Well…as I said before, I was going to try to salvage the overhead light to try to keep my costs down since I’m spending hundreds of bucks a month just getting the supplies I need to keep going forward here…so, I took the fixture down and it wasn’t plaster but 4 coats of paint on it and I don’t understand why they didn’t just unscrew the caps and drop it down so they wouldn’t get paint on it…but, they didn’t so I took it downstairs and hit it with heavy duty oven cleaner and after two coats and a little scrubbing, the paint came off and it appears that it is made out of copper and it polished up pretty nicely with the copper scrubber I was using to get the paint off….so, it can go back up Thursday after the paint dries and it will look pretty cool…it looked like the fixture had never been removed since the house was built with the electrical tape they used to cover the bare wires hard as a rock that I had to chip off to get the connections loose…so it looks like I’m on schedule to finish the room in a couple of weeks after the white paint cures and I can mask it off to paint the grey on the walls…on to the bathroom…just might be done for the summer by the end of April instead of May…4 months off? Sounds pretty damn cool right now….
Still more progress…
Well…it’s been another one of those days where I have made progress on the house and that means the work in the bedroom is winding down and should move into waiting time after tomorrow…I did get two coats of paint on the baseboards and wash all of the ceiling and walls today..but I ran out of paint and had to make a run out to depot to get another gallon of white paint…should have planned that since I knew that I was going to be painting the trim and ceiling this week but I was focused on doing all the other work that needed to be done in there and it slipped my mind…oh, well…I am going to take the overhead light down and paint the ceiling tomorrow and then I need to get all the plaster off it so I can put it back up and have it look okay….and I started on the last repairs to the wall behind the sink in the bathroom that I will finish up later in the week with hopes to paint in there next week and finish it up with hanging the new blinds…got a bike ride in and started cleaning up the dust in the living room but when it got to 3:30 or so, I had enough for the day and quit….so, all in all, a good day and now I’m waiting for the t-storms to come in later tonight….
I guess “donated” means something different to Elon…
Well…at the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, mad a big deal about “donating” some of his starlink internet receivers to Ukraine so they could continue to access the internet even if the hardwires were destroyed…well…I guess “donated” means something different to ole Elon than it does to you or me….just today, it was reported that you and I paid our tax dollars at the market price of 1500 bucks per receiver for the 1333 terminals that Elon said he “donated”…and the government also paid 800K to transport them to Ukraine….so, I guess Elon couldn’t afford to donate 3 million bucks like he says he can’t afford to pay taxes even though he made hundreds of billions of dollars during the pandemic….that is the problem with depending on the largess of billionaires instead of taxing them and then letting the government put the money to best use…most of these guys are just greedy as hell and to have them give up a penny for the greater good is just too much to ask it appears….so, while you see Elon patting himself on the back for a lie, just remember he was a regular at the trump WH and is just another maga asshole who cares about nothing but himself….geez…
April 12th
Well…that was better…slept most of the way through the night until 5:47 this morning and I’ll take that any day…but, man, I’m sore after all of the sanding yesterday but I’m making real progress in the bedroom and that is a relief…I did get a nice ride in outside yesterday even though it was in almost full thermasuit and the wind was blowing 15 or so…it is a little strange not having to get moving and get on the downstairs bike and it is kind of luxurious to just relax a bit after I get up….and it gets me to working earlier and I accomplish more but I’ll be back on it starting tomorrow for a couple more weeks as the weather goes cold again…but I shouldn’t bitch too much…with this new storm that is moving across the country, the upper plains are supposed to get two feet of snow in places this week…ours is going to be thunderstorms and rain and I’ll take that…don’t want to be shoveling snow in April…I do need to get started on the yard next week and I need to buy the 44 bricks I need for the border around the garden but that will only cost me about 22 bucks and I think it will look pretty cool when it’s done…and I need to condition the soil with some manure and rake up the leaves that have piled up along the fence…I am a little excited to have found that I can repair my front gate and I am going to get that done next week…and I’m going to dig out the gate beside the garage and make that workable….I wonder how long it took for the bottom of that gate to get buried by natural processes? Still thinking about a gate to go across the opening between the garage and the big tree to close off the yard but that costs about 300 bucks and there are other things I want to spend money on first….not much to do today…need to continue to clean up the bedroom I’m working on and I’m going to try to get the baseboards painted today and then I need to work on the ceiling….and I do need to do a whole house dust patrol since everything is coated with it and that is just damn annoying…I think I may have worn out my new sander since it is making lots of noise and the on/off switch is starting to fail..but, damn, 25 bucks to do everything I’ve done so far in this house? That is a bargain to me and I’ll buy another one once it does fail…sure is a nice little unit…more later….
Forgot about the storm…
Well…when I did the first one this morning, I forgot to talk about the storm that rolled through here around 3 am this morning…man, it was loud! So loud that it woke me up through the earplugs I normally wear and then the lightning just lit the place up like daylight or more…and that kept me up for at least an hour and I never really got back to sleep…so that’s why I’m so worn out…4 hours of sleep will do that to you…and there are more storms coming in Wed and Thurs so I may not be out on the bike after tomorrow…but in shorts and maybe a t-shirt for the ride tomorrow…but then down to 39 degrees on Sat…ick…
Damn, I’m beat…
Well…damn, this has been the longest day so far…almost 9 hours including the bike ride and I am beat…just finished up mopping the floor in the bedroom after vacuuming it so I can walk around in there without tracking dust everywhere….and I am done with sanding and filling…whatever I have is what I have from now on…and I know there are are still flaws in the patches I did but I’m done with those, too…I really need to get on the yard and get started with the raking and cleaning up since the grass has started to grow and they will pick up yard waste on trash day now….I do need to get out and get more white paint to do the baseboards and ceiling later in the week but I need to take the overhead light down first to see if I can get the paint off it that was glopped all over it before….and will probably have to paint it black if I have to strip it..we’ll see…I need a break….
