October 27th

Well…out to Ada yesterday and feel kind of crappy today…so this one is going to be short for now…was planning on staying in for the day but have to go out to get some chicken stock to make today’s food…but I really want to just stay on the couch…yep, the depression is back with a vengeance….crap…more later…

Okay..feeling better after coffee but I need to get the workout in and then try to take the bike out…but the wind is already pretty strong so that may not happen…I’ll be back in a while to continue this…

Back again…sorry for the depressive first paragraph but that’s how I felt then…but I’m feeling better now after I got the bike ride in and had some lunch…the bike ride was really quite unusual with the wind blowing so hard but it was not as bad as I expected….just shifted down a few gears and took it easy…and now I have the prospect of taking it easy the rest of the day staring me in the face…and I don’t mind that stare at all…maybe more later…

October 26th

Well…are you getting bored with my life yet? I know I am especially since I only have things to do about once a week now…but I do have Netflix that I can watch online now…still have to try to limit it to one movie a day, though, or that’s all I’ll do and I don’t want to veg that much. It was quite a boring day yesterday…did go out with G for a couple and that was a nice diversion…I do have more work to do over there this morning but that will take all of about 15 mins so it won’t be much help for relieving the boredom. I don’t know what happened about the whole being happy thing…I had a couple of weeks where I was quite happy but it’s gone now and I’m back to where I was…and I don’t know how to get back to happy…weird….but, I’m used to being like this so it’s no great surprise. I guess I’ll keep trying to figure it out. Not much else to do today…have to get a few resumes out and then figure out what I want to cook…and then out to Ada, I think, to shoot pool. Might be seeing T later in the week but I think it will more likely be next week since she was traveling last week and you know how swamped you get back at work when you’ve been gone…more later…

Oh, look down…I wrote one about McConnell before this one…yeah, out of sequence, I know…

Let’s talk about McConnell…

Okay..if you haven’t gotten it yet let’s talk about what Mitch McConnell said the other day about what the repubs primary focus will be if they take control…can you guess? Is it to reduce unemployment, or to reduce the deficit, or to help people get health insurance, or to end the war in Afghanistan? If you guessed that, you would be wildly wrong…the idiot came out and revealed their true plan…not to govern for the benefit of the people but to “make sure Barack Obama is a one-term president”. I’m not making this up folks, they have no ideas on ensuring the upholding the constitutional rights of the people, or addressing the pressing problems we have…they just hate Obama so much they will put the future of this country on the line for their own little political gain. But, if you were paying attention, this was their goal all along…they just could not stand that an African-American was elected president and he had the audacity to try to govern for the benefit of all Americans, not just the rich and business as the repubs do. So, this is what we have to look forward to on November 2nd…no solutions to the nation’s problems but more of the same Newt Gingrich-Karl Rove vision of America where the rich get richer and everyone else can go to hell. It’s not to late to change the dynamic, though, let’s keep on trying to expose these idiots for what they are and get off our butts and vote…there are more of us who long for the days when the big ideas and the big projects that made us great were possible…and they still are with the right leadership…and that is not the repubs…geez…

The last week of sanity…

Well…here we are in the last week before the election, and I thought it’s time to try to put the differences that you will see if the repubs win in the starkest possible terms. But I think that I am going to try to take it a little easy for the week; to take each part of the possible changes and get at them in detail in separate posts….that may change as the week goes on and if it looks like it’s not sustainable….this first one will deal with the lack of reasonableness (I know, I’ve talked about this before) that has paralyzed the country…to the point that even if politicians from each side of the aisle do cooperate, they can never say a good word about each other or their base will make them pay….let alone do the things that this country needs to go forward. One of the things that I just can’t understand is why none of these politicians (mostly on the right) has the guts to do what is best for the country; not only their party. Do you people who are going to vote for the repubs think they will be able to get anything done? And why would you want them to get anything done when all they do is favor business and their rich cronies? Don’t give me the baloney that the Obama administration is “taking away our freedom” when the healthcare bill requires people to buy insurance in 2014. I’ll bet most of the bitchers have health insurance provided for them on the job…and they just don’t understand how lucky they are to have it. But they also don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves…certainly not for the common good….more later…

October 25th

Well…another month getting away from me…still no responses from all of the resumes that have gone out and I may have to face the new reality that I’ll never work again….so don’t believe all of the crap that getting retrained for the new jobs is what it takes for us older folks to get work…after all, how much more trained can you get when you already have 4 college degrees. There was an interesting segment on “60 Minutes” last night about the older workers struggles to find work; with many, many people with advanced degrees out of work for more than a year…for me, it’s been at least two years closer to three that I’ve been looking and there really are no prospects…and it is going to get worse if the repubs dismantle the rest of the safety net that has kept us eating at least. But I guess that’s a topic for the political section, huh? This is supposed to be about my life but isn’t work a huge part of life? Okay, I’ll move on and talk about my day and weekend. It was a boring weekend since I’ve not figured out this whole no friends thing yet and It is so easy to just stay here since it does save money…but I know I need to start finding new things to do, especially now that winter is coming on and that limits the possibilities somewhat. but that is not what I’m doing today…have to do some work at G’s after I work out and have my coffee and newspapers…I did get to the last 136 miles I need to get to 2K on the bike…so there will be a push this week to do 20-25 a day to make sure I make it..it is a goal after all and where are we without goals? Probably better off but I still have the last vestiges of my business career still rattling around in my head that force me to keep doing that. Oh, well…more later…oh, may have beers with G later but I’m not holding my breath…she’s skipped the last two weeks and that may signal the end of that routine, too.

