Well…have been up since 2:30 and can’t get back to sleep so I thought I’d come here for one of these as I sit here frustrated as hell…with having to ration my allergy meds, I have been coughing all night and that isn’t helping at all…I did find out that “Cannon” is on a 3 am…not sure what that piece of information is going to do for me but now I know….haven’t seen Clarence Ponsler on antenna channel 64.2 yet…he’s normally on at station breaks with the weather…oh goody..”Barnaby Jones” is on now at 4….this is going to be a long, long day if this keeps up….have to remember to hit the delay button on the coffee maker just in case I do get back to sleep at some point….I am going to need coffee this morning…I wonder if it’s going to rain? Yes it is…so I may not be able to get on the bike until later if at all….but the forecast calls for just cloudy today even though I see the radar has rain coming in from the west….but tomorrow is rain all day and maybe some thunderstorms tomorrow night…then it’s getting cold again and I am getting tired of it…..okay…I need to try to get back to sleep for a while….3 1/2 hours is just not going to do it…more later….okay…that didn’t do it…went back to bed and just knew it wasn’t going to happen so I’m back up at 4:20 and it looks like the day is going to be weird from it….damn….boredom is bad enough when it is at the normal times but at 4:20? Oh, well…don’t have anywhere to be so I guess it’s no big deal….
All posts by James DeVol
Social distance…day 2…
Well…okay, this isn’t going to be a daily series after all…I don’t think I have enough to say and my life is not so different than normal to be interesting…but, I do have some observations that I want to share….when I was out to Meijers doing the end of days shopping, I had never seen anything like it…empty shelves everywhere and I still don’t get the whole “buy all the toilet paper there is” thing that is going on…I did buy 6 rolls but that is enough to get me 6 weeks with the mega rolls I was looking for….but, I was able to get almost everything that I needed but forgot a bunch of stuff…or didn’t think of getting the ingredients to make soup with the ham bones and the turkey carcass I have in the freezer…so, in a couple of weeks after things settle down some, I’ll make a run out to get the veggies I need…until that time I’ll just use what I have here…I can easily get through three weeks to a month with what is on hand…on thing that is concerning me some is what people are going to do that can’t afford to be off work? I know that when my kids were little there is no way we could have weathered this without help from the in-laws…at that time, there was just no emergency cash and there are so many people in this country in that boat now that someone has to do something…I wonder if we could try not giving huge tax cuts to the rich for a change so the government would have options? I feel fortunate that I am retired and my cash will keep coming in no matter what happens…I hope…but I also have my house down payment money I can use in an emergency that will get me through at least two years…I sure hope we can figure out something so the suffering is not centered on the people who need it the least…we can but will we?
A badge of honor…
Well…our governor Whitmer must be doing something right because she sure had gotten under the idiot in chief’s skin…after her appearance on MSNBC where she told the truth that the federal government…run by idiot boy…”didn’t take the threat of this virus seriously” and now the governors are having to step in and clean up the mess, trump blew up on twitter with his normal insults saying that he stands with the people of Michigan…yeah, no you don’t you moron…weeks and weeks ago you could have done anything to get more testing to determine the scope of the problem but you belittled the scientists and said your “gut feeling” was that there would only be a few cases and your response to the crisis was “perfect”…only in your diseased mind is anything you have ever done “perfect”…you have bungled every damn thing you have touched your entire life…and let’s talk about low the bar is to measure your performance….a bar that is so low they had to dig a six foot deep hole to find it…with the media heaping praise on you for not being the worst asshole in the world for 5 whole minutes yesterday…and the stories that you had changed were all over the media…and it’s the same old bullshit that we see when you manage to not drool all over yourself…he’s changed…but that’s just frickin not true….cripes, I’ll bet everyone would love to be judged at work with that same bar…if you show up and don’t crap on your desk you get a promotion! Let’s be blunt…Governor Whitmer, it is a badge of honor to be attacked by the dotard in chief…it means you are smart, decisive, and successful and he just can’t stand when his failings are pointed out to him…keep it up and keep protecting us here in Michigan.
