Well…that was okay…only got up once last night at 4am and slept in all the way til 6:17…but I don’t feel that hot with my allergies already getting bad and it’s not even spring yet…it’s probably from sanding yesterday even though I used the vacuum to collect the dust as I sanded….was miserable last night, too, and the allergy medicine that normally gives me relief didn’t work so I was plugged up all night and that continues this morning…but, I’m getting back into sanding and repair again this morning and I hope to have all of the door trim and baseboards done by tomorrow so I can paint Thursday…not sure about the door frame between the kitchen and dining room since it is in such bad shape but the sides need to be done so I can get the walls painted in the kitchen….still trying to decide how much repair work I’m going to do on the walls before I paint since I could work on them for weeks to get them smooth…and I’m not sure I want to do that much work….this place is 82 years old after all and it will have flaws but I will probably do some of the more obvious ones….not much to do today…just more work in the kitchen but it is a pain that my right hand is right back to where it was before I took a week off to rest it and it only took one short day of work to do that…so, I guess I just suck it up and get at it and can rest when I’m done with the kitchen….oh, I did have to use adhesive on the door seal to the basement since opening it pulled it loose last night…but damn, just about a 4 inch bead of glue is holding it fine this morning and it has gotten almost back to it’s normal shape….adhesive is a wonderful thing…and I need to get more tomorrow….more later….
Still shaking my head…
Well…you know I’ve been bitching a bit about how half assed lots of things were done on this house, and I just discovered another one that has me just shaking my head…as I was going downstairs to get another roll of paper towel, I noticed that the gasket seal to the door to the basement was distorted and I was a little curious why that would be….after looking at it, I saw that there were nails driven through the seals into the door frame and if it was to keep the seal in the groove, I just don’t know why they didn’t just take a little bit of adhesive and apply it to the tang that goes into the groove that is supposed to hold it in place….after I removed the nails and tried to get the seal to go back to it’s normal shape, it was stuck to the door frame and was not loose at all so again, I’m confused with the half assed way and reason why this was done at all….I really don’t think they knew that adhesive exists since they nailed the drawer head on the smallest drawer in the kitchen cabinets, too, and I had to remove those nails and glue the head on as it should have been…I wonder what else I’m going to find as I continue to work on this place? I wonder if that’s why my neck hurts…from shaking my head so much?
Giving aid and comfort to the enemy is treason….
Well…in my long lifetime, when there was a threat to the US or our allies there may have been a little disagreement between the parties, there has never been a whole side of our political discourse that sided with our enemies and blatantly announced that they wanted the other side to win…and all just to hurt the current president and help their political fortunes in the next election. but we have exactly that now with the modern repub party becoming the biggest cheerleader for Putin in the world, rivaling even Russian propaganda on fox news. This “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” is in the definition of treason in the statutes in the US and isn’t parroting Russian propaganda all day long giving aid? Remember that the various radio announcers in WWII like “Tokyo Rose” or “Axis Sally” who supported the Japanese and the Germans were caught and tried for treason after the war and you can argue that they didn’t do anywhere near as much damage to the US cause since everyone knew they spread pretty obvious lies and didn’t take them seriously like people do with fox news..why, I don’t know but they do. These traitors like tucker need to be held to account for their Putin loving bullshit…and no it’s not a violation of the first amendment if they are committing treason…there are some things you can’t say and supporting our enemies is one of them….lock them up…geez…
Back to work…
Well…had the discipline to get back to working on the kitchen today and got a 12 foot section of the baseboards sanded and repaired along with a big chunk of plaster that had fallen out when I was sanding off the extra paint that was on them….and I saw that the green was not the original color of the kitchen but a nice yellow that they shouldn’t have painted over with the dark green that they used….I did learn something with all of the other filling that I had to do for the cupboards…and that is to use the very smallest amount that I can and I even went over the parts that I filled with a wet paper towel to take off the excess and make it easier to sand by hand so I don’t have to spread dust all over with the sander…I am going to use the shop vac to plug into the sander to help control the dust like I did this morning with the original sanding…working down on the floor really hurt my legs to the point I could barely move when I finished with the filling and the sanding beat the heck out of my right hand so quitting after only 12 feet was the right idea…I can still finish the trim by the end of the week and be ready to paint them so maybe on to the ceiling and walls next week? That will finish up what I want to do in the kitchen and get me started on the dining room trim and windows…..and those are in much better shape than the kitchen so it should go faster…I hope, anyway….
