Well…after being out to the beach the past three days, finally, the first real beach day today with being able to swim twice for a half hour each time…the water was still a little cold but I was able to get used to it pretty fast so I hung out there for a couple of hours today instead of the hour or so from Monday and Tuesday…I had begun to think I was already getting tired of the beach but nope…it is harder than it looks to be retired…especially when I don’t work on the house to keep me busy…but today I was able to relax some and enjoy my time out there…and I got some color that is going to hurt later and that will mean some water retention from the sun damage but I can live with that…and I think I’ll try to get out there for the next two days to make it a full week…but the storms that are forecast for tonight might turn the lake over and make the water cold again but it might not…so that’s the plan for the rest of the week…I do have to hit DD for some honey ham that they have on sale for 1.88 for a 20oz package so I may stock the rest of the freezer and get a few of them….and with the brats I got today, I am going to have food that is bad for me for the rest of the week….oh, well…

Well…damn, have a huge, painful knot in my right shoulder this morning and that means I slept on it wrong and it’s going to take most of the day to work it out…slept okay last night and, even though the AC unit doesn’t get really cold, it got cold enough to drop the temp by 15 degrees and take the humidity out of my bedroom…so I guess I don’t need a new one this year…today could be an interesting one with the cold front that is coming through later today….we could get storms later this aft and they have a beach danger warning for high waves from 2 pm until tonight so I may have to be out there for that since I’m going to the beach anyway for the third day in a row…I do need to get some more grass seed planted today before the rain and will need to get some more bags of topsoil at Menards this morning….didn’t get a lot done yesterday but mow the lawn and today will just be the grass seed and maybe using all of the leftover feed for the lawn to take advantage of the rain….we’ll see….they did finally come out and pick up my bags of yard waste yesterday but I did have to call the trash department to get that done and I wonder when the city will ever start working as it should so I don’t have to call them all the time for services that should just happen without my intervention? Hmmmm…not much to do today….I do need to do the grocery runs this morning along with Menards but first I need to get on the bike right now and get the first ride in before I head out for groceries….and I need to do the yard work but I’m not sure if that will happen before or after I hit the beach….tough day ahead….more later….

Well…as you know, I usually like hot weather and I seem to move better in it…but today, yow! It’s hot and humid out here and I am melting from just going outside for a few minutes to water the grass patches and the garden….but, I’m back inside now with a fan blowing on me and I may need to turn it up to high here in a minute to speed up the cooling process…I did have a little good news today when the garage door opener worked all day and the car didn’t leak after the run out to the beach so I’m not sure what is going on with either of them….and this heat wave is supposed to last another day but we may get storms tomorrow night and that would be cool to see…and then the temps go back down to manageable starting thurs…I did just fire up the AC unit with the bedroom door closed to see if it will cope with 91 degrees…don’t think it will but I thought I’d give it a try….so, it looks like another night of tossing and turning in the heat and very little sleep…oh, well….I guess I can put the fan on me instead….

Well…yeah, still looking for a topic on politics this aft but I thought I’d talk about something weird I saw out at the beach…after getting in for a short swim, I laid down on my beach chair with my earbuds in to do my 6 SD songs of sun exposure on my back and at the end of it, I lifted my head to look around and the entire beach was enveloped in fog that was blowing in from the SW…now, I’ve never seen fog in the middle of the day when it’s 90 degrees before and it really was weird to have sheets of it blowing across the beach getting denser and less dense as the cloud did…pretty damn cool thing to see…okay, I just got an alert on the lower banner of my laptop screen that is for “polluted air”….have never seen that before, either…a day full of weirdness…now to the news for topics…

Well…running a little late today with not sleeping well and my allergies in full destroy mode…and I am so tired of that…of not being able to breathe and the damn low level headache I’ve had for months now….one good thing is that they have my street blocked off to repair the ugly patch they put in last fall so no damn boom boom boom going down it…and I asked the guys working on it if they could just forget about fixing it for a couple of months to give us some peace and quiet up here….but that means I’ll have to drag my yard waste bags out to 7th street to get them picked up today and I think I may even call to make sure they come after not doing a pickup for three weeks….I did get a little sun at the beach and I may go out there again today but the water is still pretty damn cold and my swim was an in and out, one dive thing….I do have to mow the lawn today or tomorrow and it is going to be hot…over 90 out here and the humidity is going to be nuts with the rain yesterday…my AC unit is not going to keep up with the heat this year so I may have to buy a new one since it costs more to fix it than buying one….and if I get a little bit larger one, I can cool the living room, too when it gets bad….but that is another 200 bucks that I don’t want to spend….not much to do today…just the rides and mowing the lawn…and maybe the beach again but that will be it…I do need to find a doctor this week and that will be the plan for later today if my depression will just let up a bit…it was bad enough last night that I thought about selling this place and just saying the hell with it…I’m tired of everything and life seems to be too much work….more later….

