Well…that was a wasted day…I think that was the longest power outage that I can remember since at least 20 years ago but, living in town, I still had water so I guess it wasn’t that bad….but I did miss the re-start of the BPL season and that really sucked after waiting for it for months…and with this place all electric, I couldn’t even cook anything so I had to fire up my little brick grill to make some food…but I did find the old portable radio that the grandparents brought on vacations and it still worked even with being 50 years old and that at least made a little noise to keep me sane….stayed up late last night after the power came back and I am feeling it right now with getting up at 5:30 so I think today will be just getting back into the normal routine and taking it easy…not sure what just bloomed but my allergies are terrible right now and I am miserable….I could feel it coming yesterday but man, this is bad enough that I may take the zyrtec that I don’t like too much…can’t stop sneezing and my head is plugged up like concrete…the storm didn’t last too long yesterday but it was pretty violent and took down a bunch of trees on the trail…I had to carry my bike over three big ones that were across the entry and then there were two other places that were blocked on my normal route and it will be interesting to see if they have them cleared today….not much to do today….going to just ease into the day but I do have laundry and gardening to get done later along with cooking but I am going to take an hour or so right now to just have more coffee and try to feel better….more later…
All posts by James DeVol
I’m back…
Well…that really sucked…my power went out at noon today and just came back on at 10:20…..all that for a damn storm that lasted about 10 minutes…and the irritating thing was they said it would be fixed by 4:30…then it was 9, then it was 2:15am…I wonder if they were doing the “Scotty” thing from start trek…where you give them a time you know is too long and you know you can beat and beating the deadline will make you look like a miracle worker…all I know is my power is back and I need to watch the race that’s on and I’ll get back to it tomorrow…..
June 10th
Well….that was a mistake…for the first time since I’ve been working on this house, I felt relaxed last night and had cocktails while sitting on the front porch listening to music and watching the rain…put the screen in the front storm door to get some more air in here and that made it all click…not sure if the neighbors were too happy with “Dark side of the moon” playing really loud but I don’t really care, do you?…Okay…yeah if you read the news you get that dig…and with all of the rain overnight, there are no leaks in the front porch ceiling so I must have gotten it fixed and that is pretty cool….cripes, I just realized that I can’t get out on the bike with the rain this morning and I don’t know what to think about that with being on the bike for 30 miles a day for the past two weeks…I could use the rest for my legs since they are in low grade pain all the time now but I wonder if I have to limit my calories to about a thousand with not riding? Didn’t get much done yesterday but work on the garden and the downstairs project and mow the lawn…but I am going to start on the front door today since looking at it open with it ugly and peeling is bugging the hell out of me….not much to do today…feel pretty crappy right now but I need to make a grocery run out to aldi’s and DD to get a couple more pizzas but that is about it for the day…going to just hang out and recover and try to get some work done….more later…
No more hero worship…
Well…if you’ve been here before…okay, quite a bit before, you could have read my earlier posts on the fetishistic worship that this country has been giving police and military since the 9/11 attacks…all of this thank you for your service bullshit and elevating just normal Americans into the superheroes that they now believe they are is part of the cause of the contempt both the military and police show for ordinary citizens who are expressing their rights under the constitution. The death of George Floyd and the subsequent huge protests against police brutality and the daily pictures of the military brought in to attack American citizens has finally started inject some reality into how we all look at these folks and is knocking them off their pedestals…pedestals in the eyes of whites anyway…black and brown people in this country always knew what the reality was…that most of the police forces in this country are infested with white supremacists who live to try to take this country back to Jim Crow and put everyone who is not white in “their place” with violence and racial profiling. All of this hero worship only serves to separate both the police and military from the society they take an oath to protect…and immediately makes the people an enemy that needs to be controlled and not their bosses who deserve respect and protection….maybe these protests will finally throw the pedestals in the ocean and then we can go about reforming how policing is done in this