Well…did a lot of searching today and couldn’t find anything important to write about so I thought I’d just put down some observations that I find to funny…not funny ha ha, but funny a little weird. Out on the trail today, I saw a weird thing that I’ve seen a couple of times the I really do have to share….why do people who are walking on the trail; to get exercise and lose weight I suppose, carry chips and other bad foods with them to eat? Then there are the pop bottles…so these people want to gain weight by walking? Just can’t understand it…
I’ve notice another weird thing since I’ve shaved off the beard….more women are smiling at me like I exist again…with the entirely gray beard, I was pretty invisible and no one noticed me at all…just an observation, or wishful thinking maybe…who knows? Hmmm…what else? Not much right now….I did have a nice lunch with T….
Well….I had to talk a little about this…I’m sure you’ve heard about the riots that happened in Vancouver after the Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup, and it is something I never thought I’d see…Canadians? rioting? Those are just two things I never thought I’d see in the same sentence….here in the US, yes, because we are passionate people that can be wild at times and go overboard in both joy and sorrow. But the Canadians always seemed to be on Prozac….not too high, not too low, but moderation in everything, eh? When we lost the cup in 7 to Pittsburgh a couple of years ago, everyone just went home and said we’ll get them next year….are the Canadians becoming us? Hope not…the world needs more Canadians in it, not more Americans….that didn’t sound right…this is still the best country in the world but I love the way we can look to the north when we go overboard and see the calmer, gentler example that the Canadians normally set.
Well…watched an interesting documentary yesterday about the obesity epidemic here in the US and, while I’m sympathetic with those of us who daily struggle with our weight, I think I fall on the side of the personal responsibility folks who counter attack when the blame is placed on the fast food industry. I was thinking about this the other day when I realized that I have not had fast food in over a year and it is a conscious decision to not eat that kind of stuff….I do understand the people who say that they don’t have time to cook healthy, and I had that same problem when I was working long hours. Then there is the cost….when you can get fast food for a few dollars for a meal, some people just can’t afford to eat healthy foods. I can admit that I have battled my weight my entire life and there was a time a few years ago that I weighed 210 pounds on this 5 foot 10 inch frame….but, through hard work and the weird ability to keep track of all the calories I consume every day, I’ve hit around 170 now and I’m shooting for 160 as my final weight. I guess I’m lucky that I can resist the urge to eat when I need to and I have the time to get in a couple of hours to exercise every day. One of the funny things about this is that I have three sons that have gone through exactly the same thing over the last couple of years, each of them going from over 250 lbs to about 160….and they did it the way that many obese people say just doesn’t work….eating better and less along with ramping up their activity….
So, what’s the answer…I don’t know but I do know what worked for me and my family…less than 2,000 cals a day and lots of exercise….okay, this one was supposed to have a point but I wandered around for a while and it never came…so you can consider this one a throwaway…and I do owe you one that makes a point later…but I’m not sure what that will be yet…
Well….as you know, the healthcare debate is one that hits really close to home for me since I haven’t been able to afford health insurance for the last nine years and, under any plan that the repubs have presented, I’ll never be able to afford it until I turn 65 and qualify for Medicare. One of the things that just bugs the hell out of me are all of the righties attacking the health care reform bill with the lies that it has already resulted in higher costs and people losing their insurance…when you hear these things being said, just remember that most of the law has not even taken effect yet….so any higher costs or loss of coverage is because the insurance companies have decided to make those changes, not that they have been forced to by the law. Where are the repub voices that decry the insurance companies taking advantage of these lies to further gouge the people? They will never be heard exactly because the insurance companies own the repubs and have purchased their vote to both defeat the current law and to help them get their hands on Medicare to further control the healthcare market.
So, can we at least try to make the repubs tell the truth for once and do what is best for the country instead of just themselves and their owners? Geez….
Well…it’s been a busy morning with having to take the bike apart to fix the flat…but that’s not an excuse, I’ve been trying to come up with some topics but just haven’t been able to put anything together and it’s starting to frustrate me a bit….of course I could go after Manny again for his idiocy or after Nolan for his naked partisanship but even when they write the outrageous crap they did today I can’t muster up a response…and I don’t want to write crap (you might think it is but you wouldn’t be here if it was that bad) so I think I’ll watch “the Daily Show” and come back in a while to see if that helps….
Well…as I said this morning, there has not been much going on in politics for me to write about and I guess it’s one of the problems a couterpuncher has…someone has to punch first…and no one is punching so I guess I’ll have to come up with something on my own. Hmmmmm…oh, Ohio State…as a Michigan fan, I’m having a hard time dredging up any sympathy for the situation there…I’m glad that Tressel resigned and that the shenanigans with almost their whole team has been exposed; the smirk has been taken off the face of their fans and they are going through what we went through with Rodriguez. They will always be known as cheaters now…
Oh, on politics….just some general stuff that has been percolating…I hope the repub idiots here in Michigan get their victory dances in now because they are going to pay in 2012….we may still have a repub governor, but we will have at least the house or senate back after these thugs gave the state away to business on the backs of retirees and the poor…the pendulum is going to swing back to sanity after the flirtation with the tea party and it’s right wing radicals. You heard it here first….that’s about it for now…thinking is not coming easily right now….but is is so much better than this morning…I think I’ll do a no booze day count…might be fun to chronicle…
Well…just sitting here waiting for the Man U match to start and thought I’d get to some of the musings that I promised a few days back…the rail trail is looking so cool now with the foliage finally filling in and making it a green tunnel that not even light can get through and that makes it it almost immune to the wind, too. Pretty neat stuff and the other day “No Quarter” came on when I entered the tunnel and it fit just so well that I couldn’t help grinning….as I’ve always said, it doesn’t take much to make me happy. It seems that lately the people on the trail are nicer, too, paying attention and reining in their dogs when I go by…maybe the “thank yous” are starting to help…hope so…it is nice to see smiles and not scowls when I blow past in a sprint. I do have to put the bike on the back of the car soon to take it to the car wash to clean it…it is as dirty as I can remember it and I am a little ashamed even thought I know that bikes are supposed to be dirty if you’re using them right.