Well..damn, what I thought was going to be a nice easy day turned out to be anything but…after getting the bike rides in and watching the hearing, I got ready to head out to the beach but the damn garage door opener wouldn’t work…it just sat there and clicked…so I called Genie to talk to their service and had to go out to get the model number off the motor unit and it started to work again…and that makes me kind of uneasy because there had to be a reason it stopped working and it probably will again…so I did register it for the warranty so it will be covered the next time it fails..and then, when I pushed the car out of the garage to get my ladder under it, there was coolant under it and it looked like the tank to the radiator was half empty but I went out to the beach anyway but couldn’t enjoy it while thinking about the car…so when I left to come back here, I looked under the car and it was dry so I pulled the overflow hose that has clogged up before and pushed coolant out of it and when I took the cap off the radiator, it was full and there was still coolant in the overflow tank…weird…so I guess I’ll just keep and eye on it the next couple of days and hope it’s not a water pump that will cost 6-700 bucks to have replaced…fingers crossed….

Well…sitting here waiting for the January 6th hearing to start and thought I’d do another one of these while I wait…I did get out to get my 30 miles miles in and that was a bit of a struggle with no break in between and the wind blowing hard from the southeast….but, I got that done and then, with the delay in the start of the hearing, I lugged the AC unit up here and installed it in the bedroom window…when I tried it out it started right up and will need to run a while to get really cold…the high is supposed to be 86 today so I may need it for later…with the double hung windows in the house, I can still open the the top pane of the window if I just need some air flow without the AC unit on…I am going to head out to the beach after the hearing is over to get a swim in and get a little sun with the heat and maybe even see a storm coming in if I get lucky…we’ll see….more later….

Well…damn, it’s only 7 and I’m running late already….I want to get two rides in before the hearing this morning at 10 but I’m not sure if I can do that unless I get going right now…but my shoulder hurts like crazy and I must have slept wrong on it for that to happen….didn’t get out of bed til after 6:30 and that didn’t help how I slept last night…still crappy but again, not going to talk about that today….didn’t get a lot done yesterday but use up the topsoil I had left over after patching the front lawn to patch a bit of the back where the new grass died from lack of water…need to get more soil this week so I can continue to patch the dead spots….might have to get more seed, too, since I don’t think the shade seed will do too well in the full sun of the back yard…..I do want to get out to the beach this afternoon to start the summer of me and get a swim in and, if I’m lucky, watch some storms come in across the lake….need to start figuring out more things to do or I’ll be pretty bored as I was most of the day yesterday…..but I’m still scheduling things in my head and I really don’t want to do that anymore…..not sure if I’ll ever get to that point, though, and that is a little depressing….not much to do today…have to haul ass if I want to get my rides in before 10 but I’m not sure if my body will do it….I do need to think about getting my age ride in soon before my birthday next month but that won’t be today….I do need to find a doctor this week and I think that will be the focus of my efforts so I can get my checkup done and find out if I’m dying or not….hope not…more later…..

Well…not much change in sleep last night so I’m not going to talk about it today…I did get out to get the paper a little after 6 and had the top down in the fog so that was cool….I really would like to skip riding today and do a healing day but I know I won’t but I won’t do more than two rides…I did just read that they are going to dredge the sand out of the mouth of Muskegon harbor starting this week since that huge freighter ran aground on a sandbar that had formed right in the middle of the channel…and they will be putting that sand on the beaches so I may not be able to use my normal beach for a week or so…should be interesting to watch and I will be curious to see what the results will be…I guess I can still use the main beach at Pere Marquette park so no big deal….didn’t really get much done yesterday but the weed walk late in the afternoon and I am still amazed the the rain didn’t hit here at all yesterday when just to the north it poured all afternoon….so it looks like I’ll need to water the lawn today after I wet down the patches I put in Saturday….my bean plants started to flower yesterday with the cool little purple flowers so I’ll have some beans in a few weeks and I am really looking forward to it…nothing better than fresh green beans out of the garden….not much to do today…just watching races with F1 starting right now and I may put the AC unit in the window but I’m not sure…it’s supposed to be almost 90 for the first part of this week so I may need it…although I only ran it twice last year so I may just open the windows….and I do want to do at least one ride in the fog after the race but right now I just want to sit here and watch the race, have coffee, and read the news….more later…

Well…have been having a little fun with the squirrels out here this spring with feeding them the stale bread that I have most of the time…it’s difficult to go through a whole loaf before it spoils and at a little over a buck, it’s cheap entertainment for me….so a couple of days ago, I finally got the female grey squirrel to come up and take a slice of bread out of my hand and that was pretty cool…and she runs toward the back door when she is in the yard and hears it…and I think this spring’s black squirrel litters are starting go out on their own…I have a little one that I threw a slice to yesterday and he seemed to like it…but then a huge brown squirrel chased him and took the bread away…that guy must have been 4-5 times bigger than the black one and I thought he might have scared him away but he’s back today so that is cool…and I just tossed a couple of slices out there for any squirrels or birds that happen on them…kind of fun to have them hang out in the yard and chase each other around…..