Well…running a little late this morning with staying in bed until almost 6:30…I wonder if there is something to this no cocktail thing? Still tossed and turned but was able to sleep okay and feel okay this morning…was pretty depressed for some reason last night and part of it was boredom and part of it was the bills that are piling up….it does look like I need to not spend on anything but food until Feb but that is okay…have everything I need until then and it may just revive my discipline some…just as having no cocktails is doing…didn’t get much done yesterday but clean some and the grocery runs and I have enough food here now for a month or so with a fully stocked freezer so I think I treat it as a challenge to see how little I can spend over the next few months….if I can get down to about 40 bucks a week, that should allow me to build my reserves back up pretty quickly…didn’t get on the bike yesterday with how darn cold it was all day but I am going to try to get out today and tomorrow but will have to be really careful with the ice that won’t melt until later in the afternoon….just don’t want to have another 8 months of not being able to use my shoulder from another crash…I am going to get the kitchen prep finished today and might even start to paint but I’m not sure about that yet…want to ease into the day with coffee and some news so I’ll end here….more later…
All posts by James DeVol
Why is this not treason?
Well…let’s start this one with the definition of treason and then maybe someone can explain to me why what trump and his repub cronies are doing is not treason. “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason…” Now, yesterday’s spectacle where trump invited the foreign minister of Russia into the WH where he spouted Putin’s lies that Russia was not involved with attacking the 2016 election, and which all of the repub party is pushing seems to me to be the definition of giving aid and comfort to our enemies…and as such is damn treason against this country….and every repub who is involved is committing treason…from Lindsey Graham to William Barr, they are all helping Russia to attack this country and are ensuring that Russia will have a free hand in trying to cheat to elect trump in 2020. I am so damn pissed that the only option we have left to hold these traitors accountable is winning the election in 2020 and then it will be left to the dems, as always, to come in and repair the damage that repubs gleefully do to our country just for power or money…never thought I’d see this in my lifetime…
December 11th
Well…running a little late today with forcing myself to stay in bed until almost 6:30 after getting up at 5 or so…and I feel okay this morning after three nights of being good…and I think I’ll continue that for a couple more days until Friday when the Expanse new season comes out…that I’ll need a cocktail for…but, maybe not…a week would be a good goal for being good and that would mean until Sunday…didn’t get much done around here but fill some more in the kitchen that needs to be sanded today so I can paint…but I am going to do that by hand to try to keep the dust down and use a drop cloth to catch it since the repaired parts are high up on the wall and ceiling…and I don’t want another mess like the other day that took me hours to clean up…after I get that done, I think I’m going to try to take a couple of guilt free weeks and just live for a while instead of thinking about working all the time…then get back to working after the first of the year….yeah, that will work…I’ll probably get a day or so and then get antsy to get things done and get back to it…we’ll see…not much to do today…it’s grocery run day and then I really need to clean the living room…might have to buy one of those dusters if they are not too expensive…this place is pretty dusty and I need an easy way to keep it up…more later…
No Olympics for you….
Well…hey, I am finally going to get at a topic that is not politics…or, on the surface it’s not about politics but the idiot trump is going to make it about politics. Just Sunday, the world anti doping agency announced that Russia and it’s athletes will be banned from all international competitions including the Wold Cup and the Olympics due to widespread institutional cheating led by the Russian government. The ban is going to be for 4 years pending the obligatory appeal the that the Russians will request, or if the idiot trump gets involved and tries to strong arm WADA into looking the other way…after all it is Russia involved and we all know that trump lives to please Putin. The bottom line is that Russia and it’s supposedly impartial athlete testing lab spent the past few years hiding positive results and were even involved with helping Russian athletes cheat at every competition they were in….just like the East Germans did in the 60’s through the 90’s when that tiny little country won every medal in sight. Look, this crap has been going on forever and Russia needs to pay some price for their blatant cheating…I do feel for the clean Russian athletes…if there are any, but the solution from Rio and Korea where individual Russians were allowed to compete but not under the Russian flag is not acceptable…we know that Russian athletes are under the thumb of Putin and can’t be assured they are not dirty…so while I feel for these athletes, it is time for their entire system to be penalized for their government’s cheating….that continues to this day…
Impeachment articles are coming today…
Well….House dems have announced that the articles of impeachment against the criminal trump are going to be released today and I’m not sure how I feel about that…I know he has earned them many, many times over but if they are only going to have three articles as the reporting says, I don’t think that describes the depth of the criminality of this asshole and the damage he and his cronies have done to our country. And, what’s the hurry? I know that the dems want to play this straight and work the process as transparently as possible but there is more and more information coming out every day that should be added to these articles and to have them only include three counts gives the repubs a talking point that he only did three things wrong and everyone makes mistakes….so it’s not such a big deal…shredding the constitution is a big frickin deal but I don’t see the pushback that should be happening with something this serious…like hauling everyone who is stonewalling the investigation into the house and compelling them to tesify…so what if it will take into next year for the cases to get through the courts? Time is on our side and we should be playing hardball with every damn one of these criminals…and now we see that not forcing testimony has become a repub talking point over the past couple of days….with them saying if trump’s criminality is so serious, why haven’t the dems forced people to testify? Feeding into the false narrative that the impeachment is all political and trump is a misunderstood angel….so, I guess we’ll see later this morning how the dems are going to roll all the criminality into the articles…and I hope they do their jobs to expose and explain why this can’t stand…or this country is gone….