country…starting with confiscating every piece of military hardware police have been given over the past 30 years…and removing the star wars storm trooper outfits that the police seem to just love…no more vests, helmets, and gloves that they use to intimidate everyone and every police wears a name tag and camera that is on at all times and it is a firing offense if it is turned off…and no more immunity from the laws of this country like the Minnesota cops that went on a rampage and slashed the tires of hundreds of cars just to show who is “boss” in Minneapolis…and if the cops strike to again show they are above the law, then we dissolve the departments and start from scratch with modern policing that focuses on helping people instead of killing them…no more hero worship..after all, they are not heroes and they have been showing that since before the protests began…
June 9th
Well…that was a little better….was good last night and I even slept some so I feel okay this morning…probably going to be sore tomorrow with all the ladder work yesterday but my ribs finally seem to be improving and that is a welcome change….and the swelling in my foot seems to be getting better along with the eye infection so I don’t feel so damn decrepit…will get to 2K miles on the bike in the next couple of days but I think I’m so far behind that I can’t get to 5K this year but we’ll see…it looks like I may have a day off the bike tomorrow with the storm and rains that are coming in this evening and that may be a good thing since that will give me time to get the front door ready to paint and get that done finally….I can’t wait to see if my work on the flat roof fixed the leaks…it will be nice to sit on the front porch and watch the storms and stay dry…might even have a beer while I’m doing it even though tonight is another NCN…not much to do today…going to do my Meijers run today since I want to get some veggies to add to the cheap pizzas I got from DD yesterday and I’m going to buy Mega tickets for the first time since the virus started…I sure could use 410 million dollars….more later…
Another busy day…
Well…man, it has been another busy day for me but that made me feel a little better than I have had some motivation and got some stuff done…started out with getting on the bike early and getting a nice ride in, then I had to run some errands to get what I needed to work on the house…but first I stopped at DD to pick up a couple of self rising, 4 cheese pizzas for 1.99 each…they are almost two pounds each and you can’t beat it for 1.99…then I had to go to Menards to get lawn food and roof cement to work on the small flat membrane roof that has been leaking…in the last storm, I was sitting on my little porch with a beer watching the rain and the rain came pouring through the roof of the porch and I got soaked so I knew some repairs were necessary…so, I got the ladder out and got the membrane cleaned up so I could patch it and then spent an hour making sure all of the bad spots were repaired…we’ll see how good of a job I did tomorrow when the storms come later in the day…after I cleaned up after the roof, I got out my little hand spreader and put the food on the lawn, took care of the gardens, made lunch, and then back on the bike for another 15 miles…and just got back here about an hour ago and now I’m taking a few minutes off before I get back to work on the downstairs project…so, it has been another busy day but I feel good that I finally accomplished something…oh, I do like how the car runs after I changed the oil….it now has over 40 psi even at idle and it seems to run more smoothly…I know it’s quieter so I guess it’s worth the 26 bucks the oil and filter cost…
This makes me smile…
Well…damn, it’s been another busy day with running since about 7 but I did want to make a short comment on the happenings going on with the idiot boy and his collapsing in the polls…cripes, I would love to be inside the WH when the moron in chief is fed this new information…or they may not even tell him since his campaign manager made up some fake poll numbers when trump blew up about the real ones last week…okay, buried the lede there, huh? Okay, the new polls put Biden up on trump by 54% to 41% nationally and idiot boy’s approvals at the lowest of his *presidency at 38%….and in every swing state that trump stole, he is behind by at least 8 points and by 12 here in Michigan….and those polls were done before trump’s attack on peaceful protesters and his turning the WH into a armed camp with new fencing that keeps people blocks away….and just the past couple of days we have many, many repubs turning their backs on idiot boy and saying they won’t support or vote for him…gee, being a huge asshole who is shredding the constitution is not a good case for re-election I guess….now, the last thing I want our side to do is get complacent and give the asshole in chief a chance to win…but I think we can take one day to enjoy the fact that we’re not behind and it’s probable now that we can take back the senate, too….but, just one day…then we need to make sure we all vote and get rid of the tumor in the WH….
