Well…okay, you can be forgiven for not knowing who this guy is but you should when it comes to the idiot trump’s criminality…..Oleg is one of Putin’s buddies and has been involved with all of Putin’s election interference and money laundering, and is one person who is linked to trump in multiple ways…oh, and ole Mitch, too…when idiot boy removed the sanctions that Oleg’s business had on it so he could build an aluminum plant in Kentucky…and even repubs said the whole thing reeked of corruption. So today, the FBI raided his house in DC and the interesting thing is that the raid is said to be related to a case being pursued in the SDNY where there are at least two investigations of idiot boy going on right now…so, we can only hope that this is related to one of them and Oleg starts to sing to stay out of prison and takes trump and McConnell down with him….an interesting development to say the least….
Pretty sad…
Well…this is just a shorty on a sad bit of news that I read in the paper Sunday….Friday night, a young woman drowned in Lake Michigan right off the beach where I go swimming…she and some friends were night swimming….something I’ve done before…and she couldn’t get back through the nasty rip currents that occur off that beach…I’ve been knocked down trying to get back to the beach after swimming and I’ve never felt the currents as strong anywhere else in Lake Michigan….just a sad story that shouldn’t happen to any family….
October 19th
Well…just took the bandage off my thumb and it looks really bad…and it is still quite swollen and stiff…not sure if it will keep me off the bike today…will probably try it in a while…I hurt everywhere from the crash and probably should just take a day off of everything to heal up but you know me…just can’t do that and will give it a try…I am going to take some ibuprofen before I get on the bike to see if that will help…and will probably continue that all day today….I did sleep okay last night and didn’t get up til around 7 so that is why I’m running late this morning…forgot that I have a bandage on my knee, too….need to remove that and take a look at how that damage is healing here in a bit….I did find out one thing about this house putting up the shades yesterday…all of the trim is oak and I wonder why anyone would paint fine grained oak? Now that complicates the interior rehab for me…do I strip and finish it or do I just sand and repaint? If I strip it, that won’t go with the grey that I planned to paint the interior so I’ll have to think about it…I already have too much work to do on the inside and don’t need more work…I may do a test strip to see what it looks like but it would be cool to have oak trim…I wonder what color of paint would go with that color trim? Hmmmm…not much to do today…after I try to get on the bike, I may mow the lawn today and see if the fix on the mower works…will probably have to rework it but I need it to last until winter….and I need to trim branches some time this week but my thumb is not going to allow me to do much….damn….more later….
Crashed…again…
Well…damn..crashed the bike again this aft and I am a little pissed…some idiot parked his trailer right across the trail so I tried to go around him on the abandoned train tracks that run alongside it…but there was a huge hidden hole that pitched me off the bike and into the street…tore the skin off the back of my right thumb that had just started to heal after the last injury and took a big chunk out of the thumbnail…and jammed the thumb joint that has arthritis in it and it has swelled up quite a bit…and I took a big patch of skin off my left knee…can barely move my thumb but I don’t think it’s broken since I can still move it….and all just because some asshole didn’t care that he blocked off the trail….but that will keep me off the bike tomorrow since I can’t shift the bike with the injury….damn, and I have things to do around here that I can’t do now…I’m glad I got the shades done this morning….crap, crap, crap…
Let’s talk about JIT…
Well…damn, just crashed the bike but that’s for the next one…right now, I want to talk about the right’s latest bogeyman, JIT. As you know, there have been some pretty big supply disruptions with lots of container ships stuck outside of the major ports here in the US…and warnings that you should be shopping for christmas now so you will be able to get presents…and, of course, the right wing media is blaming the whole thing on Biden for reasons that make absolutely no sense….but that doesn’t matter to them. What everyone has to understand is that the bottlenecks are caused by a little thing in the supply chains called JIT…or just in time production. Back about 30 years or so, people started to notice that there was lots and lots of inventory and work in progress in their warehouses and factories that was costing them tons of cash to just store….and the production and other processes worked to estimates of what would be needed since that was the only information they had and most businesses and warehouses had months of production and stock just sitting there…but then new ideas started to form about making processes more efficient and only making goods that you have orders for…the idea of just in time started to be adopted across the world to squeeze every penny out of the supply chain. As it became more and more efficient, it also became more and more susceptible to disruption as the chain balanced on a knife edge with no tolerance for problems in any part of it. When the pandemic hit and closed factories accross Asia and everywhere else, and shut down ports and other transport systems necessary to move goods, the finely balanced house of cards fell apart since there were no warehouses full of goods to cushion the shocks, and the result was bare shelves across the country. But what Biden has to do with it, I don’t know…these are private, capitalistic systems that have been built to profit the owners and no one else…so tell me the actions he has taken that disrupted this house of cards? No…yeah, didn’t think there were any….is Biden hiding shipping containers at the WH? Is he telling truck drivers to quit since they are being paid less now than they were 40 years ago? Did he offshore all of American manufacturing so good have to be shipped from Asia? I think the repubs really are too stupid to understand the pitfalls of JIT…as an ME, I built many of these systems at the furniture manufacturer I worked for and lived the chaos when they crashed…this is just on a much bigger scale…geez…
October 18th
Well…running late today with not getting up til around 7 for the last time…don’t feel as sore as I expected from riding in the wind yesterday but I do feel my legs burning a bit but not much more than normal after a two ride day…I do feel pretty burned out for some reason and it may be that I tossed and turned a lot in bed last night and only had a grilled cheese for dinner to go with the third of a chicken breast and some onion rings for lunch…I do need to run an errand this morning as I wait for the temp to come up before I get on the bike…going to get the new dining room shades and some self tapping screws to try to fix the mower so I can mow the lawn again…the grass is still growing like crazy and I still need to feed it with the fall food I got last week…and I need to do some tree trimming before winter to keep the branches off the power and cable lines….so maybe that today, too, but I’m not sure yet….the coffee hasn’t started to work and I just want to sit here for a while first….need to read some news and think for a while first….and get the cobwebs out of my brain….more later…
Got some work done!
