Just a little more….

Well….It’s been another slow day here at the homestead but I did get started on getting the winter clothes put away and taking care of some stuff that I have been ignoring for a while…I can’t believe it, but on April 3rd I will have been doing this for a full year and I appreciate the discipline that it has forced on me to get at least one of these out every day…the average is almost 2 per day since I’ve gone over 750…oh, just did the math..it’s over 2 per day so I feel better now. It’s funny how just having a little money in the bank can change your mood so much….I now have enough cash to get through June but I have to keep looking for work…if I could just get a little more money coming in, I may be able to take the whole summer off again, play some golf and spend some time at the beach. But first, I do have to spend a little cash on the car…it needs a headlight, rear brakes, and some brake line replaced before I’ll be comfortable trying to get it through another summer…will probably need another roll of duct tape, too….but I do want a Miata at some point since I’m running out of time to enjoy a convertible sports car. Maybe this year…..that’s enough for now…I’ll be back with pithy commentary tomorrow since I’ll be restoring my normal routine which seems to be necessary for me to let the brain go and write…

March 27th

Well…had to get this one out early today to give you a car update….don’t want to say so just yet but I may have fixed it…it has started every time since I replaced the switch Friday aft…but the one caveat is that it had resumed starting before I put the switch in…it was the best damn feeling having the thing turn over when I went out for the newspaper a few minutes ago. I did have a nice day yesterday….went out to have a couple with K and I’m a little confused that she is so concerned that I am alone right now…but I have resigned myself to living the rest of my life alone….no, resigned is not the right word…that denotes some sadness in my situation and I’m certainly not sad…I’m uniquely suited to being alone and I welcome the long silences that come with it…it’s one of the things I’ve always said, that I just love coming back here after being out and knowing there will be no one here…selfish maybe, but not sad. Not much to do today…..going to read the paper and continue on with a movie I started on Netflix when I got up….I’ll try to write more later but you know how that works on the weekend…

Oh, one thing I haven’t shared….got an e-mail saying that I can have free access to the NY Times for the rest of the year after their paywall goes up tomorrow….yay…I was really going to miss it….

March 26th

Well…a fun day yesterday with talking to T all day and laughing like crazy…she just cracks me up and any day she is in is a good one…I did get the part for the car and it did start this morning so I have my fingers crossed that I found the problem and fixed it….but, the intermittent problem has taken the aura of reliability away and I won’t be sure I fixed it until it starts every time for a week or so. It was nice to not have to push the thing down the hill to start it….it was cocktail night last night so I don’t feel the best this morning but I may survive it…have the coffee going and I’m waiting for it to finish so I am going to stop here…not yet, not much to do today…might meet up with K for a couple later and there are races to watch….I might be back later but you know how it is on the weekend…

One more inconsistency…

Well….this one just popped into my head a few minutes ago and I wasn’t even thinking about it….to preface this one, you just have to remember how the repubs have been screeching and screaming about how public employees are overpaid leeches sucking the life out of our state and something must be done to cut their pay and benefits. But then, in comes the new governor and pays his top aides significantly more than the outgoing administration, saying that you have to pay more to get people to take government jobs. You see the inconsistency, don’t you? It’s okay to pay the top people (like the ceo’s and vice presidents) whatever they want, but the regular workers that take public jobs are not top, qualified, people but are just lazy, greedy folks that don’t really want to work. Just more of the same class warfare crap where the people at the top take as much as they can…where’s the “shared sacrifice” governor Snyder? Geez….

A couple of things this morning…

Well…I am getting to the point that I am ashamed to be a resident of this great state of Michigan with what out legislators have just done…we’re now the first state to cut off unemployment benefits to help ease the tax burdens of corporations who are wallowing in the highest profits on the history of the world. Yep, you heard it right, we are going to cut off the unemployed here just to make sure that business can keep their tax rate lower than it’s been in 30 years. I am getting tired of pointing out the immorality of balancing our budget here on the backs of the poor, retired, and unemployed when a small tax increase across the board would wipe out the deficit and give us some breathing room until the economy recovers. If this is gov Snyder’s idea of “shared sacrifice”, then I am being forced to recant my support for raising my own taxes to help….these guys have been exposed for what they are…just the same old repubs dancing to the tune of their corporate masters who will not be happy until all of the wealth of this country is in the hands of the top 1%.

