Well….got out on the bike around 8 this morning but it took me three tries to get out for the ride….when I got on the bike for the first time, I notices a rhythmic thump coming up through the handlebars so I stopped to take a look at the front tire and found that it had separated the cords and the tire had an S shape…it was the original front tire on this bike and that makes it 6 years old so I guess it was time for it to fail….so, I came back here and got the wheel from the grey bike since it is identical, and put that on the black bike and took off again….when I got to the bottom of the hill, I noticed that the computer was not registering any speed and then remembered I hadn’t switched the button magnet trigger to the new wheel so I had to come back here and do that…finally, I got out and got the first ride in but the front shifter was not adjusted right and wouldn’t shift down just one sprocket…so I made a tiny alignment adjustment and now it works perfectly so that is cool….and I got the second ride in with no drama…after I got back here I took a look at the missing soffit siding and there are 3 pieces missing…I have two of them so I am going to have to buy 12 feet of siding to get a 17 inch piece but I guess that will just make spares if any other of them blow out…these won’t since I am going to put caulk under the ends to glue them in…was going to use adhesive but that stuff costs about 10 bucks a tube and I can get exterior caulk for about 4 bucks and I can use that for other things…going to have to cut the siding in half in the parking lot with my tinsnips to fit it in my car but that is okay, too….makes it easier to store the leftover stuff in the garage….
Monthly Archives: September 2021
September 11th
Well…6:24….that’s all I have to say about that….think I slept okay but I’m still tired and I still have paint on my hands from painting the inside of the door frame on the back door…but that’s done now and I have three more to do….but two of them are on the inside so they could wait til winter if I want….there are lots of sports on today so it could end up being the second day in a row with only one ride but I may be able to get the second one in after Man U plays at 10…and that will put me out around noon but that’s okay…I really do need to get as many rides in as I can before fall comes and the temp keeps me off until the afternoon….but, it’s still dark out there right now so I’ll have to wait til around 8 to get out today….didn’t get much done but the painting yesterday but I do need to start taking the sunflowers and the garden out today so I can put the stuff out Monday….and I need to water the lawn today since it’s not going to rain until Tuesday when Tom is coming out with his equipment and I am going to get the rest of the stuff done outside and the house will be ready for winter….think I’m not going to buy a snowblower this year….need a winter out here to see if I really need one so it will be shoveling all winter…I did it last winter with a long driveway in GR and all I have here is sidewalks so it may not be too bad….we’ll see….not much to do today…just lots more coffee until I get out on the bike around 8 and then some cleaning…maybe…not sure yet….I would like to take a day off sometime and it may be Wed of next week….more later….
Never seen this Joe Biden before…
Well…I think any of us who have followed Joe Biden at all in his career would have expected more of the same style of centrist incremental politics that he has practiced his whole life…til now. His 8 months in office have shown us a bold Biden, one who has ended the war in Afghanistan without listening to the people who got and kept us there for 20 years….an now he is pushing for 45% of all of our energy to come from solar in the next 10 years…and the one thing we aren’t seeing is him apologizing for any of his actions or trying to cajole people to understand…just yesterday, he gave a speech saying: “we’re going to protect our vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers” as he announce a vaccine mandate for all companies with more than 100 workers…and he wasn’t done there…he went after the stupid repubs who are trying to get people killed with their laws against mask mandates and vaccine mandates for schools and bluntly called out the repubs who are trying to take money from schools for protecting children and promised he had their backs…and he made it abundantly clear that he is done with the bullshit repubs who whine and whine and do nothing but make things worse…and the refreshing thing to me is that there seems to be little political calculation in any of this…it’s just Joe doing the right thing for the right reasons and that is the kind of politician I can get behind…you go Joe!
September 10th
Well…that was a normal night of sleep so I won’t talk about it this morning…I’ll bet that makes you happy…so now what do I talk about? I put the shades down for the first time all summer last night and it is kind of weird what that does to the light in here…feel kind of cocooned and cut off from the outside and I think I like that a bit….kind of like how it feels during a snowstorm….and I shut every window last night, too, for the first time since around April and I can feel the fall coming and that’s okay…fall has always been my favorite season and the coolness of the air is welcome after this long, hot, and dry summer…..and it’s another fleece morning and only 55 out there so the first ride is going to be a cool one….need to pay my credit card bill today since it takes almost a week for the payment to get there with how screwed up the post office is…I am going to start taking the garden out today and getting it cleaned up…it will probably take two big bags to put it all out and I think I only have one so some of it will wait till next week…..the peppers were not too successful along with the cukes but I had many more tomatoes than I needed and I’m glad my neighbors took a bunch of them but I’ll still be throwing some of them away…..I may run out Monday to get more bags since I did have branches come down in the storm and they need to go out, too…..not much to do today….just the rides and some painting along with the garden and I really do need to clean my bathroom and kitchen so that will happen over the weekend….more later…
The black bike is working…
Well….got two rides in on the black bike this morning and it is working okay….the front shifter needs some adjustment but overall…it’s rideable and it looks like I’ll be using it for at least the next month when the parts for the grey bike get here…after sitting for three years, the front forks are froze up and that makes for a little bit of a harsh ride but I’m hoping that they will free up after I ride it a while…I do like the new gearing and I added almost 5 mph to my top speed cruise with the new crankset and it has also spread the use across more rear sprockets instead of just 7 and 8 with the other set… I’m now using 5 through 8 for the ride and it feels okay…the new rear shifter seems to be working fine but I still need to replace the cable with one that I ordered today…spent 91 bucks for all of the parts today and put it on my Capital One card so I can cover it with the cash I have in my cashback account….I did forget to buy the brake pads but I really don’t need them….the brakes are getting better with use on the black bike so I can live with it…I may move the front pads to the rear since they have much more bite than the back…so, with the new rear tire I put on the black bike today, I have a hundred bucks into the restoration, but with the cost of these bikes up to over 500 bucks, to get a usable one for a hundred seems like a good deal…and I should be able to use it for years without any more work…I will probably go back to the grey bike after I get the parts and fix it since those front forks still work fine and that makes for an easier ride on this old body….I do feel good I was able to do the work to fix the black one…and in a month, the grey one will be fixed, too….
