Well..another day of being good an I am almost used to it…but that will end tonight with the first Wings playoff game…feel okay this morning and slept pretty well but I’m still wondering where the dreams went…I kind of miss them…love to be entertained when I’m sleeping….watched ‘Unstoppable” yesterday and I think it was one of the first times I was bored with a Tony Scott movie….it was nice to get my workout and the bike ride in before lunch yesterday but is still pretty damn cold….where is the April warmup that is longer than one day? There may even be frost and snow later in the week and that is really depressing…..oh, well….not much to do today…I am going to meet up with G later for a couple and the Wings, of course…can’t wait to see which team comes out tonight….have to get the gear out and show the winged wheel for at least the first one….more later…
Just a couple of things…
Well…just a couple of things today…I haven’t been able to come up with a really coherent set of thoughts, so I’m just going to kind of let it loose and see what happens….first…with the anniversary of the Civil War’s start, I find it so odd that there is still an ongoing effort by some folks on the right and in the south to obscure what the war was about; they have been floating the whole states rights malarkey as a replacement for the real reason…the south wanted to keep slavery plain and simple. I wonder at the reason for these efforts, after all, it’s been 150 years. What benefit is there to be gained by trying to change the reasons? Just another episode to me where people on the right can’t accept facts and are intent on using one of their favorite tactics to change the truth; that is repeating lies until people say “oh, I’ve heard that somewhere” and then saying it must be the truth.
On other thing that I want to talk about is the lack of fight coming out of the White House in the budget battle which truly are struggles for the soul of this nation….why can’t they just stand up and compare what the US looks like now, and how it will look if the Ryan proposals are enacted…starting with the windfall the changes in Medicare would be for insurance companies…c’mon Obama, if you can’t make insurance companies look bad by just citing their actions, you’re just not paying attention..stop being so afraid of looking partisan and get to this whole tax cut nonsense for the rich…call the repub idiots out to prove that these cuts create jobs…which they don’t. How can you fumble this when all of the facts are on the side of the moderates….what does cutting funding for Planned Parenthood do to create jobs? Geez….I came up with these two by myself without much thinking, get off your butt and start working for us….and remember, crazy ideas from the right need to be called crazy…stop being so nice to these idiots and slap them with their lies, it is not partisan to call out idiots…I think you are allowing America to be hijacked by the tea partiers because you don’t have the guts to stand up and put them in their place…I for one, don’t want to have my life dictated by the 15% fringe that is the tea party…
April 12th
Well…home for another night…it seems my schedule is undergoing a bit of an upheaval and major changes are in store for the near future…I knew this was coming at some point but it doesn’t make it any easier…I’ll share more about this later but I don’t really have it straight in my head yet so I don’t want to comment. Pretty much a bore of a day yesterday since the wind was blowing so hard I didn’t want to take the bike out and with G canceling, my Monday could not pass too quickly. I did sleep okay, which I didn’t expect, and with being good, I feel okay today and hope to continue the cleaning process here; catching up on things that I have been avoiding for a while…could this be spring cleaning? Kind of a cliche, I know, and my life is turning into one so maybe it’s a good fit. Not much to do today….might be having Monday on Tuesday if I meet up with G tonight…no pool today since Tom has some work to do and we are moving that back to thurs or fri…..hoping to have some topics for later if I can keep the dogs of doubt at bay for a little while longer….
Should start talking about the Wings….
Well…one of my favorite times of the year is upon us and I thought I’d talk about it a little bit….damn….I keep burying the lead in all of these and I don’t know why right now..it is the Stanley Cup Playoffs starting Wednesday night and I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the journey to get where we are with our team. It has been a season of inconsistent play that has left us faithful frustrated and confused at times, excited at others, and with the hope that our team will drive on to the cup finals and win it….that was the rabid fan in me talking and it really does mask the uncertainty that shrouds these playoffs…what team is going to show up? The dominant one that uses power, speed, and skill to amaze us, or the one that leaves us scratching our head and looking at the ice to see if it is really mud they look so slow. That type of performance has made me hold my breath during almost every game, to wonder when the self-destruction will come….but still always hoping it won’t.
That said, let’s take a look at some of the particulars that I think are necessary for us to get out of the first round….it’s one of the things that M and I were talking about this aft; that we just don’t have the goaltending that will steal us a game or two when we are not playing as we can. I just don’t think Jimmy Howard is that type of a goaltender but we don’t have anyone else with Osgood being hurt. That leaves us with another great big unknown…when will Hank Zetterberg be back? I know, no one player is essential for the success of a team, but with how Hank has played this year with all of the injuries, I think he is the one we can least afford to lose. One last thing, we need to start to play like we want it, there has been too many games where we have phoned it in and if anyone does that, Babcock should sit them and let one of the youngsters give it a try…after all, it was a couple of years ago the the unknown Darren Helm came into the playoffs and won a starting job for himself by outplaying everyone on the ice. So, I think you are going to see a few of these as the playoffs progress….Let’s Go Red Wings!!
A new vision…
Well..one of the most striking things that I have taken away from the budget battles that have been going on for the last couple of years is the utter lack of vision that the dems have laid out to support their version of America….and I fault Obama for a large part of it…his tiptoeing around to not anger the repubs have gotten him what? Nothing but an emboldened opposition whose crazy ideas have gotten a huge voice without the counterpoint of rationality that the president could bring to the discussion, and his almost unfathomable reliance on bipartisanship, or the appearance of bipartisanship, is making him look so disengaged that those of us in the middle and on the left are sitting here shaking our heads. I hope that the budget plan that is coming out from the dem leadership later in the week will help to flesh out what they think America should look like and I think they have a golden opportunity to contrast with the Ryan proposal; one that gives more and more to the rich while taking the majority of the savings from programs that are designed to help the middle class and poor.
