July 11th

Well…running about on time for a Sunday…got up a little before 7 and headed straight out to get the paper and the cool temps woke me up pretty well with the top down on the car….but, I need more coffee….had an okay day yesterday and didn’t have to make a noise call so the counter starts at one again….got two good rides in and took my tablet on the second one to take some pictures of the trail and posted them to fb….working on the second week of no flats on the bike and I think I’ll change out the rear tire soon but the bike is working so well I don’t want to screw it up…even the 5-6 shift is working and every time I take the rear wheel off changes that….so I may just wear the rest of the tread off before I change it….it looks like the rain that was forecast today is not coming so I won’t get a rest day until later in the week…we really need rain out here but it never comes and I wonder if that will hold into the winter when this place gets all the lake effect snow? I wonder if I’m doing potatoes wrong since they keep falling apart when I boil them for potato salad…I don’t remember ever having this problem before and I guess I’ll have to go out to the internet to check what the problem is….not much to do today….Sunday is the one day that I try to not do any work and just relax and not feel guilty…and there are races and soccer that I want to see so that will give me something to do later today….more later…

Why would they do this?

Well….when I read about all of the vaccine/virus denial and lies coming out of right wing news, the question comes to my mind is why would they do this? What’s in it for them to make sure that their listeners get the virus? Is it just stoking the outrage machine they need to keep their viewers coming back for more? I have never seen a safe, effective vaccine vilified as the covid one is and you would think there would be a clear reason for this coordinated attack…I know part of it is to attack Joe Biden…but the line of the attack they are using is so incoherent that the only thing you can draw from it is “vaccine bad” and saving lives by figuring out how to get more vaccine into more arms is like Nazism….this is how far the repub party has fallen in my lifetime…it is now run by cranks and crackpots who have no problem causing people to die by their lies…and what for? What could possibly be a net gain for them to kill off their own people? I still don’t get it….morons…

July 10th

Well…I felt pretty exhausted yesterday and that showed last night…fell asleep on the couch and didn’t get to bed until after 2 and didn’t get out of bed until almost 8 this morning….and I still feel pretty worn out today and I am really hoping for a rest day tomorrow since it’s supposed to rain all day…at least that was the forecast yesterday and I haven’t looked at the weather yet today…I do know it only 55 out here right now and that means a long sleeved t-shirt when I get out here in a few minutes….didn’t even get to coffee until after the machine turned off and that happens about twice a year….had an okay day yesterday and cooked lots of food so it will be leftovers for the next few days but I do want to make another batch of potato salad and cut up some carrots and celery for healthy snacks to have with ranch dressing that I load up with horseradish…very yummy…if I get the rain day tomorrow, I’m going to change out the rear tire and put the new one on and lube up the chain….will probably do the chain later today after I get the rides in so it can dry by tomorrow…not much to do today…just going to do the rides and a little cleaning but I’m not feeling I have enough energy to do much more…I do have another one to do today about the malaise I have been feeling lately but I need to flesh that out on the first ride….more later…

Stupid republicans…

Well…with the latest studies that show that 99.8 % of covid deaths from the delta variant occurring in unvaccinated people, all I have to say is stupid, stupid republicans since the overwhelming number of unvaccinated people are republicans. The latest polls show that almost 80% of dems have been vaccinated and many others still plan to be but only about 43% of repubs have been and there is really no group of them that plan to be vaccinated in the future….it is still a “hoax” to them and they think that the vaccine will turn them in liberals I guess….so, to “own the libs” many more of them are willing to die to prove some point that escapes me…and there are even many of the right wing nuts on fox news still shouting that they will never be vaccinated, and even the senator from Wisconsin is spouting conspiracy theories on tv about them, further hardening the opposition to the vaccines in the right wing sphere. You know, maybe we should just let them not be vaccinated and live with the consequences…or die with the consequences since that is what is going to happen to a lot of them as the delta variant is taking over cases in the US…stupid, stupid republicans…geez…

July 9th

Well…it’s uncanny that I keep waking up at 6:30 every day give or take a couple of minutes….and that is better than 3,4, or 5 o’clock that was the pattern for a long time….I wonder what the next pattern is going to be? Had an okay day yesterday but the noise started up again in three different houses that I had to shut down…and the officer I talked to said this is the end and these folks are going to get fined from now on…it’s about damn time….I did see a stoat on the ride yesterday…the small animal that looks like a ferret and is a member of the weasel family…it just ran across the main drag out to the beach right in front of me…pretty rare to see one…I know it’s only the third one I’ve seen in my long life and that was pretty cool….I’ve had almost two weeks since the last flat and I am getting cautiously optimistic that the electrical tape I added to the rim solved the problem but I am going to have to change out the bald old tire with the new one over the weekend and that could introduce another variable to the experiment….we’ll see….not much to do today…going to take the car out for an errand and I hope it will get the rest of the air out of the system..it should be okay since I put the same amount of coolant in that I took out but you have to very careful with Miatas since they don’t take well to overheating….I do need to cook today and I am getting enough green beans out of the garden to have some every day so that is cool….can’t wait for tomatoes to start ripening….more later….

