Well…with the rain continuing, I have a morning to fill so I thought I’d come here and do one of these after fixing the mower…as I get ready to fill in my absentee ballot for the election next month and read about the candidates who are running for city commission and mayor, I find it odd that the entire election is supposed to be non-partisan…which means none of the candidates can say whether they are a dem or repub…so that makes it a little more difficult for me to make sure I don’t vote for a repub…but, luckily, some of the candidates have gotten pretty clever in listing their endorsements that send a clear message of what party they belong to….and I have mailers for every one of them laying on my coffee table to read and their websites, too, I mean would a repub ever be endorsed by the dem progressive caucus? Pretty sure they wouldn’t and there are others who want to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard…and others who are “business” minded…and you can pretty well guess what party he belongs to…it’s a little odd to have to do this deep dive to figure out who to vote for…but, I have the time and I know who I want to work with to continue the progress up here…now I just need to drop the ballot off this week….
October 12th
Well…not sure how I’m running this morning with not getting up til 6:45…feel pretty crappy and I’m pretty sure that it is from only eating one meal of about 600 calories yesterday….I know that is pretty stupid but I just didn’t feel like eating for some reason…and with doing two rides and mowing the lawn yesterday, I know I’m going to feel this way most of the day and it will probably get worse as the day goes on…so, maybe just one ride today since I have to go out and get the jb weld to fix the mower and then fix it…and it’s raining right now so maybe that’s a good excuse to ease into the day…I do need to get the yard waste out to the curb to get it out of the garage but I’m not ready to get cold and wet yet….need more coffee before that…and I only have one more cup since I didn’t make coffee yesterday…just using up the leftovers from two days ago and I need to stop doing that…I can afford to make coffee every other day to make sure I have enough to wake me up in the morning…not much to do today…need to run that errand and fix the mower and I may make some lasagna again since I only have one chicken thigh left over to eat and I know I can’t do two days in a row of not eating….more later…
The lawnmower broke…
Well…damn, when I was mowing the lawn today the drive on the lawnmower broke…or the control for the drive broke…it is attached to the top of the transmission by three screws and two of them were gone, letting the bracket bend instead of adjusting the drive…went out to the hardware store and got screws but one hole had a broken screw in it, and the other one had most of the threads stripped…so I put a bunch of loctite on it and screwed one of the new ones in the hole but it’s not going to hold so I am going to get some JB weld and glue it on…the only problem with that is that you have to remove the bracket to put a new drive belt on it but the belt looks good and I can probably get a few more years out of it and I guess I can chip the JB off when it needs one….at least I can fix it…doing the lawn with a mower without drive is like driving a power steering car without the power working….way too damn much work….will get that done wed so it will have time to harden before I need the mower again…
They lied about unemployment, too….
Well…I’m sure you’ve heard all of the stories pushed by the repubs in the spring and summer the the “generous” unemployment benefits of 300 dollars a week were keeping the lazy workers from looking for work and there was a “labor shortage” because of it…never mind that employers that started caring about their workers and raised what they paid were swamped with applicants…the only shortage appears to be with employers who want cheap labor for their jobs that doesn’t pay enough to live on. With the reporting on the jobs reports that repubs said would be enormous after cutting of the unemployment benefits, and it wasn’t, we really do see that they were lying about why people weren’t going back to the crappy jobs with low pay and benefits….and that cutting unemployment was no incentive to work when people are still worried about the pandemic or child care, or the health problems that makes it dangerous for some unemployed to go back to work for employers who do nothing to protect them. Just like everything in economics, the repubs don’t care about facts, especially when it gets in the way of their preferred lies that they use to hurt people every day….so I wonder what the new lie is going to be? We’ll see tomorrow….geez…
October 11th
Well…running about on time today with getting up around 7 but I am still pretty worn out….my legs don’t hurt as much as I expected with riding back with a flat yesterday but we’ll see how they feel when I get on the bike here in a minute…it’s weird having to wait for it to get light to be able to go out but soon it will be the temp that controls that…after the warm of the next day or so, it’s going to be cold with highs in the 50’s and 60’s…and it’s supposed to storm later today and into the night so I need to get the lawn mowed after the first ride but I think I’ll do two rides today after only doing one yesterday….if I have the tire fixed, that is…Meijers finally had tubes in stock again so I bought two to have a spare just in case….had a weird dream last night about a Joe Walsh concert that was to be held in the old Civic auditorium in GR but had elements of this house in it….strange…but it was cool to actually have a dream again….don’t have many of those anymore….not much to do today…just the rides and the lawn but I should get the branches around my power line cut back soon…but I’m not sure I need to do that today….it will be a full day without that so I may just do that by itself later in the week….I still can plant more grass seed today and I’ll take a look at that after mowing…more later…
Another damn flat…
Well…coming back from the beach, I had another flat on the bike and had to ride about 4 miles back on the flat tire…it’s the first flat I’ve had in a couple of months but I couldn’t find out what caused it even with turning the tire inside out and going over the whole tire with my hands…didn’t see anything that was sticking in the tire but it may have fallen out with me riding the thing back flat….at least it wasn’t on the inside of the tube so the electrical tape is still working to cover the spoke ends….so, no second ride today with rain coming in about 30 minutes and I am not going to get wet along with having pain from riding with the flat…should take something for it here in a minute to get ahead of it….
