Well…I’m not sure why I’ve been consistent with my wake up time lately and it’s a little unnerving to pick up the phone and see 6:30 again…for two weeks now and that is just weird….okay, my damn ribs hurt this morning and that is new…I wonder if it’s from running the edger yesterday? All I know is it hurts to just sit here and I can’t get comfortable…it’s probably a good thing that it is raining out there and I won’t be able to get on the bike until the afternoon….and that will make it a one ride day today…and probably tomorrow so maybe I can get rid of the pain that is down my entire right side…cripes, it is a pain getting old…I think I need to eat more than I have been lately…only had a salad and a piece of smoked sausage yesterday and that was well under 1500 cals for the day…but, with that, I should be losing weight like crazy and I’m not….especially with burning 1200 a day on the bike….oh, well…I need to get planning on the indoor work here and get the tools out to get started…will that be today? Not sure but once I get started I need to just go and get it done….not much to do today…F1 qualifying is on in an hour or so and I need to drink an ocean of coffee to get myself jump started….still just worn out and want to go back to bed…but I won’t….more later….
Monthly Archives: June 2021
Protecting voting rights here in Michigan…
Well…the cancer of repub voter suppression that has infected this country from coast to coast is one of the most important problems facing us in my lifetime at least…and while we have passed anti gerrymandering constitutional amendments, with repubs still in control of the congress here, they are still trying to rig the system by making it harder to vote…and a thought came to me on the bike today how to fix that…in Michigan, you can get referendum on the ballot if you get enough voter signatures…so, why can’t we do that for a constitutional amendment that would force any change in voting laws to be voted on by the people and not just the legislature? This would keep the repubs from being able to cheat in any election and make fair representation the norm here….if you’ve lived in Michigan, you know how the repubs are spending most of their time trying to rig the next election and to make it easier for them to overturn the fair results if they don’t like the outcome as is happening in many other states, too…so, let’s get this done and stop this election meddling in it’s tracks…geez…
June 18th
Well…it does appear that 6:30 is the new wake up time and I think I can live with that…but the storms kept me up quite a bit last night and I am a little worn out this morning…and emby wasn’t working so I had to uninstall and re-install it to get to the tango server since my son moved it to a new server and that took some time so I’m even more late than normal…but the rain is going to stop soon but I was hoping it would continue all day so I could justify taking a day off the bike but, no such luck….and my damn elbow is back to hurting again and I can barely lift my coffee cup…and I forgot to make coffee last night so I had to make it this morning and that is not a normal part of my routine….I am hoping my lawn will green up after all the rain since it was looking pretty brown with no rain for a couple of weeks but I am not going to water it…have to get a new mindset with a lawn this big and accept that it will be brown at times….I do hope that this rain will help the small patch of grass seed to sprout so I can move on to another 6 by 6 patch and get the bare spots filled in….not much to do today…..oh, I did see my first bald eagle yesterday and it flew over me only about 8 feet up…it will be interesting to see if I can find the nest out here…just going to take the bike ride and then watch some soccer after cleaning up and sorting some clothes to be donated…have bags of them that I haven’t used in years and they need to be gone….more later….
The SC upholds the ACA again…
Well…yeah, running late again today with getting two rides in and going out to the beach to lie in the sun for an hour…and when I got back here, there was news that I wanted to talk about. Just this morning, it was announced the the SC has upheld the ACA for the umpteenth time in a 7-2 ruling that surprised most court watchers…and they rejected the suit from 20 repub state AG’s because they have no “standing” to even bring the suit that the trump judges in lower courts pushed up to the SC….what that means is that there was no harm to the parties filing the suits so they can’t bring the suits…and the big repub argument was that they were harmed by the elimination of the individual mandate that people had to get insurance….and since there was no longer any penalty, they couldn’t call it a tax anymore so the entire law had to be thrown out…yeah, sounds pretty convoluted to me, too, and the court felt the same to get to a 7-2 vote…even the unqualified judges whose seats that McConnell stole voted with the majority and I’ll bet that just pisses off moscow mitch. I do wonder how you get harmed by not having to pay a penalty? Without trump judges, this suit would have been thrown out the first time it was brought a couple of years back…and you can see that these idiots are not even judges…they are just partisans playing judges on tv…but it is going to take a while to get rid of them…geez…
Never saw this before…
Well…okay, I was going to do this one yesterday but didn’t get to it…a couple of days back while I was just getting to the boardwalk on the bike, something small scurried across right in front of me and I had to do a double take since I had never seen anything like it…at first, I thought it was a salamander but it was too big and fast for one of those…so when I got back here I started searching on the internet and found out that there are native lizards that live in Michigan and the one I saw was called a five-lined skink…and the weird thing is I’ve spent loads of time in the woods in my long lifetime and had never seen one before….so that was pretty cool and I learned something new…something I try to do all the time….