March 17th
Well….it is a little funny that the same pattern repeats itself with my sleep on nights when I am being good with no cocktails…and that means up at 2:45, then trying to get back to sleep for an hour and then getting two more hours of fitful tossing and turning…and this time there was a little added stress of this whole coronavirus thing and what’s going to happen with the economy and it’s effects on my family and friends…but, I’ll deal with that later today….have been coughing again, too which I know is allergies but I couldn’t get any more allergy stuff yesterday so I have to ration the 27 doses I have and make them last for 6 weeks or so…and I do have other stuff that I don’t like that I can use in a pinch…I did get a nice bike ride in yesterday and it looks like I have the shifter adjusted right so that made it fun…and I am going to get out this morning after I take it easy a little and have some coffee…didn’t get a lot done yesterday but a little clean up and I think I’ll continue that today…need to find places to put my tools and materials downstairs since I don’t want to have to go out to the garage for everything…I do have a book case that would serve so I think I’ll start there…and there is trash that needs to be put out…have empty plaster containers and lots of old sandpaper that needs to be discarded and containers of screws, etc. that need to go back outside…and when that’s done, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning…..but that will be later…I need to have more coffee and make some more in the French press…more later….
Social distance diary…day 1…
Well…I have been thinking about doing a daily diary on the “social distancing” that we all have been asked to do by limiting our trips outside the house to essentials to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus…and with the shut down of basically everything but grocery stores and pharmacies here in Michigan, that request seems to be a little more than that…which I am okay with. After all, I am in the cohort that is at the most risk from getting infected since I am over 60…but I don’t have any underlying health problems so I guess that’s something…I do have something funny to relate as this whole thing starts…texting with one of my younger friends last week, she asked the question “how am I going to deal with having to be isolated for weeks?” If I could have laughed through the phone, I would have…and my reply was “that is my normal life”…I very seldom see anyone or go out to dinner or to have drinks anymore…or to movies or concerts…that stuff just has lost it’s appeal to me…I know I have thought about re-engaging some, but I guess it was a pretty good idea that I put it off to save money and and get more work done around here…so, after spending about 90 bucks at the grocery store today…I have enough here to hunker down for at least a month if necessary…I’ll run out of cocktails before then but I do have enough for the next couple of weeks and we should know something about how bad it’s going to be by then…I even got toilet paper this morning! I am going to still ride the bike every day even with my allergies trashing me…until they do a complete lockdown and tell everyone to stay in their homes…
Yow! Dow down 3,000 points today…
Well…with the incompetent “stable genius” in the WH and his flailing on every damn thing, financial traders and investors have voted their vote of no confidence in the idiot trump and his minions by a bloodbath in the stock market today…never seen in history, the Dow lost 3,000 points today…a 13% drop in just one day…to put this in perspective, I’ll use the example I’ve used before…if you had 100K in your 401K this morning, you now only have 87 thousand…and since Feb 12 if you started with that same 100K, you have about 65 thousand of it left and tomorrow could be even worse…how do you feel now, trump voters? What the hell could make you not support this country destroying murderer? Losing everything? Oh, I get it…it’s Obama’s fault for letting the stock market get so high on his watch and tricking you into thinking you were doing well…and this was a long term plan, just like his fake birth certificate….who would ever think that electing a stupid game show host would cause any problems? As with what he said about the coronavirus just today to the governors of this country..”you are on your own”… he takes no responsibility for anything and never has in his entire life….so I guess we ARE on our own…hey idiot boy, why not make it official and just resign already…every damn time you open your mouth you do more and more damage….and you’ve only got 8 months left anyway…
It’s going to get real…
Well…I guess today is the day that shit is going to get real here in Michigan with the coronavirus…last week, our governor took the necessary step of closing down all of our K-12 schools and universities and colleges did the same…but this morning, if the reports are correct, governor Whitmer is going to issue an order closing all bars and restaurants except for take outs since there are enough idiots our there who are stupid or repubs, or both who are not taking this disease seriously and are still going out and packing themselves in these crowded spaces when it is clear that this lack of personal space is what fuels transmission. To show how stupid the repubs really are, just yesterday we had the idiot Devin Nunes going on tv telling people to go out to restaurants and bars because it will be easy to get a reservation and the repub governor of Oklahoma posting photos of he and his family mugging it up at a crowded restaurant while dismissing the severity of this outbreak. Now, maybe this will spur the natural selection that we need to rid ourselves of such stupidity but I don’t wish any disease on anyone….I am pissed because these idiots could infect me or any one of my brothers or sisters who are all over 60…and two who are pushing 80 and the death rate for people that age is pushing 20%…maybe they’ll stop being stupid when grandma dies…but, probably not….what morons….