3 million bucks for a lie…

Well…I’m not sure if you’ve been following the “audit” that is going on with the 2021 votes in Arizona, but the latest news should really, really piss off the taxpayers there…the SOS there has just revealed the every voting machine, and every tabulating machine that has been handled by the frauds who are trying to find votes for trump and overturn the certified results of the election are going to have to be replaced since the security of the machines have been ignored and any random person could have gotten access to them and rigged them to not reflect the real totals of the votes…something that the repubs doing the counts can’t be trusted to not do. So, for one (democratic) county in Arizona, the taxpayers are going to be out over 3 million dollars based on the big lie that thereĀ  was voter fraud in the election…and now the same thing is happening in Pennsylvania and other repub states across the country…I think they may try it here in Michigan but that might have been stopped by the repub senate report out last week that there was no voter fraud here in Michigan. It is just bullshit that taxpayers have to foot the bill for repubs delusional conspiracy theories…but, I can write the ads for dems about this crap….and I hope dems across the country use this waste of money to hammer the repubs in 2022…geez…

That was easy…

Well…..as you know, the plan for this morning was to change out the coolant in the car since it had changed over to a rusty gel substance that just isn’t good for it…and Miatas should have the coolant changed once a year…and the last time I had it changed was over 5 years ago so I may have to do it again before winter because you never get all of the old coolant out…I did find that the radiator has a drain plug and that made the job so much easier not having to take the bottom radiator hose off….the coolant that came out was pretty much black instead of the green it was when it went in and that was ugly…I did have to take the overflow tank off and wash that out since it was filled with brown goo and it needed cleaning badly…that stuff had the consistancy of 100 weight gear lube and it’s supposed to be like water…and I let water run through the radiator for 15 minutes until it ran clear coming out so I hope this helps…the new ramps that my brother gave me worked like a champ and I felt comfortable being under the car without stands…going to use them again when I change the oil in a couple of weeks…so, I guess I can get on the bike here after this cup of coffee and watching some of the TDF….more later…

July 8th

Well…didn’t get out of bed until 6:30 or so this morning and I should feel more rested than I do…just want to lay down on the couch and go back to sleep…not sure why I’m so worn out but I am sure I don’t like it…if finally did rain last night and it’s still spitting out there right now but I was really hoping that it would rain all day and give me an excuse to stay off the bike today…I have work to do on the car and need to get it done…I think I’ll work on the coolant today if I can get the lower radiator hose off to flush it out…the coolant has turned into gel and that can’t be good for the car…not sure if I’ll get on the bike first…I think I can take a day off to do other things but if the job goes well, I can ride this afternoon…I did have to work on the entry door to the garage yesterday since it had stopped latching and there is no way I was going to leave it unlocked…had to move the striker plate and make it more stable so the latch would connect with it but that only took about 15 minutes and now it locks….the garage is 80 years old and whoever set up the latch just cobbled it together like a lot of the stuff around here….not much to do today….just the car stuff and laundry…I wonder if i should change the oil today, too? The stuff in the car only has about 2,000 miles on it and it is a full synthetic so I guess it could wait a while…and I need to pick up a filter…got the new oil last week and just forgot to get a filter…and I need to see if I have any blue silicone to seal up the drain plug…probably should just get a new drain plug…maybe I’ll do that and wait to change the oil….more later…

Let’s talk a little music…

Well…first, happy birthday to Ringo…while I was reading through one of the sites I do every morning, I came across an article that tried to rate the 50 best live rock albums of all time…and three of my favorites were in the top ten, and I agree with their pick as number one…Live at the Fillmore East by the Allman Brothers..or I should say I can live with that pick, but I would have put Four Way Street by CSNY at number 1 while this guy put it at number 7….where I have a bone to pick is that Alive in America by Steely Dan wasn’t even on the list or Twin Peaks by Mountain…I mean what’s not to like about the song Nantucket Sleighride that goes almost 31 minutes? The Eagle’s Hell Freezes Over wasn’t on the list either or Live Bullet by Bob Seger…..there were a lot of obscure bands that I’ve never heard of on the list but that’s not that unusual since I really have stopped paying attention to new music….anything newer than the 90′s has gone right over my head and I don’t care much about it…other than SD and Donald Fagen, that is….not sure why I always get sucked into these types of articles but it was a nice respite from the regular news for a few minutes….

July 7th

Well…darn…the rain that was supposed to hit us last night has skimmed by to the north by about 50 miles and it looks like it’s happening again right now…and it would have rained all night and into today if it would have happened…darn…but it looks like it may rain later today so I’ll keep my fingers crossed….I did sleep okay last night and I’m not as sore as I should be after the abuse I heaped on my body yesterday but my legs do hurt some and I can live with it….not feeling too motivated right now but I know I have to do the grocery run here in a little while and then on the bike….I did have to run the ac unit last night with all of the humidity but I shut it off when I hit the sack after running it for an hour to cool my bedroom down….and that seemed to work okay….and it’s only going to be in the 70′s out here today so I probably won’t have to run it again….I am going to hit the beach later in the week and get a swim in…I am still contemplating a do nothing day soon….I mean I’m retired and should be able to do one of those once in a while….just fooling around should be the reward for working my whole life since I was about 11 and started mowing lawns….I do need to work on the guilt I feel when I’m not being “productive” and just let it go but that is going to be really hard for me….especially since I have so much to do around here and no one else is going to do it…oh, well….more later…