Well…damn, I am getting tired of resting my thumb for a week and having the bad pain start right up the first time I use it all…but that’s not what this is about…I did get out on the outside bike this afternoon for only the second ride this year and it was not bad…it is just so different from riding the indoor bike and with all the shifting, braking, and leaning….it is not boring at all…pretty messy with all of the snow melt, dirt, sand, and crud being thrown all over the bike and me but it is still nice to see everything….and I did see some big icebergs on the lake but the coolest thing was how quiet it was out at my water stop on the boardwalk…I took my earbuds out just to see and the only sound was some gulls a long way off so you could barely hear them…I have never heard it so quiet out there and a big part of that is the road is still closed so no cars or the noise they make. Muskegon Lake is the lowest I have ever seen it…okay, this is the first year I’ve been able to get close to it this early in the year but seeing it 3 feet lower than during the summer is pretty strange….it does look like I’ll be able to get out there again tomorrow and maybe on Thurs, too but we’ll see….still going to ride downstairs until the weather gets to the point that I can do two rides outside in a day and that may get me close to my 600 mile goal on that bike….but, right now, it’s almost time for Man U and I want to take it easy for a while…for some reason, the outside ride took a lot out of me today…
Back to the mask….
Well…darn, just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in…that line from “Godfather 3” really describes this pandemic and the new variants that continue to evolve and explode across the world….over the past few days, China has basically locked down over 100 million people in 4 cities across the country and the trend is that South Korea and other Asian countries are going to have to do the same…and that all but guarantees that the recession that has been looming on the horizon is going to happen when all of the computer chips manufacturing from the affected areas in China just stop…as they have just yesterday….and one of the biggest contributors to this explosion of virus in China is that the Sinovac vaccine is not really effective against Omicron2 and they have not been getting boosters into arms there…there is even a huge spike in cases in Europe where they have lifted all covid restrictions just like here in the US and you can see where that is leading us…another “wave” just like the original Omicron and another quarter of a million deaths that I am not going to be one of…so, back to masks for whenever I go out around people starting tomorrow…I do have 26 N-95’s that I haven’t started to use yet and will probably hold off on until it gets bad around here….and I will get the 4th shot as soon as it is available to boost protection against getting sick…and my second set of free covid tests are supposed to arrive today so I can know what is going on if I do get sick….and then I can protect people around me by using the n-95’s or just staying home….here we go again….
Tried some oven cleaner…
Well…as I sit here having my last cup of coffee for the morning, I thought I’d talk about something I discovered yesterday on the internet while I was looking for methods to get the registers cleaned up and ready to paint…one of the suggestions was to spray them with oven cleaner…even the new stuff that you can handle without gloves…and the weird thing was it worked better than the paint stripper I bought last week…still didn’t cut all the paint but it did more than I ever expected and that made me laugh a little….but I am still going to buy the heat gun when they get them in a couple of weeks from now….but I may check on it tomorrow if DD has anything that I want since they are right across the street from each other…and I need some sanding pads for my detail sander and another roll of painter’s tape even if they don’t have the heat gun…almost time to get to work….
March 15th
Well…that was a little better…slept okay last night and didn’t get up til around 6 or so and I’ll take that any day….and I can breathe better this morning with no headache so I wonder what is going on with that? Still think I may have a bug of some sort since I do have some crap in my lungs and cough occasionally but my allergies have the same symptoms so how do you tell them apart? Oh, well…going to make them worse today with getting on sanding the baseboards and trim in the bathroom this morning to get ready to fill and smooth them…I did have another brainstorm yesterday…and no, it didn’t hurt…not much anyway…instead of getting a propane torch to remove the paint from the heat registers, I remembered that they make heat guns for just that purpose and it may be a better solution…but the one I want from HF is out of stock til early next month…only 16 bucks and I may be able to get away from stripping with chemicals altogether and may have some extra uses for it that will eliminate the need for sanding and filling on a lot of the trim….it is a slow process but the areas I have to do are small so we’ll see how it works…damn, the headache is back….not much to do today…going to get on the bike early and work some on the bathroom…then I’m going to suit up and try to get an outdoor ride in today and that will make for a 20 mile day…and Man U plays at 4 this afternoon so I need to have everything done by then, grit my teeth and watch them lose again..damn, I wonder why every team I follow sucks so much? More later…
A little bathoom work…
Well…just couldn’t get started til late today and only got a little work done in the bathroom…I did take the register out and tried to strip it and it didn’t work at all so I tried to use my propane torch to burn the paint off and but my old torch just doesn’t make a good enough flame…just a huge orange one comes out of it and cuts off all the time so I think I’ll buy a new one this week…even took the whole thing apart to try to figure out what is wrong and didn’t see anything so I gave up…I really should have a working torch with owning a house and having to do soldering every once in a while….and they are only about 20 bucks including a tank of gas so that’s not bad…I did get started on the baseboards and will probably finish the filling on them tomorrow which means I can paint later in the week…then it’s on to the window as I let the paint cure this time before masking the baseboards to do the wall paint….and that will take 3 weeks or so and that will give me time to start on the door and door frame along with putting the new hinges on the door…and I can get the walls ready to paint while I wait for the baseboard paint to cure, too but that should only take a day or so…but I’m done now…just worn out today and need to take it easy for a while….
