today…

Well…with the winter storm watch and gale warning we are under, I decided to go out and do the grocery run today since the streets are almost clear and we may get 3-5 inches overnight…going to make some kind of soup tomorrow…either turkey or potato and today I remembered to pick up the wide egg noodles I need for the turkey…but that will probably wait til Wed…I did get the rides in downstairs and I’m down to 274 miles to go…even though I’m still drinking coffee with not getting them done until almost 2:30 and I can’t keep that up…I don’t think I’ve ever bought so many vegetables for so long in my life…have been buying a stalk of celery, 2 pounds of carrots, and a head of cauliflower from aldis every week and have been cutting them up to snack on or for soups…just refilled the cut containers of all three and this bag of carrots has the biggest damn carrots I’ve ever seen…I mean over a foot long and 4 inches in diameter? Okay…I really do want to read some this aft so I’ll stop here…I do need to clean up the indoor bike but that will be tomorrow…

December 2nd

Well…man, I feel like crap this morning and it’s going to be a struggle to get started as I pour the coffee down for a jump start…one of these days I’m going to just not do anything but not today…need to get on the bike by 7:30 and I may run out for groceries so I can make soup in the next couple of days…really don’t want to drive the car in the snow but I don’t think that is avoidable…didn’t get much done yesterday other than laundry but with that done, I don’t have much to do today but I feel like I should do something but don’t know what that would be yet…I really do wish that I could do what other people do and just take it easy and do nothing…maybe watch old movies and drink coffee but I’m just not wired that way and that sucks…oh, well…I do want to get the bird feeder up on the window in the next few days to give them something to eat with the snow covering everything…maybe that would be a project if it gets above freezing so the suction cups will attach…not much to do today…have 15 minutes before I need to get on the bike for 24 more miles today and that is really getting wearing…man, I’m feeling old today…more later…

New BP machine came…

Well…the new BP machine came today and I think it’s not working right since it has read my BP of over 200 and it’s never been that high ever…so I’ll take it into my doctor’s office in a coupe of weeks to calibrate it and see if I’m doing something wrong…yeah, I know it’s not that since this is the third one I’ve had and they are really easy to use…oh, well…I did get the new set of Betron reserve earbuds and I like the new ones better than the old ones…they sound great and have black anodized fittings that look pretty cool…I did get outdoors to shovel the snow today and I may have to do the grocery run tomorrow with the winter storm watch we have on starting tomorrow afternoon and lasting a few days…and I want to make turkey soup in the instant pot but don’t have any noodles…have everything else but I do need to hit aldis, too, since I am trying to get into eating veggies for snacks with ranch…not much ranch…but it’s funny when I lay out the cut up celery, carrots, and cauliflower in containers here on the couch to start my nights…and even with ranch, it is still a lot better for me than pretzels…I did get 24 miles in this morning and that puts me under 300 miles to go and I’ll keep trudging forward…okay need to get the veggies ready…

Still darn cold…

Well…it looks like it’s going to be another cold day today with the temp just barely to 30…and I am still cold from doing 3 rides downstairs where I have most of the heat turned off…no need to heat it to 66 like up here…298 miles left to go and a full month to do it so it looks like an anti climatic end to the riding this year…should get there with a couple of weeks to spare….just put the laundry in the dryer and that is really all I planned to do today…I did finish “Ringworld” last night and I’m going to start “Ringworld Engineers” this afternoon…didn’t remember the book at all it’s been so long since I read it for the first time…have read all of the first tier books I got at the sale so I’ll start looking at the nice to have ones to find something to read…okay…need to put the heating pad on and get ready to suit up to clear the walks after the race…

December 1st

Well…damn, I’m already tired of the cold weather and having the furnace running almost constantly…and having to put the heating pad on just to tolerate it…not going to be a good winter if this keeps up…slept about normal for me with waking up at 5am and out of bed just before the coffee maker started at 6 and need to get moving and on the bike by 7 to get two rides in before the F1 race starts at 11…not going to do a double ride today after the effects of doing it yesterday so the third ride will be in the afternoon…need to keep grinding it out at 24 miles a day indoors and I should hit the goal with a week to spare…it has done nothing but snow here for the past few days and it looks like it’s going to continue all this week with some rain and ice mixed in…will have to go out at some point for a grocery run with the turkey running out and I’ll need to make turkey soup from the carcasses I have in the freezer and I’ll have to look and see if I have enough containers to put it in….I do have to do laundry today but I’m not sure what else I’ll do…probably clean a bit or just read…who knows? More later….

Michigan wins!

Well….that was a shocker…Michigan just beat Ohio State for the 4th year in a row and that was not supposed to happen with Ohio a 23 point favorite and ranked #2 in the country…it was a defensive game with neither offense doing much but Michigan scored the 13 points they needed to win against 10 points for Ohio…the game was scarred with scuffles between the teams at the end and it pisses me off that the new head coaches at Michigan and Ohio are not teaching their players the number one thing for me in college sports and that is respect for your opponent…and that will mar this win for me…it is a win but damn what an ugly way to end a good win…