Well…as I said a few hours ago, I was concerned that getting up at 4:30 was going to leave me bored by 8 and I was right…already have all of my work done for the day….started out with waxing the floor in the spare room and then hung the door which came out okay…still needs some adjustment but it opens, closes and latches okay so that will be something for later…and it appears my repairs to the hinge pin and the door are going to hold…then I went out and shoveled the slush so it won’t freeze into solid ice later when it gets colder, and then I had some work to do downstairs and got that done…and that finishes up what I had to do today…but, I am going to get out for a ride in a little while since I have some mail that needs to be mailed and I think I’ll make the ride over to the main post office part of today’s bike ride…I do need to cook later so maybe I won’t be so bored after all….and I know I’m going to need a nap later this aft…and I think I’ve earned it….more later….
All posts by James DeVol
February 18th
Well…don’t let anyone tell you that being up early is a “magical” time that should be savored…it’s not..it’s just up at 4:34 and then here at 5:25….but, I promised I wasn’t going to bitch about that any more…so, I won’t…I did get to bed early so maybe it’s not too bad…we’ll see later on in the morning…I did wake up pretty sore from painting but I didn’t take anything for it last night but it feels like I have tennis elbow and my thumb is quite bad, too…had a hard time pulling on the brake lever on the bike yesterday…okay…geez…I need to stop the whining….the room came out pretty good but there are a couple of spots where the paint soaked in that I’ll have to go over to make it match the rest of the wall but that’s not too bad…I was a little concerned that I would have to put a third coat on but it dried evenly so two will do…and I got the floor mopped last night so I can wax it this morning and try to re hang the door….but I am going to wait a while before I get going to make sure that I don’t have everything done before 8 and then set myself up for boredom for the rest of the morning…I do need to start putting my tools and materials away since I am done with most of them for now and I would like this place to not look like a construction area anymore….more later…
Busy day…
Well…man, it’s been a busy day today with getting started on the painting in the final room just a little after 8 this morning…after going out and getting 2 gallons of paint and the shades for the new window…so, I put the first coat on and it looked like one of those comedy routines where the paint just disappears into the wall after it’s applied…okay, not quite that bad but I really thought that I might have to do three coats to get it to cover…but, after the second coat drying some, it looks like two will do it and I am done with the large indoor projects…at least the painting part of it but it took me until almost 11:30 to finish and I am sore from using all those new muscles…so tomorrow I’ll clean and wax the floor and the room will be done except for hanging the door….and I think I’ll do that tomorrow, too….I even got a bike ride in today but now I am done for the day and am going to watch Man U at 3 and then the race at 4 since the idiot boy is not going to be there today…and, with getting up around 5, I think I may take a nap…
Barr really, really has to go…
Well…running a little late getting here for this one today and I have good reasons for it that I’ll get to later…first, another day, another revelation that Bill Barr has used his position to try to help trump instead of upholding the law…late last year, a Turkish bank with close ties to Turkey’s strongman was under investigation for a multitude of crimes including money laundering and helping Iran get around the UN sanctions it was under for it’s nuclear program…and of course Erdogan didn’t like that so he called the idiot trump, knowing that he is a patsy who can be taken advantage of, and asked him to kill the investigation before indictments could be handed down by the SDNY…and, of course, idiot boy called up his fixer Barr and told him to kill the investigation which Barr tried mightily to do but the prosecutors at SDNY were having none of that since they had spent years building the case and it was clear that the bank was breaking the law….so before Barr could fire anyone in the SDNY office, they filed the indictments and got the case into the courts…now, from what we’ve seen lately, that doesn’t matter to Barr at all…if it benefits trump or his cronies, there is nothing Barr won’t do…and that makes me call for his resignation…again…along with 1,100 former prosecutors who signed a letter saying that Barr is corrupting the justice system and has to go….and now….
February 17th
Well…it’s another 4:57 morning this morning and I am a little worn out…hope the coffee starts to work soon since I have work to do today that is going to start soon…I think I slept okay last night but 5 1/2 hours is not enough….I did get a lot of work done on the spare room yesterday with painting the door frames and cutting in all the corners and around the windows so today all I have to do is paint the walls and ceiling…but I have to go out and get paint first along with the blinds I need for the new window…but I won’t hang that for a few days until I see if I need a second coat of paint…have needed one on all of the walls so far so I guess I should plan on it and get two gallons of paint this morning…I still need to do 4 windows and the doors on the linen closet so I’m sure I’ll need the paint….so 50 more bucks but that will be the last I need to spend until I start on the outside in the spring….didn’t get anything else done yesterday but I think that was enough for one day…I did get a bike ride in and I am going to try to get one in again today after I paint and before Man U plays…and the 500 is on this afternoon after yesterday’s rain which I can watch since the idiot trump won’t be there… so I need to get started soon…but not until I have more coffee…more later…
I wonder if that is happiness?
Well….this one is going to be a little weird for me but bear with me…I decided to go out for a bike ride today and headed into the city to take a look around…when I got there, I pulled up to Rosa Parks circle to watch the skaters for a bit and something just waved over me and I couldn’t help but smile…it was a strange feeling that I don’t remember having in a long, long time…and it hit me…I wonder if it is happiness? I am getting older but but I’m pretty healthy…I have health insurance that doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg…I have a nice place to live…for now…my youngest son and his wife are expecting my first grandchild…and I have enough money in the bank that I don’t have to worry much about emergencies anymore….it has been so long since I have had almost everything sorted out that I really don’t know how to act when things are going good….but, I really do think that feeling was happiness and I liked it….I wonder if other people feel like that? Hope so….
