Last one for the month…

Well….damn, where the heck did November go? It seems to have passed so quickly that I almost missed it….but, it is nice that the first wed of December is the first so I get more cash in my account in only two weeks…..I’ve gotten a few things done this month and am making slow progress on this place but that pace needs to pick up if I want to get the interior painted over the winter…but that’s about 3 months so it should be enough time…and then I can take the summer off next summer and just fool around and go to the beach a lot….and if the damn virus will just go away, I will be able to go out sometimes and have a beer or two and get to know more of Muskegon….and maybe make some friends out here….I did get laundry done today along with fixing part of the cold air return for the furnace so it will pull air from up here instead of just the basement….and four of these if that counts for anything….I did do a bike ride, too, and I think it was the hardest ride yet….came away with my t-shirt totally soaked when it normally is only half soaked…I may be outside for the ride tomorrow but I just noticed that the black bike has a flat on the front tire and I must have damaged it putting the knobby tires on it last week…darn….I will have to wash the grey bike tomorrow and get it downstairs since it is going to be warm enough and I will then need to put a hook up for the hose after I drain it and hang that in the garage…and I may have to replace the valve I put on the outside faucet with the cap for the winter since the valve is plastic and probably won’t survive sub zero temperatures….so, it looks like a full day tomorrow with  doing the grocery run, cooking the 7 pound pork shoulder, riding the bike, and then cleaning it up….trying a new recipe for the pork that has a sauce made of onions, bay leaves, garlic, chicken stock and butter…and, since I used rosemary for the turkey, I am going to substitute Italian seasonings for that….and it all cooks in the instant pot while the pork is cooking…and then you thicken it with some cornstarch when the pork is done…not sure if 12 cloves of garlic is too much so I think I’ll cut that back to 6….oh, and some roasted carrots and mashed potatoes to go with it….so, I only had one meal today with the big one coming tomorrow….happy December…

A little rant….

Well….you know, I wonder why every damn corporation has to be so greedy…just last week, the dollar store that I go to announced it was going to raise prices by 25% to 1.25 per item, and the reason why was to ensure the profitability of the company…yeah, right…the company, Dollar Tree, had profits of almost 2 billion dollars last year and paid it’s ceo over 11 million dollars….so my question as always is: how much is enough? Is it 3 billion or 10? If everything else stays the same, they will make another 500 million dollars in profit that will go straight through to the owners that really don’t need it and it will act like a tax for those of us that shop there…while I don’t have to, what happens to the people who are forced to shop at these types of stores because they can’t afford anywhere else? I wonder what would happen if just one of these assholes would say “hey, I’ve got enough…let’s hold the line to help our customers”….yeah, never going to happen…every one of them is just too damn greedy…geez…

Some movies…

Well…with so many new shows out there that I like, I very seldom remind myself to look at the movies section of plex to see if there are any that I have requested in there….and there have been a few…like the new James Bond movie that I thought was pretty good if a bit long…to Red Notice that was also an okay movie but Ryan Reynolds annoys the hell out of me….last night, I watched Shang Chi and the legend of the 10 rings…and that one kept me interested all through it with lots of martial arts fights and good special effects so I’ll call it a good movie…it’s supposed to be in the Marvel universe so there will probably be a sequel to some point and that would be cool….one that hasn’t shown up yet is the Eternals and I would really like to see that one….oh, and the new Beatles movie that I’m almost done with…and that is a fascinating look at the creative process they used to write their songs…it was so cool to see Paul go from a couple of notes to the finished version of Get Back and a lot of the songs on both Let It Be and Abbey Road…I was huge Beatle fan when I was young and even saw Let it Be at the Midtown theater in GR when it came out in 1969…and that entire concert is in the movie and the rest of the movie is about them writing the songs for it…pretty cool…think I’ll go there right now and see if anything hew has been added….

November 30th

Well…damn, how did this happen? Woke up at 6:23 but was able to go back to sleep until after 8…I haven’t slept in til after 8 in years and I really don’t know why it happened today….don’t feel refreshed, though, so I don’t think it did any good….and I slept on my right shoulder again and it hurts like crazy this morning…oh, well…I did get a few things done yesterday but probably won’t do much but clean today…if I even do that…just not too motivated right now but that could be that I’m on my first cup of coffee and it hasn’t had time to work yet….I may be able to get out on the bike tomorrow and Thurs since it’s supposed to be in the mid 40′s but it it’s just so easy to  go downstairs to ride that getting cold has lost it’s attraction to me….and I’m pretty sure the trails are getting some ice on them…and being careful is just too much work…..the chickens have been here a lot since I started to put some food out for them and that is pretty cool….they just stand there and wait for me to put out a couple of cups…and they have already been here this morning to completely clean up the leftovers from yesterday…need to get out there with more here in a minute….not much to do today…just going to ease into it and have more coffee for a while and then see about getting on the bike downstairs…again, no motivation….and I’m not sure if that is going to change….more later…