It was a good start when Obama said that the plan will include increased revenue from letting the bush tax cuts expire on the richest, and I think it is a reasonable request since those tax cuts never produced one new job or made America a better place to live; except for those super rich who benefited from the cuts. I also understand that there can be cuts and streamlining to major government programs to make them more efficient, but let’s make sure that the cuts are made to the inefficiencies, and maintain those few things that can help the American dream live on….
April 11th
Well…it was kind of fun day yesterday with a nice SF with K and the Wings winning their last game…I really thought we had put Chicago out of the playoffs but Dallas couldn’t win their last game so that put Chicago in…oh, well…I was a little disappointed that I watched the radar all day yesterday waiting for the big storms but they kept forming to the north and south of us…I don’t think we even got a drop of rain and now the front has moved on to the east with nothing left behind it….at least I should be able to get a ride in later in the dry but if the wind id blowing like it did yesterday, I think I’ll skip it since it is really no fun to go out into a 40 mph blast. Not much to do today….resumes, of course, and I have to put the golf clubs back in the car for the summer….probably won’t go out and hit some until later in the week but I need to soon just to see where the pain will be this year…my elbow is starting to hurt again and I hope it’s not all summer like last year….maybe some of those padded bike gloves will help…who knows? More later…
Gonna cheat a little today…
Well…I had forgotten how wonderful it is out on the bike on a Sunday morning unencumbered by either sweatshirts or biting cold…just a t-shirt this morning and it feels good to sweat….I think the caffeine helped, too, since I had much more energy today than yesterday. I am going to cheat a little today and put out a second one of these instead of, or maybe in addition to, a political one since I have some stuff to share about the ride today….the swans were back in the pond this morning and I am in awe of how they get their huge bodies out of the water with just a couple of beats…almost stopped to watch but they were gone too fast…I do have to remember to look up when I’m out and riding, sometimes I get too focused on the tiny little world of the bike and and keeping the pace up that I forget that there are other reasons to be out and about….
There was one phenomenon that I wanted to share from today, I had the weirdest thing happen at about the 9 1/2 mile mark…it was like my brain was flying above the pavement and I reached this zen-like state that I couldn’t feel my body at all….geez, I hope it’s not a stroke….hey, you know I’m kind of weird….
April 10th
Well…an okay night last night but a little disappointing with Michigan losing the hockey championship in OT…great game, though. There was a race on, too and it was good to see Matt Kenseth win one finally but 500 miles is a long time to watch and I got bored…that seems to be a theme lately and I really need to do something today to cut through it…might have a SF with K today but it looks like not much else…it is warm out already, almost 60 at 7:30 and it looks like some storms are coming so I’m not sure if I’ll get the bike out today…the coffee is sputtering and calling my name so I need to get a cup and read the paper…there will be topics later since I am falling behind for the month….more later…
Spider alert!….
Well…I have to call a spider alert for today….I have killed at least a dozen of the big black ones in here today and it is starting to creep me out a little….I just hope that they don’t crawl on me when I’m sleeping…one did last spring and it was weirder than heck…I just realized how light I sleep if a spider crawling on me wakes me up. Oh, well….it was a nice ride today but I think they’re dreaming if they think it’s getting up to 65 today….it is still COLD out there and my hands are still a little numb…one cool thing did happen, though…riding on the part of the trail that runs by a little pond, the frogs were so loud that I could hear them over “Dark Side of the Moon” that I had playing on the walkman….I am glad I’m back here…the wind was just cruel out of the East and the last uphill into the 20 mph blast was a gut killer….and I am sore so I’m going to retire to the couch for a few minutes…Oh, I did watch “The Social Network” this morning and I do not know why it was nominated for an Oscar….maybe because Facebook is so popular?….
April 9th
Well…late again this morning…just got out of bed and can’t remember getting up so late…didn’t sleep well but had to keep at it to see if maybe I could….but, now I’m up and trying to clear my head and get the day started….need to get the coffee started and go out for the papers so I’ll be back in a few minutes…okay, it will be longer than a few minutes but I promise I’ll be back…
I’m back….took longer than I expected…had some work that needed to be done and thought I’d get it out of the way before I got back to this…it was an okay day yesterday but the Wings look so bad I don’t know if I can watch them in the playoffs….I did get a long bike ride in but it was still so damn cold…today should be better and I think I’m going to wait until it gets warm enough for no sweatshirt to ride….it has been kind of a chore to get out on the bike and I don’t want it to get to be a task instead of fun but I’m not sure how to do that yet….maybe today’s leisure ride will help…I’ll put Dark Side of the Moon on and take it easy, trying to smile a little might help, too, but life as it is has not given me much to smile about lately….not much to do today…Michigan is playing in the NCAA hockey championship and there is a race on so that is something to look forward to…along with cooking a pork loin for lunch…and I know I have to clean this place up some and get the summer clothes out….I did switch into shorts yesterday but I’m not sure I can sustain it…might be a false start this year…but I’m going to try to make until December….I should have a topic or two for later…I did find that Keith has a website and he is doing little videos of the worst people of the day so that made me smile a little….