Well…just couldn’t get started til late today and only got a little work done in the bathroom…I did take the register out and tried to strip it and it didn’t work at all so I tried to use my propane torch to burn the paint off and but my old torch just doesn’t make a good enough flame…just a huge orange one comes out of it and cuts off all the time so I think I’ll buy a new one this week…even took the whole thing apart to try to figure out what is wrong and didn’t see anything so I gave up…I really should have a working torch with owning a house and having to do soldering every once in a while….and they are only about 20 bucks including a tank of gas so that’s not bad…I did get started on the baseboards and will probably finish the filling on them tomorrow which means I can paint later in the week…then it’s on to the window as I let the paint cure this time before masking the baseboards to do the wall paint….and that will take 3 weeks or so and that will give me time to start on the door and door frame along with putting the new hinges on the door…and I can get the walls ready to paint while I wait for the baseboard paint to cure, too but that should only take a day or so…but I’m done now…just worn out today and need to take it easy for a while….
Windfall profits tax…
Well…with all of the appeals to the heads of the oil companies to stop war profiteering falling on deaf ears, it is now time to enact a windfall profits tax to claw back all of the money they’ve stolen not only over the past few months, but the past few years. During the pandemic, we the taxpayers of the US bailed them out to the tune of billions of dollars to ensure that they would not go bankrupt and how do they repay us? By screwing over Americans by raising gas prices, not for any reason other than they can…yeah, I know they couch it in the bullshit of uncertainty and supply and demand, but then why are gas prices still rising when the cost of oil has dropped by over 25% in the past week? I know that downward prices are “sticky” to use an economic term but it is a decision by the CEOs of these companies to not lower prices as they try to wring every damn dime out of the American consumer….there was a time when we could at least shame some of them into doing the right thing, but those times are over with the unbridled greed we see from almost every damn company in the US…I mean they are all reporting record profits and, without greed, prices would be dropping and inflation wouldn’t be a thing…so, if they won’t regulate themselves and do the right thing for the American consumer who make those record profits possible, we need to tax those record incomes and return the money they are stealing to the American people…and do it right now…but you know who doesn’t want that to happen…the repubs since high gas prices can be used to hurt Biden and the dems in the 22 election…and you can bet they don’t give a damn about anything but getting back into power so they can continue to reward these assholes for stealing everything that is not nailed down….and if the regular Americans get hurt, they just don’t care…geez…
March 14th
Well…happy pi day….is it 7:30 or 6:30? Going to go through the time change math for a couple of days until I get used to it…but I think I’m running late when the clock says I should have gotten on the bike 15 minutes ago…this is the worst my allergies have been this year so far and I feel like crap so I may not work on the bathroom today…I wonder if I have a cold? It sure feels like I have a bug of some sort but I just remembered that I only had a small pork taco to eat all day and that sometimes has the same feeling as a bug….so maybe I’ll have some toast here in a minute to get some calories in before I get on the bike…I did take the weekend off to finish up my healing week and my hands feel much better so I may ease into some work….until it snowed so much yesterday, I was going to get outside for a ride the next couple of days since it is supposed to be over 50 tomorrow and Wed…I guess I’ll have to take a look at the trails to see how bad they got since they were already almost clear a week ago…that would mark a milestone much earlier than last year when I didn’t get out on the trails until April….but, after the couple of days of semi warmth, it is going to be back in the 40’s for the rest of the month and I am not sure I want to be cold again….not much to do today….still need to adjust to the time change and feeling crappy so I may take it easy today after the bike ride….after all, I don’t have a schedule any more and once I get the bathroom and bedroom done I think I am done for on the house for the year…I’m running out of time to just enjoy my life…oh, and Tom…the 400 buck insurance payouts have to be complete by May 9th and have already started…new kayak is coming! More later….
