Musings on the end of the month…

Well…another month is gone and with it, the summer here in Michigan and I know it’s a cliche but I don’t know where it went…it has been a summer of being as frugal as possible which has forced me to get creative to keep from going stir crazy here. It’s the first summer in 10 that there has been no one to do anything with and also the first one in that time that I haven’t been out on someone’s boat…I did get out to Lake Michigan a couple of times but there have been no pool parties at K’s and I miss that….haven’t golfed, either, but that is probably my fault but it is nowhere near as much fun to go alone….no, this is not a whining post, just a free form set of thoughts about where things stand and a recap of the Michigan summer….I don’t know why I’m still optimistic about finding a job…many, many resumes have gone out with only one response that didn’t turn into anything but what’s the alternative? To curl up into a ball and say “poor me?” Nope, that’s not me and I’ll keep on trying every day…keep trying to keep my spirits up, and keep smiling at the sky when I’m on the bike, and keep grinning that I still have my health and what little of the brain that still works….and I get to do this everyday…not a bad life considering….

Oh…this is number 62 for the month…made it…again….the streak is alive!!

Manny Lopez is still an idiot after all these years…

Well…I don’t know where to start about this one…I’ve never seen one person be so wrong every time he opens his mouth and still have a job….he’s at it again this morning in the Detroit News where he spend his whole column venting his vitriol against Obama and then recommends that the pres read nonsense to change his economic policy…to start he gives us the old repub lie that the stimulus was all spending of almost 800 billion dollars and it was wasted since it didn’t get the economy moving as fast as it should…but what ole Manny and the rest of the repoub liars continue to ignore is that almost half of the stimulus package was tax cuts…so, I’ll ask this again, Manny….do tax cuts work to spur the economy or don’t they? The media continues to give you a pass on this hypocrisy when the Bush tax cuts did not create one job, not one, and now you want the president to keep doing more of that? You have no standing to give advice to anyone when you continue to believe in the voodoo economics that put us in this mess we are in…geez…

August 31st

Well…a night that I was very good and I feel okay today…the sleep was very spotty and I am quite tired today but I will have to overcome that since I have a ton of things to do this morning…okay, not a ton of things but I do have to do the grocery run and get my hair cut..plus make an appointment to have the muffler replaced on the car. Another month is gone with no bites on the jobs front and I am getting a little discouraged since I’m going to run out of cash after this month…oh, well…I’ll figure something out…need to just let all of that go and have a nice weekend for Labor day. I do have lunch with T to look forward to Friday and it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen her….it will be nice to get caught up with her and start the weekend off right. I’m running a little behind in posts for the month so today I will have three to get to 62…so maybe you’ll get something lucid and topical…and maybe not, who knows? More later….

More August 30th…

Yeah, I know, I’m cheating a little trying to get to my goal for the month here but I thought a new one was appropriate given the events of the day…had a nice trip to Mount Pleasant today and made the 98 miles in about an hour and 15 minutes which is the best time so far…don’t know if I can beat that since I was flying on the two lanes and don’t know if I want to work that hard again….the old wreck took the abuse and I’m not sure why….I was going to take the day off from riding but the guilts got the best of me and I went out for the short route….I did skip working out to get on the road early and I don’t feel guilty about that…I’ll just make it up on Friday when I’m supposed to skip for the day….going to take the rest of the day off and just veg and watch a little tv….

August 30th

Well…a long night out with G last night but had a lot of fun….feel a little crappy today but not bad…need to got Mt Pleasant today so it looks like I may have that day off from riding the bike that I have been looking forward to…well…I will ride it out to get coffee in a minute but that will probably be it since I didn’t sleep at all last night and I’ll want to take a nap when I get back into town. So, this is going to be a short one…I need to make breakfast before I get moving…slept wrong on my shoulder and now I have a huge cramp that won’t go away so there will be ibuprofen in my future…more later…

It’s Monday and Rick Perry is still an idiot…

Well…I am just laughing my butt off listening to rick Perry continue to take credit for job growth out of one side of his mouth and then attack big government with the other…..when one of the primary drivers of that growth has been the doubling of federal spending there over the past 5 years because they have a lopsided amount of military bases there….now, what would the job growth be here in Michigan if the federal government poured 200 billion dollars a year into construction projects, military bases, and prisons? Doesn’t he know we can look this stuff up? I’ve had just about enough of these repub nutjobs being allowed to lie and say anything they want without the media calling them on it…where are the reporters that should be asking the tough questions and putting a stop to this nonsense?

