Well…with the Olympics ending today, all I can say is meh….really didn’t care much for the games being held in a country that is actively slaughtering minorities there and trying to whitewash their actions by trotting out some of those same people just to give the games a veneer of acceptability….for the first time in almost forever, I didn’t even watch the games once in primetime and really didn’t know a thing about any of the US athletes…or really care….and with the IOC allowing the Russian skater to participate even with testing positive for a banned substance, you could see that the IOC is just as damn corrupt as they have ever been and why watch any sporting event when it could be fixed by the people who are supposed to be upholding the rules? I wonder why the Russians were even allowed to compete after the doping scandal a few years back where over 80% of their athletes were in on the cheating? All they had to do was change the name of the organization they compete for to the Russian Olympic committee and everything is swept under the rug and is okay to the IOC. The ideals of the Olympics were violated so severely by the trainers of the 15 year old Russian skater when they berated her unmercifully after she fell during her routine that they should get a lifelong ban for the abuse they heaped on her and the rest of the skaters they train…is this the Olympic ideal? It was so painful to watch the end of the women’s single skate that I won’t ever watch again…and that’s how I felt throughout the games…it just isn’t worth it anymore…and with the ratings the games got, it looks like the rest of the world is feeling the same way…geez…
Monthly Archives: February 2022
Phil Mickleson is just a terrible person….
Well…you know I’ve talked about this before where Phil is just a big asshole and went on and on and on about California raising his taxes a small bit threatening to move out of state to one of the backwater ones run by repubs that don’t have any state income taxes but also have crumbling schools and infrastructure…but that doesn’t matter to these selfish assholes…it’s all me,me,me without a thought to anyone but themselves…and ole Phil is at it again with trying to “sportswash” the murderous Saudi regime by supporting their attempt to create a new world golf league…and guess where they are going to play here in the US? Yeah, that’s an easy one…at the clubs of the asshole in chief who went out of his way to protect bin Salman who ordered the murder of a US based journalist, Khashoggi, and never paid a price for it since trump was just fine with it….oh, and joining Mickleson is the owner of the company who is putting the tournaments on, Greg Norman, the Aussie who appears to be another asshole who has no morals and will help the Saudis burnish their reputation by getting other right wing asshole golfers to participate in these tournaments. We know one of the hallmarks of these entitled assholes is that they don’t care who they associate with if it make them some of that sweet, sweet, dirty Saudi cash to line their pockets…okay, do you have the idea of what I think of these guys? Yep, a bunch of entitled asshole whiners who have never had to work a day in their lives and act like they are better than everyone since they can hit a little white ball…..they should be ostracized just for their behavior over the years but to add this one should make them pariahs wherever they go….geez….
February 20th
Well…damn, I am getting tired of the cold and wind out here and sure want winter to be over….the sky looked cool with it being clear and I did stop and look up when I was walking out to the garage…and I guess the neighbors think I’m weird but that’s okay…I am…slept a little crappy last night with getting up twice and doing a lot of tossing and turning but I still feel okay with being good…still…and I don’t think only one day of being bad since January 2nd is something to feel bad about….and I’m over the hump to making this the new normal and the only thing is the boredom that comes with being good…my brain never shuts off anymore and that is a lot of work….didn’t get anything done yesterday but that was the plan with trying to get my hands to heal up some but I may work on the baseboards in the kitchen today to get moving on the rest of the kitchen…I do need to finish the bathroom today after getting the shower cleaned yesterday and it is so shiny that I am a little reluctant to use it today….and should I be excited about getting a new mop to do the floor? Damn, little things make me happy and I’m not going to apologize for it….not much to do today…I am just going to sit here and drink coffee for a while since I don’t have to get on the bike today but I do have to at least take a shower before Man U plays at 9….and Daytona is on later today so I’ll have something to nap to to make up for the crappy sleep last night…more later….
