Well…it was a Sunday yesterday and it was nice to have it a little cooler than it has been…and I got out to have a couple with K who I haven’t seen in a month or so….didn’t get anything done but the bike ride yesterday and I need to do better today…but, there is another cancelled race on at noon so it may be another lost day….I have been having pain in my left big toe that is starting to get annoying but other than that, no pain to speak of….so, I won’t….I am a little happy that the Olympics are over since they took over my life for the past two weeks…I know, I could have just not watched them but they may have been my last ones so I felt a little compelled….will probably get back to the political stuff later today since I won’t have anything else to do…maybe…who knows? more later….
Monthly Archives: August 2016
August 21st
Well…didn’t know my phone would go crazy with a tornado warning…with the storms yesterday, the damn thing went off like there was a nuclear war coming…I probably wouldn’t have known there was anything going on without it, though, since I never watch any local tv anymore….but, they missed me, again, so that was cool…not even much of a storm here….feel pretty crappy today since I only did one meal yesterday and I can feel that I am going to be flat on the bike this morning so I think I’ll just take it easy and really do a leisure ride for once….might have to go to the red loctite to keep the bolt in my pedal arm on the bike…used the blue and didn’t even get it through a whole ride…we’ll see this morning….not going to do much today…the race from Bristol was rained out last night so I’ll have that to nap to this aft…more later….
I was going to write about Trump….
Well…as you can see in the title, I was going to write about Trump but thought better of it…so, what to do? I feel like I’m living “the ashes the rain and I” by Joe Walsh right now…just the part where you sit and stare at the rain….it is kind of hypnotic….had a new person move in next to me and so far so good….no loud music or parties….but, it is only one day so I guess I should reserve judgement…okay, I can’t resist a little Trump…I mean what the hell is it that he goes to white communities and makes speeches demeaning black people and calls it “minority outreach”? No wonder he polls at 1% support from black people…but my question is when you take Ben Carson out of the poll, does that mean no black support? Hmmmm…okay, I’m not feeling this right now so I guess I’ll go watch soccer some more….
August 20th
Well….it was nice to wake up to soccer again with the BPL getting it’s season going….oh, have to put this in…I won at pool…and I had a pretty nice day yesterday…it rained on the way out but the drive back was nice with the top down and the music too loud…the bike basically fell apart when I got back here yesterday and I just had to laugh at it…it could have done it on the trail but it waited until I was carrying it down the stairs to my front door…I wondered why it felt weird on the ride yesterday…but, I think I have most of that fixed and I am looking forward to getting out today…there are storms forecast for today but I’ll believe it when I see it since they have been falling apart coming across the lake for the past few days…at least there is a window for me to get out now and get the entire ride in….I really don’t have a lot to do today….just going to wing it and let the day do it’s thing….more later…
August 19th
Well…okay…have the Olympics on this morning as in the past two weeks, and this morning they have “race walking” on…and the announcers are taking it just so seriously…but who else can? Oh, well….it looks like it is going to rain in a couple of hours so I need to get out on the bike soon but I am just not motivated this morning…it was nice last night to get away from the Olympics and just watch a couple of shows….the 4th season premiere of “Ripper Street” was a good one and at two hours, it took me out to the end of the night…you know you had a strange night of sleep when you get up and the sheets are curled up in a ball and the pillows are across the room…and there were no dreams to speak of…darn….have a huge pain in my left hamstring this morning and I’m not sure why….it hurt like crazy all day yesterday on the bike along with the cramps in my toes….I need to remember to relax them when I am on the bike…speaking of the bike, riding through the flood a couple of days back was not a good idea…the squeaks were really bad yesterday and I gritted my teeth through the entire ride….okay, again….need to finish the coffee and get moving…more later…
Finally, some sense…
Well…I think you may be as disgusted and tired of Trump as I am so none of that today…instead, I want to comment on the announcement yesterday that the federal government will no long support the private, for profit prison system that has grown to gigantic proportions in the past 15 years or so. Now, most of these prisons are operated on the state level under the misguided premise that privatizing this responsibility of the state will save money…a mantra of repubs across this country that has been shown to be wrong everywhere it has been tried…but that is not the worst part of it…when the contracts are signed with these private prison corporations, there is a minimum amount of prisoners that are written into the contracts and if the city, county, or state don’t supply them, they have to pay a penalty…now, I may be a little dense at times, but it is pretty obvious that these types of contracts practically guarantee that every little infraction will be criminalized to ensure the quota is met….and the profit motive leads to substandard food, and just warehousing the prisoners since the private corporations have no interest in rehabilitation. Then there is the cost angle…it has never been shown that private prisons save any money to the public at all…but just enrich those who run them…an who invariably donate to repubs to get the laws passed that allow them. The same cost cutting was tried by the army in Iraq, buying private soldiers at 150K per when a real soldier was only about 50K with benefits. Again, the real goal was to line the pockets of the big donors, not to save any money…the saving just being a smokescreen to have private corporations bleed our tax dollars into their pockets. It is a small step, but it is at least a step…now, the same thing needs to happen at the state level and get rid of these bloodsuckers once and for all…geez…
