Well…another month getting away from me…still no responses from all of the resumes that have gone out and I may have to face the new reality that I’ll never work again….so don’t believe all of the crap that getting retrained for the new jobs is what it takes for us older folks to get work…after all, how much more trained can you get when you already have 4 college degrees. There was an interesting segment on “60 Minutes” last night about the older workers struggles to find work; with many, many people with advanced degrees out of work for more than a year…for me, it’s been at least two years closer to three that I’ve been looking and there really are no prospects…and it is going to get worse if the repubs dismantle the rest of the safety net that has kept us eating at least. But I guess that’s a topic for the political section, huh? This is supposed to be about my life but isn’t work a huge part of life? Okay, I’ll move on and talk about my day and weekend. It was a boring weekend since I’ve not figured out this whole no friends thing yet and It is so easy to just stay here since it does save money…but I know I need to start finding new things to do, especially now that winter is coming on and that limits the possibilities somewhat. but that is not what I’m doing today…have to do some work at G’s after I work out and have my coffee and newspapers…I did get to the last 136 miles I need to get to 2K on the bike…so there will be a push this week to do 20-25 a day to make sure I make it..it is a goal after all and where are we without goals? Probably better off but I still have the last vestiges of my business career still rattling around in my head that force me to keep doing that. Oh, well…more later…oh, may have beers with G later but I’m not holding my breath…she’s skipped the last two weeks and that may signal the end of that routine, too.
All posts by James DeVol
Nobody’s fault but ours….
Well…that title is a paraphrase of a Led zeppelin song title, and it came to me today on the bike that if we let the crazies and the know nothings take this election, it nobody’s fault but ours. It our fault if we sit this one out because it has become too partisan, or because we’re not energized enough, or because we’re too busy…this is way too important to not take a half hour out of our busy days and get out to vote…and there is a difference between the candidates that can’t be overstated…go back to Bush and deregulation or keep going forward where government puts it’s thumb on the scale FOR us, not against us.
This could be our chance to make sure businesses won’t keep spending secret money to get their way; to buy legislators and legislation that allows them to get rewarded for taking, taking, and taking…if we don’t believe the lies those right-wing ads are full of…if we hear ‘failed stimulus package” and think: LIE…if we hear 500 billion in Medicare cuts and think: LIE…and if we hear “Nancy Pelosi’s best friend” and think: LIE….we can get them to stop with our votes because they will stop spending the money if it doesn’t get results. So, let’s not give them the results they are looking for. It’s nobody’s fault but ours if we let this country go down the drain…again, it up to you and me…
October 24th
Well…just a little observation that I made this morning…when you get up early as I do, it seems that this place wakes up as the sun starts to come up… a transition that feels much like the one I undergo…as the light starts to come in the windows, it seems a tangible reminder of the passing of time and a change in character as well…I know, I’m weird, but I have to put these weird thoughts down sometimes. I did go out to watch the first two perlods of the Wings game but missed Pavel’s heroics to win it with 11 seconds left…and watching the games alone is just not the same as it used to be with the group…but here we go on that change thing again…maybe it’s time to start looking for work in another city..to make that one last move that I still have in me…two of the kids have moved and with there no longer being a group of friends to hang out with, it just might be time…I think I’ll take today and start thinking about it. Not much else to do today…but I am going to get on cleaning all of the corners of the cobwebs and the leaves; but I do have a Netflix movie that I am going to watch right now…I have the coffee ready and I really could use a chance to shut the brain off for a while….more later…
October 23rd
Yeah, I know I’m late…it’s been a busy morning and I tried a few new things that put me behind…already have the slow cooker going with a pork loin roast in it and I even went out and got three papers to read this morning…that, and coffee have made the morning pretty good so far. I did decide to go out to see Harry play last night and it was pretty cool that his set started at 7…that’s pretty early for a band but worked out well for me. And, I took it easy so I feel okay today…I might even take the day off from riding since it is still wet and I haven’t bought the fender for the rear tire….don’t like the stripe of leaves and mud that ends up on my back…just looked at the radar and it looks like it’s going to rain for quite a while so I’ll probably just clean around here….but I do have to wait to do the kitchen until after cooking…
Not much to do today…I might be meeting up with C later if he comes into town since I have to go out to watch the Wings game anyway…and I am looking forward to the State game at noon…I may have a topic or two later..probably a sports thing or maybe a philosophy treatise…well….nothing that heavy…more later…
The Dems got played…
Well… this is going to be a short one but it is a thought I’ve had for a while and wanted to pass along…if you remember in the last election cycle, some of the insurance industry’s biggies supported dems since they could see that they were going to win control of the congress and if they were going to keep their promise to tackle healthcare, they wanted a seat at the table. They did buy that seat at the table and what that got them was the bastardized healthcare bill that had one great requirement that they lobbied hard for…that everyone will have to buy insurance from them. Once they got that little gem…they are now funding Repubs exclusively since they now want them to repeal the parts of the law that they had to swallow to get their individual mandate. Now, if the repubs take control you can bet that the insurance folks will lobby to keep the mandate but will get their way again when it comes to covering pre-existing conditions and the cost controls that are part of the bill. I have to hand it to them for playing the long con here…but we can take their victory away by keeping control of one of the houses of Congress in the dems hands and then moving to the government option that will take the insurance industry and their thousands of lobbyists out of the equation. It’s not that hard folks…just get out and vote…geez…
