Well…I was really looking forward to all of the sports to watch today and it was okay until my teams started to play…both Michigan and Man U are stinking up the place and I really think I like games better where one of my teams is not playing….after all, you can’t be disappointed if you have no stake in it….and this year, it appears that every team that I root for is really bad and that just compounds the problem when you can’t say “at least the Wings are playing good” and have something to look forward to. Oh, well…so I think I’ll look for something else to watch other than those two games until the Rose Bowl starts at 5….and I’ll be back to politics tomorrow…I need to take the rest of the day off and just veg…still not feeling 100% with all of the pain I’ve been having and my lungs are still iffy so I’ll use that for an excuse….
All posts by James DeVol
January 1st
Well…another year starts and the good thing is that I don’t have to be depressed about paying over 800 bucks in rent….I did sleep okay last night but feel a little slow this morning with having an extra half cocktail but I haven’t had any coffee yet so that may be part of it…and I didn’t get up til after 6 so that may be a win…not sure yet…I wonder when I got too old to go out to celebrate NYE? Last night was just another night for me and I didn’t hear from anyone…is that a little lame or is it the normal progression that comes with getting older? Who knows? I do know that all of the tv shows that I have been watching in the morning for background noise have changed today and I’m not sure what I think about that…I mean it was comforting to have the Lone Ranger on every morning and now I need to find a new routine…just found out the News Radio is one of the the new shows so I guess that will be okay….I did take a look at the stats for my site as a kind of NY thing yesterday and found that, in December, I had over 3,500 distinct visitors to my site with over 12,000 visits so thanks to everyone for coming here and reading my stuff…I know that’s not a lot when you measure it against other sites but it’s pretty cool to me and keeps me motivated to continue to try to have something to say every day….and I did the math and found that I did 811 of these last year….that seems to be a lot to me….not much to do today…soccer starts in about 20 minutes and then there will be football, too with Michigan playing at 1 and Man U at 3 so I’m going to settle in and just veg it out for the day…more later….
Okay…it wasn’t the last one…
Well…yeah, I know, I said the last one was the last one for the year but it wasn’t….things have happened since then that I wanted to talk about…no, not about the idiot trump…I’ve had enough of him to last a hundred lifetimes…my son did get the live tv on the internet working again and I am just so geeked to have that back…now I can choose to watch the football, hockey, and soccer that I want this week and it is so cool to get back to normal…the cloud storage company that he uses had a massive equipment failure and he almost lost the 120 terrabytes of content that he has stored there and it would have taken him days to reconstitute it from the backups so I’m happy for the good outcome there…and I get to watch all of the shows that are starting up tomorrow and through the rest of January..Doctor Who is a tradition for me when the new season starts but I am having a little problem with the quality of the latest seasons after watching a bunch of the past shows that are just really, really good and the new one is just not there….so, I will watch but I may even just let it go to plex and watch it later….oh, hey, you remember how I talked about the damage I have been doing to this old body? Well, today I did even more damage shoveling the snow and now my thumb is really bad and that was compounded by hurting my back and shoulder, too…so badly that I took ibuprofen when I came in and am going to take more in a while…and it took me 40 minutes to do this small driveway and sidewalks….but, I’m glad I did since the snow was already turning to heavy slush as I was shoveling and now it is clear down to pavement everywhere…..okay, that’s enough…I made the goal here every month this year and that is pretty cool…I may do some stats tomorrow if I feel like it but it won’t be til later in the day…going to forget about the constraints for one night and just have as many cocktails as I want…or not…no more later….
Last one for the year….
