Well…it seems official that this is the new normal time of getting started in the morning…another day of getting out of bed after 6:30 and I still don’t know what happened to change my sleep…but, I think it’s okay…getting up at 3:40 was not a good thing and being up and down all night wasn’t either….I wonder if it’s settling in here? I did get some things done yesterday and I’m all the way up to 3 rides on the new rear wheel without a flat but I’m still not confident that I fixed the problem….and I got food on the lawn and stakes in the garden to support the tomatoes…I’m trying a few different designs to see which one works the best…using the tomato cages along with lots of garden twine to tie them together and stakes and twine to support a line of 4 plants with the stakes on each end…last year, the cages were just not strong enough by themselves to hold up the plants and I still think I may have to stake inside the cages to hold them up…I did get some nice hardwood stakes at menards but pounding them into the ground with a hammer hurt my elbow and that pain continued all day….at least it’s not 44 degrees out there this morning and I’ll be able to put the top down on the car when I do the grocery run…if it’s not raining…it looks like we are going to get some the next three days and I feel good that I got the food on the lawn before it….the grass is filling in on the huge bare spot…well…bare half the lawn that is the back yard and it looks like I’ll have a yard by the end of the summer….not much to do today….need to do the grocery and menards run this morning and then G is coming out to see the house later and is bringing me an unused air conditioner for my bedroom for the times when it is too hot and humid to sleep….haven’t seen her in a year and it will be good to catch up….more later…
Monthly Archives: June 2021
I wonder if I’ll ever own an electric car?
Well…have been looking for a political one to do without much luck but a thought did just pop into my head after the searching…with the rapid electrification of transportation, I wonder if I’ll ever have an electric car? I would probably be a great candidate for one since I very seldom take trips of more than 50 miles but the ones that I could afford are all like appliances that aren’t really any fun to drive…and it would have to be used…very used, since there is no way I would ever spend 40K for a car….I wonder what the ramifications will be as more and more car companies have bet their futures on going all electric? Will those of us who can’t afford to drive one even be able to buy gas for our cars anymore? I wonder what the price of gas will be when the lower usage eliminates the economies of scale that keeps gasoline somewhat affordable? In that same vein, if half of the cars on the road are electric…there will only be need for half as many gas stations so will that look like electric charging stations do now where they are hard to find? At my advanced age, I’ll probably be able to drive gas powered cars the rest of my life but it could turn out to be a pain in the butt to do it…I’m not sure if I’ve ever gone through a transition like this in my lifetime…it’s going to be interesting to see it…
June 22nd
Well…it’s almost 7:30 and I’m pretty sure that makes me late today but I’m not sure it really means anything…I don’t remember waking up at all so I must have slept okay but I don’t feel like it….it looks like a lazy morning today with the temp only 44 outside and I need it to be near 60 before I’ll get on the bike…so I have til about 9 to just sit here and drink coffee and read the news….I do need to get out to get more food for the garden…have gone through 5 pounds already and, with how poor the soil is, I’ll need a lot more…but it’s working so far with all of the garden looking pretty healthy…I think I’m going to feed the lawn again today since it’s going to rain tomorrow and it’s still not too green…it does look better but it appears like the weeds are going to be a constant battle and I’ve already gone through a quart of weed killer…but that is only about one application with how big the yard is…..I have been thinking about getting some dental work done since I have a molar that has been bugging me for a couple of years now but I just read yesterday that the dems are going to push to have dental coverage included in medicare so I may be able to save a couple of thousand bucks if they pass it…I guess I can tough it out for a little while longer….not much to do today….going to just ease into the day as I wait for the temp to come up…I may start to clean the siding on the house but we’ll see how my elbow feels before I get into it….more later….
Work snuck up on me today…
Well…how I felt when I got up this morning, I wasn’t really planning on doing much other than trying to get a bike ride in…but I still had the annoying creaking wheel on the back of the bike and the wind was blowing about 25 so, when I got down to the end of Heritage Landing I gave up and turned around…but then looked at my lawn and how shaggy it was getting so I decided it would be a good time to mow it since I couldn’t ride…after mowing I decided to get off my butt and work on the new rear wheel for the bike…still hadn’t found what was causing the flats even with using the tube for a measure to try to see where the flaw in the wheel could be…but the holes in tubes moved around and were never in the same place twice so that means there must have been something moving around, too….I did find a small, small rock when I cleaned it but that could have come from me taking it apart last time…so, I cleaned it again and ran my fingers all over it and it was perfectly smooth…then I cleaned the inside of the tire and the tube protector and put it back together with my last spare tube, changed out the sprockets and put it back on the bike…was only going to take a short ride to put a couple of checks in the mail at the post office but it the bike was riding so nice that I decided to do a full 15 and made it all the way out to the beach and back with no flat….but, I made it 5 days between the past flats so I guess it really doesn’t mean anything…after I got back here, there was soccer on so I watched the first half, then gave myself a haircut since I was looking shaggy, too, watched the rest of the match and then cleaned up the bike room…I have a bike room! Put the trash out and then here to do this one…wasn’t planning on working too much today but I guess it snuck up on me….I do feel better that I accomplished something today and that gives me a clear day to get started on projects tomorrow…oh, joy…
Is there any wonder why religion is dying?