February 16th
Well…running about on time today for a Sunday and I’ve already read the paper and did remember to come here before I settled in to read the ads…slept okay last night but was up at 4:37 for the first time…I did get back to sleep for an hour or so and I consider that a win…feel okay with only a half cup of coffee in me so maybe it will be a good day…and I’m only a little creaky this morning so I’ll take that as a win, too…had the third day off the bike yesterday but I am going to try to get out there today since it is already 28 degrees and that is almost warm enough to go…but there is ice on the roads from the little snow yesterday so I’ll have to wait until it gets above freezing later in the day….I did get the last room completely prepped for painting tomorrow so it will be an easy job to put two coats on in one day and then I need to get the door back on but that might wait til Tuesday so the paint on the door frame can harden some first….so, I may scrub the floor and treat it before I move anything back into the room as I wait….then the only painting I’ll have left is three window frames but they all need a bunch of repair and stripping so that will take some time…I do need to clean the blinds on two of the windows, too but that is not a big job and they look really good after they are clean…not much to do today….just going to screw around until soccer comes on at 9 and then maybe some cleaning this afternoon since I am skipping the 500 with the idiot trump going to be there…more later…
On a lighter note…
Well…okay, got my screed for the day out and now it’s time to lighten things up for one to talk about little nonsense things that I have been observing or that have happened that I haven’t had a chance to talk about yet…one thing I’ve noticed since I started filling the bird feeders is that sparrows travel in packs…I have never once see a solitary sparrow on either feeder…when they come, it’s in flocks of 25 or more and they push and shove each other to get to the feeders…yep, feeders…yesterday I had two of them at a time on the one that hangs on the window and that is the first time that has happened…and even though it’s just sparrows on the feeders, it is still fun to watch them. You know I talked about my disappointment with the adhesive that I used to attach the latch/stop to the side of the house when I built the new gate for the fence…it just turned to powder and the 2×4 I’m using for the stop was just hanging from the latch hasp as the gate swung…after that, I cleaned off the old adhesive but still had half a tube of it left so I tried it again and it is so weird to me that this time it is still adhered to the side of the house through winter while the first time it fell off after a couple of weeks…not that I’m complaining but I am a little confused since it is the same adhesive out of the same tube…strange…is that enough? Yep, that’s enough for today…oh, one more thing…I did get the last room ready for painting today with masking off the closet door and the windows, and playing finger painting with plaster to make the smooth repaired areas look like the rest of the textured walls…I can’t wait to see how they look after painting…okay, that’s enough….
NASCAR can go right to hell…
Well…I knew that the owners of nascar and most of the drivers are trump loving morons and that was shown when he was installed and drivers like Kesolowski and Bowyer expressed their glee on twitter and I responded to them with a question…” you have young kids, would you point to trump as a role model for them?” Of course, they couldn’t defend it so they didn’t respond…and we have seen the heads of nascar, the France family, palling around with the idiot boy and wearing their MAGA hats… we’ve even seen driver Austin Dillon giving the white power “OK” hand signal in the intros to the races…so nascar is a cesspool of trump supporting, entitled, right wing assholes…even with that, I have been ignoring those facts since I am still a race fan and wanted to see the races, but, with the invite of the asshole in chief to be grand marshal of the Daytona 500 tomorrow, I have reached my breaking point…normalizing trump with this type of event is something I will not be part of…so I will not be watching the 500 tomorrow…and, being honest, I have been losing my interest in nascar for years now and have basically used the races for background noise as I take a nap on Sunday afternoons…hence the term that I use, “napcar” to describe the series. I hope the trump loving France family enjoys their little bubble of right wing assholes…but for a lot of the rest of us, nascar is dead to us with this last straw….great way to grow the series, morons…
February 15th
Well…running about on time today with another morning of getting up before 6…one drawback of not tossing and turning so much is that I spend too much time sleeping on one shoulder or the other and that leads to inflaming the tendons in my shoulders…have had huge pain in my left for a couple of weeks now and that is going to make painting Monday a little hard…but I’ll try a little ibuprofen and see if that helps…I did get the rest of the sanding done yesterday and most of the clean up but still need to mask off the closet door and wipe down the walls to get the rest of the dust off…but that only leaves me a little work to do over the next two days and I can get that done easily….I do need to plan the next steps after I finish that room and I think the first thing will be cleaning the laundry room since I haven’t touched that yet and it is a little gross with all of the dust and cobwebs….and I do need to figure out the baseboard trim that will work in the areas where the original trim is missing…and I have the rest of the windows that need to be repaired and painted along with cleaning the blinds…so, it’s not like I don’t have enough work to do….and when it warms up I’ll have a full time job on the outside so I think I may have to get my rest time in over the next few weeks…not much to do today…I am going to veg a little and watch some soccer with my coffee before I get to working today…and I am going to try to get out on the bike but that will have to wait til late afternoon with it only 6 degrees out there right now….more later….