Well…another 5:23 morning and I really don’t feel any urgency to get going…I wonder if this is going to be the new normal with taking the summer off? Damn, my brain isn’t working this morning….with no urgency, I don’t have any organization or schedule and that is a little disconcerting after an entire life of having regimented days…hmmm…I did get two rides in yesterday and my legs are feeling it a bit but the pain is manageable…I did have a left hamstring problem on the second ride where it hurt every time I pedaled and that was a bit new with it just coming out of nowhere…not sure how I hurt it but I am working up to mid summer speed and that could be it….I wonder if it was from bending over to weed the back of the house and plant the flower seeds? That stretches the hamstrings quite a bit but they didn’t hurt then….another hmmmm….okay, here’s another weird weather watch that is on this morning…we are under a fire weather watch and I have never seen that before…I think it’s connected to the strange humidity alerts we have been having out here but this time it is too low at about 30% and with the 20-30 mph wind that is forecast, I guess there could be some grass fires out here…but there is not really any action items to do to prepare….just don’t burn stuff? Maybe that will keep the campfires down around here….not much to do today…I had planned to mow the lawn this morning but there are some showers moving in…and how the heck does that fit in with the low humidity warning? I think the weather people have ADD….and I do need to get two rides in today or even just one and clean this place up some…I think I need to make a cleaning schedule for this place so every room gets done at least once a week…this place is pretty dusty even without doing any sanding…I wonder if I should get one of those swiffer dusters to do a quick once over every day? We’ll see….more later….
All posts by James DeVol
Alito really is nuts…
Well…as more and more comes out about Alito’s screwy ruling that there is no right to privacy or abortions in this country, it get worse and worse and shows how he is just writing anything because no one can do anything to stop him…one of his key sources for finding that the constitution doesn’t protect women’s rights is from some random guy who wrote in 1742 that abortions were evil and against god or some such nonsense…and the only thing you need to know is this same guy he reveres so much killed women who he thought were witches…and that fits right in with Alito’s contempt for women and their rights. Alito goes on to falsely assert that there are no “extra” rights and if they are not in print in the constitution, they don’t exist…and this is in direct conflict with the 9th amendment where the framers wrote that just because it’s not in the constitution, does not mean those rights don’t exist….they just assumed that as time went on, the country would figure out how to expand the rights of all citizens and use the law to guarantee them…but they didn’t count on such a corrupt court that would ignore the constitution and supplant it with their own will and corrupt thoughts…what this ruling does is put every right in the crosshairs and the repubs are salivating to get more cases to the court that would eliminated the EPA, gay marriage, women’s right to vote, and every other one that is not in the constitution…and Alito conveniently forgets the 14th amendment, too, that guarantees equal protection under the law…now, I don’t see any governmental body trying to to tell men what they can do with their bodies so how is that equal? The founders warned of a demagogue who would take power for himself and destroy this nation….and now we have one….
I’ll get to a politcal one later….
Well…yeah, I know I should be working on a political one right now but I’ve been a little busy and just got back from the first bike ride….I did get some stuff done today and it feels good to have the back of the house cleaned up and the flower seeds planted…and I put some more weedkiller on parts of the lawn I missed the other day along with repairing the top bar on part of the fence that I have been looking at since last fall…and then I had to go over to Sternberg road to Meijers to get some olive oil that the close one didn’t have yesterday…and buy one get one free is the only way I’ll buy it so now I have oil for the rest of the year…and now I’m waiting for lunch to cook so I can eat and then get back out for the second ride….and then I’ll get the laundry in an then get to a political one….still pretty busy….
May 5th
Well…damn, thought I had another 5 am out of bed day but was able to get back to sleep until after 6 and I do want to shout “win”….I wonder if this is how the mornings are going to feel this summer with not working on the house…back into my routine and it feels comfortable with not getting on the indoor bike today and probably for the next week or so with a bit of semi warm weather coming…and I don’t have a lot to do this morning other than clean up the back of the house and get the flower seeds planted…I think I have a sunflower coming up downstairs but I bought another packet of seeds and I’m going to plant a few of those this morning, too…I think the flowers didn’t come up well last year since I didn’t keep the ground watered but I will do that this year….even the few that came up last year made me smile and I think I have 4 kinds of annuals and 4 perennials to put in and I can’t wait to see how they work…hope I get more than two sunflowers to come up this year….I did get two rides in yesterday and that is the plan for today when it gets over 50 around 10am…the wind finally has cooperated and stayed under 10mph yesterday and that made for a couple of pretty good rides and I wonder if I should skip taking Sundays off as the weather warms up? Maybe go back to the no sprint weekends that I used to do and still ride? We’ll see….not much to do today…have to do a load of laundry later and need to do some meal planning since all I have thawed is chicken leg quarters and I am getting tired of them….not sure what is in the freezer but I think most of it is more leg quarters…I do have a couple of pounds of burger so I could pull some of that out I guess….it is going to be a pretty easy day….more later….I think I made my coffee too weak this morning….hmmmm…
Four dead in Ohio….
Well…as I do every year, I do a short one on the anniversary of the Kent State massacre where 4 student exercising their constitutional rights were murdered by the Ohio National Guard and 12 other students were shot and injured .I’m going to keep this one short as just a memorial, but we just need to look around at what’s happening to women’s rights to see that this is a deeply flawed country, and it is not by accident…this is the design that the repubs have been working for since before Kent State…that no one has any rights except those granted by the white men who run the country and they can be taken away on a whim so don’t cross them…I’ve lived too long through too much of this shit…I’m tired…
Now John Roberts wants an investigation?