The second thing I want to talk about is the downright idiocy that is passing for fiscal policy here in the US. If you’ve been following the european economy, and Ireland and England in particular, you see that they have implemented exactly the same austerity measures that are being proposed here; cutting spending and lowering taxes. But what the right here doesn’t want you to know is that these measures are not working in any economy where they’ve been tried…in fact, the deficit reduction that is being championed here as a job growth measure has resulted in a loss of jobs and tax revenue which will make the deficit worse over the long run, not better. When did we become so stupid that proven economic theory (deficit spending in the midst of a recession) has been replaced by fear that deficits will cause the mythical “bond fairies” to stop buying our debt? Now, I’m all for reining in government spending in good times, but not in a recession where these cuts will create a permanent underclass of the unemployed. Geez….

March 26th

Well…kind of a bore of a day yesterday with the car being down….I never go anywhere anyway but it is different when you can’t go anywhere…I hope the part I’ve ordered is the one that has failed or I’ll have to take the wreck in to have it fixed…it has been such a reliable car but I think I’ve used it up and have to get started looking for a new one. If I can’t fix it, that will mean 4 or 5 days of not being able to go anywhere but the bike may be an option to go out for coffee…I don’t go on the weekends so maybe it will be warmer Monday. Not much to do today….I will have to push start the car since I do have to go to G’s and the bank this morning, and if I’m out, I might just as well go for coffee…will have to leave the car running for the whole time and that is kind of weird but you gotta do what you gotta do…..more later…

No Luck…

Well…it has just been one of those days where reality squashes my creativity and crowds out most other thoughts…and without the newspapers today, there was less raw data to draw from. So, you didn’t get anything topical but if you’ve been here before, you shouldn’t be surprised, I have these problems sometimes….I think part of it is that winter still won’t release it’s grip on Michigan and it is a pain to have car troubles when it is so cold….

I did get the paperwork into my financial guy…but I had to suit up and take the bike out to the mailbox since they didn’t deliver the mail here today…in a building with 6 units in it, you would think there would be some kind of mail for one of us…but nothing today and that included my Netflix dvd that was supposed to come today. Yep, I’m a little cranky…as you can tell…but maybe tomorrow things will be better….I will be able to pay my rent for April, after all…..more tomorrow…

Okay, here’s one topical thing that made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to cough up a lung…..Michelle Bachmann is going to run for president……don’t blame me if you die laughing…..

March 24th part two…

Well…the car is still not running so I didn’t go out for coffee and papers today which does put a cramp into my commentary…I am now reading the online papers to find a topic but it’s not going too well right now…I did just read an article by Brian Dickerson in the Detroit Free Press online that is almost an exact copy of mine from a couple of days ago…I don’t know if I’m to be flattered or a little irritated but I guess the truth is the truth no matter who says it. I’ll keep trying for a while but I’m not sure if I can get anything to form up….

March 24th

Well…it was an okay day yesterday except that the car is giving me trouble again…I did order a part that I think is the problem but it won’t be in until Friday so I’ll just have to leave it running after I push start it…or it might start and that would be even better since it is slick. Had a nice surprise with a lunch with T that wasn’t planned and that made me smile the rest of the day…then, when I got back, my printer started working again….maybe the good luck will hold and I’ll win the 303 million in the lottery Friday…I can always hope. Not much to do today….just have to get the papers back in the mail to the financial guy and then probably clean this place up a little…and I promise I won’t do any more Manny columns….I will do the work to be lucid later and add something to the discourse…more later….

Manny sure has a thin skin….and other things…

Well….it was an interesting article this morning by Manny Lopez where he goes on to bitch about getting hate mail responses to his columns and tries to tar the entire progressive/ liberal part of the political spectrum by these outliers. One of the false analogies this moron makes is that because people are protesting the inequality of the ‘shared sacrifice” that is being foist on the people of Michigan, they must be far left liberals and he decries their usage of violent imagery as being hypocritical. Who says that people that are protesting unfairness have to be liberals? But, that fits into his biases that says that all repubs and right leaners must just love what Snyder is doing and it is just the professional left that hates this new budget. Sorry Manny, but many of us on the left (or those of us that think) agree that tax increases need to be a part of trying to balance the budget, but we just want fairness; don’t expect us to like taking money out of our pockets and transferring it to a bunch of ceo’s.

He goes on to relate that he has gotten e-mails questioning his citizenship by his Hispanic last name, what he conveniently forgets is that he has questioned whether Obama is a citizen and makes the leap immediately that this questioning is racist. I think he is so eager to play the discrimination card that he completely missed what the commenter was saying….that if the birthers can question Obama, than his readers can question him. Fair game to me….

I know, Manny is such an easy target that I should do more work and find better ones….at least I’m not writing about sister Sarah….geez…