Well….May 4th 1970….four dead in Ohio…four students killed at Kent State University for exercising their first amendment rights to protest the actions of their government…this one hurts every year…as a 16 year old kid staring down the very real possibility of going to Vietnam to die for whatever reasons, these murders shattered what was left of the innocence and pride that I felt to be an American…I mean, how can the government send soldiers to kill students who did nothing but assemble and protest? Until that point I believed that the government of the US operated in good faith but that naivete was only the safety blanket that had insulated a 16 year old who only thought of 16 year old things til that day….but the thought of kids who were just a little older than I was being killed just because they pissed off Nixon and the others who were running the government really shocked me and took away the safety that I felt…I still feel that day even 50 years later…and seeing the archival footage shows me how we haven’t progressed as a nation at all in that 50 years…and I still think Neil’s song says it best…just substitute trump for Nixon….”tin soldiers and Nixon comin, we’re finally on our own…” RIP…..Allison, Sandra, Jeffrey, and William…
All posts by James DeVol
May 4th
Well…this is weird…it’s only 37 degrees outside and it’s 68 in here and the heat hasn’t come on all night…I wonder if it’s because this brick house stored heat over the past couple of days with it being almost 70? I’m sitting here in shorts and that is the first time I’ve been able to do that since I moved in here….hmmm….I did make it all the way to 5:29 this morning and don’t feel too bad today so I’ll take it….and I think I’m going to ease into this morning and might just only ride once today since my legs are sore and heavy and I really felt it on the second ride yesterday…I do need to make the run over to HF this morning to get the new air compressor before the coupon expires so I think I’ll use that to fill the time while it’s too cold to ride….still haven’t put shorts on yet this year and I think it’s probably the latest I’ve ever waited…I normally switch in April but for some reason the cold is getting to me this year and I just want to be warm….didn’t get anything done yesterday and I’m not sure what I’m going to get done today…probably should start on prepping the trim on the garage to paint and work on the trim on the front of the house, too….I am going to get a 120 flap disc at HF to work on the front door, too since the paint is so hard my sander won’t cut it…and that paint will finish off the front of the house….geez….my allergies are bad today…my head is plugged up and I am miserable….and I need more coffee….more later….
This is what I’ve been waiting to hear…
Well…back to politics! Bet you didn’t think I’d do another one of these after slacking off for quite a while…but there were other things going on that took my attention and I didn’t feel too motivated. But not today! Just today, Joe Biden and Liz Warren published and op-ed that is saying what I’ve wanted the dems to say for a long time, that no matter how much trump an his cronies try to hide their criminality in everything they’ve done, they better not get too comfortable with what they’ve stolen….once Biden is elected every damn thing that trump has tried to hide is going to get the nice clean disinfectant of transparency and all of the theft, graft, and self dealing is going to be exposed and then turned over to a real justice department for prosecution….and that means you jared boy….all of your thefts of the state’s medical supplies that they have paid for is going to be exposed and you sorry little ass is going to be sitting in jail. This is going to extend to every shady damn thing that Barr, McConnell and the rest of them have done…and even if idiot boy pardons them they are still going to do the investigations anyway…to drive a stake through the heart of the repub crime machine and then there will probably be state charges that are filed that are outside of the reach of any of the idiot’s pardons…as I’ve said before, I’ll bet this is already in progress in states across the country and we are going to see a flurry of activity by the end of January next year. I really don’t think the repub morons are bright enough to understand what is coming and will continue to grift right up until the election…keep at it idiots…more charges mean more jail time…
May 3rd
Well…made it all the way to coffee o’clock this morning and I wonder if that will help how tired I’ve been lately…I’m sure it’s better than getting up at 4 or 5 so I guess we’ll see later this morning…got a call from my middle son yesterday with a bit of surprising news…he and his wife are expecting so that makes two grand kids on the way in the span of a year…had an hour long talk with he and his wife and had quite a few laughs…going from no grand kids to two in a couple of months was a little strange to me but I’m pretty happy about it and they are really excited…so life goes on even in the pandemic….I did get some stuff done yesterday with mowing the lawn and getting all of my seeds planted along with cleaning the gutters on the garage…the one on the back must not have been cleaned in 20 years since it was filled to the top with soil and tiny maple trees….and the downspout was filled with dirt and I had to dig out around the outlet since it was buried in a foot of soil….but it flows now and I must have removed a hundred pounds of dirt…it’s a wonder that the weight didn’t collapse it….and then I washed the back of the garage since it was covered in dirt and and debris….still need to clean up that area and get it organized but I have all summer to do that and I need a day off….so I think I’ll just ride the bike today and veg some but I do have to remember to keep the seeds wet…and I need to pay two bills today but they are online so that will be easy…but, not right now…need more coffee and to start getting ready for the first ride…more later…