I wasn’t going to talk about politics today but some heartening patterns are starting to emerge when we look at the overreach of the radical right wing of the repub party….they have lost almost every special election that has been held this year and people are rejecting their vision of America where all of the benefits of the country accrue to just the few rich and business. And we see the plummeting approval ratings of the repub governors that have pushed through anti worker legislation and given away their states to business. I hope the recall of gov Snyder gains steam here in Michigan since he is governing only to his base and his business masters…we are ripe for a revolution here where the dems are going to take back both houses and then where will that idiot be? Okay….the match is ready to start in a few so I’ll end here…
Well….I’ve got the problem again where I don’t have enough to say about any one topic so I’m going to put a bunch of them in one and keep adding to it as the day goes on…or not….first a little about ole Newt….I’m old enough to remember when the Nixon administration was wading through Watergate and the Newt meltdown reminds me so much of the disclaimer that Nixon’s cronies used…”that statement is no longer operative” I think it was….made me laugh then and Newt is giving me a huge case of the grins with his verbal gymnastics and assertions that David Gregory’s question on Ryan’s Medicare plan was not fair…I think he’s come down with the Sarah Palin disease where she thinks any question asked of her is a “gotcha” from the media….why does anyone think Newt is such a “towering intellect”? Maybe in his own mind….
Next…this could be the next to last one of these…you know, the world is going to end tomorrow and, as you already know, I won’t be one of the ones getting raptured….I will be toasting with a beer and a shot at 6 PM Saturday…can’t wait to see what the end of the world looks like and feel huge earthquakes here in Michigan….maybe it won’t happen in MP? It was weird seeing the full page ad in the newspapers today…and I can’t wait to see the ones in the paper Sunday saying they “miscalculated” again…you just gotta love these religious nuts who are just so sure they are right about everything….I think this whole thing may be a marketing plan from some of the papers since there is a statement urging people to go out and buy “multiple” copies of the paper and give them to family and friends….
Okay, that’s it for now…I need to get a bike ride in with the fog still here…it looks really cool with all of the spider webs showing up in the dew…
One last thing….my spam filter on Yahoo has been trapping hundreds of e-mails from psychics….shouldn’t they know that the e-mails won’t get through? Just a thought…
Well..just when I thought I wasn’t going to have a topic for today, ole Manny Lopez from the Detroit News comes up with another of his ideology driven, ridiculous columns that I just have to comment on. Manny actually went to California and goes off on the administration and it’s attempt to lower the countries oil usage by the subsidies for hybrids…basing all of his vitriol on his observations that everyone in California is not driving one. He then goes on to try to make the point that California’s regulations are so stringent that they will force only small cars to be purchased then in the next paragraph he contradicts himself by saying people are still buying what they want using the example of the Ford F-150 being the best selling vehicle in the country. It was hard for me to even get my head around this pretzel logic (thanks Steely Dan) to see what his point is. I think he was trying to make the point that the government is interfering in the markets by the hybrid subsidies and trying to force us into cars we don’t want.
But, who knows….you should go read that for yourself…if you don’t have a headache after it, I am jealous…and I can’t figure out why he still has a job…
Well…still not a lot happening in politics so far this week so I think I’ll just wander around again like yesterday and go off on some topics that aren’t really formed yet but I’m going to give it a try anyway. First, let’s start with the laugher of the day, ole Newt is going to run for president, yeah, I laughed my ass off, too. What is he going to run as? The family values candidate? He was on tv the other day trying to explain cheating on the first two of his three wives and said that since god forgives him, no one should question him about it. Pretty frickin convenient when you think of it….trying to place all of the bad behavior off limits and saying “trust me” that he can still be the arbiter of family values and a role model for America. Yow….he does have a huge set….
What else? Not sure right now…I’m going back to think for a while….should be back before 1 or so…okay, I’m late but the Red Wings are pushing everything else out of my head today…so I’ll talk about them….Sunday’s was one of the most exciting games I’ve seen in a long time and my concern is that they left it all on the ice out in Cali…but they didn’t work that hard in the first three games so maybe they have something left in the tank…and the Sharks do have a reputation for choking in the playoffs so maybe they’ll do it again….we do have an injury problem with Frantzen’s ankle and Pavel’s wrist but it would be nice to see Modano in for one last game, no matter what, it’s going to give me a damn heart attack..Go Wings!!