Well…another crappy night of sleep and I was tempted to get up at 4:03 when I woke up with having so much trouble getting back to sleep…and now I feel tired and slow that I hope won’t go on all day…I did just notice that my thumb is quite a bit better today and really doesn’t hurt much and that is a welcome change from the pain I’ve had for the past few months….it still spikes a little but I can live with that…I did get out for a nice bike ride yesterday and took the chance that the trails would be clear and they were passable so I didn’t have to ride into town on the streets…but the river is only a foot below the trails so I am curious if it got over the river portion of the trail overnight….will have to wait a while for that since it is cold out there and I don’t want to be cold just yet….I think the idiots next door that had the dogs that crapped all over my lawn moved out and I can’t be happier….haven’t seen any of them since before christmas but I’m not going to get my hopes up just yet….maybe the owner of the house will have to do the clean up I had to do here and get rid of the trash, old grills, and fire pit that is in the back yard…I can hope…didn’t get a lot done yesterday and today looks the same but my internet tv is not working again so I won’t be able to watch sports until I can text my son to take a look at it…but that won’t be until later…most people don’t get up when I do….so, I may have to clean some until he can get it fixed…more later….

Well…running a little late today and I’m not sure why….I did stay in bed til 6:30 so that may be part of it…I did sleep okay and had some weird dreams that were welcome after not having any for so long…I do need to ease into the day, though since I’m feeling a little slow and unmotivated right now…and I’m still getting used to the fact that they changed all of the shows I ran in the background on tv in the morning on the first of the month….I had gotten so used to the Lone Ranger that I never really thought about it or watched it as I did the first one of these and then got to catching up on the news…but now, the new shows actually get my attention which interrupts me and I’m sure I don’t like it…okay, just a little crabby this morning with the big orange idiot trying to start another war in the middle east that I will talk about later…..didn’t get a lot done yesterday after working on the bike and getting a ride in after the flat but I do need to do better today and get some cleaning done…the dust is turning from bunnies into wolves and need to be dealt with before they turn into raptors….but that is going to wait until more coffee and some news…and maybe another one of these before the ride…who knows?  More later…..

Well…so, I was hoping for a nice easy day and a bike ride this morning…and when I rode over to JBP to take a look at the trails, it started out that way….the trails were snow an ice covered, as I expected, so I turned around and headed back here but got a flat just leaving the park entrance…luckily, it was a front tire and I didn’t feel like walking a mile and a half back here so I just started to ride it back here at about 3mph and waited for the tire to come off the rim as it usually does but it made it all the way back here so that was cool. So, I got back here and then headed to Meijers to get another tube and this Meijers had the Slime tubes that I like that are much thicker than the cheap Schwinn ones that I bought last time…and only 8 bucks so that made me smile a bit….so I replaced the tube, put the bike back together, and decided to scout out bike lanes on the streets around here and was able to find enough to get 10 miles in today…so, until the trails thaw, it looks like I can still ride every day…and I think I’m going to ride into the city tomorrow to just look around and see if they have any bike lanes there that may be usable after it gets warmer in the spring….I may just be able to ride outside all winter if this bike lane thing works out…pretty cool….

Well…that ends that…I’m glad the holidays are over and things can get back to normal…even though I didn’t have a lot to do this year, it is still nice that it’s over….so, let’s get back to it…going to start getting healthier by gradually changing my diet over the next month or so…have been lazy and eating some junk food that I know I shouldn’t and that is going to end this month…okay, no these are not resolutions just realization that apples are better for me than chips so that’s where I’ll start…and no cocktails for a while, either….just don’t enjoy them like I used to so what’s the point? Slept okay last night but I think only eating a chicken leg quarter yesterday and skipping dinner is going to catch up with me later this morning…my stomach is bitching at me already so I may have to take something for it soon…yesterday was such a sports bust with all of my teams losing that I really don’t want to talk about that…oh, I already did yesterday so I don’t need to today…still sucks….didn’t get anything done yesterday but I will start to clean up some of the tools I have been using around here since the kitchen is a mess and I really don’t need all of them out…but that is going to wait for a while since I do need to have coffee first….I think I’m going to take the bike out today to look at the trails and see how bad they are after the snow Monday…they will probably be a mess but I need to get out with it already over 40…and then look for road lanes that are clear to at least get a few miles in today…more later….

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….

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….

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!

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…

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….

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….