June 17th
Well…it does appear that my new wake up time is around 6:30 since it has been a couple of weeks since I woke up earlier than that and I still don’t know what changed from the 4-5 o’clock wake ups that I was having but I’ll take it…and I’m holding my breath but it appears like my elbow is getting better…the swelling is down some and I’m in much less pain and I’ll take that, too…and it looks like I won’t be getting out on the bike until after 9 this morning since it is only 48 out there right now and I don’t want to go out in a fleece….I do think I’m going to have to take a day off here soon just to get a repair day and let my body heal up and that may be tomorrow since it is supposed to rain overnight and into the morning…maybe I’ll just do one ride in the afternoon and count that as a rest day…..I am really surprised at how good my garden is looking with how sandy the soil is here….both the beans and tomatoes look really healthy and I’ve even had more than a half dozen pepper plants survive…I’m trying to figure out how to keep the tomatoes upright since they are already as tall as the cages and the cages fell over last year…so, I bought some 4 foot long stakes and some garden twine and I am going to build a lattice so see if that works better than the cages….and I tied all of the cages together to give them a little more stability and that will be something to watch over the summer….not much to do today…going to clean some and just take it easy a bit…I think my body needs me to stop abusing it so much and I could use a morning where I just sit a bit and have some coffee…so I think I will…more later…
Now it’s the FBI…
Well…if you’ve seen any of the news since the attack on the capital on January 6th, you’ve seen the right wing excuses change almost daily…first it was antifa, then it was just a “visit” like “tourists”, then it was just citizens expressing their first amendment rights…you get the picture…they will blame anyone but the terrorists who actually planned and attacked that day or the elected repubs like Josh Hawley and Paul Gosar who supported the attack and could possible even be involved with helping it. The latest right wing bullshit is that the FBI did it…all of the planning and leading the attacks so Biden could use the justice department to get rid of republican members of congress…and that is all based on the new part of the conspiracy theory that some people haven’t been charged so they must be FBI spies that was spouted on the idiot tucker’s show last night….the whole thing hinges on the idea that there were two people who rented a room in a nearby hotel and only one of them was charged…yep, that’s it, because the spouse of one of the attackers hasn’t been charged yet, that is “proof” that the FBI ran the whole show and the attackers were just victims of a conspiracy between them and the justice department….yeah, batshit insane but that is what the entire repub party is these days….any way to excuse thousands of right wing assholes attacking the country and it doesn’t matter that it is just made up bullshit….it is just as good as truth to them…better than truth, really, since they can make it be anything they want…what a bunch of crazy assed shit…geez…
June 16th
Well…it’s almost 7 and I got out of bed at 6:30 so why don’t I feel like I slept? Hmmm…I wonder if I can take a day off? Nope, have too much to do today….it is darn cold outside and I’m not sure if I can put the top down for the grocery run today…I mean 51 degrees? I don’t have to leave here for an hour and a half so it should be warm enough….I hope….I think I’m going to have to take a day off the bike soon since I’m feeling pretty worn out and my elbow is still howling in pain…I may even have to make a doctors appointment to have them look at it since it is pretty swollen and the swelling has moved through it….it even looked red yesterday and anytime anything is red it is not a good thing….I do have to stop at menards this morning to try to find some stakes and twine to hold some of my tomato plants up…I have some cages out there already but some of the plants are growing out of them already so I just want to try something new and see if there is a better way….I am surprised how well they are growing in the crappy soil there is here and I have flowers on most of them already so I’m going to have way too many tomatoes…I even have a cuke plant that came up in the sunflower garden at the back of the house that I didn’t plant so that is pretty weird….but, I’ll take it…not much to do today…I probably shouldn’t ever say that with how much I have to do around here….but I’m just not motivated to do much right now…..so we’ll see what happens after I get the grocery run done….more later….
Isn’t it nice?
Well…if you have been following the media coverage of Joe Biden’s first overseas trip as I have, I’m sure you’ve had this same thought…isn’t it nice to have a normal, competent president instead of an ignorant blowhard? No controversies, no pushing other world leaders out of the way so he could get to the front of the picture, no threats, and other world leaders actually wanting to meet Joe…and listening to him, and smiling…and accomplishing real progress on trade by solving the Airbus/Boeing problems that will level the playing field in the EU for Boeing. I don’t remember once where the idiot boy made anyone smile other than when they were mocking him for being a boorish fool…and not one person ever said they looked forward to working with the moron after they met him once…and really, no one could stand him and how much he lied….could you imagine Joe ever not visiting a military cemetery because it was raining? Or calling the soldiers buried there “losers” and not understanding why they sacrificed for their country? I am just relieved that we don’t have to cringe anymore when the president travels and the polls show that the world is relieved that Joe Biden is president and the friends that were pushed aside for the autocrats that trump loved are the most relieved….I am, too…
Got the roof fixed…
Well…got the roof fixed this morning and I feel pretty good about that…it only cost 150 bucks and they replaced the shingles, nailed down a bunch more that were loose, fixed some flashing, and inspected the rest of the roof….and now I don’t have to try to do it with my brother tomorrow…I really don’t think that is too bad for that much work and now I don’t have to worry about it…the roofer said he checked all over the roof and the rest of the shingles are sealed up tight and he is sure this is a really new roof that will outlast me….and they must have removed the old shingles when they put these on since he said there is only one layer on it…another good thing if I ever have to have a new roof put on….so, I can enjoy the rest of my day…