It seems to be working…
Well….as I talked about somewhat earlier, I have been trying a new technique to try to ignore the boredom from riding the bike 8 miles every morning…and that consists of focusing on the music that I’m listening to instead of thinking about the miles that I still have to do once I start…and, with this morning’s ride, the technique appears to be working and I had the best ride that I can remember listening to the first disc of “Secret World Live” by Peter Gabriel…there is something about listening to a piece of music as a whole instead of the snippets you get when you add songs to a playlist…I have watched the dvd of this performance so many times that I could actually see the songs in my head as they were playing and the joyousness the band showed when they performed….so I’m going to keep trying to find entire albums (yeah, I’m old) to listen to as I ride…thinking of “Physical Graffiti” by Led Zeppelin for Monday’s ride…I have tomorrow off…and that is making me grin a bit….more later….
So nice to have a “real” president…
Well…no matter how much the right attacks and tries to belittle him, isn’t it nice to have a real president acting like a real president should? That thought came to me over the past few days after the Ukraine crisis bubbles on and as Putin has been trying all his old bullshit tricks to justify invading a sovereign nation…could you imagine how screwed up the world would be if idiot boy was still in charge? Cripes, Russia would be taking over it’s third or fourth country by now and trump would be in Moscow praising him for being so “strong” while abandoning all of Europe. It seems that someone in this administration plays chess with the moves that Biden has been making…and his restoring of our vital alliances and his leadership has all of the rest of the world on exactly the same page…and if Russia does invade, it will be the end of Putin as a player on the world stage and it’s economy will take a hit that will take decades to repair if it ever can. All of this from a “senile” old man who can barely talk if you listen to fox news…and I sure hope you don’t….look, Biden has restored the US’s leadership in the world by our actions, not the bullshit that trump and his administration spewed every day…and with Biden making sure that our allies understand they are equals that we value, I see a sense of relief from them and a willingness to back our actions since they are based on facts and not the “gut feel” of a moron…and that gives me relief to know that a real president is at the controls….
February 19th
Well…this is just damn weird…two days of howling pain in my left jaw just stopped yesterday afternoon before I made pizza and it didn’t come back last night or overnight…I wonder if it was an infection and the amoxicillin I took knocked it down? All I know is that it still doesn’t hurt right now but I am going to keep the dentist appointment since I have been waiting 10 years to get started on the repairs that will allow me to eat ice cream on my birthday again…so I have til July to get that done…I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I can get through this week without pain….I was a little concerned last night with all of the high winds out here when my power blinked and the tv reset itself and that put me a little on edge since it is only about 11 degrees out there and heating this house with the range would be a huge pain in the butt…but, everything is still working and I am gong to get cramps from keeping my fingers crossed…again…even without working on this place for a day or so, my right elbow is really hurting this morning and I am wincing to just pick up my coffee cup and that is a little confusing but not really new….I wonder if all the sanding and abuse of my right arm and hand has done permanent damage to it? Sure hope not since I want to get 5K miles in on the bike this summer….not much to do today…just need to get on the bike here in 15 minutes or so and then I’m just going to wing it for the day…I do have to get out and shovel the snow but it doesn’t look as bad as I expected…we maybe got 2 inches of snow instead of the 4-6 that was forecast and I’ll take that any day….more later…damn, the tooth pain is starting up again…crap….
Made a good pizza….