February 21st
Well…running about on time this morning with getting up at 6 but I was up and down all night so I feel kinda worn out today…but that’s normal and I can deal with that…I did get out of here for a bit yesterday since I wanted to go out to the beach and take a look at the ice and get a photo of the MIata out there…didn’t plan on getting out on the ice with the wind blowing over 40 mph but I still may try to do that before it melts….and I saw a bald eagle come in for a landing in a tree over the road on the way back and that was cool…didn’t get anything else done since my Sundays are my one day of the week that I take the day off and really just veg out and that is the goal for finishing the house…to get to the point that I only have little things to do every day and taking a day off is the norm instead of a plan…I still haven’t really retired and I am looking forward to the days when every day is like a Sunday….and that looks like it is about a year off…I am quickly coming up on a year in this place in a week or so and I think I’ve made a lot of progress getting it cleaned up and getting the things done that make it livable….I’ll go into that on the 27th of this month since that is the anniversary of moving in here….not much to do today…back on the bike here in a few minutes and I hope the dentist calls back to set an appointment so I can get started fixing my teeth…the pain is almost gone but it still hurts to chew anything harder than steamed asparagus and I need that fixed….and I’m going back to work on the house after taking the week off to let my hands heal…they still hurt and will get worse but I want to get the kitchen finished in the next couple of weeks….more later…
Greed is why the ratings for the Olympics were down…
Well….jeez, everyone is shaking their heads and speculating why the ratings for the Olympics were down 42% from the last games…damn, these people are dense or they are trying to make themselves look deep or informed by parsing all of the data but it’s too damn simple for that..it’s all because of greed…greed by NBC for moving a lot of it over to their pay service Peacock where they give you a little bit without extra cash out of your pocket but, like with the series they offer, they give you one or two episodes and then hide the rest of it behind an extra cost paywall…just like they do with the English Premiere League or Dale Jr.s series about lost speedways across this country…all of this cynical bit of bullshit from NBC is the classic bait and switch that these people pull all the time…it isn’t enough for them to get paid because most people get their tv from cable or dish, but they have to get greedy and charge even more and that turns people off…and once you try to access something on Peacock and they always try to charge you more, you just get tired of the bullshit and never use that service again…just like me…and I’ll never use it again…so, it’s pretty damn simple…greed has priced the Olympics out of the reach of most people and once you lose them, they are gone forever and that includes crap on NBC since they are they ones playing the games…I don’t feel bad for them even if they lose a billion dollars…they deserve it…geez…
The Olympics sucked…
Well…with the Olympics ending today, all I can say is meh….really didn’t care much for the games being held in a country that is actively slaughtering minorities there and trying to whitewash their actions by trotting out some of those same people just to give the games a veneer of acceptability….for the first time in almost forever, I didn’t even watch the games once in primetime and really didn’t know a thing about any of the US athletes…or really care….and with the IOC allowing the Russian skater to participate even with testing positive for a banned substance, you could see that the IOC is just as damn corrupt as they have ever been and why watch any sporting event when it could be fixed by the people who are supposed to be upholding the rules? I wonder why the Russians were even allowed to compete after the doping scandal a few years back where over 80% of their athletes were in on the cheating? All they had to do was change the name of the organization they compete for to the Russian Olympic committee and everything is swept under the rug and is okay to the IOC. The ideals of the Olympics were violated so severely by the trainers of the 15 year old Russian skater when they berated her unmercifully after she fell during her routine that they should get a lifelong ban for the abuse they heaped on her and the rest of the skaters they train…is this the Olympic ideal? It was so painful to watch the end of the women’s single skate that I won’t ever watch again…and that’s how I felt throughout the games…it just isn’t worth it anymore…and with the ratings the games got, it looks like the rest of the world is feeling the same way…geez…
Phil Mickleson is just a terrible person….
Well…you know I’ve talked about this before where Phil is just a big asshole and went on and on and on about California raising his taxes a small bit threatening to move out of state to one of the backwater ones run by repubs that don’t have any state income taxes but also have crumbling schools and infrastructure…but that doesn’t matter to these selfish assholes…it’s all me,me,me without a thought to anyone but themselves…and ole Phil is at it again with trying to “sportswash” the murderous Saudi regime by supporting their attempt to create a new world golf league…and guess where they are going to play here in the US? Yeah, that’s an easy one…at the clubs of the asshole in chief who went out of his way to protect bin Salman who ordered the murder of a US based journalist, Khashoggi, and never paid a price for it since trump was just fine with it….oh, and joining Mickleson is the owner of the company who is putting the tournaments on, Greg Norman, the Aussie who appears to be another asshole who has no morals and will help the Saudis burnish their reputation by getting other right wing asshole golfers to participate in these tournaments. We know one of the hallmarks of these entitled assholes is that they don’t care who they associate with if it make them some of that sweet, sweet, dirty Saudi cash to line their pockets…okay, do you have the idea of what I think of these guys? Yep, a bunch of entitled asshole whiners who have never had to work a day in their lives and act like they are better than everyone since they can hit a little white ball…..they should be ostracized just for their behavior over the years but to add this one should make them pariahs wherever they go….geez….
February 20th
Well…damn, I am getting tired of the cold and wind out here and sure want winter to be over….the sky looked cool with it being clear and I did stop and look up when I was walking out to the garage…and I guess the neighbors think I’m weird but that’s okay…I am…slept a little crappy last night with getting up twice and doing a lot of tossing and turning but I still feel okay with being good…still…and I don’t think only one day of being bad since January 2nd is something to feel bad about….and I’m over the hump to making this the new normal and the only thing is the boredom that comes with being good…my brain never shuts off anymore and that is a lot of work….didn’t get anything done yesterday but that was the plan with trying to get my hands to heal up some but I may work on the baseboards in the kitchen today to get moving on the rest of the kitchen…I do need to finish the bathroom today after getting the shower cleaned yesterday and it is so shiny that I am a little reluctant to use it today….and should I be excited about getting a new mop to do the floor? Damn, little things make me happy and I’m not going to apologize for it….not much to do today…I am just going to sit here and drink coffee for a while since I don’t have to get on the bike today but I do have to at least take a shower before Man U plays at 9….and Daytona is on later today so I’ll have something to nap to to make up for the crappy sleep last night…more later….
It seems to be working…
Well….as I talked about somewhat earlier, I have been trying a new technique to try to ignore the boredom from riding the bike 8 miles every morning…and that consists of focusing on the music that I’m listening to instead of thinking about the miles that I still have to do once I start…and, with this morning’s ride, the technique appears to be working and I had the best ride that I can remember listening to the first disc of “Secret World Live” by Peter Gabriel…there is something about listening to a piece of music as a whole instead of the snippets you get when you add songs to a playlist…I have watched the dvd of this performance so many times that I could actually see the songs in my head as they were playing and the joyousness the band showed when they performed….so I’m going to keep trying to find entire albums (yeah, I’m old) to listen to as I ride…thinking of “Physical Graffiti” by Led Zeppelin for Monday’s ride…I have tomorrow off…and that is making me grin a bit….more later….