Well…with all of the hand wringing and finger pointing that is going on with the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban takeover of the country, we need to remember the bottom line in this whole debacle…that no matter what we did and how much money we spent the Taliban was just going to wait us out and take over the country when we left…and there was no agreement that would have stopped it, any agreement was just part of the wait it out strategy that is happening there just as it was for the Vietnamese at the end of that war…and 20 years and 2 trillion dollars is enough…when should it end? If you listen to those on the right, they permanently wanted to occupy the country and part of that is that it keeps their buddies in the defense industry raking in cash….what is the profit on 2 trillion dollars spent? Now, with the chaos that is going on there, I will say there should have been better planning on how to withdraw and I do put some of the blame on Biden…but the generals and the intelligence community have had 20 years to plan how to get us out and I don’t see where the effort has had any effect…if there was any effort that is….I feel for the people of Afghanistan but most of them are perfectly fine with the Taliban taking over if it gets the Americans out so we needed to go….let’s not do this nation building crap again…okay? geez….
All posts by James DeVol
August 16th
Well…not sure what would happen if I just took a day off and sat here on my couch but I’m edging up to trying it….just damn tired and depressed and I just realized that the filter in the coffee maker collapsed and sent grounds into the carafe and had to make a new pot so I’ll sit here for10 minutes as the new pot brews and that is not helping my mood at all…I mean, how can you write without coffee? I just realized I haven’t had a steak in more than a year and I still haven’t bought a grill yet, but I haven’t bought a garage door opener either and I wonder why? I have the cash but I guess I can live without either so there is no urgency when I have so much other stuff to do….I’m tired….didn’t get anything done yesterday but water the lawn and the bike rides but I do have an errand to run this morning after the first ride and need to get out of here soon to get started…..not much to do today…well, that’s not true…I have lots to do but I’m just not motivated to do much right now…this place needs to be cleaned and I need to get started on the exterior painting but that will wait til tomorrow….need to go out and get paint and do a lot of prep but that is just not going to happen today….more later…
August 15th
Well…running a little late this morning and just can’t get started…no reason for it, I think it’s just Sunday morning blues and feeling worn out….still….and that’s with only doing one ride yesterday but my legs needed a little bit of a rest since they hurt just sitting here…as they do right now so it may be another one ride day today….got nothing done yesterday and today looks the same with races starting at 1 or so but that gives me the morning to figure out if I can ride two….I do need to get the ladder out and clean the downspout on the front of the house since it may rain Tuesday and I don’t want it to overflow again…..cripes, haven’t even read the news yet and it’s pushing 8….still can’t just let my schedule go and live and let things go and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to….don’t want to end up one of those slugs who doesn’t do anything….but, I could crawl back into bed right now…I won’t, but I could….I do need to get off my butt and get paint this week to do the door frames and start planning the interior work….and finish putting stuff away…I’ve been here almost 6 months and there are still totes that need to be put downstairs and bags of clothes that need to be sorted and donated….but, I don’t feel like doing any of it….not much to do today…need more coffee and to read the news and then force myself to get on the bike…..then I’ll take it from there…pretty happy that the music festival that was going on down the hill is over…it was a pain in the butt hearing all that crap for the past 4 days…hope it stays quiet all day today….more later…
Biden to the rescue…
Well…as you’ve read here, the asshole repub governors of Texas and Florida are doing everything they can to get teachers and kids sick by forbidding any mask or vaccine mandates while threatening them with loss of pay and state funding for any school that tries to protect their staff or kids….but yesterday Joe Biden had his education secretary send a letter DeSantis of Florida telling him that any funding he cuts will be made up by the feds, essentially taking that threat away from him and doing the right thing by the staff and kids of the state of Florida…and that funding will be sent directly to the school districts so DeSantis can’t screw with the funding like he did with the 7 billion dollars Florida got from the coronavirus relief package and never gave to the schools just so he could have leverage to force people to die for his being an asshole. Look, if repub governors want to try to make sure their people die by forbidding them from using life saving equipment and vaccines by mandate, then Biden will do everything in his power to help the unfortunate residents of Florida and Texas who really would prefer not to have their governors kill them…geez…
August 14th
Well…running a little late this morning with going back to bed until 7:11 and thinking it was Sunday….and now my weekends are going to be a little more complicated with the EPL starting back up and Man U playing right now…so I’ll have to fit the bike rides in between the matches and the races that start at 12:30 today…will probably only do one today or the second one is going to be late…we’ll see…I really should take an easy day today and my legs are telling me they need a rest since they hurt as I sit here so maybe that would be a good idea? I did make a pizza yesterday and the addition of onion and garlic powder to the crust really worked and made it quite flavorful but I am at a loss why it is sticking to the pan even with a coating of corn meal that worked before…maybe I need a new non stick pan….I am going to make a stir fry today and haven’t done one of those since I’ve been here and can’t wait to see how it works with boneless skinless thighs instead of breasts….might have a little flavor….I have a weird white pepper in the garden and I can’t wait to see what the heck that is about and how it tastes….will save the seeds and see if I can grow some next year…not much to do today….just soccer, racing, and bike rides to go with cooking and I think I am going to take an easy one today….have been abusing my body too much and need to let it repair for a bit…oh, and I do need to drag the ladder out to clean the small gutter on the front of the house but it’s not going to rain until Friday so I have time….more later…
I missed it..
