Well…running a little late today with not getting up until 6:17 and now I only have 14 minutes to get this done before I have to get on the bike for the indoor ride for the day….slept okay and I am really amazed how well I’ve been sleeping since I quit all of the aids that I had been using for years….and trying to sleep was one of the most anxiety generating things I did in those years…but that is pretty much gone now and being officially retired has helped that….with no schedule to keep anymore, if I have a bad night where I don’t sleep I can adjust my day to fit how I feel…and that is a luxury that everyone should have….had a normal Sunday yesterday with not a lot of work but I did continue removing the paint from the second heat register and I may be able to finish that up today…but it is going to be a busy day with the indoor ride, an errand out to HF, filling the trim in the bathroom to get ready to sand tomorrow, and then getting an outdoor ride in after lunch…and I may even be able to get one in tomorrow but then the weather goes back down into the 40′s for the rest of the month and into April….and that sucks….but that makes it a little urgent to get the indoor stuff done before I need to put all my time into getting the yard cleaned up and getting the garden border done along with choosing what perennials I want to plant around the back of the house…I did notice I have crocuses popping up in the dirt there so that will be cool and I am thinking about some small bell shaped plants that we had around the house when I was growing up…okay, just had to check the name and they are called Lily of the Vallies….and they thrive in shade so I can plant them on the east side of the house…time to get on the bike…more later….
Monthly Archives: March 2022
TV reviews…
Well…you know, when you get invested in a show for most of it and then when the show runners try to get “edgy” they screw it all up…and that’s how I feel about the prequel to “Yellowstone” called “1883″….and there are going to be spoilers in this one so if you haven’t finished or seen it yet, probably better to stop reading right now. Up until the last episode, it was a pretty good if violent show but I’m not sure if it was really a true depiction of what life was like on the plains as people moved west…I mean, no boredom or anything like that but just death, death, and more death…much like if Mad Max had taken place on the plains of the US instead of Australia…and at the end, when the entire final episode was a dragged out death of what I saw as the main character…a young woman coming of age on the trail, the investment of the viewer was betrayed by the need of the show runners to continue the shock value that permeated the show…and then when the trail boss played by Sam Elliot kills himself sitting on the beach of the Pacific Ocean after the wagon train falls apart, it was just gratuitous and didn’t need to happen…I know the character had a tough life losing his wife and daughter to disease and then the death of the young woman who had become his ersatz daughter hit him hard, too…but, do we need that much reality? I know that the late 1800′s were pretty whitewashed as we were taught as kids but I wanted to be entertained not slapped in the face and that is just what the ending did. I’m not sure what Taylor Sheridan was thinking when he wrote the show that way, but making your audience work that hard to enjoy some escapism is just too much….and it turned me off “Yellowstone” to be honest…
Happy spring!
Well…I was trying to get this one started and had my fingers one key off on the home row of the computer and lots of weird looking words came out…but, I fixed that so here goes….it is the first day of spring today and I don’t feel like I have spring fever at all…in fact I feel like I have reverse spring fever with just feeling exhausted today but it’s my rest day so that works out okay….it was nice enough to get out on the bike today but I resisted that since it is my day off and I really do need some rest for some reason…so, I’ll just do a double tomorrow to make up for it….I have realized that I do need some new tools as I work on all the wood around here…so, after spending 30 bucks at HF Friday, I’ll be back there tomorrow to pick up a new multi purpose file and a set of 4 wood chisels getting ready for working on the doors in here and cleaning up the corners of the baseboards…the 4 pack has chisels from a quarter inch to one inch for only 8 bucks and the file is only 4 bucks and they all should come in handy….and give my new putty knife a rest…and I had to spend 30 bucks on allergy meds this morning,too…got 5 bottles of generic flonase on amazon when the name brand stuff costs about 15 bucks per bottle so that’s a pretty good deal and I am going to need it if my allergies keep getting worse…I am still waiting for real spring to get here and that is not going to happen for the rest of March…that sucks but the trails are already melted and that is 3 weeks earlier than last year so I can live with it…I do want to talk about some tv and that will be in the next one…more later…
Putie boy isn’t going anywhere…
Well…in a little bit of good news coming out of the atrocity that Putin has rained down on the peaceful Ukrainian people, the International Court of Justice has just designated the invasion of Ukraine a war crime and Putin a war criminal…which makes it a hanging offense if Putin ever leaves Russia again…so maybe he can go to one of the countries that are run by his puppets and have no relationship with the court, but no more UN, no more vacations to the Riviera, no nothing unless he wants to be hauled up in front of the court and sentenced to death…and this ruling makes it pretty simple…the only proof they need is that the invasion happened…and it did so they really don’t have to prove anything…and all of the idiot’s tv addresses just add to the evidence and make it even harder for outside countries to help him avoid sanctions if they don’t want to be hit with the same charges…so all of his puppets need to start looking over their shoulders and making plans to hunker down in their own countries since they can be arrested if they ever set foot outside of them…a good development amid all of the carnage Putin is raining down on innocent civilians in Ukraine…geez….