Hunter Biden’s laptop? Give me a break…
Well…for the past 6 years or so, every damn day on fox they have been beating the drums that Hunter Biden’s lost laptop contains the biggest scandal in the history of the world and he has been trading on his father’s name…yadda, yadda….after all that time, I still haven’t seen a bit of evidence that he did anything wrong but that doesn’t matter to the hypocrites on the right…they will lie away if they think it’s something that can hurt Joe Biden…and yet…do these asses even mention at all that Jared and Ivanka made over 600 million dollars while they were working in the US government…something that Hunter Biden never did….and just yesterday, the news broke that little Jared got a 2 billion dollar “investment” from the Saudis when his father in law was booted out of the WH….and all Jared had to do was say he was starting a private equity firm and then go to MBS, the Saudi criminal leader, to get the cash from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund…never mind that the younger idiot had never worked in private equity before or knew anything about it…and the professionals in charge of the fund raised all kinds of red flags and rated the new firm “unsatisfactory in all aspects” but they were overruled by MBS for some reason…okay, we know that reason, or one of them and that is that little Jared protected MBS when he had Khashoggi murdered and the world was calling for him to be held to account…look, we all know this is just a reward for what little Jared did for the Saudis when he was working in the white house…or a bribe if you will for those actions…compare that to what, if anything, Hunter Biden did…yeah, no comparison but that doesn’t matter to the crime ridden repub party…getting bribed is just hunky dory with them…geez…
April 11th
Well…damn, what a sucky day yesterday…and I am so mad at myself for bowing to the depression it caused and having a cocktail last night….had a house to the northeast of me thump their damn music all day yesterday and had to call in a noise complaint twice since they played the asshole game of stopping after the first time until the officers left and started right back up again so I had to call again…and I am pissed about that and I am going to make it my mission to get these idiots fined if they keep it up….and that is just so depressing considering it’s not even warm enough to have the windows open and it was so damn annoying already….and that’s the problem with having so many rentals up here…people moving in and out and every time someone new moves in they start this crap…and they don’t give a damn about this neighborhood at all….okay, that’s enough bitching for the day…I did find that I can replace the bottom corners of my front gate with bolt on ones so I can replace the rusted out bottom frame piece and it will only cost about 20 bucks to fix instead of 100 bucks to replace the gate…but that will wait until I have the bedroom done…and I’m running out of time and will need to start on the lawn here soon with the grass starting to grow….it’s the last big dust day today as I sand all of the repairs in the bedroom and I’ve already taken an ibuprofen to get ahead of the pain that I know is going to start as soon as I do…but I am not getting on the indoor bike today since I am going to be able to get outside to ride after I finish the bedroom….it’s hard to make the transition to riding outdoors without guilt that I’m not getting on the indoor bike but I need to remember that it has only been a substitute for real riding and I don’t have to ride it if I can get out…damn, my brain is working too hard today already…and I think I’m going to run out of fuel with only having one meal of a chicken leg quarter and a potato yesterday…and 600 calories is just not going to cut it….I need a reset…more later….
Got out on the bike…
Well…damn, Sunday is supposed to be my day off and it sure doesn’t feel like it…after having coffee this morning, I got right after the work I needed to do in the bedroom…got the window painting finished, patched the spots that I missed on the wall, and re-hung the door so it will help control the dust I’m going to make tomorrow…and hanging the door made me think about the stupid hinges that I bought the other day that have a special tool you need to use to hammer the pins out so you can remove the door without taking the hinges off…it was so easy hanging the door with the old hinges…just lift it into place an put the pins in…no vice grips, no hammer, no special punch, no nothing and it only took about a minute….still shaking my head at that….but it only took about 10 minutes total for everything so I declare that it doesn’t count as work…and I did get out on the bike for 13 miles today and it was nice to get out for one…I am still amazed how different it is to ride outdoors than inside and how the work done inside really doesn’t transfer to outside…I mean, I’ve done almost 700 miles inside and it feels like I’ve done nothing when I get outside…oh, well..it was just nice to get the bike out again…rain the next two days…ick…
Refer the SOB already…
Well…I really can’t believe what I’m hearing that the Jan 6th committee is hesitating to make a criminal referral of trump to the DOJ because the it might make any future prosecutions look “political”…I am so tired of there being any “political” considerations at all when it comes to breaking the law…especially since this was a frickin coup attempt to destroy this country…this is what I have to say to the committee…do you have the evidence? If you do, refer it and let the chips fall where they may…you are an investigative committee not the DOJ and your job is to discover evidence and pass it on to for prosecution…you can’t think about whether it will look political because the repubs and their propaganda arm, fox news, is going to make it look political even when it isn’t….you need to save this country and hold these criminals accountable so it won’t happen again…if you don’t, you know there are plans underway by the repubs to do it again since there were no consequences for their first coup attempt…get after it, and right now…geez…