Go to hell anti vaxxers…

Well…with the emergence of the new omicron variant, all I have to say is go to hell anti vaxxers…if it was for your stupidity, this mutation wouldn’t have happened since everyone infected so far has not been vaccinated…but, with the strain first identified in South Africa where they are having problems getting enough vaccine, it’s more of a logistic issue than truly anti vaccine ideology. That still doesn’t make it any better, though, since it appears that this new strain spreads even easier than the delta variant that took over the world in the last year….first reports coming out of SA are hopeful that the symptoms are milder than delta but it’s still early to know that for sure. One thing that is for sure is that the racist right wingers at all over it with one of the dumbest takes I have ever seen…I guess these morons think South Africa is the same as South America since fox news and the rest of the stupid party are yapping about South Africans coming across our southern border…yep, they think that people are walking across the Atlantic ocean to Texas I guess…I am still amazed at the ignorance of these people…by second grade I could tell the difference between Africa and South America…but these morons can’t….I would say I can’t believe it…but with these idiots, I can believe they will do or say anything…not even caring how this crap makes them look….geez…

November 29th

Well…I sure wish I could figure out how I got to 7:44 this morning before waking up….I wonder if it’s from not sleeping much the past couple of days? Whatever it is, it was nice to wake up with the light today….I did get some work done yesterday…had some peeling paint in the bike room that was bugging me so I scraped it and used a wire brush to clean up the spalling, then painted it with the exterior white paint the I had left over from doing the door frames…have to figure out what color I’m going to paint the room but I think it will be the grey theme that I’m going to use on the rest of the interior…I did get a bike ride in yesterday and I’ll do that again today but I am having trouble getting going so it will probably wait til later this morning….have to run an errand this morning to get a pork shoulder that I’m going to cook tomorrow since I’m getting tired of turkey and it’s only 99cents a pound….that will keep me going for almost a week…and I haven’t had any pork for quite a while….not much to do today…just the errand and then back here to do the ride and then figure out what else I need to do….but I need coffee and to read the news right now…I feel like I’m running behind after the long sleep…but, I know I’m not….I have all day but it’s 8:24 already and I need to get moving….more later…

They don’t know anything about inflation…

Well…with all of the repub yapping about inflation and bragging that they are going to run against Biden and the dems with it in 2022 and 2024, you would think that they would know something about it…oh, that’s right…with their lie machine of fox news, they don’t have to have any facts or know anything…just the daily talking points delivered by fox news. So, with every credible economist saying the inflation we are seeing is transitory and due mostly to shortages rather than any underlying problems with the economy…you can see that just by looking at the contracts for oil for January that have dropped to 64 dollars a barrel from 100 bucks…which converts to about 2.35 a gallon of gas…and it could go lower once the oil companies stop keeping the prices high even when their costs have plummeted….I’ve seen that food prices have started to moderate, too, with pork shoulders back down to 99 cents a pound on sale compared to the 1.49 a pound they were just a few weeks ago…and you could still get a frozen turkey at Meijers last week for 33 cents a pound on sale….so, in these unprecedented times, let’s take a breath an hope the media stops howling about inflation…after all no family drinks 15 gallons of milk a week….yeah, that was a little joke….geez…

November 28th

Well…darn, another 5:13 morning and I didn’t sleep for crap last night….tried to get a little more sleep but gave up at around 6…but, I feel okay so I guess that’s something….I did get out to get the paper this morning and the roads are really icy up here…the summer tires did okay but I am going to put the winter ones on this week….I did ask if there was a self serve car wash when I went out to get the paper this morning and there is one on Sherman so that is only a mile or so from here so I’ll look for it when I go out for groceries wed….I did get a ride in yesterday but not much more than that with the Michigan game on and taking up 3 1/2 hours in the afternoon…I am over 100 miles on the inside bike and over 8 hours in time on it and I hope I can get another 100-200 miles before the end of the year…that should get me to 4700 miles or so and that’s not a bad year…..and this year I can start riding on the 1st of the year and should have close to a thousand miles before I get out on the trails….not much to do today…Man U plays at 11:30 so I need to get the bike ride in before that and maybe even some cleaning….Meijers has pork shoulders on sale this week for 99cents a pound so I’m going to get one and cook it in the instant pot and that will give me protein for the entire week after I finish off the turkey….more later….

Michigan beats Ohio State!!

Well…holy, holy crap! Michigan just beat Ohio State by the score of 42-27 and I am so damn geeked…Big Ten East champs and go into the playoff next Sat for the championship…and if they win that one, they will be in the playoffs for the National Championship in January…probably the most complete game I have ever seen the Wolverines play…they just ran over Ohio and matched them every time they scored….it has been such a long time since Michigan did this that I thought they never would again….today they were the much better team and will end up in the top four at least and maybe all the way up to second since Ohio was 2nd and got completely whipped….I think I’ll have a smile on my face the rest of the day…Go Blue!

“Potgate”

Well…you know the repubs have nothing to criticize the Biden administration about since we are in the best economy in 20 years and have the lowest number of new unemployment claims in 50 years…so what do they choose to make into a fake scandal? Kamala Harris buying a 350 dollar pot in France with her own money…yep, this coming from the party that was just fine with the the idiot trump spending 150 MILLION dollars of taxpayer money to play golf and make a profit at his tacky golf resorts….and they bray on and on about “out of control” spending by Harris when there is “economic uncertainty” for many Americans….look, she makes over two hundred grand a year in pay for being VP…should she feel guilty for spending some of her pay to buy cookware…for anyone who loves to cook, and she does, having good cookware that lasts forever is a goal and spending 350 bucks is not an “obscene” luxury as the repubs would have the world think…it just shows you that they really do have nothing to criticize…so they have to make it up like they always do….and I hereby trademark “Potgate”…it’s mine now…geez..