December 10th
Well…I was a little disappointed this morning when I rolled over in bed and looked at my phone without my glasses and thought it said 6:44…but after I put my glasses on it was only 5:44 and I had already decided to get up…but 5:44 is okay with sleeping okay with just the normal tossing and turning…and that was day two of the no cocktail experiment and I don’t feel too bad this morning so I think I’ll continue it all week…I think I miss the process of making cocktails more than the cocktails themselves and that is a little weird….I did get the sanding done in the kitchen yesterday and it didn’t take that long…the clean up of all the dust took about twice as long as the actual work and I am still fining dust everywhere so that cleanup will go on for a while…I probably should have worn a mask when I was sanding since my head was plugged up the rest of the day but I’m not too bad right now so maybe there is no permanent damage….I did get a bike ride in yesterday but It looks like I’ll have the next two days off with the highs being about 20 and that is just too cold for me…and with all of the water on the trail, there is going to be too much ice to deal with so I’ll wait til it thaws Thursday or Friday….only have about 65 miles to do to get to 4500 for the year so I can still try to get that done outside and will probably wait til January to put the bike on the trainer….not much to do today….I’ll probably wait til Wed to start painting the kitchen since I need a drop cloth to cover everything and don’t feel like going out just for that….will take care of that during the grocery run tomorrow…so, I’ll get started on the spare bedroom and taking apart the huge headboard/bookcase that was left behind….more later….
Amazon’s scam…
Well…not sure if you saw this in the news over the weekend, but I think it’s a story that needs a little more attention so I thought I’d give it a little here. Earlier this year, there was a huge pushback against Amazon and it’s efforts to extort the people of New York for billions of dollars to locate one of it’s headquarters there…it was was reported that the cost would be over 3 billion dollars in bribe money to get them to come…but, AOC and many people in NY said no…they were not going to buy jobs on the back of the people and they rebelled at the disclocation of thousands of people and businesses that the project would hurt. There was a huge outcry by the usual suspects that AOC didn’t care about the people and that now Amazon’s 25K projected jobs would be lost…where they got that figure is still a mystery since Amazon only projected 700 jobs in the first year of the project and that maybe over 20 or 30 years it “might” mean that there MAY be more jobs coming…just as in every damn project like this…nothing but promises. So, the city rejected the project and the corporate welfare that came with it, but guess what? Yep, Amazon just announced that they are bringing 1500 jobs to NYC anyway…without the people having to buy those jobs and they are leasing in an area that won’t displace the low income people that their original plan would have….gee…I wonder who was right here? The repub hand wringers who were championing the giveaway to their rich buddies or a rep who was thinking about the people she represents? I hope this is not the only successful rejection of corporate welfare and maybe it will be a trend? These subsidies or extortions have been going on too long and left a trail of broken promises and theft that shows that if everyone rejects these projects, maybe corporations will start paying their fair share and we can get back to sanity where the rich don’t get to continue to steal from the rest of us….we can hope…
December 9th
Well…damn, just noticed that it has been two days without doing a second one of these and I do need to do better about that…so maybe 3 today? I did sleep okay last night and I decided to take better care of myself by not having cocktails for a while and I do feel better so far today so I’m interested how that is going to feel after a couple of weeks off…might be part of a series that I could do…we’ll see…didn’t get a lot done yesterday but work downstairs for a while but I do need to get the sanding done in the dining area today so I can get started painting it…I have decided to keep some of the pink in there for an accent and some continuity to how the house used to look…while I like the all white, I am now starting to lean to having some color in various places…just starting to percolate that in my head but don’t really have any plans yet….I did get a nice long ride in yesterday but it looks like rain all day today so I I’ll just work in here and get some cleaning done….it looks like I’ll be off the bike until Friday but that’s okay…was going to set the trainer up but don’t want to do that yet if there are any days left that I can ride outdoors…more later…
December 8th
Well….running late this morning and am having another of those mornings where I just can’t get started and they are getting more and more common…and I’m sure I don’t like it….I did sleep okay last night and didn’t get out of bed until almost 7…but I was up since 5 and that is about normal and I wish that, just for once, I would sleep until it’s time to get up…oh, well….I did get a bike ride in yesterday and it looks like I’ll be able to get out today, too since it is going to be in the low 40’s before the extreme cold comes in Tuesday and lasts forever…the ponds on the trail are almost frozen over so all of the swans have disappeared and that is a little disappointing…but I still get the phrase “swan lake” in my head every time I ride past them…they look strange sleeping and floating and one time there were over 10 of them in a group and I’m not sure if I’ve seen that many in one place before…didn’t get anything else done yesterday but I will have work to do today with getting the sanding done in the kitchen so I can paint early in the week….but I don’t feel like doing anything right now but having more coffee and reading the news…so that’s what I’ll do….more later…
December 7th
Well…running a little late today since I just can’t get moving and wanted to ease into getting started…but that was going to turn into not starting at all if I waited any longer…so, here we go….slept okay last night and even had some dreams that I don’t remember….hmmmm…I wonder how I know I had dreams if I don’t remember any? I do know that I feel pretty worn out today…oh, I remember the dreams….there were all about being sick and not being able to go to work…or going to work and being told to go home so everyone else doesn’t get sick…yeah, I know…pretty damn weird since I don’t work anymore…didn’t get a lot done yesterday but run out to get the venison…even skipped riding the bike since I got so damn cold standing around out there and just couldn’t take being cold again…I am going to try to get out today but it will have to wait til later with it being in the 20’s until this afternoon…I was out last week when it was 33 and that is inching toward my low limit for being able to ride and not freeze my butt off…not much to do today…I do need to get the sanding done in the kitchen and clean up after that…and Man U plays City this aft and want to see part of that until they go behind but that will be about it for my day…more later…