Well…with the migration of Daily Kos over to the platform that I have my website on, Word Press…it looks like it may take all day before they are up and running again and it has been a part of my morning routine for so long that I do miss being able to get caught up on what happened overnight…yeah, I know, it’s only been a day but it has been the way I eased onto my day since I discovered the site 20 years ago and I need my dose of good, progressive news and opinion…and the cool thing about the site is that it is powered by the people who contribute their ideas to go along with the staff writers…and there is a lot of heartfelt sharing of what is going on in people’s lives…I guess it’s a community that supports each other and that is sorely lacking in this coarse, hateful world that the idiot trump has built…can’t wait til it’s up and running again…
April 15th
Well…damn, out of bed at 4:33 today and have poured the first cup of coffee before 5am and there just seems to be something wrong with that…I don’t think I’ll ever get back to sleeping to 6am or later and I know that 6 hours total with tossing and turning all night is not enough…oh, well…it looks like it will be raining all day today so the possibility of getting outdoors on the bike is pretty small and I can use an easy day after working my butt off yesterday…I probably should clean the bathroom today or the kitchen, not sure which but I know my microwave is going to be cleaned….need to take the chicken out for masala today to be ready to cook Friday or Saturday and then plan what the second meal will be…haven’ had pasta in forever so that may be the choice…need to see if I’m able to taste garlic bread and if not, that sucks…going to have to mow the lawn soon and get the fencelines raked…the yard waste pickup has started so I can fill a big bag and have a place for the clippings and sticks to go…it’s going to freeze again Sunday so I’ll have to figure out how to insulate the outdoor faucet so I don’t lose the new valve I put on when I opened the tap…god, I hate the frickin cold…the high is only going to be 40 and the low is 30 and that could freeze everything…crap…at least it won’t kill any new grass that comes up…not much to do today…just an indoor ride and then cleaning so I will have the chance to read today….more later…
Busy, busy, busy…
Well…have been running since 6:30am but it’s now 1pm and I am done for the day…it started with an indoor ride since it was raining and then straight out to run errands and I was able to put the top down on the car and that was fun…I had a guy stop at Menards and told me the car looked like fun and I had to agree with him…bought some really expensive bluegrass seed that has a coating that absorbs moisture and keeps it in the seed as it germinates so I’m hoping that will work with the dry times out here…but it’s going to rain off and on for the next week so maybe the patches I seeded this morning will grow…I also put weed killer on since the weeds were perilously close to taking over the yard…I’m still finishing off the coffee at 1:15 pm so you know it’s been too busy to drink it earlier…even got an outdoor ride in with just a t-shirt and shorts on and that was fun…but I’m used up and need to rest a bit and read some to recharge…it’s warm enough to open the windows a bit and air this place out…yay!
Of course the talks failed…
Well…the media is lamenting that the talks failed to put and end to the Iran war but what the hell did they expect? Sending vance and two failed real estate developers with no diplomatic experience at all was never going to turn out good…this is the result of the idiot trump firing everyone in the foreign service who knew anything about Iran and had long term relationships with the Iranians…and you can bet the Iranians didn’t send anyone like fricking kushner to try to hammer out an agreement…and I’m sure the Iranians were laughing when these fools showed up and tried to use their thuggish ways to force an agreement that was never going to happen…this just shows that idiot boy is not serious about peace and just wanted a sound bite that would justify more attacks on Iran…and that’s just what he got when vance threatened Iran right after the talks failed…what an incompetent set of assholes…geez…
April 14th
Well…up and running at 5am again today and I still haven’t had a good nights sleep since I started this boozeless journey…but I still feel so much better that I’ll keep this up maybe forever…got a lot done yesterday and it’s going to be another busy one today with doing the grocery/menards run since I need to get grass seed and topsoil so I can start working on the bare patches in the lawn…it’s raining right now so the ride will be indoors to start but I’ll try to get and outdoor one in later…I do need to get the weed killer on the lawn today so reading is going to take a backseat…I hope it stops raining before I head out so I can put the top down on the car…it’s already 54 out there so that is warm enough for that…would like to get some patches started since it’s going to rain almost every day this week and that will help get them get growing…still have leftover pork shoulder for a few days but I do need to plan for the masala and I think I’ll take the chicken out for it…aldis has boneless/skinless chicken thighs on sale but I really should eat out of the freezer instead…I guess we’ll see…more later…
The car is done…
