Well…hey, the power didn’t go out last night even with the wind blowing so hard the Miata changed lanes all by itself in the gusts when I went out to get the paper….slept okay last night but on my right side all night and I must have put some pressure on my eye since my vision is fuzzy today…but that’s getting better as I sit here and I will need to go back to the paper to actually be able to see it to read without squinting…and I’m much less sore than I should be after getting a ride in outdoors for the first time this year…but that will be the last time in March with how crappy the weather is going to go…looks like I’ll just have to hunker down for the month and continue to work on the interior of the house and ride downstairs….no early spring this year….and it is supposed to snow 3-6 inches tomorrow and that sucks…I did get started working on the front yard yesterday and got a lot of the concrete and piles of dirt raked an shoveled into the street….I sure hope they come back and repair all the damage they did to it or I’ll be working on it all summer…after taking a couple of days off my hands are feeling better and I can use my right one again but it is still pretty darn stiff….need to start planning the dining room work this week and get started on it…I think I’ll do the window first and that should only take a couple of days before I get on the baseboards but I do need another gallon of the white paint I have been using and I do have to remember that it takes a couple of weeks for the paint to cure before I can mask the window off to paint the walls….but I can work on the trim around the ceiling and on other windows as I wait….not much to do today…it’s my day off of of everything and the MotoGP races are on for background noise…that’s how a Sunday should be….more later….
Got an outdoor ride in…
Well…I know I said I was not going to even try to get out on the bike outside today but I got bored and it was 52 degrees so I said what the hell and gave it a try….it was actually pretty nice out there and I was able to leave the gloves at home even…and there were only 3 places on the trail that I had to get off the bike and walk because of the ice…got 13 miles in out and back to the beach and found out why the lower road to my beach was closed….it was under about 4 feet of sand that they are in the process of removing while they wait for the ice to melt so they can put the sand back on the beach…it was so nice to get outdoors again and see the sights and there were still people ice fishing on Muskegon Lake where the ice hasn’t really thinned a lot with how cold it’s been out here…and after today and tomorrow, it goes back to highs in the 30’s for the rest of the month so I probably won’t be back on the bike outside for a while and we have a high wind warning for tonight until tomorrow afternoon that is going to make a mess…so I’m glad I got out today and can’t wait for the pain to start from doing the ride today…and I’m glad that I have the day off the inside bike tomorrow…it’s gonna hurt…oh, and I did get my March top down run in today, too….every month for 9 years running…
Plans change….
Well…I had to laugh when I went out to put some more bird food on the sill and in the feeder and then walked out to the front of the house to check on the dirt piles that are on my lawn…they are still frozen hard as concrete and I don’t think they will thaw anytime soon even with the temp getting up to 56 this aft and rain and thunderstorms tonight…and it is still in the 30’s right now so I think trying to get a bike ride in outside today is on hold, too, with ice still on the roads up here so there will have to be ice on the trails and I just don’t want to get cold and have the chance of crashing the bike…so, I guess plans change for the day and I may just take the car out and get my March top down run in today with a little trip out to the beach again…I do want to take some photos of the beach that I use during the summer and see what it looks like and why the road is closed to it….so, I guess I have an easy day today and will focus on making lunch in a while….more later….and I mean that…what else am I going to have to do?
March 5th
Well…running about on time this morning and feel okay even with tossing and turning a lot last night…I think that is the best part of no cocktails…it only takes me about 15 minutes to wake up and be ready to get after the day when it used to take me hours if I ever felt okay at all…and I think Saturday is my favorite day to ride downstairs since I know I get to take Sunday off and just veg out the day….man, I can’t wait for the damage on my right hand to heal…all of the cuts and bruises still hurt even when I don’t move it and I hope taking it easy for a few days will work…just looking at it, I noticed that my hands are looking old and beat up…kinda like the rest of me….I am still thinking of taking the grey bike out for a ride today but I do want to get the dirt and crap off the front lawn so the rain later will wash it off…we may even get a thunderstorm later today so I really hope the piles are thawed so I can move them…I suppose I could chop them up with the spade but frozen dirt is much harder than frozen snow and I sure don’t want to damage my shoulder chopping it…so, we’ll see…not much to do today…just need to get on the bike in a few minutes and then just play it by ear for the rest of the day….it stayed above freezing last night so maybe the piles will be thawed…I hope…more later…
No outdoor ride tomorrow…
Well…darn, I was getting a little excited anticipating being able to ride the bike outdoors tomorrow with the temp forecast to be in the mid to upper 50’s…and I even worked on both bikes to get them lubed and ready but it looks like a no go…just got a high wind advisory for out here taking effect tomorrow and get this, steady wind of 30-40 mph with gusts of up to 60-70 mph…damn hurricane force winds for tomorrow night and into Sunday with the worst of the wind along the lakeshore around dawn Sunday morning…just when I’ll be going out to get my newspaper in my lightweight Miata which should be a trip…and I don’t think my luck is going to hold with keeping the power on all winter so I need to plan a bit…but I will still be able to cook with the gas stove and will probably have to depend on it for heat, too…and I will need to charge all the extra batteries for the phone and mp3 player since it has a radio in it and I may need that for updates on the power…so, my week of taking it easy is not going to start off too well….and I’ve bitched before that I’m not very good at not working around here and today reminded me of that…have had just a boring day and couldn’t even get out to work on the dirt piles in my yard since they are still frozen with the low temp of 16 out here last night….so maybe Sunday for that…we’ll see….
