Well…it looks like I will be having problems with the site today and may not be back to add much today if this keeps up….will be back later to give it another try after I get on the bike….more later…I hope…still no progress…I can make it work if I want to wait for it to respond so I guess I can live with that for a while…darn…
March 11th
Well…having some problems with my website this morning and I’m not sure what is going on….the original tab I had open just sat there and did nothing as I tried to get to adding a new post…I opened a new tab and it appears to be working but we’ll see…got up before 6 again today and I kind of like having the extra time before I get on the bike in the morning so I don’t feel rushed…but screwing around with the site this morning is putting me back to being a little late today…I did get the huge pork shoulder cooked yesterday and it came out pretty good and I did get to making a soft taco later in the day and that was yummy….and I now have leftovers that will last until next week and won’t have to cook at all….I did try some beef broth to cook the pork in and I’m not sure it’s a favorite…like veggie broth better and will probably use that next time….damn, still having problems with my site and I’m not sure what is going on….think I’m going to have to talk to my son who is not talking to me to see if he can figure out the problems….didn’t get anything done yesterday but cook and today looks like another easy one unless I decide to start stripping the hinges for the bathroom door with the new strip to see how it is going to work…it should work better than the 40 year old stuff I have been using….not much to do today…just the bike ride and then laundry after I’m done and then trying to figure out what is going on with this site…more later…
My allergies are nuts….
Well…who knew that stopping the antihistamines that helped me sleep would allow my allergies to go completely nuts and make me miserable with lots of sneezing and a nasty headache to go with it? But, I think it’s a good thing to know how bad my allergies are and then try to selectively target the symptoms instead of the shotgun effect the overnight medicine had. That doesn’t make me any less miserable, though, and I am dreading when the tree pollen hits…I may have to try some of the stuff I have in the drawer in the bathroom since I can’t get the stuff that works the best…or they won’t let me buy enough of it to be able to even use the dosage that is on the box…and I never understood that…why do they say two tablets is the recommended dosage when, if you follow it, you run out about two weeks before they let you buy more? Oh, well…may have to go back to the generic flonase that I bought on Amazon but that is 25 bucks for 5 bottles of it and I am almost out…and it depresses your immune system and that’s still not a good idea with covid still floating around…oh, well….I guess I’ll just deal with it and keep on sneezing….
Watch out Gym Jordan…George is coming for you…
Well…I know you’ve heard of the trump toady, Jim Jordan, the rep from Ohio who is probably one of the nastiest people in all of the congress and who continues to push the lies about the 2020 election and all the other lies about the dems on a daily basis…but he is most well known, in some circles, for his ignoring the sexual abuse of athletes at Ohio State when he was a wrestling coach there and allowing it to continue for years….and then claiming he never saw anything even though multiple athletes testified that they told him when the abuse was going on and he did nothing to stop it. So far, he has avoided any consequences for his lack of action and the coverup that came after the abuse…but, that just may change in the near future with the announcement that George Clooney is going to produce a documentary about the scandal…and will pierce the bubble of coverup that has allowed Jordan to get elected to congress and avoid any responsibility for his complicity in this abuse…I really do hope that Jordan and everyone like him whether they are repubs or dems will finally pay for ignoring the abuse of people who they are supposed to be protecting…but, I don’t know if I have any hope that this will happen…after all, the head of the repub party has abused and sexually assaulted many, many women and has never been held responsible for it….and the repubs like it that way….geez…
March 10th