This is kind of funny…
Well….as you know, I have been prepping the two small areas on either side of the front walk to plant some flowers and I got the seeds before everything was shut down…one of the things I wanted in picking the seeds was that they all grow to be between 6 and 18 inches tall when mature…and a selection of colors and types….but yesterday when I started looking at the packages of seeds I noticed something that I had missed…or misread…the snapdragons that have really cool blue flowers and that I thought grew from 6 to 8 inches tall actually grow from 6 to 8 FEET tall….so, needless to say, they really won’t go too well with the others that are less than two feet tall. Luckily, I have two places that I can grow flowers that tall…one in the front by the shrubs where I have 4 feet of open space and next to the garage door where I have another flower bed that I cleaned up yesterday…and one that I was going to grow beans in until I decided to make the overflow garden in the old rose garden bed. I guess this mistake is part of the trials of planting flowers from seed for the first time…still going to be cool to see 6 foot tall flowers….
May 2nd
Well…I’m getting really tired of getting up before 5 so this morning I just wasn’t going to have it and went back to bed for 45 minutes…yay? I think I may have slept for 10 of the 45 minutes but that’s better than nothing…and my allergies are as bad as they have been all year and I wonder if it’s from working outside yesterday? We’ll see today since I’m going to be back out there again planting the flower seeds and some veggies in the overflow garden…but, not until I get a bike ride in here in a few minutes…it’s 7 o’clock and it’s already 56 degrees out there so I can go out in shorts by 8 or so…but not until I have an ocean of coffee and maybe take some ibuprofen to get after the headache I’ve had for two days now….can’t take any allergy stuff since I need to ration it so I can sleep at night so I guess I’ll just be miserable today…not going to do as much work today but I do have some more cleanup to do in the back yard to uncover more of the blocks that have been overgrown over the years… and put the roll of chain link behind the garage until I decide what to do with it….but I’ll have to clean up and organize it first….oh, and I need to mow the lawn again to try to level it out until the new grass starts to come in…so, I guess I do have lots of work to do today once I get started…but more coffee first…one cup just isn’t going to do it….more later…
Got some work done…
Well…I wonder when I’m going to actually take a day off? I know I’ve had the intention of taking one just to heal up some since I’m just damn sore all the time but it never works out that way…like today, I was not going to do much other than get the bike rides in and then run an errand this afternoon…so, instead of that…I washed the car early before it got warm enough to get on the bike in shorts, then got on the bike and did a hard 15…and when I was out, I turned right instead of left to go take a look at a trail I hadn’t been on…and it took me across the road to a new part of the park that added an extra 3 mile loop and that is just too cool…I now have more places to explore and with having part of the trail shut down for construction, I now can get back to 15 full miles without having to re-ride much of it….then I came back here and made lunch, then back on the bike for another hard 15…yeah, pretty stupid when I’m so sore…and then I was supposed to run an errand but that got cancelled and I just couldn’t sit here and do nothing when it is so nice outside so I went out to prep all of the garden and flower spaces and continue to clean up the shrubs in the front of the house along with re-setting some blocks in back that had gotten all wonky…then I took a look at the flower seeds I bought and found that the morning glories I got to put in the small spaces out front grow to be 6-8 feet tall so I don’ think they will work with the other ones that grow to be 18 inches tall….so, I’m going to put them in by the shrubs in front since I have a bare area in there that would be fine with a 6 foot tall plant…and I think I’ll put them in right next to the garage door, too so they can lean against the garage when they get tall….I am now curious how they are going to look when they grow….I even stood back and took a look at both the front and back yards today and I think I’ve made good progress with just working on them for a couple of weeks…the place looks like someone lives here again and that is pretty cool….and I have two more days of good weather to keep making progress before it gets cold again…I think I may even plant the flower seeds tomorrow since they take from 7-21 days to come up and the cold will be gone by then….along with the overflow garden that I am going to start everything with seeds….going to have lots of veggies by the end of July and I hope I can give lots of them away, too….I still need to take a day off….