Well…after being in pain all day with my teeth seeming to have a direct line to my brain, they went calm for a couple of hours so I decided to make the pizza that I had planned for a 4 day meal…and I wanted to try to add some flavor to the crust so I gave it a little garlic powder and Italian seasoning when I was mixing it up and hoped that even with the small amount I added, it would add another component to the taste…and I will say that it did and I’m happy with it…no more bland crust even with the tiny amounts I added…and I may add just a little bit more next time if I remember…I may have to make a note to the crust recipe I have in my notebook to make sure I do it right next time…my teeth are still only hurting a little and I have to try to figure out what I did to make that happen so I don’t suffer like I did last night…it is nice to have an appointment with a dentist to get the process of fixing my teeth started even if I do have to wait til next Friday to get in….and I still think that paying 360 dollars for a year of insurance to get 2500 bucks worth of work is a pretty good deal and I hope that it’s enough to get all of the work done except the molar removal and implant that I need…okay, the wind has been blowing so hard out here this afternoon that I can barely hear my tv when it gusts…and there is 3-6 inches of snow coming along with it so I may have drifts for the second time this winter….hope not…
Whitewashing history…
Well…so now I guess the latest spasm that the repubs are going through is passing laws whose only purpose is to whitewash history and make sure that no teacher in repub controlled states can teach the truth about this country at all…they want it to appear that there was no slavery, no Jim Crow, or no continuing racism that goes on to this day…and no Klan or lynchings…and I guess nothing about the gilded age where the rich stole everything and rigged the system so no else could even get a tiny share…and their reason is that if little white kids are told the truth, it may hurt their feelings and they just can’t take that as it may scar them for life….and the irony of that whole argument is that little white kids can’t be taught about it…but a little black girl, Ruby Bridges, lived it when she was the first black to go to an all white school and had to listen to all of the white racists scream at her and call her the “N” word…and to have adults throw things at her and threaten her life…she can endure that but little white kids can’t be taught about it since they may “feel bad” about being white….now, this crap is just as racist as the whites who screamed at Ruby and tells you where all of these new laws are coming from…they want to keep the “uppity” minorities in their place and make sure they know they are not in any way equal to little white kids who need to be protected from everything….and their culture and experience in their lives has no value to “normal” society. Now these white southern racists are going after teachers by passing laws that give any screaming white racist the ability to rat out any teacher that teaches anything about race in this country and then get the teacher fired…so now Martin Luther King and the racial equality movement no longer exists in Texas. Mississippi, and every other southern state and the happy face of slavery is the new reality in schoolrooms across the south…I knew that racism was still bubbling under the surface of this country but I really thought that we had come past the overt stuff that plagued my childhood…but this is worse than then…and we have come nowhere at all…geez…
An eventful morning…
Well…my damn teeth are howling at me again this morning and that spurred me into talking to delta dental and getting a list of dentists out here that take my medicare dental insurance….very nice person at delta got me that list and then gave me some advice that I should look into the supplemental dental coverage that is available through priority health…so she transferred me to them and I found that I can get 2500 bucks a year of coverage for 29 bucks a month and they will take it out of my SS check so I don’t have to deal with it at all…so, I signed up for it and made an appointment with a dentist that is near me and has great reviews but they can’t get me in for a week but I’m hoping that they get a cancellation so I can get in sooner…but the insurance doesn’t take effect until the first of March but they will need to do a cleaning and take some x-rays and those are already covered so at least I can get started and maybe they can help with the pain until they can start working…or I can just pay for the first filling until the ins starts….it is nice that I have that at least started and maybe I’ll be able to eat ice cream with berries for my birthday for the first time in years…and the person I talked to at Priority is sending me a list of spectrum doctors out here so I can get that taken care of too…so it has been an eventful morning and I’m glad I finally got off my ass and got this started….
February 18th
Well…damn…that was a crappy night with having pain on the left side of my jaw all night but, thankfully, I was able to sleep some and the pain is manageable today…but even with the pain at a low level, the anticipation that it is going to get as bad as yesterday has me on pins and needles as I do this…and I think it may be an infection since it hurts across my jaw both upper and lower…and to have all the teeth on both of them hurt at once is not how cavity pain usually works…I was lucky to have some leftover amoxicillin to take and that may be working and I have enough to get through a couple of days so I hope I can endure until I can find a dentist out here….crap…. so that was my focus for the whole day yesterday and didn’t get much done and today will be the same if the pain comes back…and the weather is going to go to hell this afternoon with 2-4 inches of snow and wind gusts up to 55 mph so I need to be able to get to Monday before I can go anywhere…..so, I’ve already taken some ibuprofen and some amoxicillin to try to get ahead of the pain and survive the day…and I need to find out if there is a dentist out here that will take my medicare dental so I can save a few hundred bucks on x-rays and cleaning…..no much to do today…going to get on the bike here in a few minutes and I really wish I didn’t have to….and I need to shovel the snow we got last night before the storm starts this afternoon….and I planned to make a pizza today but I’m not sure if I’ll do that with the pain in my jaw but I really should before the veggies and mushrooms go bad….I do need to put the chicken I got Wed into bags and get it into the freezer…won’t have to buy any protein for the next couple of weeks with getting 17 pounds wed….and I have three pork chops marinating in the fridge and I planned for one later today but I’m not sure if I can support that many calories in one day….more later….