Ten percent more gone…
Well….just finished up doing my last grocery run for a month and took a look at the dow averages…yow, down another 10% this morning or about 2300 points which took back all the gains that the idiot trump was crowing about last week…and these losses show that traders have lost confidence that idiot boy and his minions know what the hell they are doing…and this was after the fed just cut interest rates to zero and pumped 1.5 trillion…yep, with a T, into the banking system to maintain liquidity….now, I am not a great believer that the Dow is a gauge of the health of the economy, but it is an indicator of the carnage that is going to happen because trump and his cronies fiddled while the cornonavirus got a foothold here and is now exploding across the country…and it has been left to governors and mayors to do make the hard decisions as trump crows ‘I’m not responsible” for the lack of testing and information about the spread of the virus….information that is vital to keeping the virus from killing thousands here. To emphasize the depravity of trump and his minions, you just have to look at the news reports from Reuters that detailed trump’s efforts to buy a German company that is working on a vaccine…and the big stipulation that trump put on the transaction is that the vaccine would be exclusively for use in the US….yep, as normal, trump is saying “go to hell” to the rest of the world in the midst of this crisis an showing that he really is “the worst person in the world” to steal a phrase from Keith O. I wonder how long it will take to fumigate the stench from the WH and get our allies to trust us again? I guess we’ll find out in November….
March 16th
Well…running late again today with sleeping in all the way to 6 again…but, that didn’t help how I feel today…just worn out from the allergies that have flared like crazy over the past few days and I’m sure are going to get worse…I know that working downstairs yesterday didn’t help either but that had to be done….I do have to make the last grocery run this morning and I am a little curious if there is anything on the store shelves to buy…I have enough food for a few weeks but I do need some toothpaste and cocktail materials if I am going to “socially isolate” for an extended time and not go out anywhere…shooting for enough for a couple of months of this but I don’t want to be one of those hoarders who are buying everything in sight….I should hit target for some allergy meds, too to get everything done at once…I did get a bike ride in yesterday but ran out of adjustment on the rear shifter trying to get the downshifts to work as they should so I had to make a big swing at it by moving the cable and resetting the fine adjuster…I think I have it set but we’ll see when I get out later today….I did get the fine adjuster freed up with a little wd so I guess that’s a bonus….not sure how much work I’m going to get done today with doing the grocery run and the bike ride…should probably take it a little easy for a day or so to let the allergies settle down so I think I’ll make today a work planning day and get a new set of tasks ready to be started….more later…
The latest Star Wars movie…
Well….the latest and last Star Wars movie showed up on Plex yesterday and I just had to watch it last night…finally, a Star Wars that lived up to the first three in the series…it kept me interested all the way through and there was a chemistry between the three leads that has been missing in most of the other movies and that was a fun to see…and there were a couple of pretty cool easter eggs that I laughed at…during a scene where the leads were walking through a bar, there was one to Doctor Who when one of the patrons in the bar was a Sontarun…and near the end of the movie, they fixed one of the big mistakes from the original movie where Chewy was the only one of the leads who didn’t get a medal in the last scene…when Leia dies near the end, one of her aides hands the medal she got to Chewy and I thought that was pretty cool….all in all, a fitting conclusion to the Star Wars saga…and well worth watching if you’re a fan…