Well….okay, the coffee just finished so I have to go get a cup before I get started….that’s better…had an okay night of sleep but was up at 2:44 and then for good at 5:31and I think I can cope with no sleep aids pretty well…I do remember sleep like this and it’s really not too bad…one weird thing is I’m not as cold as I used to be when I’m in bed and I wonder why that would be? I do know that I feel okay with how I’m sleeping now so I’ll take it….I did do another small cleaning project yesterday when I was in the dining room and finally got tired of looking at the dirty ceiling fan with one light burned out so I went to work on that and spent an hour cleaning the globes, taking the fan blades off and washing them, and then washing the motor to get the dust and crud off it…just like everything else in this house, the whole thing was coated in a greasy, dusty dirt that took a lot of scrubbing and soap to get it clean…and the globes looked like they were frosted when they are clear they were so coated and hadn’t been cleaned in years…one side effect of the clean globes is that the three bulb light on the fan now lights the dining room up like the damn sun it’s so bright…I may even have to go down to 60w led bulbs from the 100’s I have in there now….and that would help with getting rid of the cfl’s in the rest of the house that are so weak they barely light anything…I do have to try to balance the blades since the fan swings when it runs and that is a little annoying….but a piece of duct tape on the top should do it when I find the time….not much to do today….it’s going to be a cooking day today with doing the 8 pound pork shoulder in the instant pot this morning and everything that goes with that and the cleanup that comes with it…but I am looking forward to both the lunch of pork and mashed potatoes and gravy and the pork soft tacos for later and I won’t have to cook for 4 or 5 days after today…not sure what small project I’ll do today but I know it will be something…probably laundry and cleaning to finish out my week off….more later….
Don’t feel like working today…
Well…as the fallout from trying to sleep without aids continues today, I really don’t feel like working at all….have been sneezing and coughing all day and feel pretty worn out but haven’t been able to take a nap this afternoon to try to help it…but I haven’t done much else, either, other than make some pickled red onions to use on the pork tacos I’m going to make tomorrow….I did get an 8 1/2 pound pork shoulder to cook in the instant pot tomorrow and I am going to make some mashed potatoes and asparagus to go with it…or I may do potatoes and carrots and make a gravy from the cooking liquid or maybe an au jus that will be just the cooking liquid without any thickening….or maybe both…I am going to add some veggie broth for the cooking liquid with some celery, garlic, onion, peppercorns, and carrots for taste along with a couple of bay leaves and just set the shoulder in the liquid without the lifting grate that normally goes in the bottom….this should make enough protein to keep me going for the next week or so without taking anything out of the freezer…and I got some Texas style boneless ribs that I am going to just portion out and freeze since I won’t need them til next week…oh, and I did get a huge bottle of laundry soap at Menard’s for 8 bucks along with the new strip that says it will strip anything in 2 minutes but I’ll believe that when I see it….I even hit the dollar store to get some 100w led bulbs to continue to replace all of the CFL’s that are all over this house and that don’t put out a lot of light….and I put gas in the car at the highest price I’ve ever paid at 4.19 but I’m okay with that….anything to help beat Putin….
The speculators are getting hammered…
Well…this always brings a smile to my face when it happens…it looks like the oil price speculators and traders are getting hammered today with the price dropping by 14.20 a barrel or almost 12% when the speculators were betting on the price to hit 150 bucks a barrel by the end of the week…it looks like the loss of Russia’s oil has already been priced into the market at 110 bucks a barrel and with the price of gasoline rising so much in the past two weeks, usage is plummeting and we may even see a glut even with the Saudis siding with Putin and Russia and cutting their production to support the price…and with the Saudis refusing to even discuss the price with Biden, another “leader” of a country has made a huge miscalculation by snubbing the US as the US does everything in it’s power to increase supplies and get the price down. What are you going to say now repubs? These traitors have been all over the news the past couple of days blaming Biden for the increase in gasoline cost so will they now admit that his efforts has dropped the cost by 10% today? Of course not, with these cynical bastards pushing to cut off Russian imports just to have another issue to hammer Joe with when gas prices rise, the media needs to ask every damn one of them what their role was in cutting off Russian imports and why they are attacking Biden for it when they all voted for it. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next week or so…I’m sure we’ll see some pretty wild swings in oil prices but 200 dollar oil? Nope…and I hope every one of these damn speculators loses their shirt…geez…
The Saudis and the UAE can go to hell…
