Well…damn, woke up pretty depressed for some reason…or for no reason, that’s how it works and I’m having a hard time doing anything right now…even tried something different this morning when I got up at 5:23…went back to bed to just lay there and that may have something to do with it…the weather may be contributing, too since it is going to be cold right through the end of April with highs no warmer than the low 50’s and that just sucks…don’t want to go back to long wind pants and gloves on the bike but it looks like I’ll have to…and that may put me back on planting the garden and the flowers since there may even be frost…and that’s depressing, too….being in constant pain is not helping, either, and I’m pretty sure I tore a muscle in my right forearm doing something since I can barely even pick up my coffee cup…it would be nice to know how I hurt it so I don’t do it again but all of the outside work is kind of a blur….not much to do today….I’ll have to wait til almost noon to get out on the bike so I can go in shorts so I’ll have to find something to do this morning…I think I’ll put the string trimmer head on the gas trimmer and I should run out to Menards to get some grass killer to spray under the fence so I don’t have to trim it every week and look at a small spreader for the lawn food that I need to get down soon…but I am still trying to not spend any money right now after burning 2500 bucks in the past month so that may wait…more later…
All posts by James DeVol
Damn, I’m sore…
Well…as you can see, I didn’t do a political one today since I just had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to get done and I really didn’t have a topic anyway…this calm Biden admin is going to kill me…damn, I’m sore… it was bad even before getting on the bike but when I got back here, I couldn’t feel my hands they were just numb from pressure on them riding and it was hard to even use the shifters…and that has been happening lately and I’m not sure why…but, even though I was sore after riding, I went out to continue to pull weeds and got sidetracked by some stumps that had grown through my fence and had started to sprout again…so, I got my hatchet, axe, and pruning saw out and attacked a lot of them and got the biggest ones out after a lot of damn work…there was so much to cut out that it filled one of the huge yard waste bags and then I continued to work on the weeds but I was getting sore really quickly so I had to give up…and now, I can barely walk around here and need some ibuprofen soon…I am so tired of being sore all the time….I can barely use my right arm with all of the pain in my forearm that is so bad I can barely pick up my water glass…cripes, I’m getting old…
April 11th
Well…decided to change things up this morning and come here for one of these before I read the paper so I don’t have to think about it and I won’t forget it…so, here goes…slept okay last night but I really think that will be the end of cocktails for me….have been inching up to it for a couple of weeks now and I just like the way I feel in the morning when I don’t have any…so it starts tonight but I’m not sure if it will be a hard and fast rule or if I’ll just go back to how it used to be when they were for special occasions and not every day…we’ll see….had some dreams again but waiting this long to do this has let me forget them so they must have not been very memorable….my allergies have been really bad the past week or so with all of the tree pollen and I am just damn miserable and that won’t be helped by doing yard work this week…it is nice that I have most of the equipment I need to take care of the lawn now and I guess feeding it can wait another week until the next payment shows up in my checking account….not much to do today…have to check the weather to see when I can get out on the bike…Man U plays at 11:30 so I hope it’s before that…and I may do some more weeding around the house so I can plant the flower seeds around it and get some color going….more later…
Didn’t get much done today…
Well…damn, I had plans to get a bunch of stuff done today but my allergies are just killing me and all I got done was to weed the back of the house and plant the sunflower seeds in that area…oh, and I did get a bike ride in but got a little wet when it started to rain a bit on the way back…I wanted to get the last part of the fence raked and trimmed but I don’t want to do it with it wet and I still need to swap out the edger head with the trimmer head on the gas trimmer and just didn’t feel like doing it today….and it is going to start raining for a few hours soon so I guess it can wait till tomorrow or Monday. I still need to get out and get a spreader and food for the lawn but the 1400 dollar check has not gotten here yet so I need to conserve cash…looks like I won’t get a new garage door opener this year or anything else that I need…maybe I’ll take the one apart I have to see if I can fix it…but I need a step ladder to do that and they are 80 bucks so that will have to wait, too, since I need to be saving for the 1500 dollar tax bill that is going to come due in August….along with the 600 dollars for my car insurance…damn…have a lot of cash going out…oh, well…
Now they are killing kids here in Michigan..
Well… as we watch repubs forcing their states to open across the US against the advice of the experts and every damn doctor other than Scott Atlas, we now have the repubs here in Michigan killing kids with their bullshit threatening of governor Whitmer that forced her to allow high school sports and schools to reopen with the the obvious effect…obvious to everyone but the stupid damn repubs that control the legislature….so now, we have the highest rate of new cases of the B 1.17 variant of the virus that is 20 times more infectious and causes serious cases in young people that could harm them for the rest of their lives…but the repubs still scream “freedumb” and want even more restrictions lifted as Whitmer pleads with people to keep up the mask wearing and to have them stay away from indoor dining or bars, etc. where the virus is known to spread. The repub head of the MHSAA (the Michigan High School Athletic Assoc.) has even come out and said that they are going to continue to hold tournaments and spring sports even with the wildfire spread of the virus in high school athletes. Look, I understand that people are getting restriction weary but this stupidity by Michigan repubs is going to make the year we have lived in isolation not worth a damn thing as they gleefully kill more and more of our friends an neighbors…and now they come after the children and feel no remorse at all…monsters, all of them….