Then we have wonderful ole Michelle Bachmann who told an audience in Florida yesterday that the earthquake and hurricane were messages from god and that Washington needs to change it’s ways…so, Michelle, god is now setting policy for the US?….just this one statement should be enough to have her laughed off the national stage….where is Walter Cronkite when we need him….or Edward R. Murrow….geez…

One last thing about ole Rick…in his book and in many of his campaign stops he has repeatedly said that government is the problem….kind of a strange thing for a person to say that has spent his entire life in government feeding from the public trough…just another repub hypocrite….

August 29th

Well… a Sunday just like the rest of them but a little more boring without any races or games to watch…Man U did take Arsenal apart and that was fun…so the day was filled with reading and writing and that was okay….the weather has been so nice this summer that I have been on the bike every day since the end of April and I am starting to fatigue a bit…so, I’m hoping for a day of rain that will give me an excuse to take a day off without the guilt that comes with it….not much to do today…I may get out to get my hair cut but will probably wait til tomorrow for that…not feeling that well today and I think it’s some kind of a bug since I’m warm all over….so, I’m going to go back to the couch and rest for a while before I go out for coffee…more later….

Trail stuff and other things…

Well…haven’t done a trail update in quite a while so I thought today would be as good as any….did see something kind of weird out there today that made me shake my head…who uses dental floss when they are out on the trail? Saw one of those floss picks in the middle of nowhere and I tried to figure out if I would ever carry one of those when I was out getting the miles in…who would carry and use one when they were walking, running, or biking? Oh, well…I think it is funny that there is the cross section of people out there every day that fall into distinct categories….you have the nuts like me that are working their butts off….then you have the casual exercisers that appear to have just started to get into shape…and you can tell those people on their new bikes…and does anyone look good in spandex? Most of the newbies on bikes have been sold that type of stuff that only looks good on Lance Armstrong…so, people, unless you are 6 feet tall and weigh about 150 pounds…it’s not so good a look on you.

There was one other thing that struck me as really odd out there today…a woman running with her dog who stopped to light up a cigarette when she was cooling down….I just don’t know what to say about that…okay, didn’t get to the other things but I might come back later for that….okay, one other thing right now….I realized the other day that two of my children now live in areas that have the possibilities of large scale natural disasters…my oldest boy just hunkered down through the hurricane in NYC and my daughter lives in view of a volcano out in Washington state….see it was an other thing….

August 28th

Well…a kind of fun day yesterday with going out to Logan’s for a couple with K and K but it is such a pain to get around on the weekends with all of the road work going on…this morning has been good with the F-1 race from Spa, one of my favorite tracks….I feel okay today since I was good last night…kind of good and I am looking forward to the bike ride in a couple of minutes…not much to do today…did all of the cooking yesterday so it will be leftovers today and a pretty laid back time….there are no races on today or football or soccer so I may just have to read or take two bike rides…who knows…I will try to get back here with another one but you know how the weekends are….more later….

August 27th

Well…it was a fun surprise yesterday to go out and shoot pool with Tom but I lost so that tempered the fun somewhat…not really…but it did make for a long day and I do feel a little crappy today…it is going to be another long one today with Verlander pitching this afternoon and the Lions playing tonight along with the Cup race from Bristol…and I have a disc of Dexter to watch, too…don’t know how I’m going to get it all in. Bad thing, huh? Plus, there is F-1 qualifying on right now and I am making chicken soup and slow cooked ribs now, too…I wonder if that is too much multitasking for the day…and I need to get out on the bike in about a half hour….man, I’m getting tired just thinking about all of this….so, I won’t say not much to do today….I will come back later with another one but I think it will be about cars, not politics…