Don’t negotiate with terrorists….
Well…with Michigan now the laughingstock of the country after the bully boys with their guns tried to get to the floor of house here yesterday, the only piece of advice I have for our governor is “don’t negotiate with terrorists”. Let’s be blunt…this storming of our state house is the definition of terrorism…”the use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims…”…can anyone say that having a bunch of screaming, armed, white men trying to get into your work place to force the “opening” of the state is not intimidation for political purposes? Then you have the idiot in chief weighing in yesterday with the idea that Whitmer should negotiate with these terrorists to make them go away….making these protests overtly political and no different that any other act of terroism on our soil…I mean, what’s next? Shooting some people to get their way? and the way that the cops reacted to these assholes was just as sick…laughing and joking with them as they tried to harm the people and buildings that are sworn to protect…I wonder what would have happened if these weren’t white, right wing thugs? Substitute black or Muslim and you’ll have your answer…we’d be mourning the dead and wondering how we got there. I just don’t think our governor should yield one iota to these crybaby assholes…after all, she has a plan based on science and experts and I’m sure that there is not one expert on pandemics in that mob yesterday….
May 1st
Well…that was a little better…didn’t get up til almost 6 this morning but the cost of getting some sleep has me feeling really crappy….and I should have some energy but don’t…maybe that will wait until I have some coffee…had an okay day yesterday but didn’t get a lot done but clean the living room…and I don’t think I’ll do much today but make a run out to HF to get the compressor I have been thinking about for a month now but I want to wait until it’s warm enough to put the top down so that will be near noon…need to get a bike ride in first and would like to get two in today but I have an errand to run this afternoon so I may not have time….it looks like I’m going to have to wait to put the garden in until at least another week with the cold that is coming in but I am going to put the flower seeds in this weekend and just take a chance that the couple of days in the 30′s won’t kill them if they come up that soon….I think I may start seeds in the overflow garden too, since they are just extras and I am curious to see how seeds will work outside….not much to do today…need to just ease into this one with feeling so crappy and low energy…man, I could go back to sleep right now but I won’t….more later…
The lying selfish asshole strikes again…
Well….yeah, this story broke late last week but I’m just getting to it now with a reminder that I found in my notebook where I keep all my logins and passwords…it seems that the lying selfish asshole squatting in the WH is getting antsy with not having any chance to get fluffed by his moronic followers with the coronavirus lockdown, so he decided that a good way to get his jollies is to force the West Point cadets who are graduating to come out of where they are sheltering in place and all come back to West Point so the idiot in chief can spew his hatred at them and the rest of the world. What this means is that these cadets now have to endure a two week strict quarantine without any contact with anyone for the two weeks before the “campaign rally” to ensure they don’t bring the virus with them to West Point…but then, after the moron’s speech, they need to do another two weeks in quarantine since there will be no social distancing that can be done when the cadets are all jammed in shoulder to shoulder just so the moron can stroke his own ego….and the idiot boy lied about it and said he was “invited” to speak at the graduation, even though there was no plan to even hold it with the viral pandemic raging in NY. This is the narcisistic asshole at his very worst…putting a thousand people at risk and taking a month out of their lives just so he can act like the commander in chief…but no competent commander would ever put his troops at risk for no reason at all…but trump has never been accused of competency in anything….where are the repubs who bleat their “love” of the military? Why aren’t they pushing back on trump using them as props for a campaign rally? Yeah, we all know the answer to that…the love was all cynical lies that were abandoned when it was expedient to so so….what a bunch of hypcrites…