Well…I was busy this afternoon so I missed the idiot trump being installed as president again…today was the day that the pillow guy said it was going to happen…did he move back into the WH yet? I can’t find any of the footage on the news…I wonder if the media is censoring conservatives again and that’s why I can’t find it? Did you hear his inaugural speech? Was it the most wonderous thing you have ever heard from the stable genius? Is Joe Biden in jail yet? That’s what trump’s cult has said was going to happen today and I can’t find anything about that, either…I wonder if they did it in secret just to hurt the media? This is really confusing…fox news has been trumpeting this for the past 6 months and it’s not true? How can that be? Yeah, it was never going to happen and this was all just sarcasm….after pillow guy’s meltdown at his “cyber symposium” this week I thought some of the trump cult would walk away from him…oh, and the guy that was supposed to confirm that pillow guy’s information that China hacked the election for Biden called the random numbers that pillow guy put forward as evidence is nothing but “a pile of crap”…and a judge is letting the 1.6 billion dollar suit against him go forward…now I can understand the meltdown…hope it continues…
Can’t find a topic…again….
Well….yeah, I know… haven’t been too consistent on the political stuff lately but there is nothing going on that grabs me…and I’ve been pretty busy with life out here so I promise I’lI do one tomorrow…right now, I waiting for the first EPL match of the year and just got back from the beach…yeah, tough life I know…but I did do two rides today and mowed the lawn so I think I earned a few minutes in the lake..I’m tired…I think I may have to slow up a bit for a day or so and get some rest….I think I may put some cut up cherry tomatoes on the pizza today since I have so many of them and I need to add some flavor to go along with the garlic and onion powder I’m adding to the crust….okay, I need to get some more stuff done before the match comes on in 26 minutes so I’m going to end here….maybe more later….
August 13th
Well…running about on time today with getting out of bed around 6:30 and I wonder what changed to allow me to sleep through the night…for the longest time I was tossing and turning all night and getting up 3 or 4 times…and then struggling to get back to sleep…but that hasn’t happened in quite a while and it is still a little puzzling….feel a little beat up after all the work yesterday but it’s not too bad so I can live with it but I wonder if I should go hard again today? Not really feeling it so I may work on the rest of the siding next week…I think I should look at the small gutter on the front of the house since it appears to be clogged up…but it’s not going to rain for about a week so I guess I’ve got time….the yard is starting to fill in pretty well and I was having concern that it would over the summer…I thought it would take a couple of years to go from bare to covered in grass and I still think that it will be next year for the last of the bare spots to fill in…but it looks so much better than when I moved in here so I’ll take that…I did see another stoat yesterday and another lizard along the same part of the trail and that was pretty cool…..I wonder how long I’m going to be able to ride this year? Pretty sure they don’t clear the trails out here so I think I’ll have to work out a city ride that will give me at least 10 miles a day….and I’ll put the specialized bike on the trainer downstairs so I can ride indoors….not much to do today…I do need to run out to meijers to get the stuff for a chicken stir fry to use the boneless skinless thighs I got at aldis and I need to make a pizza to use up the stuff in the fridge…going to add onion and garlic powder to the crust since the last one didn’t have a lot of flavor…..more later…
Still having busy days…
Well…damn, I can’t figure out why my days continue to be busy when I am officially retired…today, I started out with an early bike ride and was back here by about quarter after 9 or so…then, as I planned, I got to work on the side of the house and scrubbed the whole thing…it looks pretty good but some of the stains were tougher than the other two sides I’ve done so far and they didn’t come completely off…but it looks so much better than it did that I can live with it….after having lunch, I got back on the bike for another ride and felt pretty good on that one, too, so that was a relief with how I’ve been feeling on the bike lately…just so flat and my legs have been dead but I actually sprinted on the way back…soaked to the bone and that felt good….after I got back here and had a couple of glasses of water, I jumped back up and got started on cleaning the car since I hadn’t done that in more than a month and the sand and dirt was piling up in the floor of the driver’s side…and I washed it, too, so it finally looks okay again…then, my work day was over but it was almost 4:30 by then and 8 to 4:30 is a long enough day…but damn, I’m not sure why I’m so busy…tomorrow will probably look the same with finishing up the back of the house and getting two rides in….I may wedge in a trip out to the beach for a swim since I was going to do that today but the day got away from me…but the EPL is starting tomorrow and I do want to get back into soccer…so what to do? I know, it’s not a bad problem to have…
Repub governors are ghouls…
WelI…I am never going to understand how the repub governors of Florida and Texas can live with themselves as they do their best to kill the children of their states. Both Abbott and DeSantis are making sure people are going to die by downplaying the effectiveness of vaccines and by outright banning the mask mandates that schools could use to try to protect these kids…DeSantis going so far as to withhold money from districts that mask up and even farther by cutting the pay of superintendents and principals that try to protect their children. The results of these ghouls actions are already being seen with every damn pediatric ICU bed already filled in both states and kids having to be flown to other states to try to keep them alive….and DeSantis has overseen an explosion of new cases in Florida of over 150K new cases in the past week…and he doesn’t care about anything but looking like a mini trump. Look, we don’t know what the long term effects of covid are on kids but it could cause long term health problems just like the adult “long haulers” who will never recover from the effects of being infected. But that doesn’t matter to these ghouls…they just don’t care about anything but looking good to their cult…and kids will die for it…geez…