Windfall profits tax…
Well…with all of the appeals to the heads of the oil companies to stop war profiteering falling on deaf ears, it is now time to enact a windfall profits tax to claw back all of the money they’ve stolen not only over the past few months, but the past few years. During the pandemic, we the taxpayers of the US bailed them out to the tune of billions of dollars to ensure that they would not go bankrupt and how do they repay us? By screwing over Americans by raising gas prices, not for any reason other than they can…yeah, I know they couch it in the bullshit of uncertainty and supply and demand, but then why are gas prices still rising when the cost of oil has dropped by over 25% in the past week? I know that downward prices are “sticky” to use an economic term but it is a decision by the CEOs of these companies to not lower prices as they try to wring every damn dime out of the American consumer….there was a time when we could at least shame some of them into doing the right thing, but those times are over with the unbridled greed we see from almost every damn company in the US…I mean they are all reporting record profits and, without greed, prices would be dropping and inflation wouldn’t be a thing…so, if they won’t regulate themselves and do the right thing for the American consumer who make those record profits possible, we need to tax those record incomes and return the money they are stealing to the American people…and do it right now…but you know who doesn’t want that to happen…the repubs since high gas prices can be used to hurt Biden and the dems in the 22 election…and you can bet they don’t give a damn about anything but getting back into power so they can continue to reward these assholes for stealing everything that is not nailed down….and if the regular Americans get hurt, they just don’t care…geez…
March 14th
Well…happy pi day….is it 7:30 or 6:30? Going to go through the time change math for a couple of days until I get used to it…but I think I’m running late when the clock says I should have gotten on the bike 15 minutes ago…this is the worst my allergies have been this year so far and I feel like crap so I may not work on the bathroom today…I wonder if I have a cold? It sure feels like I have a bug of some sort but I just remembered that I only had a small pork taco to eat all day and that sometimes has the same feeling as a bug….so maybe I’ll have some toast here in a minute to get some calories in before I get on the bike…I did take the weekend off to finish up my healing week and my hands feel much better so I may ease into some work….until it snowed so much yesterday, I was going to get outside for a ride the next couple of days since it is supposed to be over 50 tomorrow and Wed…I guess I’ll have to take a look at the trails to see how bad they got since they were already almost clear a week ago…that would mark a milestone much earlier than last year when I didn’t get out on the trails until April….but, after the couple of days of semi warmth, it is going to be back in the 40’s for the rest of the month and I am not sure I want to be cold again….not much to do today….still need to adjust to the time change and feeling crappy so I may take it easy today after the bike ride….after all, I don’t have a schedule any more and once I get the bathroom and bedroom done I think I am done for on the house for the year…I’m running out of time to just enjoy my life…oh, and Tom…the 400 buck insurance payouts have to be complete by May 9th and have already started…new kayak is coming! More later….
New bird on the feeder…
Well…as I was sitting here doing the last one, a new bird that I have not seen this winter landed on my feeder and has been going and coming for the past hour or so…didn’t know what it was so I had to go out to the internet and look it up…and found that it is a White Breasted Nuthatch that is pretty common here in Michigan..it looks a lot like a Chickadee but has a long. slender beak that is as long as it’s head…about the same size as the Black Eyed Juncoes that have been the predominate bird here this winter…still have not seen one sparrow on the feeder this winter and it continues to be strange to me with how many of them there were on the feeders back in GR last winter….and the volume of birds out here are probably 1/20th of what they were in GR, too, but I hope that will change next year when I change out the type of food I use…but I still have half a bag of this feed left…I am going to get a hanger and put my hummingbird feeder up this summer right outside the same window so I can see if any of them come to it…that would be cool…
My next question about Tucker…
Well…if there is a traitor in our midst named Tucker Carlson…and there is if you have read the 12 page memo leaked from a Russian intelligence service by Mother Jones magazine that instructs all of Russian media to play clips of Tucker and his support of Putin all day every day and that China has jumped on, too…my next question about this traitor is: “is he getting instructed by Russian intelligence to do the spots on his show so Putin and his cronies can use the propaganda to hurt the US?” How about the next question: “is Tucker or fox news getting paid to spread the propaganda so the Russians can use it?” How else do you explain Tucker’s crazy support of the Russian dictator and the un-American bullshit he spews every day? As I made the comparison before, what tucker is doing is worse than what Tokyo Rose or Axis Sally did in world war two since Tucker has a built in audience of millions that believe everything he says and he is damaging the US so much more than those two traitors that he needs to be fired right now…and Rupert Murdoch and fox news need to be fined or shut down since there is no first amendment protection against treason against the US. Some enterprising lawyer should sue them right now for another billion dollars and put them out of business….geez…
Hope this is the last time I have to shovel…
Well…darn, it’s the middle March and I shouldn’t be out there digging through foot deep drifts and getting my toes frozen…I really do hope this is the last time I have to shovel this spring….but, I said that two weeks ago and most of the snow had melted until today…now it will be another two weeks before I can get out on the trails and it looks like I’ll have to keep getting my miles in downstairs…and with that, I may be able to get to 600 miles on the inside bike since I am almost at 500 today…and two more weeks will get me there…as I get older, I like the cold less and less…or I don’t dress for it more and more…not sure which it is but the rubber garden shoes I have been using are only good for about a half hour until it’s like not wearing shoes at all…I am going to buy a nice pair of winter boots for next winter…maybe some winter hikers that have good tread for the snow and ice…at least I didn’t have to buy a snowblower this winter but the day is coming where I’ll have to…cripes, I hate getting old….oh, well….time to watch some soccer and get ready to make some pork tacos for lunch….more later….