Well…John Roberts unmasked himself…again…as just another repub hack when he called for an FBI investigation of who leaked the Alito pile of crap that is going to decimate women’s rights in this country….and he is just so appalled that someone would hurt the “credibility” of the supreme court by doing that…hey, John…that damn ship sailed as you sat there silent as Thomas’s wife was deeply involved in the coup attempt and many, many other huge conflicts of interest that you thought was just frickin peachy…and you sat there and helped Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett lie their way onto the court…as you sat there and said nothing as over 4500 credible tips on Kavanaugh’s unfitness for the court were ignored by the FBI as they did a sham investigation to vet him for the SC…nothing…not one damn word because you sat in on the strategy sessions on how to get that right wing hack through just so you and your unqualified cronies could impose your wildly unpopular theocratic bullshit on the entire country that the repubs could never do through legislation…so you sat there while the oligarchs of this country spent over 100 million dollars paying people off to vote for them…and now you are outraged? John, you can just go right to hell and take your “reputation” with you…you will go down in history as the most corrupt Chief Justice who presided over the most corrupt SC in the history of the country…and you deserve every bit of it….geez…
My timing is off…
Well…hey, consider this a bonus day with getting two of these out before 6:30am but starting this way has thrown my timing off…I normally read the news with the first glass of water when I get up, and then move on to my first cup of coffee as I fire this thing up and do my morning post…but with that reversed today, I didn’t know when to get the first cup of coffee and I had to think about it when I’m normally on autopilot….and I’ve already read the news and it’s really early….and I don’t like to have to think…that is for after the first cup of coffee and getting going this early means I have two hours before I can do the grocery run and with no indoor ride today, I’m not sure how I’m going to fill the time….I am going to try to get the flowers planted outside today but will need to do some prep work before I get to it…and I need to get the seeds for annuals this morning since I planned on perennials to provide the color but didn’t know it takes a year for them to flower…and I want some chives so I’ll get seeds for those, too….and the sunflowers I planted in cups haven’t come up so I may need to buy more seeds for those, too….but first, more coffee…and to try to get back into the routine so I can stop thinking….more later….
May 4th
Well…not sure how I feel about waking up for good at 5am and then out of bed at 5:27…and I’ve had the song “Wooden Ships” running through my head since I woke up and I wonder what that is about? Normally, I would lie on the couch and read the news on my tablet before I get going here but I wondered if my brain would work any differently if I changed up the order and did one of these early before anything else….hmmm…seems that there isn’t much difference right now but I am little fuzzy and this seems to be more work than normal…but that could be from only getting about 5 hours of sleep…it will be interesting to see how I feel later in the day…I did get the oven cleaned yesterday and, even though you are supposed to be able to use the cleaner without gloves….my hands feel like they are slightly burned and very shiny like all the oil is gone and even using lotion all day yesterday, they still don’t feel right…won’t do the no gloves thing again…and even with rinsing and rinsing, the thing still smelled when I heated up a piece of pizza for dinner…so I Ieft it open all night to see if that will help…it was so bad when I bought this place that I still have never gotten it really clean even with using 3 cans of cleaner to clean it…..but that is like the rest of this place and I probably have another year of cleaning to get it to the point I can accept it…I think my lawn is going to green up pretty good after all of the rain yesterday and putting the rest of the food on it but I will probably need to mow it again later in the week but I’m okay with that…I’ll easily have the nicest lawn in the neighborhood after all the seed last summer….not much to do today…just need to do the grocery run and then on the bike for the first ride hoping to get out for a second one later so I can start piling on the miles to get to 6K for the year…boy, I feel pretty crappy right now and I know it’s allergies this time….and that sucks….more later…
Had to work on a bike…
Well…with all of the rotten news today out of the corrupt SC, I had to take a break and just kind of fool around with one of my bikes after not planning on doing it all…I just went down to look at the seed cups to see if I had any more veggie plants up and the Schwinn was calling my name after neglecting it for so long so I started to look at how hard it would be to replace the cable to the back shifter and then it just kind of snowballed from there…got the cable replaced and adjusted, then aired up the tires to look for leaks, wd’d the chain and sprockets and then worked on adjusting the rear brakes so they would kind of stop the bike…they have never been very good but I think I’ve got them as good as 51 year old rim brakes can be…and it was kind of fun just noodling around with a bike and not thinking about anything….but, I think I put in the wrong length cable…when I bought 10 of them, I didn’t remember that it was 5 fronts and 5 backs and the fronts are about 10 inches shorter and that is what I used since I didn’t realize that I had two different lengths….so I’ll probably take it out for a ride and see if it works since I have less use for the front cables…have never replaced one of those in the three mountain bikes I’ve had but I do need to replace the one on the grey bike since I kinked it pretty good when I re geared the bike and had to adjust the front shifter….so, that’s about it…waiting for the last piece of pizza to heat so I can have dinner…no more later….
Susan Collins was “mislead”…
Well…right on cue, Susan Collins tries to shift the blame for the decimation of Roe to her being “mislead” by Kavanaugh and Gorsuch when they baldly lied to her face when they told her that they wouldn’t vote to overturn Roe if she were to vote to confirm them to the court…but, here’s the deal, everyone in this country but Susan Collins knew they were lying…as I said while the hearings for both of these right wing liars were going on, they were sitting there in the senate smirking all the time since they knew they were lying, too, and they knew the fix was in and they could basically say anything they wanted and they would be confirmed…so when Collins says she was mislead, it’s all a bunch of bullshit…she was in on the meetings where the whole scam was discussed by mcconnell and the rest of the repubs and that’s probably where the whole “Susan Collins is concerned” act was thought up to give her cover for her next election…so, just shut the hell up Susan…I won’t use the term of respect of senator because you don’t deserve it…you’ve just hurt 51% of Americans and no lie you can come up with is going to change that…