Well…I did get out for two rides today which were almost as brutal as the one that hurt my ribs Saturday….and I know I’m going to hurt like crazy tomorrow…but there is good news…I got some work done today…as I mentioned earlier, I planned to clean the two windows in the dining room and get ready to replace the crappy shades in there with actual white ones…and I got them done! And I’ve figured out a method that appears to be the most efficient way to clean them and the second one took about half the time as the first one…and they look so good finally being clean that I can see through them for the first time…now I can open them for ventilation that I couldn’t before with all of the dirt that was in them and I’ll be able to let some sun in when I get shades that work…will probably do the three in the kitchen tomorrow and then I’ll be down to 6 to go….still can’t believe how much dirt they collect in the bottom of them…but I think with getting grass in all of the bare spots that used to be half the lawn, there will be less loose dirt to blow around and maybe they will stay cleaner longer…hope so…
October 17th
Well…running about on time this morning with getting up at 6:13 and I am sore from riding in the wind yesterday….my ribs on my right side have been sore since I got off the bike and that normally happens in over 20 mph winds…but, I’ll be out this morning with it being almost calm but I will have to wait until the temp comes up some…and it gets light…still not used to it being dark so late in the morning and I get a little antsy waiting to get out…I guess I’ll have to cope with that since it will only get worse…didn’t get much done yesterday and it looks like I’ll be down to one ride again today but I do want to start on the fall cleaning of the windows since I have 11 of them to do and some of them are pretty dirty…the heat has been on since yesterday around noon and that is one thing that was a relief when it came on….I always feel that way in the fall but I have to remember that this one is newer and should start and run all winter with just a little wd on the combustion blower…I am going to tear into it this week to see about the bearings on the blower to see if they need lube or if they are sealed…it does feel good to know that I have enough cash to buy a new one if I need it…not much to do today…just going to get the first ride in as soon as it gets light if it’s over 50 but I haven’t looked at that yet…and I do have to clean the dining room widows today and measure the shades so I can get new ones that work and put them up this week….and there are races on this aft so I want to be done before them….more later…..
That was brutal…
Well…that was brutal…after the temp came up around 8, I went out to get on the bike since it was 52 and the weather channel said the wind was blowing around 10 and I’ve dealt with that plenty of times out here…but, they were wrong, oh so wrong….when I made the turn across the flats next to the lake, I knew it had to be blowing more than that since I could barely move even with being all the way down to 3rd on the back sprockets when I normally go through there in 7th….but the wind was coming from the NW so I decided to carry on and struggled all the way out to the lake…by then, the wind was blowing so hard I had to pedal down the steep downhill to the beach when I can normally coast down it at 20mph or so….on the way back, I used my patented way to measure the true wind speed and got about 22 and I never go out in winds that high…and it’s supposed to blow harder later in the day so it looks like a one ride day but we’ll see…my legs already hurt like crazy and the ride took almost an hour and a half and it normally takes about an hour and change….soccer time…
October 16th
Well…darn, I wonder if my wake up times are going to cycle all the way through to the times I go to bed? This morning I went from 5 yesterday back to 4 but I was able to get back to sleep and didn’t get out of bed til almost 7 so I guess that better than yesterday…feel pretty beat up today and that is with just one ride yesterday and I won’t be able to get out this morning since it is only 45 out here and that is too cold to go out in shorts…and Man U plays at 10 so that means the earliest I could get out is around noon unless Man U stinks up the place against the Foxes and I just give up on them for the day….Michigan doesn’t play today so that will help me get on the bike twice so I can get to 4K miles this weekend and then keep racking up the miles to see where I end up this year…I am losing my motivation to ride…well, and to do almost anything and I wonder why that would be? Just tired, I think and that may need a couple of rest days to get over that…and just get the fall cleaning started…need to do all of the windows to get the dirt out of them that blows around everywhere up here…but I think I’ve helped that by growing grass in the half of the back yard that was bare when I moved in here….not much to do today….yeah, that’s not true…have so much to do that it is depressing…but I don’t want to do any of it right now…just want coffee and to read some news with soccer on in the background….damn, I’m getting old….