August 18th
Well….I wonder how many people have problems with their phones like I did yesterday? Spent most of the day fooling around with it to try to get the damn “low memory” fault to stop and I finally found the reason…Yahoo mail was using almost half of the memory in the phone just for e-mail….so I uninstalled it and went with a much smaller program that does everything that Yahoo did but instead of 700 meg, it only takes about 30, so that left me room to get some of the apps that I have deleted over time back on the phone…see, we old people still can hack it…didn’t need any help from anyone…I was really curious last night if the car dreams were going to continue but they didn’t…I did have one with Jerry Seinfeld in it and snow, and sharks….as I said before, it’s really weird in here….just got back from the grocery store ans spent 50 bucks on nothing…again….no meat or anything big and still…50 bucks? Oh, well….it looks pretty nice out there so I am going to finish my coffee and then get on the bike…need to get more tomatoes on the bike ride…more later….
Oh, one last thing, Tom…Loctite!
A pivot in Trumpland?
Well…if you were waiting for a pivot in Trumpland to more of a normal campaign, you can just put that little thought away and forget about it with the latest “reorganization” that was announced today. The money laundering Putin buddy campaign manager, Manafort has been pushed aside…or into the background as they said…to be replace by the head of Breitbart….not sure if you know about Breitbart but it is one of those hate spewing, conspiracy pushing, right wing crazy websites that truly believe that Hillary actually killed people like a hit man…and now this guy is running old Donald’s campaign…it’s not as if ole Donald hasn’t had a close relationship with them in the past…he regularly spouts Breitbart talking points during his “speeches” so now it will just be easier to come straight from Breitbart to Trumps lips…with these moves, it appears that ole Donald has given up on any sanity in his campaign and has gone all conspiracy, all the time…after all, it worked during the primaries…but, in the primaries, all he had to appeal to were other crazy assed people like him, but now, there just aren’t enough crazies to carry the general election. Oh, one last thing on how delusional ole Donald is, his “minority outreach” speech last night was given in an almost all white suburb of Milwaukee where there were no minorities in sight…genius I say, just genius…sad…
August 17th
Well…I don’t know what the heck it is about car dreams but I had another one last night for the third straight night…last night had my 65 Galaxie in it and a family of ferrets that had taken up residence under it…and there were batteries and mud and lots of other stuff that is not quite clear right now…yep, it is kind of strange in my head right now…had a nice ride yesterday but rode through a flood that was almost up to my knees…a little deeper than I like and my shoes are still soaked this morning….not sure if I like the feel of that but the storms that were coming fell apart over the lake so no day off for me….I did make a small amount of cash yesterday so it looks like I have groceries for another week…but I do have to pay my car insurance today…ick…..have been up since really early with a text from T but feel quite good after being good for the past three days…going to continue that tonight since I like how I feel….got a bunch of stuff done yesterday with motivation from T so I don’t have much to do today….not even any cooking since I did that yesterday and today will be a leftover day….more later….
Aetna throws a tantrum…
Well…if you are anything like me, you are tired of the entitled asses that run corporations in this country who think that they should be able to do whatever they want without any oversight by anyone…the latest of these entitled corporations is Aetna insurance who, over the past few days have said they are pulling out of the ACA exchanges for some unclear reason that they won’t share with anyone…but it can’t be that it’s unprofitable with their profits up 38% in the past year and their market cap doubling since they joined the exchanges…nope the curious thing about this whole affair is that this action follows the refusal of the Justice department to approve another merger, citing the fact that the merger would create monopoly power for Aetna and allow them to control pricing in the healthcare market. So, in a tantrum that will hurt thousands of Americans, Aetna is trying to hurt the Obama administration and force them into approving the merger by causing pain for the exchanges…now, not sure how you feel about this, but I think that this action by Aetna just shows that they are already too powerful and if given the merger, the first thing they would do is use their new power to line the pockets of the 1%’ers at the expense of the rest of us. So, I applaud the justice department and the Obama administration for striking back for the little guy…and Aetna can just go to hell…geez…