October 22nd
Well…didn’t go out with G last night but K did come out for a couple and I did get the chance to watch the first two perlods…and they ended up with a 4-2 win so that was cool. I do feel a little better today since I didn’t go overboard but I did have some really weird dreams after I was up at 4 or so and went back to bed. I do have to do the grocery thing this morning but it will be a short one..don’t need a lot but I do have to get drain cleaner since the bathroom sink is running really slowly…yeah, exciting life, huh? That’s about it…Netflix is running again, yay! So, I’ll be able to watch some movies today and just take it easy…nothing out of the normal…more later…
Okay, it’s later and I still don’t have a topic that is grabbing me…so, do I just write anything or do I wait until there is something pertinent? I hope this isn’t the whole being happy thing that was impeding my writing earlier…because I’m not really…happy that is…maybe it’s the being up and down all night and not sleeping…I could use any one of a number of excuses but I won’t…if any of you out there write, you know how it is sometimes…that no matter how hard you try…nothing comes..but I’ve never had to explain before because no one knew when I was blocked…now it’s out there for the world to see (or the small world of you that read this stuff) and I think that makes it tougher at times….blah, blah, blah…..I’ll keep trying…
October 21st part two…
Well…yeah, I know…my stuff hasn’t been as good as I like lately and it’s weird when the brain just goes off the rails and nothing I do helps at all…but, I guess that means I just have to keep trying, to keep doing this until the dam breaks again and I can be somewhat lucid. Good luck, huh? There is a bit of irony that I have to pass on that has been making me amused today…as you know, I replaced the dsl yesterday with cable internet to be able to use the internet like normal folks; to be able to watch videos and other media online without the buffering that the dsl needed. Well…I did get through a couple of movies on Netflix yesterday…no death screens or resetting the player at all…pretty cool…but, today, the whole damn Netflix site is down so I still can’t watch the movies I’m paying for…but, I am taking an amused view about the whole thing…part of the “trying to not get upset” process that I am trying out to some small success. There wasn’t a lot to do today…yay…I got it in…so I didn’t do much….still feeling crappy but, as I said before, I think there is a bug component there since I still have a fever…or it feels like it anyway. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…there are some plans for this evening..may be meeting G for a couple and then I have to stay out for a while to see part of the Wings game…still haven’t found a site that I can use to stream the game…and the dish people and Fox are still working on the contract so I can get FSD again…oh,well…maybe I should do a Wings update later? Or that Nascar one that I promised…who knows?
Let’s connect some dots…
Well…you know I’ve talked about the Citizens United case here before but with the new information that is trickling out of the blackout wall erected by the right, I feel there is enough to start to connect the dots on how our democracy has been hijacked by the unholy trinity of business, repubs, and the supreme court. Late in the day yesterday, the guest list from one of the Koch brothers soirees whose purpose was to plot strategy to regain control of congress was discovered. Guess who was on the list? Well.. Fox News, of course, and the RNC, and reps from the Citizens United group, but there were two people that were supposed to be kept secret: Justices Thomas and Scalia of the Supreme Court. Yep, that’s right, Supreme court justices at a political strategy meeting for the right-wing takeover of the Congress. Doesn’t anyone else see the conflict of interest here? Do you think it’s just coincidence that just a few months later, the Court overturned over a hundred years of settled law on the rights of corporations and the will of the people that the money of corporations could not be used influence elections?
Now, I’m not saying that the justices were bribed to make this decision, but, I do think their political leanings are affecting their judicial duty and they have become the most activist court in the history of the US. But it’s not activist for you and me, when cases come to them that deal with individual rights, they are all too willing to shred the fourth amendment and others; always deferring to their ideology instead of the law. We have become a worse nation for it…geez…
October 21st
Well…kind of a strange day yesterday….not really strange but…yeah, strange. I did get the cable internet set up and it is so fast I can’t believe it..watched a couple of movies on Netflix and no “red screen of death” and it only takes about 10 seconds to load versus the 5 minutes or so that it took with the dsl. I still feel pretty crappy today so it must be a bug or something…so I’m going to take it easy today and just hang out….not much to do anyway…I’ll put the grocery shopping off until tomorrow but I will get to some topics today…there is a new one about the Koch brothers and their buying votes on the supreme court that could be interesting if I can flesh it out enough…we’ll see…more later…
October 20th
Well… a come from behind victory in pool last night and had way too much fun..so, I feel kind of crappy today and I think it’s probably one of the last times…I’ve gotten used to feeling good when I get up and this is just not fun. Not much to do today….I think I’ll just watch a movie and veg…and I will get to a new topic later when I feel better…
Okay…got the workout and ride in and feel quite a bit better…even had lunch and got the cable modem set up…I can’t believe how fast the movies load from Netflix…I think I’ll be a hermit for the next couple of days and get caught up on movies that I haven’t been able to watch with the dsl….and, I really don’t have a topic for right now but I am going to try later…I do have a whole chicken in the slow cooker that smells really good but won’t be done until about 4 or so…and my son is coming over to set up the wireless router that he is giving me around 3:30 or so…then, maybe out with G for a couple but I am going to take it easy tonight…more later