Well…just finished 40 minutes of work shoveling the driveway and thought I’d come back here and do the last one for the year…don’t really want to talk about politics since we all know the disaster this year was for our country and many, many people have already written about that better than I can do…so, I think I’ll just reflect on this year for me personally and the kind of wild ride it’s been. Never in my dreams did I think that I would have been called into action to save this house for my son and to remember what it looked like when I rolled up here on the 5th of July is still a bit of a shock…and I do still remember that I didn’t think I could do it…that the place had been left to go to seed so badly that I was overwhelmed…until I remembered all of the projects that I had salvaged during my work life by taking small bites and getting a plan together…after all, I do have a master’s degree in management and, even though I hadn’t used it in years, it all came back to me and made it just another project to be managed…and I was fortunate to have my down payment money for my own house available to spend on the roof, windows, and fence that had to be replaced. So now, I sit here in my comfy warm clothes on my comfy couch in this salvaged house with food cooking in the oven and the enormous amount of work this took starts to recede….and part of it is replaced with the other good things that happened this year…I broke my all time record for miles on the bike just 16 short of 4,600 miles…and that is 347 miles farther than I have ever ridden…and that beat the record from more than 10 years ago. Financially, it has been an okay year, too…I have money in the bank and the old Miata is still running and driving fine and I have no big bills coming after January so I will be able to afford a new grill and weight machine that I need…things are okay, the kids are alright, and I am looking forward the new year for the first time in a while…Happy New Year!
Ford vs. Ferrari
Well….watched the Ford vs. Ferrari movie last night and I just don’t get all of the hype that surrounded it’s release. I mean, I found it cheesy and grating with race scenes that looks like they were staged by someone who knows nothing about racing…look, I know they needed to add some action from the drivers when they were supposedly passing someone but to downshift to go faster on the Mulsanne straight at LeMans? This was a theme throughout the movie and so damn annoying….as was the repeated shots of a speedometer from inside the car…did they ever look inside a race car? You will never find a speedometer because it is information that is just not relevant to the driver as the engine’s rpm is…now, in some of the modern electronic displays in some race cars you can select MPH but not back in the 60’s when the film is set….the final bit of laziness on the part of the producers is the scene where Ken Miles is killed testing a supposedly new version of the GT-40 that looked exactly like the old version….Miles was killed in what was called the “J car” and it didn’t look anything like the normal Ford GT that won LeMans…and that again points to the ignorance of the details of the story from the producers of the film and their laziness in getting the details right…cripes, I remember the story of Miles’s death from when it really happened in the 60’s and I’m an old guy…couldn’t they have at least looked back at pictures and used CGI to re-create the look of the J car? One last thing where they got it wrong is the brake failures that was a sub theme through the movie…I mean, making them glow red as a sign of failure? Again, anyone who knows anything about racing knows that failure is not that dramatic and discs glowing red was not a thing with the iron discs of the 60’s…especially the red with flames coming out of the wheels…usually, the pedal just goes to the floor after the brake fluid boils or the pads are worn out…no flames unless the fluid leaks out on the hot discs. As with most racing movies done by non racing people, the details will really grate on a race fan…as it did to me….I got through the movie but I am disappointed in how they could take the story of the GT-40 at LeMans and make it boring…but maybe for the non-race fans it would be okay…but I don’t think so.
December 31st
Well…running about on time but I’m a little depressed with all of the snow out there this morning…I know it’s Michigan and it’s winter but that doesn’t make it easier to take…but, it looks like it’s almost over so I guess it could have been worse…and I got everything done I needed to yesterday so I don’t have to go out for the rest of the week if I don’t want to….slept okay last night but woke up to my internet tv still not working for the third day and it really does look like I won’t be able to see any of the bowl games that gives me something to do on the first…or any of the marathons that make time pass around here…okay…that’s my whining quotient for the day so I’ll stop now….my lungs are still bad from both the bug and inhalation of the bleach fumes yesterday so I am going to take it a little easy today after shoveling the snow…but that won’t happen til later, after I have coffee and get a few little things done around here….I need to do a full cleaning of the living room today and wax the wood floors again so that will take quite a bit of time…I do need to thaw some venison burger to make tacos again and then see what is in the freezer to eat next…I did get some chicken leg quarters at Aldi’s yesterday that I can cook so maybe I’ll have those with the tacos for a couple of days….we’ll see…more later…
Lots of damage today…
Well…you know, as I get older it seems to get easier to hurt myself just doing normal maintenance stuff around here and today was one of those days…I started out working on the furnace, trying to get the belt on the blower aligned better so it would make less noise and that means trying to wedge myself into the small access hatch to get to the pulley on the blower…and immediately, I bashed my head on the edge of the opening and took a chunk out of my scalp that I didn’t think about until the blood started running down my head…now it wasn’t a bad injury, just a scrape that will heal pretty quickly but damn, I’ve been in that thing multiple times and have never whacked my head before. After that little fiasco, I got tired of seeing the dirty grout in the bathroom tile so I decided to get the bleach cleaner and scrub brushes out and scrub that stuff clean…but that meant breathing bleach fumes for over an hour and my lungs are really screwed up that I know that will take a few days to heal….and the thing is, I know better…I’ve had it happen before but that didn’t outweigh getting the grout clean since that was one thing that was really annoying me…and guess what all the bending and scrubbing did? Yep, I hurt everywhere and the healing that was happening in my thumb is now gone and it is throbbing. Now, I don’t know if I’m just getting old or I’m working harder since I moved in here but damn, it’s getting annoying being in pain all the time….