April 10th
Well…I wonder if I need a haircut? If I listen to my dreams, I do…since that theme ran through them last night….and that was a little weird since I really don’t need one…yet…I may be edging up to only one night of cocktails per week with how I feel this morning and how late I’m running from not getting out of bed until 6:45….and I must not have slept too well with the covers no longer on the bed when I got up….I may just be getting too old to be able to take it anymore…I did get a nice ride in yesterday but my bike computer quit about 3 miles from here and something had severed the wire that goes to the trigger that is mounted to the front forks….must have run over something that kicked up into it…but, I was able to twist the wires back together and get it working again…looked all over for my soldering pen and couldn’t find it so it looks like I have to buy a new one…the old one didn’t work too well anyway….and I did get some grass seed down on the new fill that I put in on the entrance to the back yard with the dirt that I shoveled off the sidewalk near the steps that lead into the front porch…some of the seed that I put down in the first batch is starting to grow and slowly the huge bare spot that is the back yard is starting to green up so I will have a yard this year…but I need to get a spreader and some weed and feed so I can get the rest of the yard taken care of before the weeds take over….oh, and I did get some flower seeds yesterday that need to get planted around the house to get some color going but it is going to be cold for the next ten days or so and they won’t sprout so I have some time for prep work…not much to do today…I may get started on garden prep after the bike ride but it is going to rain all afternoon so I may just hunker down and work in here…or not…I still do need to take some time off and just live and today may be the day for it….more later…
Are we the last generation that will know two strokes?
Well…after using my new gas powered string trimmer with the edger head yesterday and listening to that little two stroke just screaming, the question struck me “are we the last generation that will know two strokes?” With the proliferation of electric yard tools and the tightening of pollution regs for all gas powered tools, I think we are….I know that if I said two stroke to any of my kids, they would look at me with a questioning stare, not having any idea what I’m talking about…and that is a shame. I think it was one of the things that bonded our generation…the knowledge of all things mechanical and knowing what anyone was talking about since we had a shared vocabulary and experiences…I guess that is the same as the shared experience my kids had about computers and gaming and what the previous generations had about horses and farming….but, damn…there is something about a screaming two stroke that is loud even through the earplugs I was wearing….and we’re probably the only ones who care….oh, well….
Not one repub….
Well…I’m sure you’ve heard of the saga of the mini trump repub Matt Gaetz who has been connected to child trafficking and using campaign funds to pay for women to travel with him all over the country…and his connection to the disgraced former Florida official who has been charged with 33 counts of various felonies, and who has flipped on Gaetz and is giving testimony to the FBI….and this is not the only instance of how sleazy Gaetz is….he has paraded around the House floor showing nude photos of women he has slept with to other repubs….and here’s the thing…not one damn repub has said a word against this child trafficker….not one damn repub has condemned his general sleaziness when all of them knew who he was…and that is the modern repub party folks, the party of family values is okay with one of their members having sex with underage girls, illegally using campaign funds to pay for it, and lying his ass off about the whole thing. I never want to hear another one of them try to lecture anyone on “family values” when this is perfectly acceptable to them…when is the last time you heard of a dem doing half of what is just peachy with repubs these days? I can’t wait for the perp walk of this mini trump who feels that the law doesn’t apply to him….just like the rest of them…
Not sure if I understand the British monarchy…
Well….with the passing of Prince Philip today, the thought entered my head that, even being a big anglophile, or a fan of England, I’m not sure if I understand the monarchy in these modern times….or any monarchy for that matter…it seems that more egalitarian models of governance are more suited to the times we live in. I do feel for the British royal family as I do for any family that loses it’s patriarch or any of the people who guided it for 70 years, cripes, that is even longer than I’ve been alive, but what is the purpose of the monarchy? Here I fall back on my firm belief that no one should be able to go through life held up to high esteem just because of an accident of birth…whether it is through a monarchy or through inheritance of wealth as happens here in the US…for example, all of the idiot trump’s kids, what makes these people of any more worth than you or me? Maybe with the royal family it is a lack of understanding on my part…but, with the almost daily scandals coming out of that small family, ….okay…nope, I don’t like the way this one is going…I’m not going to attack something I don’t understand…and that is not how this one started in my head…maybe I’ll have to think more before I comment more….
April 9th
Well…that was a little weird…went to bed early since the servers my son is renting for his media went down for the second time last night and I was really bored without it…but, I didn’t get to sleep until after midnight so I guess getting up at 6:37 is not that good….better than getting 5 hours but not much since I did wake up a few times….but, I feel okay this morning with 5 days in a row of being good and I’m not sure if I’m going to do 6…I might but I might make tonight a reward for taking better care of myself…we’ll see….the grass seed I planted in the yard is starting to sprout so it looks like I may have a yard this spring….I may have to get another bag of seed to cover the bald spots I missed but that’s only 8 bucks and worth it…there is so much work yet to do outside that I think I’ll be working on it for the next month…have to get started on garden plot prep along with getting flower seed planted around the house so I’ll have a little color when they grow…I think I may have to buy more of them and some more veggie seeds since the leftovers from last year aren’t going to be enough…but, the weather is going to be cold for the next two weeks or so and that gives me some time to plan….not much to do today…I do need to run out and get my Mega tickets and try to get some items that they were out of at aldi’s and it is still raining so I can’t get out on the bike anyway….so the ride will be in the afternoon and I hope it stays warm enough that I can still get out in shorts for the next two weeks….more later….