Well…man, this has been a busy day starting at 7:30 when I went out for the only ride of the day…and as soon as I got back here, I started on the garage and car and working on that til after noon…got the garage swept out that took me an hour and got rid of a bunch of crap that had been piling up in there…and then I did the car from top to bottom starting with the wheels using the armor all wheel cleaner that is the best one I’ve ever found…actually the first one I’ve ever found that would clean the wheels…then I cleaned the interior of car, did the glass, and washed and waxed it and it looks pretty damn good after winter had really trashed it…need to get on the lawn as soon as I have a couple of hour window so I can get the weed killer on before the damn things take it over again…and I’m hoping that will be tomorrow… and then I need to rake the fence lines and get the string trimmer out along with re assembling the mower so I can do the first cut and vacuuming of the year…I do need to get some grass seed since the blight really hit the lawn hard and that will take most of the summer to fix…oh, well…so I guess I better get my reading in so I can be ready to get out tomorrow…
Goodbye weather channel…
Well…I am so damn tired of websites changing to a data gathering model before you can use their site…and this just happened to the weather channel yesterday when they won’t let you access their site without signing up and allowing them to scrape your data…let’s just remember that the weather channel has been on the forefront of privatizing weather forecasts and has spent millions of dollars lobbing repub lawmakers to stop funding the national weather service so people will be forced to rely on private sources as they have for hurricane forecasts and reporting…but there is a way around that…yesterday, I found a national weather service website that does everything the weather channel does and there are no ads or bullshit that made the weather channel website load so slowly lately…so, if you’re using the weather channel, stop…go to the NWS for localized weather that has a lot more detail in it than the data suckers at the weather channel…I’ve deleted my bookmarks…geez…
Now we’re the bad guys…
Well…with the idiot trump’s threats to close down the straight of Hormuz it’s official, we are now the bad guys in the world and this is not going to be pretty…I mean what will out European allies and China do to stop this? There are rumblings that China has had enough of trump and his bullshit since 30% of their oil and gas goes through the straits…what is idiot boy trying to do? Start WWIII? That’s where this is heading and the idiot is acting like Iran won’t do anything about his threats…the idiot is operating like what he thinks and believes is the truth and the US can do whatever it wants…but the rest of the world is getting really tired of his bullshit even though the repubs here privately say they don’t want the war to escalate but they have the tools to stop it right now and just won’t since they are still scared of the moron in chief…why? The idiot is bleeding support every day and even the maga folks are tired of paying the “trump tax” that has come from his stupid tariffs and now this stupid war…I mean almost 5 bucks a gallon gas out here? I can weather this but what about the people who can’t…and those are the morons who voted this asshole in and are not bright enough to see that the cause to all their problems are idiot boy…I truly hope some of them starve to death…and the shredded social safety net of food stamp cuts is not going to save them…geez…
April 13th
Well…up before 5am today and that is about normal lately…feel okay after the 8th day of not drinking and I think that is the new normal that I don’t need to think about anymore…I was a little curious how being dry affected my BP and it appears pretty good…115/70 and I’m hoping I can get back into the single digits as time goes on…lots of work to get done today and it’s warm enough to ride outdoors but I’ll probably do one ride as I want to get the garage swept out and the car cleaned from top to bottom…and that means a total vacuum, the glass cleaned and rainx’d, washing the interior, and then waxing it and that will take a couple of hours…still not going to be too warm but I can live with it being in the 50’s…and I got the outdoor faucet opened up yesterday and I think I’ll wash the bike, too as I do with the leftover car wash in the bucket…and I do have to use the wheel cleaner that I found last year that works like a champ and the car wash soap that is easy on the paint…still have leftover pork shoulder that will last a few more days but I’ll have to do some meal planning for later in the week…and I know that will be Masala…really don’t have much to get on the grocery run since I need to empty the freezer before I get anything else…more later…
Plans had to change…
Well…when I got up this morning, the plan was to get two rides in outdoors since it was already 48 degrees and that is plenty warm to go out…but, once I got the first ride almost completed the wind came up to 35 and I was struggling to get back here…and it got even worse when I got to the top of the climb up to here I broke a spoke in the rear wheel which stuck into the chain and damn near pitched me off the bike…so I crippled the bike back here and got to work replacing it with one from the wheel that broke and that was a long process since you have to remove the tire and tube and the rear cassette to get access to it…so I put it all back together and re trued the wheel and reassembled the bike but the wind was still blowing like crazy so I parked the bike with 13 miles in for the day…but it was warm enough to fit the new valve to the outside water tap and climb in the crawlspace to turn the water on…man, I’m getting too old to fold myself through a 2×2 foot door and I really hurt myself doing it…I did clean all the crap out of the space so at least there are no more old paint cans or bug killer in there…so I can do a complete clean on the car tomorrow if it isn’t raining…need to wax it and clean the interior and rainx the windows…race time…