June 8th
Well…running about on time this morning after forcing myself to stay in bed until I heard the coffee maker start…slept as good as I can ever expect and I’ll let the coffee wake me up and get me going…there is a little good news that the amoxicillin is helping my eye heal up with most of the swelling down so it doesn’t look so bad…my eye is still watering some from the irritation so I’m going to do one more day of antibiotic to make sure it doesn’t rebound…I am looking forward to maybe getting a day off the bike Wednesday to get a little rest for my body that is feeling a little worse for wear with 30 miles a day becoming the new normal…I wonder how that happened? I mean, 15 miles a day should be enough for an old guy like me and I know I have the 5K goal but the compulsion to go out twice daily is a new thing that is confounding me a little…I wonder if it is trying to chase away the age that I see in the mirror every morning? If it is, it’s not working….didn’t get a lot done yesterday but gardening but I do have to get out to get some lawn food today to get it down before the storms tomorrow night and into wed…and I think I may want to mow before that but we’ll see….I do need to wash the car too, since C’s road in Mt. P is gravel and it is covered in dust…but, I may let the rain do that on the grocery run wed…it’s a little weird that I am letting little things like car washing and fooling around in the garden fill my time when I still have big work to do on the house….I guess I’m just burned out from working on it almost daily for a year…..I think I deserve a little time off to enjoy life for a bit….I am going to get to the front door this week and get it painted…and I do have to get on the membrane roof and replace the cement that has dried out to eliminate the leaks…maybe that will be this week, too? More later…
A few things…
Well…got the political one in for the day but still had a few other things I wanted to talk about that are just things…not important at all but I have time so I thought I’d just go…I did get the oil changed in the car today in between the two rides I took and I had forgotten how big of a pain it is to get the filter out since you have to take it out through the top with the plastic pan under the car blocking even being able to see it…and every time I end up with scratches on my arms from snaking them down past the intake runners…but it’s done and I even cleaned up the oil that always spills from the filter boss and ends up on the ground…it is nice to have 50+ psi at idle again…and it looks like I did get a couple of the last green pepper seeds to sprout, finally and I can get them planted next week so I’ll actually have a few of those to go along with the jalapenos that are blooming all over the place…and I may even get some tomatoes out of the many, many plants that I have going..but, I’m not sure about that with the withering of lots of the blossoms on the celebrations…my beans have even stated to look like they may be blooming, too so I guess I need to stop stressing out about every damn plant….after all, gardening is supposed to be relaxing but I think I’ve made it a competition with myself just like everything else and that is not healthy…but the brute force method I used on everything has left me with 19 sunflowers along the fence that are going to be a sight to see when they start to bloom….so, I guess I need to relax some, huh? Okay, I will…taking the rest of the day off to just veg and watch the race…and I hope to get a nap in since it is napcar after all….
The irony is just delicious…
Well…have been taking it easy a little today but I did want to comment on what I see as just a frickin delicious irony…just saw pictures of the crowds protesting in DC a few minutes ago and the thought struck me…they are larger than the idiot trump’s inaugural crowds by a huge margin! Okay Lincoln project, where’s the ad stabbing at idiot boy for this? You know how much everything about him and he gets the biggest crowds etc…this one could be a two fer…they could jab him about the crowd size and then throw in that he lies about damn near everything with photos and everything…this would really piss off the moron in chief and would be in addition to the defection of lots of repubs of the past few days who said they wouldn’t support or vote for idiot boy….he just has to be stewing over the trashing he has been getting by these same repubs and just a little nudge should be all it takes to push him even farther over the edge…oh, and one more great ad would be directed at the enablers of the idiot and should say that trump can’t pardon everyone before he leaves office so the ones who are helping him break the law and trash the constitution are going to pay for their criminality…I’m talking to you Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo….and the rest of you…it’s going to get real in 5 months so I guess maybe you should stop criming? Nope, they are too stupid to understand that when we take back the government, the rule of law is going to apply again…just like it should have for the past 4 years….