New bird on the feeder…
Well…as I was sitting here doing the last one, a new bird that I have not seen this winter landed on my feeder and has been going and coming for the past hour or so…didn’t know what it was so I had to go out to the internet and look it up…and found that it is a White Breasted Nuthatch that is pretty common here in Michigan..it looks a lot like a Chickadee but has a long. slender beak that is as long as it’s head…about the same size as the Black Eyed Juncoes that have been the predominate bird here this winter…still have not seen one sparrow on the feeder this winter and it continues to be strange to me with how many of them there were on the feeders back in GR last winter….and the volume of birds out here are probably 1/20th of what they were in GR, too, but I hope that will change next year when I change out the type of food I use…but I still have half a bag of this feed left…I am going to get a hanger and put my hummingbird feeder up this summer right outside the same window so I can see if any of them come to it…that would be cool…
My next question about Tucker…
Well…if there is a traitor in our midst named Tucker Carlson…and there is if you have read the 12 page memo leaked from a Russian intelligence service by Mother Jones magazine that instructs all of Russian media to play clips of Tucker and his support of Putin all day every day and that China has jumped on, too…my next question about this traitor is: “is he getting instructed by Russian intelligence to do the spots on his show so Putin and his cronies can use the propaganda to hurt the US?” How about the next question: “is Tucker or fox news getting paid to spread the propaganda so the Russians can use it?” How else do you explain Tucker’s crazy support of the Russian dictator and the un-American bullshit he spews every day? As I made the comparison before, what tucker is doing is worse than what Tokyo Rose or Axis Sally did in world war two since Tucker has a built in audience of millions that believe everything he says and he is damaging the US so much more than those two traitors that he needs to be fired right now…and Rupert Murdoch and fox news need to be fined or shut down since there is no first amendment protection against treason against the US. Some enterprising lawyer should sue them right now for another billion dollars and put them out of business….geez…
Hope this is the last time I have to shovel…
Well…darn, it’s the middle March and I shouldn’t be out there digging through foot deep drifts and getting my toes frozen…I really do hope this is the last time I have to shovel this spring….but, I said that two weeks ago and most of the snow had melted until today…now it will be another two weeks before I can get out on the trails and it looks like I’ll have to keep getting my miles in downstairs…and with that, I may be able to get to 600 miles on the inside bike since I am almost at 500 today…and two more weeks will get me there…as I get older, I like the cold less and less…or I don’t dress for it more and more…not sure which it is but the rubber garden shoes I have been using are only good for about a half hour until it’s like not wearing shoes at all…I am going to buy a nice pair of winter boots for next winter…maybe some winter hikers that have good tread for the snow and ice…at least I didn’t have to buy a snowblower this winter but the day is coming where I’ll have to…cripes, I hate getting old….oh, well….time to watch some soccer and get ready to make some pork tacos for lunch….more later….
March 13th
Well…that was strange…just went out to get the paper and it was probably the most snow I’ve driven in all winter…and it feels like the depths of January instead of March….we must have gotten 4 or 5 inches of snow last night and with the wind out here, there are frickin drifts that I think I’ll have to shovel later….and it’s only 15 out here…again…and I am damn tired of the cold….oh, well…that’s Michigan for you…slept really crappy last night with my allergies acting up and I could barely breathe all night even with the allergy meds…and that is not a good omen for how it’s going to be when the trees get going with their pollen….even with that, I feel okay today with being good for 10 weeks now and I am getting to the point that I will stop mentioning that since it is the new normal for me….didn’t do much yesterday and today will be the same since I am making weekends weekends again…Sunday is actually the only day I plan to take off but yesterday was a bonus day and it felt good to veg out instead of work…but I did make some decisions on the house and will do the bathroom next but then move on to the big bedroom so I can move in there permanently….it is so much larger than the room I’m using that I can actually put furniture in there…but it needs a lot of work to get it ready to paint that I probably won’t be done with it til May or so…but, it has a door that I can close to keep the dust controlled when I repair the plaster….and I may even try to remove the old wallpaper they painted over so I don’t have to have wallboard installed….it looks like a big job but the kitchen did, too, but that only took me a couple of months and there is less work in the bedroom….I am still thinking of putting in one of those pull down stairs to give me easy access to the attic but that may be a job for a contractor….haven’t really even looked at that yet….not much to do today…just going to have more coffee and get to the news that I haven’t even started yet….and there are soccer and races on today that I can play in the background as I read…a new normal Sunday….more later…..
