July 15th

Well…man, I got scorched out at the beach yesterday….went out to get a swim in and spent a couple of hours out there…the water was just right and I spent at least an hour just fooling around in it…might just start getting the biker tan evened out….didn’t sleep too well last night and was up around 6 this morning feeling pretty worn out….and my legs are feeling pretty flat…but the excuse of rain I was going to use to take the day off is missing us again so I’m sure the guilt will kick in and I’ll be out to ride in a few minutes….I do need a day off soon but I don’t know when that would be…I can’t believe how dry it is out here…all of the rain we were supposed to get in the past week never happened…it either goes north or south of here and that sucks…..didn’t get much done yesterday and today looks the same…just have no motivation at all and I’m not sure why that would be…probably just depression that has been happening a lot lately….I need to get the exterior paint next week and get started on the door frames…I am glad that the frames and the bricks in the foundation are the only things that need painting on this house….I hate painting windows and won’t have to do these ever…just need to clean the rest of them…and might get some of them done today….more later…

Back to the middle ages…

Well…the repubs truly are trying to take the country back to the middle ages…just yesterday, Tennessee repubs fired the head of vaccinations for telling the truth to a question about whether kids could get vaccinated without their parents  consent (the SC there said they could)….so the repubs fired her and then went even farther to end any vaccine outreach at all for children…that’s all o fthe effective vaccines…whooping cough, diptheria, measles, mumps, rubella and even polio will no longer even give information out when they are asked that has any state seal on it…the seal has to be removed first and the health department will no longer be allowed to coordinate any vaccine events at schools or anywhere else…and they specifically said it was because the repubs pressured them into it…so now, Tennessee has gone back to before vaccines were developed and are going to willingly kill children just because of some right wing conspiracy theory that was created whole cloth out of lies…but the repubs and right wing media don’t care if they kill a few more children…after all they were responsible for over 400K Americans dying during the pandemic that is still raging in red states so what’s a few more dead to add to the total? I hate those guys….geez…

July 14th

Well…darn, woke up when it was still dark this morning and that sucks…didn’t sleep well and that is a little strange after how exhausted I felt yesterday….it used to be you slept well when you were tired but I guess that doesn’t work anymore…oh, well….didn’t get anything done yesterday but I need to get some more grass seed down today since it may rain tomorrow…the lawn is filling in slowly and by next year I may have a good looking one…but, I really don’t feel like doing much today after I do the grocery run…I do need to hit target to get another set of bath towels since it is so huimd out here that the towel never dries and I need another set to change them out at least once a week…and only having one set of towels is a little weird when you think about it…I was going to go to menard’s to get some stuff but items are so hard to find in that store that I don’t feel like doing that much work this morning…I still have 3 stores to hit without menards and that is still going to be a lot of work…I did finally get the air bubbles out of the radiator of the car and it looks like it is now working like it’s supposed to and now I just need to change the oil at some point but I need to get a filter but that won’t be til next week….not much to do today…just the grocery runs and then on the bike but my legs hurt this morning and I can’t figure that out…..probably part of hitting the wall yesterday and I wonder how much rest I need to recover…still feeling it this morning and that’s not good….more later….

Man, I hit the wall today…

Well…I knew this was coming…have felt pretty worn out the past couple of days and was just waiting to hit the wall and it happened today…went out hard at full sprint on both rides today and then fell off the cliff this afternoon….have been exhausted all day and it feels different than just tiredness…. and I know part of it is trying to keep the calories down, too, and I might be doing better at that than I should…but the big thing is that I need a day off the bike and everything else to just veg out and restore my body….but when will that happen?  Not any time soon unless we have a day full of rain…and that isn’t going to happen out here…although I did get wet on the bike both times today but looked at the radar and one little cloud was over here while the rest of the state was being flooded…..it was cool on the second ride when a thick fog rolled in at the beach and took visibility down to about 30 feet…I couldn’t see to the end of the boardwalk or the beach from just across the road….I need a new phone so I can take pictures again….

Finally, a push for voting rights…

Well…after the repubs spent the first 6 months after the election trying to prevent dem voters from voting by almost 300 voter suppression laws, it looks like Joe is finally getting the idea that this is the most important thing to get done…part of the new emphasis I think came from the 50 dem Texas legislators who fled the state to DC to prevent the worst laws of all of them from being passed there…and who have been threatened with arrest from Texas’ governor for their actions. This afternoon, Joe is giving what is being called the most important speech of his administration and will be calling out the repubs as the un American pricks they are….and here’s the thing, they really are trying to steal the country since they have no ideas that anyone except for their rabid base likes…taxing the rich to pay for infrastructure and elder care is supported by 80% of Americans and yet that was the first thing the repubs wanted out of the infrastructure bill….and making it harder to vote is only supported by their fox news watching cult followers…where more than 65% of Americans want voting easier. So, as with the rest of us on the left, we need to keep up the pressure on every legislator to pass this voter protection legislation…or we will lose our democracy forever….geez…