The dems need to get in front…
Well…with the constant lies coming from the repubs and their tax cut exploding the budget deficit which is on track to hit a trillion…yep, with a t next year, the dems need to start hammering home the message of the repubs stealing every damn thing and giving it to the rich…and not caring about the deficit until they lose next year…then you will hear the typical yammering that nothing can be done about it but cut social programs that the 99% have paid for. And they need to do it now, not next year and they need to keep hammering it every damn time they get asked any question from any reporter…like: “you know what is going to happen when we win next year, the repubs are going to then get really concerned about the deficit and try to destroy SS and Medicare to pay for it…just remember, they are the ones who created the deficit with their tax cuts for the rich and now they whine that something needs to be done”….and the same goes with the “great” economy that is being propped up by the fed by them pouring trillions of dollars of no cost loans to the big banks so they can continue to buy stocks and support the unsustainable prices that we see now…and the dems need to point out that this economy is a house of cards that is going to come crashing down when this handout to the banks ends. Most of all, though, we need message discipline from our side where we all talk about the same facts about the economy, the environment, and every other subject that the public cares about…and the progressive ideas that will make life better for the 99% and not the 1% who have stolen most of this country with the repubs help….
December 30th
Well…another morning of no tv and I think I may have to actually figure out what internet options give me the sports and channels I want and actually sign up for one….and that is just one more expense that I don’t want to take on right now….oh, well…I did sleep okay but feel quite slow this morning and I am going to just take it easy for a while as the coffee does it’s magic…I did get out for the last bike ride in shorts yesterday and that was a bonus to the early ride in half thermasuit so I got 24 miles in yesterday but it looks like I am going to miss my 4,600 mile goal by about 16 miles since I won’t be able to get out today or tomorrow…but still, 4584 miles is not too shabby for an old guy….and I am going to wait to put the bike up on the trainer for a couple of weeks just to see what the weather is going to look like…it’s supposed to be warmer than normal for the rest of the winter but we’ll see….last year, I had over 600 miles on the bike before I even got out on the trails…and that is a lot of time on the trainer every day….didn’t get much done yesterday but equipment changes but I think I’ll clean a bunch today if I can get motivated….but that looks like no better than fifty fifty at this point….more later….
Kind of a sucky day…
Well…so far, that title describes today and everything that has happened…okay, maybe that’s a little harsh but I would like just a regular day for a change…of course as I said this morning, my internet tv is down and it looks like an outage at the cloud storage that my son rents for both systems that we use…both Plex and Emby are out today with that outage and that leaves me with only the antenna to watch and I lost most of those channels I watch when I moved in here…and that sucks if they can’t get it back up soon since I’ll miss all of the good bowl games…crap….and I had to restart some old equipment in the basement since the new stuff just isn’t working as promised…so I spent the morning taking care of that stuff and resigned myself to the increased cost that comes with the old equipment…oh, well…I did get a bike ride in but it looks like the last one for quite a while with the forecast of 3-5 inches of snow tomorrow….so it looks like some hibernation for me for this week and I guess I’ll have to work around here…so, I’m depressed today…