Well…running on time this morning and I shouldn’t be…back to feeling a little crappy with coughing again…oh, well…should feel better in a couple of days….slept okay last night but I need the coffee to work right now since I am a little worn out….riding the bike in 20 mph winds the past couple of days have made my legs burn and they are still hurting this morning…but, just the dull burn that comes with extra work….and I can live with that….might even be able to get out in shorts again on Friday….didn’t get a lot done yesterday but today will have to be different…I need to clean a little around here and run one errand…and get the turkey in the brine for tomorrow….but, that is going to wait until after coffee….more later….
Some thoughts on power…
Well…given the effort from the idiot trump to push more coal power across the US and the world, I thought I’d relate a new study that I just read about the cost of power. Done by a company called Lazard every year and called the levelized cost of energy analysis, this study deals with the relative costs for generating power from the major types; coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and natural gas….and the results this year are stunning….the cost of renewable power build and operation has fallen below the cost to just operate coal and nuclear plants…and that means that the installations are essentially free…all of those wind farms and solar cells that are sprouting across the world are essentially free to build and the electricity they generate are about half the cost of traditional methods….so maybe even the idiot’s interference in the generating market to push coal will be derailed by the simple economics of the power market…after all, who would pay twice the price just to keep a few coal miners working? And, the jobs in solar and wind pay much more and are much less dangerous than mining….just some thoughts….
Finally saw the beavers…
Well…as I’ve mentioned before, I saw the evidence that there were beavers in one of the retention ponds alongside M-6…with trees being cut down with the typical v-shaped cuts that beavers do, but hadn’t seen the animals doing it…that changed this morning when I slowed down to really look and saw two of them…one of them was huge and working on what looks like the lodge while the other was just sitting on a stump…the second one could have been a muskrat since I have seen them in this pond before and it was much smaller than the first beaver. With seeing them today, it dawned on me why the level of the pond has changed so much…at first, I thought it was just the really heavy rains that we had a few weeks back….but the water level was much higher than I could remember and the level has stayed really high since then….it was the beavers damning up the outlet to the lower pond….that made me laugh when the realization hit me….right in front of me for weeks but it took until today to figure it out…maybe I AM getting old….
November 21st
Well…running on time today and I shouldn’t be…back to coughing and feeling a little crappy so today will be a rest day…slept okay last night but no dreams to speak of and that has been a while now…oh, I did win a pool for the first time in a while….didn’t get much done yesterday but I will today…need to clean this place up before Thursday so I can relax the entire day….it looks like an early bike ride today since it’s already over 40 degrees but the wind is blowing almost 20 so that will make for a brutal ride…yesterday was almost as bad and my legs hurt from it today….not much to do today….going to clean some and just hang out to try to get rid of this bug….more later….
Tax cuts only for the rich…
Well…just wanted to do a short one on the tax “reform” bill that is being jammed through Congress by the repubs as we speak…never mind that there have been no hearings in either the House or Senate on the effects of this crap…something that has never happened before and is all you really need to know..that the repubs are trying to hide this disaster that is specifically being done to reward their donors who have threatened to close the money taps if they don’t get huge tax cuts. And that is the problem here…the rich are the only ones that actually get a cut…anyone who makes less than 75K a year will get a tax increase…yep, you and I and most of the country is going to see their taxes go up just to give more to the rich…just like here in Michigan where taxes were raised on retirees to give tax cuts to corporations who were supposed to create jobs with it but it never happened….and that is the same nonsense that the repubs are using to justify this giveaway to the rich…that it will magically create jobs…even when damn near every ceo asked said that the tax cut wouldn’t do a thing to create jobs…but it would give them a nice pay raise. When can we get back to actual facts being used to set policy instead of ideology? When we vote the repubs out…
November 20th
Well…running a little early today and there is no reason for it…up at the normal time but wanted to get this done….slept okay last night but on my right shoulder and that still hurts right now but it should work out after a while…didn’t get a lot done yesterday but watch sports and that is okay….and I’m only going to get some errands done today…need more allergy stuff and want to get the last grocery run in this morning so I won’t have to do it closer to t-day….my back has been good for the past week and I hope that continues….no pain at all but I did give it a little shock on the bike yesterday but that pain went away by the time I got back here….not much to do today…pool but that is about it….more later….
Mutant potatoes…
Well….almost forgot about this one…when I was getting ready to make a baked potato for lunch, I opened the 10lb bag I got at the discount store last week and found that it was filled with mutant looking things…not the normal shape you would think of when you think of potatoes…but weird shapes that are kind of flat…and even two of them were shaped liked hearts…I took pictures of those just so I could prove it…just too damn weird….
Had to do this one…
Well…if you didn’t already know it, the idiot trump today showed just how despicable he really is….after some American college basketball players were arrested in China for shoplifting, the idiot trump took credit for getting them out when he really had nothing to do with it….but the worst part was in trump’s tweets today where he raged that he should have left them in jail…. and all because one of the player’s father didn’t kiss trump’s ass enough…yep, our so called president thin skin didn’t get the praise he thought he should so he acts like the 4 year old he is and thinks American citizens should pay by going back to a Chinese jail. This idiot is just not right in the head….by any objective measure, or just observation trump is not right…is this one enough for you repubs? Or, do we have to wait for the indictments? Impeach….
November 19th
Well…almost forgot to do this again today and I am going to blame it on the distraction of having a real paper to read today…slept okay last night and don’t feel too bad today but I am still coughing so the bug must still be here….and it has been more than a week so that is getting old real fast….and it is cold outside so I may have to go full thermasuit on the bike today….I was so damn cold yesterday that I didn’t recover until late in the day and it was 75 in here….didn’t get a lot done yesterday with all of the sports on and today looks much the same….well….there is the Lions and a race but that is about it…I do need to get a new coffee maker and Target has one for 15 bucks so that will be in the plans for this week…the old one works okay but it’s more of a backup and I want a new one….not much to do today…going to clean the bathroom after the bike ride but that is about it…..more later….
A little sports…
Well….have been taking it quite easy today after a hard bike ride this morning…even got out in shorts for the last time this year…but, that’s not what I want to talk about…how about a little sports? Have been watching Man U’s match with Newcastle and, finally, Man U looks pretty good with getting toward the end of the match up 4-1…so that is a good thing….have had the Michigan game on the flashback channel and they have been holding their own against Wisconsin…they are even up 10-7 in the 3rd…so, I have some hope for a win still…but Michigan looks bad…again…. so I’m not sure how much more I’ll watch of this one….and there is still State and a race to watch later so I’ll have something to do the rest of the day…it would be cool to see Michigan knock off the #5 team and put a defeat on them….Wisconsin is looking pretty average today…