Well….yeah, that title may be a little misleading since this is really just about catholic bishops here in the US who are voting to withhold communion from Joe Biden, but the hypocrisy that this action shows is spread through all religion here in the US and across the world. These right wing bishops, who were perfectly fine with the idiot trump and the fact that he was the opposite of Joe Biden, are taking this action to highlight that Joe does support a woman’s right to choose…but it’s more than that…like almost every damn religion, they have taken a turn to be a refuge for hard right thinking and have strayed away from the teachings that underpin their religions…and let’s remember, the catholics spent decades protecting pedophile priests across the world and, to me, they have no moral authority left…and let’s remember another thing, religion in general here in the US don’t pay any taxes and to keep that tax free status, they have to stay out of politics…but this is a purely political act that is meant to damage Joe and give the repubs talking points to attack him in the next election….so , if you wonder why religion is dying here in the US, you just have to look at actions like these that should appall anyone who cares about hypocrisy…it appears to be a poison that is eating religion here from it’s core….geez…
June 21st
Well…as I woke up and then laid in bed, the question came to me: what would happen if I just didn’t get out of bed? What if I just rolled over, pulled up the comforter, and stayed there? One of these days I think I’m going to try that…I think I missed the storms last night since they came after I went to bed…and the ones that were supposed to come during the day fell apart….here anyway…and we didn’t get the rain we were supposed to….had a nice visit from my son and his wife yesterday and they hung out here with their dog for a few hours….and then I got out on the bike but it still has the creak in it…not as bad but it is still creaking and I’m not sure where it is coming from…I am going to work on the new back wheel today and put it back together…looked at it yesterday and still can’t find why it is causing flats on the inside of the tubes but I am going to put some duct tape in there where the punctures are and just try it…it is just weird that there is no obvious cause that I can see or feel…hmmm….not much to do today….I do need to mow the lawn this morning after the first ride….it is as warm as it is going to get today at 65 degrees and pretty windy so the ride is going to be some work…and it is going to get down to 47 tonight so the heat may come on…in the end of frickin June….more later….
Still the same after all these years…
Well….there were lots of racist assholes around when I was a kid and it is still the same after all these years til now….just last week, on the idiot tucker’s show, the racist in chief spewed on and on about white people getting replaced by black and brown people and he lamented that every new immigrant voter (that doesn’t exist) dilutes his political power because white people won’t get everything they want anymore and won’t be able to run everything anymore. Now, this same rant could have been done in the early 60′s and was done by repubs trying to kill the voting rights act…now, as then…it has nothing to do with non citizens voting since that never happens but it has everything to do with people like tucker thinking that only white people should even be allowed to vote….and that hasn’t changed, either, with all of the repub voter suppression laws passed across the country that are specifically to keep non-whites from being able to vote…just like they did during the Jim Crow era. I wonder why people like tucker are so scared of citizens of color voting? Could it be they know that their ideas will be destined for the ash heap of history if they can’t control voting? Things haven’t changed since I was a kid in the 60′s…and it really should have by now…geez…
June 20th
Well…yeah, running really, really late this morning with having some bike problems when I went out at 7:30….the rear wheel was making a creaking noise that annoyed the heck out of me so I turned around, came back here, and took the wheel apart to grease the bearings and axle and that made me too late to get a ride in since I had to clean before the F1 race with my son and his wife coming over this morning…the wheel is better but still has a little creak to it so I need to get off my butt and figure out what is wrong with the new wheel so I can put that one back on and not get flats…so, I have most of the cleaning done but still need to do more before they get here but I did remember I needed to do this…didn’t ride yesterday with the malaise that I was feeling and the pain I felt in my elbow and the pain is still there today and it feels stiff, too…and swollen so I may have to take something for it before I try to get out on the bike later in the afternoon…it’s supposed to rain around 5 or so and keep raining all night so that should keep the dust and noise down out here…the idiots were loud again last night after being quiet all week so I had to call in a noise complaint again…but it was the first one in a week so there has been progress up here and I feel good about that…not much to do today….just going to hang out with the kids and Art for a few hours and then on the bike for a hard one to make up for taking yesterday off….more later….
Lowest gas bill ever…
Well…just a shorty on something I find funny….just got my gas bill in the mail and I don’t ever remember getting a lower one…only $10.73….yep less than 11 bucks and I can’t figure that out…after all, I have a gas stove I use every day, I have a gas clothes dryer…okay, I only run one load a week, and I have a gas water heater but I guess even two showers a day is not a lot and it’s a new, more efficient one, so I guess that helps…still think it’s funny to have a gas bill that is so low…
Some days you just don’t feel like it…
Well…yeah, I did mention that I may take the day off the bike today and I was looking for it to rain all day so I wouldn’t feel guilty if I did…but, the rain stopped around noon and then I had a decision to make…but I guess it wasn’t too difficult to stay off the bike today…I just had no energy from the time I got up and my elbow is screaming in pain so that helped me stay off it…for now…and I wanted to see the Germany/Portugal match that just ended and Indy car qualifying is on here in 20 minutes and then a nascar race right after that…and that lasts until 6 and that is too late to get out….okay, those are excuses…some days you just don’t feel like going out and today is one of those days….I wonder if I have to cut out dinner today to make up for it? I had a chicken thigh and a handful of baked fries for lunch and that is under 500 cals and I know I need more than that even when I don’t ride….oh, well….I’ll get back to riding tomorrow…maybe….