Well…after feeling so darn worn out the past few days, I decided to take it easy today…and I think I may have a cold…at least that’s what I feel and have a bit of a sore throat…I even took it easy on the bike this morning to try to heal up my legs…a funny thing happened this morning that made me laugh…for some reason I got the thought that I have only replaced the batteries once since I bought my house almost 6 years ago…so I took a look at the face of it and the low battery warning was flashing on the display…weird, huh? Not sure how long it has been doing that so I took it off the wall and replaced the batteries and I still like the idea that it keeps all of my settings even when the batteries are changed…so that took all of 2 minutes and will probably be good til I die…I did get to ride through the construction work this morning and that was a good thing but it looks like they still have a couple of months to go to finish it since they have just done the first layer of asphalt and 1/4 mile of the trail is gone still…it looks like they are going to shrink the road a bit and take away the parking spots that were on the north side of Lakeshore and replace them with another trail which makes no sense…I’ll bet the people who live there are not happy with losing their on street parking…I did have a flat back tire when I got on the bike yesterday so I put a new tube in it and then checked the old one to find the leak in the downstairs sink…but I couldn’t find it so I put more air in it and set it in the bike room just to see if it would hold air…as of this morning it is still aired up so I guess the valve must not have been tight since I took it out to let the air out for changing the rear tire…so now I still have 4 good tubes and that should get me through a few years…okay, need to continue to take it easy and read a bit…
Every flight cancelled…
Well…do you really need any more evidence that the idiot trump’s administration is chock full of incompetents? If you do, you got it yesterday when every damn flight in the US was cancelled with what is called a “ground stop”…and it was completely avoidable for any normal administration but for this group of clowns it’s just another day…it all stemmed from the FAA director duffy rolling out an AI fueled software for controlling flights that the dems warned them about back at the start of October that it had not been tested enough to show it worked…but that didn’t matter to the tv presenter duffy who is in so far over his head that he’s have to climb a mountain to get level…and now this is doing his “patting his back” tour that the country was only shut down for one day…god, I hate these incompetent assholes…geez…
November 15th
Well…darn, just noticed I didn’t come here for another post late yesterday and I’ll try to make up for it today with 4…up and moving this morning at 5:38 but with how cold it is out there the rides won’t start until 8 or so…and that means I need to figure out a schedule for the day…yeah, I know…I really don’t need a schedule anymore but it’s a habit that I haven’t been able to break…so, do I go out at 38 degrees or sit here for a while? Probably sit here and drink a lot of coffee to gain the energy I need to get started…need to figure out meals for a few days and I think I’ll do the grocery run Tuesday to get some chicken from aldis that will cover me for the next week…and I think there will be some pasta to use up the 6 jars of pasta sauce I have in the pantry…and I can use one of them to make another batch of chicken/potatoes/carrots/rice in the cast iron half dutch oven that will last until I cook a turkey for t-day…my body protested the rides yesterday and my legs felt so damn flat with lots of pain so today is going to be one of “leisure” ride days that I should do at least once a week to give them a little rest…have less than 100 miles to go to get to 7,000 for the year and while that’s 2K less than last year, it’s still not bad for an old guy and I still have 6 weeks to go this year…okay, need more coffee and a bagel for fuel….more later…
It’s no scandal, it’s just a bribe…
Well…another day, another scandal with the idiot trump…this time he took a 25 million dollar bribe to end an investigation into one of his buddies but the damn thing blew up in his face when his buddy was found to be sleeping with a Chinese spy and selling Nvidia chips that his company makes to the Chinese…and idiot boy was told by his sec of state that Huang was a sleeping with a spy but the super genius did nothing about it…he even invited him to meet with Xi and travel on AF1 after he knew he was compromised…so was this a criminal dereliction of duty or just business as usual with the idiot? Now his buddy Huang has resigned from Nvidia and the repubs are circling the wagons to protect idiot boy…but the day of reckoning is coming and the letters have already gone out from the dems who will be taking over in January for everyone involved to preserve the records of this debacle and someone is going to pay…I hope…geez…
November 14th
Well…didn’t drag my butt out of bed til after 6am this morning and that can be good and bad…good that I slept more but bad that now I’m behind for the day…yeah, I know, I don’t have a schedule anymore and I am working on just winging it but I’m not good at it yet…oh, well…my damn skin cracked on both thumbs so now every time I shift the bike it hurts like crazy and this is in addition to the long term pain in my right thumb from arthritis so I treated that a few minutes ago to see if that will help…it’s not 40 out there so it’s going to be a cold ride when I get out by 7 but I think I know how to dress for it…but I know my feet and hands will be white when I get back from the damn reynauds that I’ve had for a few years now…and that hurts like crazy but there is nothing you can do about it…have thought about some heated socks and gloves and I may yet buy some but they are not cheap…the new power band is pretty cool and I’ve only used 7% power in 5 days so it will last weeks before I need to charge it…didn’t have a bagel yesterday but I am going to take time for one this morning since I need fuel to ride the bike after under eating for a few days now….not sure what I’m going to do after the rides but will probably just read with the heating pad on…don’t really have much to clean and food will still be leftovers today…need to take another container of soup out of the freezer to use them up before I make a turkey in a couple of weeks…more later…
The bike is fixed…
