Well…cripes, I’m miserable this morning with my allergies shifting into high gear with sneezing and my head completly plugged up so I am going to have to take something for it before I get on the bike….have been having some problems with he 5-6 shift on the bike and I’m not sure what the problem is…I cleaned the shifter and hope that will help but I won’t know until I get out here in a few minutes…I do have a new shifter that I bought for the old bike that I can put on it but this one shouldn’t be worn out with only 3100 miles on it….didn’t get a lot done yesterday but I am going to try to get the front trim painted today…but, with the storms that are supposed to come in around noon, that may have to wait until tomorrow…I did cut the ride short yesterday and only did 32 miles for the day…and I think that will be the mileage every day from now on…the only reason I’ve been doing 36 daily is to get to 5K for the year and it looks like I can get there with only 1500 left to do…I think I need to limit the wear and tear on my body some since I have been getting cramps in my calves and some pain in my right achilles and that never happens when I ride normal miles….I haven’t been taking any painkillers so I may be able to take some today just to be able to move better….I was going to talk about sleep again but I guess all I have to say is 4:14…not much to do today…need to get out on the bike soon but it looks like a one ride day with storms coming in around noon and I just can’t muster the energy to do two before then….more later…
All posts by James DeVol
August 2nd
Well…running early for a Sunday but it is only because I remembered to come here and that it is raining and I can’t get out on the bike yet…it was a really depressing night last night with new renters moving in next door and the resulting noise and bullshit that comes from that…you know, I am beginning to hate living in the city with the traffic noise, the idiot people, the smoke from the damn smoker that runs all the time, and the heat that is relentless and can’t be relieved when I can’t open this place up from the smoke….I feel like I have ptsd from all of the sensory overload…it’s never quiet here and I have taken to wearing earplugs to sleep again…I am just so damn tired all the time just from living here that Tom’s cabin in the woods is looking better all the time…and this damn virus is wearing me out too….got invited out to K’s yesterday but I couldn’t go with having T here on wed and the possibility of exposure that I couldn’t take out there…so here I sit….and I didn’t get anything done yesterday but a little cleaning and the depression that I thought was over is again paralyzing me….and part of that is my damn body is giving up on me and keeping me from working as hard as I want to….so, what to do? Endure the day I guess and keep moving forward…the rain needs to stop in the next 10 minutes or I won’t be able to get out on the bike before the F1 race at 9…and I don’t want to get wet today…or cook, or clean, or even think….more later…
This is pretty funny…
Well…as everyone knows, the idiot trump just lives for his “rallies” and the adulation of his zombie followers who would “crawl over broken glass to see him” according to his lying press secretary. Hmmm…they might want to re-think that after the turnout at his latest “rally” in Florida a couple of days ago which was one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen…in the background you have Air Force One on the runway and miles of fencing to corral his supporters in front of it…and maybe a hundred people in a scraggly crowd in the very front of the corral but surely not the thousands and thousands of people that fox “news” lied were there…what the hell is it about these people who are frickin obsessed with crowd sizes and are always lying about it? One thing we haven’t heard is from idiot boy on twitter since I know he has been ridiculed mercilessly there about his constant lies…maybe it’s getting through to him that the whole damn world thinks he is the most ridiculous person on the planet? Nope, that would take self awareness and he has none of that….I really did want to see his followers crawling through the broken glass, though….that would have been a show…
August 1st
Well…not going to talk about how crappy my sleep was last night since it depresses me to think just how bad it is…I did have to take some allergy meds last night since I couldn’t stop sneezing and that is making for being able to breathe this morning and I appreciate that…and I don’t really feel that bad today…just the normal aches and pains but my butt is starting to wear out with all the riding and I have had to move around in the seat the last week or so just to tolerate it and I may just need to take a day off to let it heal up some…oh, I did just go past 3400 miles yesterday so that is more than 2/3 of the way to my 5000 mile goal for the year…I was a little disappointed that my rear tire only lasted 3,000 miles before coming apart but I have one of the hard ones on now that I hope will last the rest of the year…I am going to see if I can find a spare locally or get one ordered so I’ll have one in reserve…I could take the front off the old bike if I need it but I want to keep that intact so I can get it repaired…didn’t get much done yesterday but I am going to paint the trim on the front of the house today to get that off the list…and I may try to clean the copper trim around the porch too, but that will depend on how my foot fares….not much to do today…I may lay out in the sun again to try to even out my biker tan and continue getting some color but we’ll see how the day goes….more later…
Mail in ballot fraud is a lie…a big lie..
