Well…running a little late today with looking at houses that came in my e-mail yesterday…slept okay last night but woke up coughing again this morning and that is just damn annoying…but, it’s better now and I am going to get out on the bike here in a few minutes….after feeling cold all day yesterday, I feel warm this morning like I have a bug but I think it’s the same thing I had for the past week just doing it’s yo yo thing like colds do so I’m not really concerned….didn’t get anything done yesterday and I think I’m taking today off, too….might just watch some soccer and football and just veg it out…I am getting closer to finding a house to buy…found one I’d buy in a minute if it wasn’t 40 miles away in Muir….and that is 8 miles to the east of Ionia but it is cheap at 80K and has two garages on the quarter acre lot and a walkout basement…and it’s 1100 sf but the interior would need a full rebuild since it has some really ugly paneling that I just couldn’t live with…but my payments would be 264 bucks a month and even with taxes and utilities total cost would only be about 600 a month and I could easily swing that…driving in to shoot pool would be a pain, though, so I’ll have to consider that…and the lawn is big enough that I’d have to buy a tractor to cut it….I’m going to think about it and talk to my brother tomorrow about putting an offer in….probably should just pull the trigger but I have 4 months to find something closer….not much to do today…I probably should run out to look at that house just to see how bad the drive is out M21 and to get a look at the neighborhood but I think I don’t feel like it today….we’ll see…more later….
Monthly Archives: November 2020
An okay day…
Well…just haven’t been able to come up with a topic in politics that has stoked my outrage so I think I’ll just do this one instead…had an okay day today with getting out on the bike early but damn, I got cold on the bike and never warmed up from it…and that was not good since I went out to K’s to hang out with her and her family and we sat out in the driveway to maintain social distancing…I did have a heater so it wasn’t too bad and the sun was shining and it was cool to hang out and finally talk to someone….and I saw my first C-8 Corvette getting on the e-way at the S-curve and I think it looks a lot better in person than it does in pictures…so, it was an okay day today but of course, I didn’t get anything done after I got back here but make dinner…so we’ll let the cleaning go until tomorrow….after all, it’s a cocktail night and I don’t want to think about working right now…
November 21st
Well…got all the way through til 6 this morning but I don’t feel like I slept well…just worn out and want to go back to bed…but, that’s not how it works so I’ll get to this and lots of coffee….got a nice ride in yesterday in the wind and warm and that put me out in shorts but I’m pretty sure that will be the last one of those for the year since it is only supposed to get a little over 40 for the next few weeks…at least I’ve gotten the blower on the furnace serviced and it is as quiet as it has ever been…I do need to get a couple of filters this week since the ones in there have been there since last year and they are pretty plugged up….I think I did too good of a job sealing up the air leaks in the back door since it is almost impossible to close it now without pushing the storm door open and that is a little funny…I finally have the breeze blowing through here stopped from the leaks in both doors and I hope that will keep the gas bill under 100 bucks a month…I mean I already only keep it 66 in here and I’m not going to drop it any further….didn’t get much done yesterday and I probably won’t do much today other than take the turkey out of the freezer and get the bike ride in later…and do some cleaning but right now I don’t feel like it so I’m going to sit here and drink coffee and watch MotoGP qualifying until soccer comes on….more later…
RIP Arecibo…
Well…okay, this one is a little different in that Arecibo is not a person but is the iconic radio telescope nestled in the hills of Puerto Rico…over the past couple of months, support cables for the receivers that hang above the dish have failed…the first dropping a receiver through the dish and putting a 30 foot hole in it…but the final blow came when another support cable failed and the people in charge have determined that trying to repair it is too dangerous so the telescope will be dismantled instead. For 57 years, this telescope has been on the forefront of deep space exploration…and I’m sure you’ve seen it in the many movies and tv shows it was featured in and I even used it in my first novel as a setting for one of the characters home base. It is always a sad day for us nerds when an iconic part of our nerd world is gone but 57 years is a darn good run for any piece of technology….my only concern is that with the death of this telescope, too much of the essential research that is done to just figure out our universe will be lost since it appears that the politicians (repubs) will only support it if it can be immediately monetized…but that’s not how science works…it always pays off but many times it’s not the put money in and get money out linear progress mistake that is expected…isn’t just figuring something out about the universe reward enough? RIP Arecibo…
November 20th
Well….running a little late today…again..with getting up at 5:14 and then getting back to bed until almost 7….and I don’t feel too bad this morning other than I’m pretty sore again and it’s nice to know why that would be…and I’m going to hurt my legs again this morning with the wind out of the West again at 10-20mph but I am going to try to take it a little easy going out to try to make the damage less…and I’m getting out in shorts for the last time this year with the temp around 55 right now but falling as the day goes on so I need to get out as soon as I can…but I need coffee first and have just started the first cup…I did get a few things done yesterday and I am going to try to do a little more today but most of that will be cleaning but I know I have to repair the paint on the back door again since the damn stripping stuck and peeled some paint off again…I have it figured out what to do now but I wonder why the lube worked like a champ on the front door and didn’t on the back? Not much to do today…need to remember to take the turkey out of the freezer tomorrow morning and figure out what to do with the chicken I have in the fridge…I do like the burger patties I got from DD the other day…there are 8 of them for 1.5 pounds and are the perfect size to make sliders at 3oz each….and at 1.39 a pound it’s a pretty good deal…other than I shouldn’t be eating red meat…maybe I’ll do vegetarian for a while after t-day….more later…
Have an hour to kill…
Well…got everything done too darn early today and I find myself with an hour to kill before I can relax for the night and watch some tv…so, I thought I’d come back here and just noodle a little to fill the time…it was an okay day today and I got out on the bike quite early…left here a little past 8am to try to beat the wind and gusting that was supposed to happen later in the day but it was still blowing 15 mph when I left…and with it coming out of the southwest it was into the wind all the way to the west end of the park and that was somewhat of a struggle….but, I got the 15 in and wasn’t too sore when I got back here so I jumped right into working on the back door…I had to scrape and paint the part that contacts the weatherstripping I put up since the rubber of the stripping stuck to the paint and peeled it off…that has been annoying me all summer and I even put up new stripping, too, since the old stuff had been pulled up and crooked and I put my chain lube on it so it won’t stick…and since it is clear, it doesn’t leave any marks on the door…one thing I forgot is that new stripping is thicker than the stuff that has been on there a year so it takes a real slam to get the door to close…but that will keep it sealed up so I can live with that…I also took advantage of the good weather to clean my bike chain with simple green and a stainless steel brush and then re-lubed it when it dried so that is taken care of…paid all of my bills, too, even though some of them weren’t due for a couple of weeks but I didn’t want to think of them anymore….can you tell I was bored? I still am…but at least I got a few things done…
Can trump get any more pathetic?