I was wrong…

Well…after all my bitching and complaining that it never rains out here, I was wrong…it did rain overnight since there are puddles on the roads and I even got wet out at the beach when it started raining like crazy out there…but it quit after about 5 minutes and I rode back here with it just spitting…but, it looks like there is more rain coming in soon and we may even get a small thunderstorm so I showered up and am going to wait til the afternoon to go back out…rain I can take…but not lightning…

July 13th

Well…I wonder if it’s ever going to rain out here? It has been forecast for quite a few days in the past few weeks and it never comes…I was really planning on a day off the bike today but it looks like I’ll be out there in an hour or so….darn….slept okay last night but still feel pretty slow right now and that seems to be the new normal these days…I did get out of here for a little while last night and I needed that…just jumped in the car and took a cruise out to the beach and stopped at the joint down the hill for a beer…need to get out of the rut I’ve been in and start doing things…but my brain has not been too amenable to doing that lately….I did have my 3rd day of quiet up here yesterday and that is pretty relaxing but I know it’s not going to last…there seems to be a cycle to it but I am still going to keep up quashing the idiots when they pop up….I just noticed that the swelling is down in my elbow and it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did even with abusing it yesterday by mowing and feeding the lawn…it has been months since it was pain free and I welcome any improvement….not much to do today…I was planning on just taking it easy and getting some cleaning done but that looks like it’s not going to happen without the rain….rain was my only excuse to not ride today so I may have to re-think rest days….have done almost a month of 30 miles a day and I’m worn out…more later….oh, I did see one cool thing on the way back from the beach last night….a huge mass of at least a hundred bike riders on a guided tour with all kind of riders and bikes in it…need to find out what that is about….

A few things…

Well…darn, just finished up all the work I had to do today and it’s almost 2pm….one little thing that has been under the radar after it was announced last week is the fact that Joe Biden’s administration is going to go after monopolies and consolidation in business and is going to be much less inclined to approve mergers that lead to it. I really hope he addresses the consolidation in the media, too, since I think there are about 4 companies that control all of the radio in this country….I guess even fox news is getting tired of trump lying about his election loss and they even ran a streamer basically saying there was not voter fraud in the 2020 election while the idiot boy was giving a speech to the q anon convention over the weekend….or I wonder if it is the 2 billion dollar plus lawsuits that are still pending from the voting machine companies they have been slandering since before the election…..the sanctions hearing that is going on here in Michigan about the unfounded lawsuits that trump lawyers brought about the election trying to overturn the results and appear to be entirely based on the fevered dreams of repub voters is not going well for them….at the very least the judge thinks the lawyers should have checked to see if they were true before filing the suits but the opposing lawyers think they shouldn’t have to…and it has devolved into a shouting match that is not a thing any smart lawyer would avoid…but trump’s lawyers have never been too smart….that’s it for now…

July 12th

Well…is it another morning? And what day is it? The days just run together now and I can’t tell one from another….I guess that’s what happens when you’re retired….and the boredom….way too much of that….oh, well…I did sleep okay but sure don’t feel like it right now….it seems that I feel worn out all the time but that’s probably just from getting old….okay, that’s enough of that….didn’t get much done yesterday but the bike rides but I do need to mow and feed the lawn today so I wonder if that will be enough so I only do one ride today….we’ll see….I could be getting an off day tomorrow with the rain that is forecast but that was supposed to happen yesterday and it didn’t rain at all so I’ll believe it when I see it….we could sure use the rain out here since we are almost 10 inches under from normal and that means drought…and that extends across the center of the state…..I do need to get out and get some exterior paint so I can get on the door frames and get them painted but that may wait til next week since I do want to get out to the beach for a swim or two this week….I live 5 minutes away from the lake and have only been swimming once? And my biker tan is getting pretty ugly so I need to even that out….not much to do today….don’t have to cook with doing all that yesterday but I do have to plan meals for the rest of the week….and I really should mow but I’m not motivated to do anything right now….I think I’m going to do a post on that later today…feel like I don’t know how to just live without something to move toward and that is concerning me some….more later…

Another toy for rich people…

Well….with the launch of Richard Branson’s sub orbital space ship today and the breathless coverage of it, I don’t get it….yeah, it is something of a technical accomplishment but damn, sub orbital trips were being done 60 years ago so I guess I don’t see that this is any kind of progress….and the news constantly emphasized that this ship can take 6 passengers into space and that is just so wonderful that ordinary people can now go kinda into space…but what kind of ordinary people? At more than 250,000 bucks a seat, what kind of ordinary person can afford that? I don’t mean to be a crab about this but if we tell the truth, this ship is not going to do any scientific research…it is not stretching the limits of technology…and it’s only use is to be another toy for rich people to uselessly spend money on that will go straight into another billionaire’s pocket….not much of an accomplishment in my eyes….