Maureen Ferguson is a right wing hack…
Well…just read an opinion piece in USA today that has me pissed off that they would allow this right wing hack, Maureen Ferguson, to spew her right wing nonsense in a national paper. In the piece she goes on to essentially cheer for the defeat of a bill in congress that would enshrine women’s right to control their own bodies by federal law to take it out of the right wing supreme court hands…and she goes on to frame it as the women’s rights supporters not believing in democracy since they don’t want to allow the repub controlled states to codify their hate into law…hate of women, hate of minorities, and hate of the LGBT community and to restrict the rights of people they don’t like. She is living in the 19th century and using the same state’s rights arguments that were used to support slavery and ensuring that black people don’t have the right to vote…so I guess to this hack it is against democracy to try to protect everyone in the US…even those who live in states that have been rigged so the repubs control them and she is just fine with that rigging….again, this is the same bullshit argument that has been made since before the civil war…and it reeks of pushing her religion (catholicism) on everyone since she works for a catholic organization whose purpose is to outlaw abortion in this country….it is specifically because of people like ferguson why protections for all the groups she and her repub counterparts hate have been federalized…if we left it to the states she so reveres, slavery would still be a thing and women would still be property to be controlled by men….and minorities would still not have the right to vote…and she can’t deny that with the continuing efforts of her beloved repub party, that right is under attack in 2022….what a right wing hack….
Sometimes old school works better…
Well…with adopting all of the new cooking technology that has become hot over the past few years like the instant pot, we sometimes forget the methods that we used to use that worked great and sometimes the old school stuff works as good or better. As you know, a couple of days ago I made an 8 pound pork shoulder in my instant pot, cooking it for over an hour and a half under full pressure…but, I wasn’t really happy with how it turned out…it was not really the fall off the bone tender that I was expecting and that others had come out before….it didn’t look or feel tender or done even with adding an extra half hour to the recommended cooking time…now, I could have put it back in the pot for another hour but I was done with cooking and didn’t want to put in any more time…but yesterday, I got a brainstorm to take the partially cooked pork and put it in my big slow cooker that I haven’t used since I got the instant pot….so this morning when I got up at 5:39, I took the pork and put it in the slow cooker along with some celery, garlic, and onion along with some veggie broth and let it cook on high until almost noon…and it came out so darn good…tender and tasty and it broke up all of the huge pieces that were left after the instant pot so I now have two big containers of shredded, tender, tasty pork that I can use with the gravy and mashed potatoes I made Thursday and will make much better pork soft tacos than the undercooked stuff did….I just have to remember that the old school stuff still works great for some things…especially if you have the time….
Weekends are starting to feel right again….
Well…it you’ve been here at all, you have heard my laments about weekends not meaning anything in the long time I was unemployed and now with being retired…and I complained quite a bit that I didn’t care what day it was since they were all the same and there was nothing special about them and no reason to think they were…but, in the time I have been working on this house for hours every day, it has become kind of a job and I am trying to recreate the patterns I lived by my entire life to….and by taking weekends off from that work, I am starting to feel that weekends are special again…after the Saturday bike ride, I am making a conscious effort to limit the amount of work that I do and the guilt that I feel by not working…and the possibility of doing what I want instead of what I have to do is really pretty cool and I am looking forward to the freedom that it gives me…but, it’s more the languid feel that I get from this new attitude that is getting me back to normal a bit….for the first time in forever, I’m not rushing around here being so task oriented that I don’t enjoy life and I am finally just letting the days happen…it’s like I’ve shifted down a gear and I don’t have to be wide open anymore…okay, that’s a car analogy that I use and I hope you understand it since it is a good description of what I feel…I just hope I can sustain it….but I’ll take this small bit of progress if I can’t…