March 20th
Well…darn, my right thumb is finally reacting to wire brushing the register grate Friday and then sanding the rest of the baseboards in the bathroom yesterday…every time I move it, it hurts even without any load on it…so, I guess it’s a good thing that today is a rest day…or an easy rest day…I may hit the latest grate with some more cleaner today but that will be the extent of the work today…slept okay last night and feel okay this morning and it was pretty cool that it was clear when I went out of the paper….almost full moon and lots of stars and I’m sure my neighbors think I’m weird when I just stand out my back door and look up for a few minutes….but I really don’t care…I am hoping that it gets warm enough to get out on the bike today but it looks like the race schedule is going to keep me off for the day…and that’s okay…Sundays are supposed to be a day off everything and there will be plenty of spring days to take advantage of the weather…and today is the first day of spring but this week is not going to look like it…one warm day tomorrow and then back in the 40′s for the rest of the month…ick….I did figure out that I’m going to make a brick border for my garden this year so it looks a little more finished and I can mow right over it if I set the bricks flush to the ground…will probably stay with the grey and red colors that I used for the trash bin landing pad that I put in last year and it should look cool…and it should only cost me about 30 bucks to do it…not much to do today…I do have to break down the 10 pound bag of leg quarters I got Friday and have been letting thaw enough so they are not one big frozen block…and I need something for meals today but I guess I can make pasta since I have a lot of that….but right now, I’m going to enjoy another cup of coffee and read the news and try to find a topic for later….more later….
Now, back to the house…
Well…after trying to not talk all the time about working on this house, I give up…it’s about all I do anymore so if I don’t talk about it, I won’t talk about anything at all and that just isn’t going to happen…so, here goes….I did finally get on the trim in the bathroom this morning and got a bunch of the old paint sanded and removed so the finish will be much better when I paint but I still need to do some filling first but that won’t happen today…my thumb is howling at me after using the sander this morning and I need to rest it or take something for it and I’m not sure which I want to do….we’ll see….one thing I did discover after starting on the heat register from the big bedroom is that heavy duty oven cleaner works better than strip on both the frame and grates and I only have one more application to do on the grate and it will be almost completely paint free…the frame is already ready for sanding and painting after two applications and the paint just slid off with a copper pan scrubber…and this spray on oven cleaner is so much easier to use on the grates to get into every corner than trying to brush on strip…will do one more application on the grate tomorrow and then the rest will come off with the heat gun…and that only leaves three to do but won’t get working on those until summer where I can spray them outdoors and won’t have to eat the fumes…but, I am done for the day now unless I get to doing the filling in the bathroom….it does feel good to make progress but I did remember to tell myself I’m not on any schedule and just hope to have the bathroom done by the end of April and then on to the big bedroom that should take about 6 weeks to finish once I start in there…and then I’m taking all of July off…running out of time to enjoy myself as I get older and don’t want to waste the time I have left making a really nice house for the next owners…but, you’ve heard me say that before…still applies….
Let me get this straight….
