Well…I’m a little irritated this morning after doing the grocery run and Meijers being out of my cocktail materials…I’ve been good all week and that was something I was looking forward to…and Family Fare keeps theirs locked up in the morning to keep the high schoolers from shoplifting them so that was out, too…oh, well…I guess I’ll just go out after I get the workout in…slept okay last night and feel pretty good after the third day of being good and I think I may just continue that tonight even if I can get the cocktail stuff…I did break down and buy some red meat this morning since there was no other cheap protein on sale this week…I mean, how can you pass up pork chops for 99 cents a pound? But, this won’t be continued as soon as I can get some chicken for the same price…I do have a couple of breasts in the freezer that I will thaw after I use the fish I have marinating overnight…I did try to figure out why the drivers door speaker doesn’t work and couldn’t easily so I am going to just leave it til spring or til a winter thaw…can’t tell the difference anyway and that one must have been dead for quite a while…didn’t get anything else done yesterday but I am going to clean the bathroom today and try to get the flat surfaces in the kitchen done, too…but, I’m not really motivated right now…maybe more coffee will help? More later….
All posts by James DeVol
Why?
Well…not going to talk about the WH idiot today…as I’ve said, I need to talk about other things to keep my sanity…what little there is of it…intact…over the past couple of months after going out to Kos a few times a day, I’ve noticed a couple of things…first, even with the pie fights that erupt sometimes over politics, there are a lot of really nice people that hang out there and the mood is normally pretty upbeat with the overriding theme that we can make the world a better place by staying true to progressive values, supporting a science and fact based world, and looking for and valuing the truth in our daily discourse. One thing that has alarmed me some is the almost daily fundraising that is necessary to keep our fellow members from homelessness and medical bankruptcy…and my question is why? In a country as rich as ours, why the hell can’t we take care of everyone’s health like almost every other first world country does? Just today, there was a couple at Kos that were running a fundraiser to get to the 1,500 dollars they needed for copays so that one of them could go for cancer treatment…let that sink in…there are many people who don’t have the money to save their lives because medical care is not covered…just like the woman here in GR who was turned away from a life saving heart transplant and told that she needed to go out and fund raise the 15K to get the process started before the hospital would do anything…that is just one the most sick things I have ever heard…we have trillions to give away to the rich and corporations but people who are months away from dying without proper medical care are told they are on their own and need to come up with cash before they can be saved. I lived that life for 16 years before Medicare kicked in…there was not one day that the small pain in my chest didn’t trigger dread in my mind that I was going to end up in the hospital and lose every thing I worked my entire life for just because health insurance was too expensive for me to afford…and the stress was there every day, wondering if there was some chronic disease like cancer or heart disease that was building up and just waiting to attack…something that could have been so much less serious if it would have been caught in the early stages by preventive care that I couldn’t afford. Why? I worked my whole life until our rotten society deemed that I was no longer worth a job just because I had gotten older…and corporations were allowed or even encouraged to discriminate against mature workers by chasing every dime of profit for the owner class while wages stagnated and everyone else kept going backwards. Again, I ask why? Even now, with moving to a Medicare advantage plan, I am still on the hook for 4,000 dollars a year if anything happens to put me in the hospital…right now, I can afford that, but that is almost 20% of what I get from SS every year and if that happens, I can see having to make some hard decisions like do I eat or pay my bills…and, no one should have to make those decisions after a lifetime of hard work and education….
November 28th
Well…running about on time this morning with forcing myself to stay in bed until 6 or so…woke up at 4:44 but that just wasn’t going to cut it so, for the first time in a long time, I decided to just lie there in bed and try to go back to sleep…and it worked kind of…I may have slept a half hour of the extra hour and 15 minutes but that is better than nothing…feel pretty good this morning…for me…was good last night but that made it a little boring so I even went to bed early since I was falling asleep sitting on the couch…but, that didn’t help getting to sleep and that is a little weird….my new speakers for the car came yesterday and I installed them but have another problem…the passengers side worked okay but the driver’s side is still dead and I don’t know how long that has been…will have to take a look at it later today but I really don’t feel any sense of urgency so I’ll get to it when I get to it…didn’t get anything else done yesterday but figuring out my new Medicare plan and need to sign up for that by the 7th of next month so it will start Jan 1…will get more benefits for only 9 bucks more a month so that is a good deal…I do need to start cleaning around here and I will get to that today….bathroom and kitchen need work along with vacuuming so I shouldn’t be too bored today…more later….
Manafort is scared of the Russians…
Well…it appears that Paul Manafort is going to jail for the rest of his life by continuing to lie to Mueller in violation of his plea agreement…the first question that popped into my head was why did he make that decision…he knew that Mueller would know he was lying and that it would put him away for the rest of his life, so why is that the better choice? I think the pardon from idiot boy is still on the table…but I’m sure Mueller has that move covered by state charges that can be filed in NY or Virginia…but, I think there is more to it…I think Manafort is scared of the Russians…after all, there have been at least 5 murders of Putin’s opponents in just this past year, and he has shown that he can get to anyone, anywhere so maybe it’s self preservation on Manfort’s part…if he gets out of jail alive, he knows way too much about Russian oligarchs for Putin to allow him to roam free….or, maybe he’s just as dumb as the rest of the liars that infest the trump orbit and thought he could continue to lie and get away with it? Whatever the case, another idiot goes to jail…it won’t be the last….impeach…
November 27th
Well…up again at the now normal time of 5:30 and I think I need to reset the timer on the coffee maker to reflect that fact….the old normal used to be 6:30 but I can’t remember when I let it get to the timer…and now I’m waiting for coffee and that is annoying…slept okay last night but feel a little worn out today so I think I’ll ease into the day…really don’t have much to do so when I get to it doesn’t matter…had a nice ride out and back to pool yesterday…which I lost…and I really didn’t notice the missing speaker…and I can’t hear the one in the driver’s door so I wonder if they ever worked…we’ll see today when the new ones come and I get the bad one replaced…I am already grumpy that I can’t get on the bike with the snow yesterday and it looks like I may be done for the year…so now I have to try to find 600 calories a day to cut out of what I eat…and that is not going to be easy since I don’t eat that much to begin with…maybe I’ll just stop drinking completely and that should do it…don’t want to but I might have to…oh, well….more later…
Tired of all that job winning yet?