Nobody’s fault but ours….

Well…that title is a paraphrase of a Led zeppelin song title, and it came to me today on the bike that if we let the crazies and the know nothings take this election, it nobody’s fault but ours. It our fault if we sit this one out because it has become too partisan, or because we’re not energized enough, or because we’re too busy…this is way too important to not take a half hour out of our busy days and get out to vote…and there is a difference between the candidates that can’t be overstated…go back to Bush and deregulation or keep going forward where government puts it’s thumb on the scale FOR us, not against us.

This could be our chance to make sure businesses won’t keep spending secret money to get their way; to buy legislators and legislation that allows them to get rewarded for taking, taking, and taking…if we don’t believe the lies those right-wing ads are full of…if we hear ‘failed stimulus package” and think: LIE…if we hear 500 billion in Medicare cuts and think: LIE…and if we hear “Nancy Pelosi’s best friend” and think: LIE….we can get them to stop with our votes because they will stop spending the money if it doesn’t get results. So, let’s not give them the results they are looking for. It’s nobody’s fault but ours if we let this country go down the drain…again, it up to you and me…

October 24th

Well…just a little observation that I made this morning…when you get up early as I do, it seems that this place wakes up as the sun starts to come up… a transition that feels much like the one I undergo…as the light starts to come in the windows, it seems a tangible reminder of the passing of time and a change in character as well…I know, I’m weird, but I have to put these weird thoughts down sometimes. I did go out to watch the first two perlods of the Wings game but missed Pavel’s heroics to win it with 11 seconds left…and watching the games alone is just not the same as it used to be with the group…but here we go on that change thing again…maybe it’s time to start looking for work in another city..to make that one last move that I still have in me…two of the kids have moved and with there no longer being a group of friends to hang out with, it just might be time…I think I’ll take today and start thinking about it. Not much else to do today…but I am going to get on cleaning all of the corners of the cobwebs and the leaves; but I do have a Netflix movie that I am going to watch right now…I have the coffee ready and I really could use a chance to shut the brain off for a while….more later…

October 23rd

Yeah, I know I’m late…it’s been a busy morning and I tried a few new things that put me behind…already have the slow cooker going with a pork loin roast in it and I even went out and got three papers to read this morning…that, and coffee have made the morning pretty good so far. I did decide to go out to see Harry play last night and it was pretty cool that his set started at 7…that’s pretty early for a band but worked out well for me. And, I took it easy so I feel okay today…I might even take the day off from riding since it is still wet and I haven’t bought the fender for the rear tire….don’t like the stripe of leaves and mud that ends up on my back…just looked at the radar and it looks like it’s going to rain for quite a while so I’ll probably just clean around here….but I do have to wait to do the kitchen until after cooking…

Not much to do today…I might be meeting up with C later if he comes into town since I have to go out to watch the Wings game anyway…and I am looking forward to the State game at noon…I may have a topic or two later..probably a sports thing or maybe a philosophy treatise…well….nothing that heavy…more later…

The Dems got played…

Well… this is going to be a short one but it is a thought I’ve had for a while and wanted to pass along…if you remember in the last election cycle, some of the insurance industry’s biggies supported dems since they could see that they were going to win control of the congress and if they were going to keep their promise to tackle healthcare, they wanted a seat at the table. They did buy that seat at the table and what that got them was the bastardized healthcare bill that had one great requirement that they lobbied hard for…that everyone will have to buy insurance from them. Once they got that little gem…they are now funding Repubs exclusively since they now want them to repeal the parts of the law that they had to swallow to get their individual mandate. Now, if the repubs take control you can bet that the insurance folks will lobby to keep the mandate but will get their way again when it comes to covering pre-existing conditions and the cost controls that are part of the bill. I have to hand it to them for playing the long con here…but we can take their victory away by keeping control of one of the houses of Congress in the dems hands and then moving to the government option that will take the insurance industry and their thousands of lobbyists out of the equation. It’s not that hard folks…just get out and vote…geez…

October 22nd

Well…didn’t go out with G last night but K did come out for a couple and I did get the chance to watch the first two perlods…and they ended up with a 4-2 win so that was cool. I do feel a little better today since I didn’t go overboard but I did have some really weird dreams after I was up at 4 or so and went back to bed. I do have to do the grocery thing this morning but it will be a short one..don’t need a lot but I do have to get drain cleaner since the bathroom sink is running really slowly…yeah, exciting life, huh? That’s about it…Netflix is running again, yay! So, I’ll be able to watch some movies today and just take it easy…nothing out of the normal…more later…

Okay, it’s later and I still don’t have a topic that is grabbing me…so, do I just write anything or do I wait until there is something pertinent? I hope this isn’t the whole being happy thing that was impeding my writing earlier…because I’m not really…happy that is…maybe it’s the being up and down all night and not sleeping…I could use any one of a number of excuses but I won’t…if any of you out there write, you know how it is sometimes…that no matter how hard you try…nothing comes..but I’ve never had to explain before because no one knew when I was blocked…now it’s out there for the world to see (or the small world of you that read this stuff) and I think that makes it tougher at times….blah, blah, blah…..I’ll keep trying…

What you never want to be….