Well…as President Biden talks to damn near the whole world to further isolate Russia and try to blunt the effect of cutting out Russia’s oil exports…we find out who our friends are in the middle east..just yesterday both the Saudis and the UAE threw in with Putin by refusing to even talk to Biden about increasing oil production without trying to blackmail the US into giving them a veto over our foreign policy in the middle east. The Saudis (whom I mean the murderer bin Salman) even have gone so far as to tie immunity to suits for the murder of Khashoggi to any talks…all the while they keep cutting oil production with the aim of getting the price per barrel to 200 dollars…so, we should say go to hell to both of them and tell them they are on their own and try to protect their countries themselves…and the Saudis have been whining about needing more weapons for their war in Yemen and expect us to give the weapons to them for free…I think we should just say go to Putin if you want more weapons since we know he has very few reserves and won’t be able to make any with the sanctions on Russia…look, both of these countries are pissed that Biden won the election and their favorite stooge trump can’t help them anymore…and I think these guys are lashing out since they see the writing on the wall that they will be out of the oil cartel business in the next 20 years and will go back to the backwaters they were before oil…and it can’t happen too soon for me…geez…
March 9th
Well…that kinda sucked….decided to stop using the sleep aid that I have taken for a few months last night and the results are what I expected…tossed and turned all night and woke up about 20 times…okay, maybe 5 times but it felt like 20…and I have a bad headache today that I will probably have to take something for before I head out for the grocery run this morning…so now I’m down to no artificial anything and I’m not sure if I like it so much….since the sleep aid was an antihistamine, it kept my head clear all night so I could sleep but I woke up with it completely plugged up and that is probably the cause of the headache….oh, well…started to work on the bathroom yesterday and pulled one of the paint clogged hinges off the door and put it in some strip but the 40 year old stuff I have here just couldn’t cut the 10 or more coats of paint that was on it…so I need to stop at Menards this morning to get some better stuff since I will need to strip the heat registers that have the same amount of paint on them too….but I really should wait til it gets warm enough to wash the strip off outdoors since I don’t want to wash it down my sink downstairs….or I may just see if I can get new hinges but I like the decoration on the current ones that goes with the age of the house…man, I feel like crap this morning and I am sitting here sneezing like crazy and sweating but I guess that is all part of moving to natural sleep and will probably take a couple of weeks to have my body stabilize….not much to do today…need to hit 4 stores this morning to get the food that I need to stay in for the next week…or two grocery stores, Menards, and the dollar store since I need some light bulbs and other stuff…going to make a pork shoulder tomorrow and that will give me ingredients to make some pork soft tacos with pickled red onions and sauteed red peppers for the second meal for the rest of the week…and I really do need to finish my week off working on this place since I hurt my right hand again yesterday just doing the puttering around that I did…more later….
Ukraine developments…
Well…just sitting here paying some bills and reading some news when I saw that Ukraine is claiming they destroyed 45 Russian helicopters yesterday…and with all of the other equipment they claim destroyed (which does need to be taken with a grain of salt given the nature of modern warfare), it does appear that the Ukrainians are making Putin pay for this war in ways that he never expected…and news this afternoon is that Poland has transferred all of their Russian built fighters to the US and they are being flown to Germany so we can take possession of them officially…and then they will be given to Ukraine to bolster their air force and give them the chance to knock down even more Russian aircraft and kill other vehicles they are using to commit their war crimes. I’m sure the deal was structured this way so that Poland won’t be threatened by the criminal Putin, and if he wants to threaten NATO for the transfer, he really does have to know if he draws a modern armed force into this fight, he will lose and lose badly…and will have no army left to protect himself from the Russian people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dumber head of state other than the idiot trump…he has killed his economy and that will last generations and Europe is going to figure out how to do without his gas or oil so what does he have left? Nukes? That’s about it…I’ve never seen such a huge miscalculation in my lifetime…and it is going to rid the world of Putin once and for all…