October 10th
Well…running really late this morning with not getting out of bed til 7 and then having to run out to get the paper…at least my new debit card worked and now I have to fix netflix since I use that for autopay…I did sleep okay last night and feel okay this morning but won’t be getting on the bike until after the F1 race that is coming on in a few minutes…and it is raining right now with another storm back in Iowa that will get here around noon or so so getting the grass seed planted was a good idea yesterday…..not sure if I’ll get two rides in this morning but I will get at least one and I won’t feel guilty for that…didn’t have two meals yesterday but I think it was like one and a half…only had a grilled cheese for dinner and I made one with swiss and that was pretty good….but that left me with about 1K calories for the day and that is not enough…I did catch two mice yesterday on the sticky pads and I still have 5 more pads but I hope they were the only two….not much to do today…no cooking since I still have leftovers to use so I think I’ll just wing it for a while and watch the race and have more coffee and read the news….more later…
I figured something out…
Well…just got done with my work for the day and it’s after 2…got the rides in and then got on reseeding another 2 1/2 pounds of seed in the dead spot on the front of the lawn and the back…then did the weed walk and ended up sweating through everything it’s so humid out here…while I was on the bike today, I think I figured something out about how much my legs have been hurting lately…and I wonder why I didn’t think of it before…as you know, about 3 weeks ago I re-geared the bike and that makes it much harder to pedal and I haven’t gotten them used to it yet….just had a candidate for city commission ring my doorbell and talked to her for a half hour or so….and told her about the problems we are having with loud cars and speeders up here…not sure if she is one I’m going to vote for…that research is going to happen this week so I can get my ballot in by the end of the week….okay, need another glass of water and some more ice so I’ll end here….no more later…
October 9th
Well…running about on time today with getting up a little after 6…but it still took an hour to get my brain working enough to come here…and I’m still not sure it is…need coffee….I did sleep okay and with just looking at the weather, I’ll be able to get out on the bike after F1 qualifying is done at 9…and that will get me to two rides before noon today….and I need that with being lazy and only getting one ride in yesterday and the day before…okay, I know the rain had something to do with it but I probably could have squeezed a second ride in yesterday but it would have been late in the day and it is hard to go out without coffee to help get the legs moving…not too sore today so that may help…didn’t get much done yesterday but I do need to clean today and maybe start on the living room door frame but I can only do the outside of it since I want some satin finish white to do the inside and the frame needs to be sanded and patched first…my thumb seems to be healing but it still hurts like crazy when I bump it and I hope that stops soon…I need to be able to use it to repaint the wheels for the winter tires next week…I have thought about getting one more year out of the old ones but I think they are too worn to do that….and I don’t want to be trapped here when it snows so that will be the project for the next week….it is a little disheartening that I’m seeing snow plows all over out here already so I think it probably gets pretty bad out here..so I will need the new tires….not much to do today…just going to get the rides in and have leftovers so I don’t have to cook but I don’t want to get into the habit of not doing anything like I did Thursday….more later….
Dodged that bullet…
Well…after I got the first bike ride in, I was getting ready to go out for the second one and thought I’d better check the radar real quick with the pop up showers that have been going on the past few days….and just like I thought, the clear skies turned into rain so I put the bike away after I hosed it down to wait for the rain to stop…but 3 more little showers popped up heading this way so I give up…one ride today and that’s okay…I did see a really cool thing on the trail where it runs right along the lake…when I turned a corner, there was a huge sandhill crane just standing in the middle of the trail..it stood 4 to 4 1/2 feet tall and when it took off it’s wingspan was about 6 feet or so…I was a little concerned about how it was going to react to me riding up to it but it just took off and flew away…first time I’ve ever seen that….pretty cool…so now, I’m going to watch a soccer match and do a little cleaning….the US won it’s world cup qualifier last night and are first in their group right now…we may get to the world cup for the first time in 12 years…. and that would be cool….