Well…as I was reading about breathless reporting that the war in Ukraine has entered a new phase with the Russians “digging in” and making semi permanent placements of their tanks and artillery and this is a bad thing for the Ukrainian army…but, in my non military head, my take on it is a little different…sitting in a semi permanent location that can be found by any one of a number of drones and tells the Ukrainians where the Russians are seems to be a little bit on the stupid side…there are even videos already showing the tanks digging in so what is to keep the Ukrainians from shelling these emplacements with artillery or bombing them with drones or aircraft? After all, these aren’t hardened reinforced concrete structures designed to withstand bombs but they are just holes that they are parking the tanks in…and to keep them useful the turrets need to be exposed so they can aim their guns and the tops of the turrets have some of the thinnest armor on the tank, making them perfect targets for a hellfire missile or even a bomb toting drone…so, what is the thinking here? I sure as hell wouldn’t park my tanks where they couldn’t be used and could be attacked at will…and it would only take about 3 artillery shells to zero them in and kill the tanks…I wonder if they are digging in because they don’t have the fuel to drive the tanks anymore? Whatever the reason, this appears to be just another in a long line of blunders by the supposed “super” Russian army who have been fought to a standstill by the motivated Ukrainians….cripes, I would love to have my enemy just sit there while I attacked…I guess they can fill the holes with burned out tanks…geez…
A real “life” one…
Well…yeah, on the first one today, I got somewhat off track and fell back into talking about work on the house and that’s not what the first one of the day is for…so, let’s go back to what ‘life” posts are supposed to be about….it is nice that it has been raining out here for almost a whole day now but I’m not sure if it’s going to be warm enough to make the lawn green up this soon…there was still ice under the sod that I had to replace in the front of the house and I may have been mistaken about who tore it up in the first place…I thought it was the guys who dug up the road but now I think it was the person who plowed the snow at the vacant house next door since the yard along their driveway is just as torn up as my terrace…but it went back together okay so I can live with it…not sure what I did to injure my right tricep but it has hurt like crazy the past couple of days…I wonder if it was getting on the outdoor bike? I did get a good ride in this morning and did the 8 miles in a little over a half hour and that is getting toward the record…no, I haven’t kept track of that but it wouldn’t be unusual if I did….I did get laundry started and it sounds like it just finished so I need to go down and put it in the dryer…feel pretty good this morning and I do have to remember to get a couple of cups of coffee in me before I get on the bike…only had half a cup is not enough fuel to get these old legs working….more later….
March 19th
Well…it looks like the power went out at 12:36 last night for a time since my stove was blinking that time at me when I got up…and the coffee maker and microwave were blank so I had to reset the time on everything…at least I didn’t notice it and the house was warm when I woke up at 2:14 so it must have been a short outage….slept okay and feel okay today but I am a little irritated that just using the wire brush on the register yesterday has left my right shoulder sore as heck and I am going to abuse it even more with some sanding on the bathroom trim today…and I probably should get take down the blinds in there to get started on the window after I do the trim…and that is going to take a week or so with how bad shape that one is in…I did get the register removed from the big bedroom yesterday to get ready to start working on it…this one was rusted into place and I had to pry the grate out since the latches wouldn’t turn and it really did look like they just poured paint over it instead of brushing it…this bedroom is probably the second worse room after the kitchen and it is going to take a bunch of work…hmmmm…this one has devovled into a house one and I don’t want that…I did get out for an errand yesterday but will be staying in today and just fooling around some…after I get on the bike….and I may do laundry today, too, since I am running out of clothes to wear and haven’t done any this week…not much to do today…there are lots of races on today with the Sebring 12 hours and lots of nascar, F1, along with some soccer so I sure won’t be bored and I may even be tempted to skip the trim work in the bathroom…but, I won’t…the sanding will only take about a half hour or so and I just love abusing the heck out of myself….more later….
Got everything done….
Well…had lots of stuff to do today and got everything done so I feel okay about that…even got the heat gun from HF this morning and used it to strip the paint off one register as soon as I got back here with it…took a long time but this register had at least 5 coats of paint on it and maybe more…and even holding the heat gun on one spot for minutes didn’t really get the paint to bubble much but it softened it enough use the wire brush to break it up…it looked like the paint was acting as insulation it was so thick…over an eighth of an inch thick in spots and I almost used up a wire brush doing one register..but, I had gotten quotes of 25 bucks each to strip or sand blast them so I guess I’m still saving cash…and I did find save a lot and got 10 pounds of chicken leg quarters for 3.90 so I’ll have food for weeks and weeks…and I was looked on as a freak with masking up again today but I don’t give a damn…they will look different when they are getting sick from omicron2 and I’m not….needless to say, with all of the register work, I didn’t get on the trim in the bathroom but I will work on that tomorrow…I’m done for the day….