Why is the Kentucky teacher retirment fund investing in Russia?
Well…as more and more information comes out about who has been supporting Russia and it’s banks, there have been a few surprises revealed in the past couple of days. One of them was the Kentucky teacher’s retirement fund that was the second largest investor in Sberbank, one of the banks that has just been sanctioned for supporting Putin and his invasion of Ukraine…initial reports were that the fund lost over 12 million dollars as the shares in the bank fell to junk status…and that would be bad enough to put teacher’s retirements at risk with investments in a bank that has been involved in many shady investments over the years…but just today, representatives from the teacher’s fund said “oh, no….we sold all of the investments the day before Russia invaded”…and that either has to be the smartest fund manager in the world or he was tipped off by the bank or any one of Moscow Mitch McConnell’s Russian contacts…you know, the Russian oligarchs that he pals around with and who he got sanctions removed from for their part in getting the idiot trump elected in 2016…and who said they were going to invest hundreds of millions in an aluminum plant in Kentucky that went pfffft once the sanctions were lifted….this whole thing screams of insider trading on the part of the fund manager that the feds should be looking into right now…and into who recommended investing American money in a corrupt Russian bank in the first place…who got paid off to do it would be my first question…of many, many others…geez…
I still don’t get it….
Well…with the latest great jobs report that was released today where it was reported that almost 700K jobs were added in Feb and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%, I still don’t understand the polls that show that almost 70% of the country thinks Biden is doing a bad job on employment. I mean, what the hell else does he have to do? Go door to door asking people if they need a job? I still don’t get how there is such a big disconnect between reality and perception…is it a feeling or are there reports saying he is doing a crappy job? I know that it is a daily feature of fox news that Biden is a failure at everything, but that is only watched by about 30% of the country so what is causing this disconnect when more people are working than ever before and pay is up almost across the board? I still think it is the bias in the media that is doing most of it…can you imagine if the idiot trump was still in office? The NYT and Washington Post would have 4 inch screaming headlines every damn day how much of a genius the moron was…but with Biden? Nothing, not a damn thing that connects his efforts to the Biden jobs boom…and I am getting tired of it…this is a country in the midst of a shared delusion that nothing good is happening…and I don’t know how to fix that…geez…
March 4th
Well…damn, I’m sore this morning and it must be from all of the time going up and down the ladder and using the paint roller when I finished the kitchen a couple of days ago….and I didn’t sleep well at all last night and I really should have from the relief from finishing the kitchen….oh, well….didn’t get much done yesterday but finishing touches on the kitchen and getting things back to normal…it does look a little weird to have all of the kitchen stuff out of the dining room and I kind of miss the lights from the microwave and coffee maker glowing in the dark where I can see it from here….it’s supposed to warm up to about 40 today so I’ll probably get out to work on getting the pile of dirt and concrete off my front lawn this afternoon….and I do need to reset the computer on the grey bike since it is going to be almost 60 tomorrow and I want to get out on the trails even though the wind is going to be blowing 10 to 20 mph….but then the weather goes right back to the cold crap and stays that way for the rest of March and that sucks…it’s time for spring to show it’s face but it looks like April until that is going to happen….but that means I will get to at least 500 miles on the indoor bike before I get out on the trails….not much to do today…just going to ride the bike here in a minute and then I really should clean this place up at some point…want to get the dining room cleaned before I start on the trim in there and start cleaning the paneling for painting…but, I am going to take a week off and heal up some first…I can’t remember hurting this much from just normal work around the house and it must be from getting old…so I just need to figure out how to deal with that and still get things done….more later….
The kitchen is done!
Well…finally…my kitchen is done…just got the range hood and installed it and that was the last piece of the puzzle….man, two months of work to take it from the gross, dirty thing it was to a clean, usable kitchen that I am not ashamed of anymore…and I know I shouldn’t be ashamed since I didn’t let it get to the state it was in when I bought this place but taking a year to get to working on it and finishing it is on me….it does feel good to have a room I can be proud of and now I know my color scheme of using the grey for the walls and white for the trim was the right one…it just looks so clean and i hope that the next darker shade of grey will look good in the dining room…not sure what color I’m going to use in the bathroom yet but I wonder if white walls with grey trim would look cool? It would sure brighten it up in there replacing the dark blue that is in there now but we’ll see…now I am taking a week off to just live for a bit and heal my aches and pains…now have I earned a cocktail? Yeah, probably not but it would be nice to do a Star Trek night with the latest season of “Picard” starting today and there is an episode of “Discovery” to watch too…I need some rest….
I have a functioning kitchen again…
Well…I was going to take the day off to heal up some but, you know me, if there is work to be done, I need to do it so I got to work today cleaning up the shelf that I keep the appliances on and moved it back into the kitchen where it belongs…and that meant cleaning all of the appliances, too and that took a couple of hours…but the result is a fully functioning kitchen again with everything where it’s supposed to be…now, if they would just deliver my damn range hood, I could complete everything and then justify taking a few days off to heal without having to fight my finely honed sense of guilt…I am already planning to redo the masking and trim painting after I give it a few weeks to cure but that is something that has no urgency to me right now….I am going to get out and shovel the dirt off my lawn tomorrow and put it right in the street where it belongs and let the city deal with it as they should have when they dug up my street….and there is a much bigger pile than I thought with it being covered in snow all winter so it may take a couple of hours to get all of it off and get the lawn raked so it doesn’t die….but I do need to be aware of how badly my hands hurt so I don’t aggravate them…oh, well…I’ll stop bitching now….