Well…hey, think back to last year when the idiot trump and his repub cronies were touting their tax cuts for the rich and corporations and that they just knew that giving away trillions of our dollars would “jumpstart” job growth here in the US…ha, ha, trumpsters…especially you in Ohio that still love the idiot boy…GM just announced that they are laying off almost 15,000 factory workers across the US and closing 5 assembly plants…and guess where one of those plants is? Yep, Lordstown, Ohio…where 1600 Ohioans are going to lose their jobs. Now, you know I hate it when anyone loses their job, but these folks voted for exactly that when they voted for trump and the repubs…and the tax law that has little noticed incentives for US companies to move jobs out of the US and had nothing in it that required companies to keep jobs in the US in return for the tax cut. Tired of all the winning yet trump voters? GM walked off with billions of dollars in tax giveaways paid for by you and me and this is how they respond…by continuing the repub driven war on workers here in the US…and the workers who voted for trump and the repubs have no one to blame but themselves…geez…
So now tear gassing women and children is okay?
Well…is there anyone more evil than trump? I guess that would be his enablers in the repub party who see nothing wrong with tear gassing women and children at the border who are trying to apply for asylum in accordance with international law, US law, and treaties that the US has signed…this makes what trump is doing a crime that can be prosecuted in the Hague and makes him subject to arrest any time he goes outside the country if the rest of the countries in the world live up to their obligations. What the hell is wrong with these folks? Who could order toddlers in diapers to be tear gassed when they are running for their lives from violence in their own countries? This is evil…pure damn evil that we need to put a stop to when we take control of congress…I am just frickin lived that these assholes are doing this in the name of my country….this is not a US value and the repubs need to be held accountable…impeach all of them…
November 26th
Well…running about on time today and didn’t get out of bed until after 6…and that was with going to bed a half hour early from boredom…slept okay and don’t feel too bad this morning other than the normal aches and pains…just looked outside and it appears that the 8 inches of snow we were supposed to get is just around 3 inches so there will be pool today…and I need to get out of here for a while…won’t be getting on the bike for a few days but it may melt the trails later in the week so I guess I’ll just do double workouts instead….maybe that will help the pain I have everywhere….didn’t get a lot done yesterday but I was bad and made myself a burger for the first time since the first part of September….I did have one with my daughter and with T but that was the only red meat since then…just got damn tired of chicken, turkey, and veggies and had two pounds of chuck in the freezer…tasted damn good but I know I have to keep with the no red meat restrictions to get my cholesterol down….it hasn’t been too hard but just boring….not much to do today…I will have to start to find things to replace the bike ride so I think that will be cleaning…oh, well…more later…
Bought new speakers…
Well…yep, no politics today but I did want to talk about some problems with the car…not really the car but I had a door speaker fail this morning…making a loud scratching/crackling sound that was just damn annoying…I was going to just leave it until spring but, you know me, when something happens, I have to deal with it or it will be all I can think about…so, when I got back from the bike ride, I thought I’d pull the corner of the door card and take a look to see if it could be fixed…no luck but I did get the old speaker out…it wasn’t even screwed in so it must have been a replacement…and it had a weird 4 wire hookup that I think split the tweeter and normal speaker input that I have never seen before…so, I taped them off and put the card back in place, fully intending to leave it til spring…but, I’m bored so of course I went out on amazon to look for new speakers and found a pair for only 16 bucks and with free shipping…they are made by a company called Pyle that I guess is well known for their inexpensive stuff…they are 3 way speakers and I really don’t care what they sound like…with the top down you can’t hear them much and with the top up, you can barely hear them the car is so loud without any sound deadening…and they can’t be worse than the ones that were in there….the cones are even waterproof so they won’t rot even if they get wet in the door…so 10 days and that will be fixed….I do have to get some push on connectors, though, since the ones in the door were changed to a screw on type and most of the new speakers have push on blade type connectors…
November 25th
Well…crap…just had a speaker fail in the car on the way out to get the paper and it’s not just a silent failure but a loud, scratchy one…but, I’m not taking the car apart until spring so I guess I’ll just put the earbuds in and get music that way until then…and, we have a huge storm coming where we’ll get 8 inches of snow overnight and that is depressing me…might not even be able to get out for pool tomorrow and that will be 3 weeks in a row…I am getting a little stir crazy with not getting out anywhere but it will keep the salt off the car so that is a good thing…slept okay last night but still feel a little off today and I hope that gets better over the course of the day…I did get a nice bike ride in yesterday and it looks like I’ll get out again today but that will be the last time for weeks it appears…once the trail gets covered and the temp stays low, it won’t melt enough to get out…and that is annoying, too…and, all of my sports teams sucked yesterday…so, my mood is a little sour today and I don’t see it getting better…so, I won’t be cleaning or doing anything else today….just the F1 race in a few minutes and then out on the bike…more later….