Well…as you’ve seen for the past fifty years, the go to whine of the repub party is that there is “widespread” voter fraud and they have taken this lie to use it to make sure that eligible voters (that vote democratic) can’t vote by shutting down polling stations, voter ID laws, and lies….but their latest, that mail in voting is rife with fraud and can’t be relied on is just them lying again to try to make sure that only their motivated voters will be able to have their votes counted. We even had Bill Barr this week lying his ass off that there has been “massive voter fraud” associated with mail in ballots and that other countries can just print off fake ballots and send them in to skew the vote. First, I have been taking advantage of Michigan’s no reason absentee voting this year and I can tell you that there is tight control over who gets ballots and how they are handled when you send them in…each ballot has a registration number that applies to that ballot alone and a barcode that has my information on it…and if those two don’t match, the ballot is invalid…so how could a foreign country do that kind of a match? They can’t…they could print up a ballot but unless they have a spy in every precinct stealing the information, there is no way they can get past the security measures in place here. The second thing that would prevent mass cheating by a foreign country (or the repubs) is that every town, city, and township in Michigan and across the country has it’s own ballot that include local issues like school funding and millages along with local elections like sheriffs and water commissioners, etc. so anyone trying to mass effect the mail in ballots would have to print the exact ballot of every entity that is holding an election…it’s not just one generic ballot. But, Barr knows this and he is cynically stoking this uncertainty since he also knows that trump is so far behind the only chance he has is to use the entire government to cheat…and we all know they have no problem lying, cheating, and stealing every damn day. It is heartening to see the immediate pushback from Secretary of States across the country calling this fraud claim a bald faced lie…it’s never happened before…ever… and now we need the media to tell the truth that they are lying and take this weapon away from them….
July 31st
Well…I wonder if I’ll ever sleep again? Needless to say it was another crappy night with getting up at 4:44 this morning so that’s another 5 hour night…and I’m tired….oh, well…there probably has to be some long term health problems that go along with not sleeping but I’m not ready to find out what they are yet…I did get a few things done yesterday and I picked the first of my tomatoes and had one for a snack and I can’t believe how much better they are than the cardboard ones you get at the grocery store….and that makes the fact that I’m not going to get too many of them really suck….I guess I’ll just enjoy what I get and plan for the next garden….I am getting some cukes now and that will allow me to refine my pickle recipe and that is cool….I did get the lawn mowed yesterday and I am going to feed it tomorrow in front of the rain that is supposed to come Sunday and Monday to try to green it up some….I think they will be working on the gas meter today and I hope they finish it up so I don’t have to look at it anymore and I can get things back to normal around here…I do need to get out to depot this morning to pick up and return a new garage door receiver that I ordered since I fixed the old one and don’t need it…and that will save me 37 bucks that I can use….more later….