Biden has done nothing to help people?
Well…I guess Americans are just stupid or ignorant or both…according to a poll that came out in the past few days, over 50% of Americans believe that Joe Biden has done nothing to help their lives get better…cripes, do these 50% have amnesia? Do they not remember the 1400 dollar check they got earlier in the year? I wonder if many of these folks have kids? Do they not recognize the 300 dollar monthly credit they get for each kid? Or how about getting vaccines into the arms of almost 200 million Americans? Or the billions of dollars to fix up schools and help local school districts deal with the pandemic? Or the expansion of the SNAP program that made many more people eligible for food aid? I could go on and on about all of the things this administration has done to make life better but I wonder why no one else knows these things? There are many other things that are in the pipeline that will continue to make life better for working people and we retirees…how about expansion of Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing care? I thing the dems have a messaging problem and need to get over it…they need to make sure that people know what they are doing for them and be proud of it….they are making this country better for the little guy and that is a good thing…geez…
September 9th
Well…slept okay last night and didn’t get out of bed until after 7 so I call that a good night…and I feel okay this morning other than the allergies and my finger but I did that to myself so I can’t really bitch about that….it is starting to be pretty dark in the morning and pretty soon it will be the determining factor that controls when I get out on the bike….along with the temp and it’s going to be a fleece morning today since it’s only in the mid 50′s and that is going to be normal from now on….can’t believe how beat up my hands look after working on the cables on the bike yesterday….they are pretty frayed and I think I stuck every finger with the strands…hope the rear one on the black bike lasts until I get new ones for it…will probably order the parts today but I want to get the rides in first to see if the higher gear is what I want for the grey bike….I’ve wished for just one higher gear since I bought the first mountain bike many years ago and this crankset has 6 more teeth than the grey bike and should make a difference…and with the second gear being higher, too, I think it will be more usable…but, with riding the same route every day, I know what gear I should be in with the old crankset…..will have to figure out the new one…and it will be nice to be able to pedal as hard as I want again without skipping…not much to do today…just going to ride and start taking the garden out after I pick the last of the tomatoes…and I do have a political one to do after I do the first ride….more later…
Running late…
Well…damn, running late again today but I did accomplish a bunch of stuff so I guess that’s the reason….I finally got the old bike back together and almost adjusted so I can ride it tomorrow…spent hours on it this afternoon and crushed my index finger on my left hand trying to remove the chain when I realized I threaded it wrong…so it hurts like crazy to type this….I did get to the tomato soup this morning after I decided that it was way too windy to go out..got to the flat along Muskegon lake and could barely make any headway all the way down in 5th on the rear cassette and that is just too brutal for me and, with the worn out driveline on the new bike, I can’t put any pressure on the pedals without it skipping and that hurts when it does…I think I’ll probably order the parts for the grey bike this week since I now know how to change everything and it shouldn’t take me more than an hour to renew the whole thing…and if I order the same parts that are on it, I won’t have to do any adjusting like the black bike…I do need new brake pads for the black bike, too, since they have hardened up and don’t really stop the bike too well…so, I promise I’ll get to a political one maybe later today or early tomorrow…just need to take a little bit of a rest….more later…
September 8th
Well…back to waking up after 6 but it’s only one day so it’s not a pattern yet….don’t feel too bad right now if a little slow but I’m on the first cup of coffee so we’ll see how I do after a while…I am pretty sore after getting out to play in the waves yesterday and getting one ride in that pitched me right up on the beach and I tumbled like I was in a washing machine…laughed my butt off…that took a lot out of me with fighting the serious rip current that was running along the beach and I was exhausted the rest of the day….and it finally rained out here and the storm came through with 70 mph winds that took down a bunch of tree limbs…but I got to watch a storm from my porch for the first time so that was cool….and I hope that my lawn greens up with the food I put down Monday….looks better today but I am going to have to water it in a couple of days with no rain in the forecast again until next week…it’s going to be a busy day today with the grocery run, riding the bike, and then using the rest of the tomatoes to make tomato soup with a recipe I found from the food network that got 5 stars…have to cut and roast the tomatoes then put them in the blender to puree them…just like the sauce I made last week…and that will be a lot of work…..so I probably won’t get much else done today…I may paint the inside of the back door frame while I’m waiting for the tomatoes to roast but they only take 45 minutes at 450 so it may not give me enough time….more later…
Keep taking that horse medicine….
Well….a news story that just came out today made me laugh a bit with the irony of it….it appears that taking horse de-wormer to treat covid is not such a good idea…a study that was done a few months back showed that men who took the drug lost most of their fertility…yep, that’s right, the idiots who are flocking to this treatment have less sperm and most of it is mutated so they can’t reproduce anymore…you know, I just thought of Charles Darwin when I read that article and think it just perfect that these morons will have a hard time having any more little idiots…and with them dying in droves because they didn’t get the vaccine, it thins the herd quite a bit and that is just what this country needs…you can’t reason with these morons so the only way to get through to them is if they die….and I won’t shed one damn tear when they do…geez…