Well….as the idiot trump keeps trying to deny reality by screaming “I won the election” on twitter, his efforts to sabotage our democracy are getting more and more pathetic. First, he’s now 0-25 in lawsuits trying to get Biden ballots thrown out or ignored, and now he’s calling board of canvasser members at the local level here in Michigan to convince them to not certify the results of the election. You remember my post from yesterday where I described the racist repub canvassers board members who decided on their own that all of the votes from Detroit couldn’t be certified but then agreed to certify them since there was no reason not to? Well…after a call from idiot boy these two toadies wanted to do a taksie backsie and rescind their certification this morning…but our SOS Jocelyn Benson was having none of it saying that the votes have already been turned in to her so that ends the process…and no amount of trump whining is going to change that…and she went so far to say that if any other repubs want to try that crap in Michigan, she will use the state board of canvassers if they local ones want to make up their own laws to try to give the election to trump. How much more pathetic can idiot boy get? I guess we’ll see over the next 60 days…
November 19th
Well…that was a little iffy…I did sleep until 5:30 but couldn’t get back to sleep after that…one good thing is I finally didn’t wheeze at all and the coughing is down to almost nothing…and I don’t feel like I can’t catch my breath anymore…and I wasn’t exhausted yesterday…okay, just a little in the afternoon but it’s better than it has been…I think I’ve figured out why my legs and everything else has been hurting lately and I can trace it back to riding…in the past week or so, every time I went out the wind was blowing 15+ mostly from the SW and that means I have about 6 miles to do into that wind every day before I make the turn to go north…and that puts a lot of strain on me trying to maintain close to 15 mph into that wind….and today looks like it’s going to be another bad one with another wind advisory of 25+ wind and gusts to almost 50 starting around 10am….so I’ll need to get out before then…it is already 46 outside so I can go as soon as it gets light…I do have some painting on the back door to do today and I need to replace the weatherstripping that has stuck to the door and removed some paint….and then I need to lube the stripping with my chain lube that has parifin and teflon in it so it won’t stick again just like I did for the front door….and it is going to be warm enough to leave the back door open while it dries….but, right now I need more coffee and to read some news….more later….
Everybody breathe…
Well…we are going to have to eradicate the stain of trumpism from all of our country after this bullshit is over…but I do have one piece of advice for our side…just breathe folks…they are not going to be able to steal the election even though they are trying really hard to do so…just yesterday, a couple of racist trump goons on the Wayne County board of canvassers refused to certify the vote despite there being absolutely no evidence of voter fraud…and idiot boy tweeted out his congratulations to these two idiots but that was, as they say, a little premature…when couple of hours later, and after an epic rant by one of the dems on the board, these racist assholes gave in and certified the election. How do I know these morons are racists?
Well, they agreed to certify the white suburbs of Detroit but not Detroit itself that is 80% AA…these two really thought they had the power to overturn all those votes in their little spasm of fascism…but, our dem Secretary of State was not having it and threatened to send state canvassers to do their job if the repubs wouldn’t….so idiot boy did his little victory dance but has been silent since the vote was certified unanimously….oh, one other thing…the repub speaker of the Michigan House has made a statement that there will be no repub electors appointed to overrule the election results….so that stops trump’s bullshit here…bye bye donnie..
Got everything done…
Well….while I was waiting to relapse this morning, I decided to get out and get all of the groceries I’ll need for the next two weeks and I got everything done…hit DD for 80/20 burger patties for 1.39 a pound then over to Aldi’s for staples that I get there cheap…and then to Meijers to get the rest of the stuff I need to make my traditional t-day dinner…and I got a 16 pound turkey for 6 bucks…and 16 pounds was the smallest one they had…I had never seen the size of the turkeys they had there…who the heck has a roasting pan big enough for a 26 pound turkey? Putting this 16 pounder in mine is going to be a stretch…I think it may be one of the biggest ones I have ever cooked but I love turkey so that’s okay…need to try to find room to put it in the freezer downstairs until I start to thaw it Sat and that is going to be a good trick…I do still feel okay other than a little warm right now but I am getting out on the bike after lunch for at least 15 miles….and that will put me over 5,500 miles for the year…I am still a little sore but I can live with it….