Well…after doing an indoor ride this morning and making lunch, I decided to drag the bike up the stairs and go out to see if I was close on the adjustments…and I was but the thing about it is the shifter and the rest of the parts are so worn out that I’ll never get it better than it is now…which is okay…at least I have downshifts again and the front shifter works so I can ride it without it being a pain in the ass…so I went out for a 15 miler and it was good…I like the new rear tire and the bike looks normal again…so I’m going to have to order the rebuild parts to have them here when the chain starts skipping soon…the 7th gear teeth are no longer square as they should be but have worn down into points and the fronts have done the same thing so that means they don’t have much life left in them…I just hope they last until outdoor riding is over for the year…30 days or so and that means another 900 miles so I’m not sure it will make it…we’ll see…I did get my pump sprayer out and sprayed the weeds that are taking over the yard but still have 3/4ths of it to do before the snows start…let the weeds grow last year and when the snow melted they had taken over the whole yard so I hope this works…okay, time to settle in for the night…I just discovered that Jeffrey Deaver, who does the “Reacher” books had another of his characters “Lincoln Ryme” turned into a tv show and I’ll start the night watching that on plex…
Inflation at 6.5%
Well…yeah, we all knew this was coming…wholesale price increases hit 6.5% on a yearly basis in today’s reporting and it’s all the idiot trump’s fault…I guess this is what happens when you put a moron in charge of the economy and staff it with other morons… and the idiot trump doesn’t care; labeling the affordability crisis a “hoax” and lying that he has brought prices down over the past two years…and with a functioning repub party, you wouldn’t have idiot boy threatening to make inflation even worse by imposing more tariffs and idiot boy making things even worse by saying that he is not looking for a “deal” to end the Iran war which is responsible for a lot of the inflation that is still in the pipeline…and now we have netanyahu putting the heat on the idiot to resume bombing Iran which would cause another oil price shock and push the inflation rate to 10% or more…I guess Biden’s 3% inflation is looking pretty good right now….and I say that to all of the idiots who voted for trump saying that inflation was the major reason they did…god, this country is full of morons…geez…
November 13th
Well…damn, this is weird…didn’t get out of bed until 6:15 and now I’m just taking it easy since I’m only going to do one ride indoors this morning with it only 33 degrees out there with wind and snow showers…and I need to do the fine tuning on the outdoor bike later and may do one outdoor ride but no rush for any of it…and I really don’t know how to act without bring in a rush…so I’m going to sit here and have coffee while I think of something to say…I am going to get to the leaves either Sat or Monday to get them out for pickup…oh, happy Friday the 13th for those who celebrate…boy, this not rushing is harder than it looks…I do need to figure out meals for this week and I may make the 99cent pizzas I bought at DD and thaw the last of the chicken to have mixed in with pasta…I bought a spicy vodka pasta sauce when the Prego stuff was on sale a couple of weeks back that I’d like to try so that will be 4 days of meals…not much to do today…just the one indoor ride and maybe a little cleaning with a load of laundry later…got some grease on my bike rug so that is in the washer with dish soap pretreating it…maybe I’ll do a load of rugs this morning…don’t want to have clothes in with the rugs….more later…
Bike trouble…
Well…after suiting up ad heading out in the cold this morning, I remembered that the bike has been acting screwy when I was shifting both the front and back shifters…the back one wouldn’t shift down and I had run out of adjustment for it and it reminded me of a cable starting to fail like has happened before…so, after crippling though the two rides, I carried the bike downstairs to let it warm up enough so I could work on it…didn’t want to do it outdoors since it was cold and raining…so, after I had my coffee, I went down to get started with first taking out the old rear cable and yep, it had started to fray inside the sheaths that it runs in and I could barely get it out and that’s probably why it was hard to downshift…so I put a new cable in and flipped it over to attach the cable to the shifter and adjust it…then I worked on adjusting the front shifter since it was not working right either…so now I think I have them right but couldn’t go out to test it with the rain off ad on all day…and I just didn’t want to get cold again…while I had the bike upside down, I adjusted both the front and back wheel bearings and put the new tire on the back so now they match again…and then lubed everything with light oil to keep it from rusting and sticking..and all of that took about an hour and a half and I noticed that the the whole driveline is about worn out and I hope it lasts until I put the bike downstairs for the winter…I’ll have to order the parts soon so I can replace the front crankset, the rear cassette, the rear shifter, and the chain and that will be almost 100 bucks but it needs to be done…and I probably should do that to the black bike, too but maybe not…it’s nice to have a parts bike…time to read…
The diesel never got here…
Well…this is so typical of the idiot trump where he touts a “biggest deal” and when the media stops following it, the deal falls apart and idiot boy then just ignores questions about it…do you remember the “deal” to import Russian diesel fuel to lower prices here in the US before the election? Probably not but I’ll fill you in…oh, the bottom line is not one drop of that crappy diesel fuel ever made it to the US since no one here was stupid enough to break the law to get it…and really, less than one day’s worth of this crap wasn’t going to make one bit of difference in prices here since diesel prices are global…and let’s remember that the US is an exporter of diesel so we already have enough here…so what was this deal about? The election, of course, but more than that it was an excuse for the idiot to remove some sanctions on Russia that I’m sure it was “suggested” he do that by putin so now ole pootie has more money to kill Ukrainians and idiot boy doesn’t care…the only thing he cares about is his stupid ballroom and arch that the dems have promised will be torn down to erase any mention of the idiot after we win the WH in 2028…oh, and the last tanker turned around and headed back to Europe yesterday where no one wants the fuel, either…great deal, donnie…geez…