The economy crashes and burns…
Well…the stupid trumpites are still running around saying the economy is “coming back” with a roar any day now…just wait for it…okay, and wait for it….and wait for it. The numbers that came out today tell the real story and it’s the most ugly numbers in the history of economic reporting….in one quarter, the economy contracted over 9.5% and projected on a yearly basis which is the normal reporting, that means we are on the way to a contraction of 1/3 of the economy…yep, almost 35% of the economic activity is gone and there is only one reason why…the idiot trump’s and the repubs handling of the coronavirus pandemic…or I should say their NOT handling of the outbreak…what did trump’s voters think would happen if you put a stupid, lazy asshole in charge of keeping the economy and the American people safe? And this goes for Mnuchin, McConnell and the rest of those morons who are now spouting that they can’t approve any more extra unemployment benefits since all it does is keep people from going back to work…hey, assholes….there are 25 million people out of work and there are only 5 million jobs listed out there…and another 1.5 million people just filed for unemployment as the bungling of the virus response hits the red states right in their smug asshole faces….what jobs are they supposed to go back to? These are the worst economic numbers ever recorded and the repub morons diddle on the sidelines arguing where the deck chairs should go on the Titanic they created…while people lose their homes and apartments and over 150,000 Americans have now died from their callousness and stupidity. There could be 20 million homeless if McConnell and his repub cronies do nothing and they are doing nothing…they’ve had two months to address this crisis and haven’t done a damn thing….so let’s remember that in November and get rid of every damn one of them…cripes…
July 30th
Well…cripes, it seems like my waking time is slowly moving back toward bed time with this morning being at 3:18 instead of the normal 3:40 but I still got out of bed before 6 so I’m not sure there is much of a difference….I did break down and take both some ibuprofen and allergy meds last night and I feel better for it this morning….my head is clear and the normal pains are down about 50% so that is cool….hope it continues all day….the swelling in my foot is down some too, so that is encouraging…had a nice visit with T yesterday and it was nice to see her and laugh a bunch but the whole thing was marred by DTE being here to move the gas meter from the basment to outside the house and they had to replace the steel gas line with a plastic one that they tunneled under the road for…but that still leaves the meter job and I just hate the disruption to my life that this three day process is doing….need to be here for them to be able to get in the basement so that means another day of only one ride…oh, and I just did one ride yesterday since I needed to clean this place up and that may be part of why I don’t hurt as much as normal…I did pick the first two tomatoes from my garden yesterday and I am going to have them for lunch today…they are pretty small so I think I need to feed the plants more…so I’ll do that today….not much to do today….just going to hang around here after the first ride and wait for the guys to finish the meter job so I’ll work on the gardens and the last of the trim on the front of the house….I did get a big box of baking soda to clean the copper trim and I may try some of that today too….more later….
Trump’s campaign is just a grift…
Well…as everything the idiot in chief does, his campaign is just another grift to take money from the rubes and put it in his pockets and the pockets of his “campaign staff”. It was reported over the past week or so that 170 million dollars in donations have been funneled to companies that trump and his kids still run and to his demoted campaign manager, Brad Parscale, who alone has gotten 30 million dollars to launder through his companies…no wonder he has a couple of new Ferraris and condos worth a couple of million bucks….and you can really tell that it is all a grift when Kevin McCarthy, who is in charge of getting repubs elected to the house, is publicly bitching that trump and his campaign are hoarding donations that normally would be shared with house and senate repubs. Don’t you feel bad for them? This is what they get when they protect a grifter who only cares about himself…and I think it’s great that they are stealing all this money…after all, they won’t be spending it to get the asshole in chief re-elected…
July 29th
Well…okay, my allergies are really bad this morning and I know I should have taken something for them last night…but I didn’t and now the decision is whether to take something this morning with only having a few left….maybe after the first ride…slept okay last night but feel as bad as I have in a while and it may be that I need to take a day off the bike to recover….I may have to only do one ride today with doing the grocery run and needing to clean this place up with having a visitor this afternoon…should have done that over the weekend but just couldn’t get moving to do it…I did take an ibuprofen last night since I was so damn sore everywhere and I think that is making a difference this morning…just small aches and pains that I can live with….I did get some work done yesterday and I bought a small sprinkler to use to try to save the front lawn so I don’t have to use my hose end sprayer and blocks so that will make it easier to keep it presentable….I think I’m going to be able to pick 3 tomatoes from my garden today and I even picked an inch long potato that was on the surface and that made me laugh…I planted the potatoes on a lark from sprouted ones in my cupboard and never expected to get anything from it…and there are more little ones just below the surface of the ground and I wonder how long they have to stay in to get big enough to eat? Not much to do today…just need to get going right now to get the bike ride in…okay, after one more cup of coffee that is….it’s not 7 yet so I can sit for a bit….more later….Oh, and I will get to a political one today…I know I’ve been slacking a bit on that lately but there was a reason for it….maybe even two of them if I don’t take the second ride….