Don Lemmon

 Right now our outside temp is sitting at 4 (F).  We'll be warming up to around 19 (F).  Tomorrow is expected to be about the same, though the overnight low might drop below 0 (F).  That's really cold if you're using Celsius.  Next week things are going to warm up a bit, out temps might even pop above freezing.  And just to add a little sweetener to this frigid pot, I got an email for  UGI, my gas provider, that they're requesting and increase in rates.  This is because Wall Street expects them to make a decent profit off selling natural gas.  The water, gas, and electric utilities seem to be requesting yearly increases now.  Their attitude that it's not their problem everything else is going up in price is a big problem they simply do not want to consider.

Yesterday, I left the house and went to the store.  The cold doesn't bother me.  One of the things I picked up was Starbuck's ground coffee at BJs.  I'll give it a shot, see how it tastes.  I did price it out at my Giant Supermarket to see how much of a savings I was getting.  At Giant Starbuck's is on sale, $7.99 for 12 ounces.  I bought a 40 ounce bag at BJ's.  That would be 3.33 bags at 7.99 or $26.60, and keep in mind that is Giant's sale price, it's normally $12 per 12 ounce bag.  I paid $22.49 at BJ's.  I consider that a decent deal.

I did get a good mini-workout yesterday and rode for another 6 miles in Scotland.  I really do like those Scottish rides. Fresh scenery.  Lots of verge. 

Howie brought an icicle into the house this morning.  I switched it out for a much smaller ice cube.

And the Department of Justice arrested Don Lemmon last night because he did his job as a journalist and recorded a demonstration in a Church.  This is a very bad thing, arresting journalists.  We can not go a single day without another Republican atrocity stacking on top of another Republican atrocity.  I'm literally dumbfounded as to how out of touch this regime is to what Americans are thinking right now.  They constantly seem to be patting themselves on their backs congratulating themselves on how special they are.  I do think the people running this administration still believe that massive numbers of Americans will suddenly bow their heads and accept this authoritarianism.  These people don't seem to understand that they're dancing around in this large pool of gasoline and there are lit torches all around them.  At times, it almost seems as though Orangie and his gang are going to push things until they get a pushback.  Stupidly, they don't comprehend how terrible that pushback is going to be for them.

A bit of a bright note was that Congress approved a spending plan that will run until September.  What makes this bright is that the budget of the Department of Homeland Security, which runs ICE, is not included.  Perhaps Congress is beginning to understand that Kristi Noem doesn't need any more plastic surgery.

Striking the Match

 We have another cool morning here in Central PA.  Yesterday, the temps climb fairly high on the thermometer, upper 80s (F).  Even though our afternoon high is only supposed to be in the low 80s (F), I'm suspecting today will be a repeat.  We are under an air quality alert.  I suspect it's the wild fires in Canada.  Oddly enough, I don't remember all of these wildfires taking place when I was a kid, but then things are different today, we have satellites, and air monitors, and people who get paid to keep track of such things.  Back then the weather forecaster would look out the window and decide if the day was going to be cloudy or not.

I worked yesterday and so my routine is not even close to what I like to think of a normal.  I like to write starting in the mid to late afternoon, however when I work writing needs to be done before I leave.  Sometimes that works well for me, but frequently it doesn't.  Yesterday it worked well, but then the storyline is at point where action is happening and things are moving quickly.

Even though the store is making plan, foot traffic was very slow, mid-February kind of slow.  One of the hardware associates was complaining about hours being cut.  Evidently at one of the morning meetings last week an announcement was made that fewer hours are going to be scheduled.  Right now this only  concerns part-timers.  This also means that there are going to be gaps in the coverage when no one will be schedule to work in certain departments.  This is all related to the tariffs.  If the orange home improvement retailer I work for isn't going to raise prices, they're going to have to cut expenses and the easiest expense to cut is payroll.

And this was Howie's birthday present.  He loves the stuff, unfortunately it costs $4.59 for a little 12 ounce can.

And the Democrats from Texas have temporarily relocated to several other states to avoid pushing through Republican redistricting in order to give the Orange Anus 5 more seats in the House of Representatives.  The fact that Republicans are trying to increase their count to avoid the Orange Anus from being impeached tells you what's terribly wrong with the GOP.  The party that wants authoritarian rule in the United States has a big, big problem: they're a minority party who simply can not deal with the fact that a majority of Americans hate them.  The anger is growing and they don't know how to handle it, you see they convinced themselves a long time ago that all they had to do was get themselves in charge.  They truly believe that if they say, "shut up, we're in charge," everyone will simply bow their heads and meekly say, "okay."  That isn't happening.  America is watching as the Republican party proves they will accept any evil if it helps them stay in power.  This has always been the problem with Authoritarians, their ability to comprehend is at a minimum at best.  This is why they've always ended going down in flames.  They will torch themselves and burn themselves to the ground without ever understanding that were the ones who struck the match.

Voting for Survival

 Showers are on the menu for today.  The morning temps were 69 (F), though they've already climbed to 71 (F).  Besides the spotty showers (yes, no steady rain, just occasional drizzles that will do nothing to help the dryness) our high is supposed to be in the upper 80s (F).  Just a little bit less nice than yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday, it was another day of accomplishments.  A walk in the park (2.3 miles), a ride on the bike, and the big aquarium got cleaned.

I'm also trying something new and odd with my kitchen floor.  Old houses like mine do not have a subfloor.  My hardwood planking sits right on the studs.  Over the past 119 years flexibility has crept in, they will go up and down slightly when you walk on them.  To fix this, I installed MSB because it was cheaper than 3/4 inch plywood.  This doesn't eliminate the movement, but reduces it a lot.  Still, those floor boards do shift a little.  To eliminate the possibility of the vinyl planks unlocking, I'm gluing them down.  I'm also going to be cementing all of the seams to make them look more like porcelain tiles.  When that's done, I'm going to poly the top since there's going to be at least one dog in the house when I get back from Greece.

I was looking to see if the RNC convention gave the Orange Anus any boost in the polls, and so far there's none to speak of, which seems about right.  This loser survived a domestic terror event and got zilch.  That tells you what America thinks of Donald Trump.  Even though polls lie, he's pretty much tied with Biden, the 81 year old candidate who's possibly in decline, across the board.  What people really need to come to grips with is that this election is not about the candidate, not at all.  It's really about Democracy vs Authoritarianism.  Because the Supreme Court gave the presidency far reaching powers with their decision that they have to a large extent full immunity for their actions, if Trump is sworn into office he will immediately begin spitting out Executive Orders over ruling everything.  Nothing he does will help the average American and when all those millions realize he and the Republican party have no problem hitting them with the shitty end of the stick, chaos will erupt.  I've said this before, Trump's blow bro Vlad doesn't want us as a political partner, he wants to knock America out of it's place as the number one Super Power in the world.  Putin wants there be violent civil unrest in America.  So, for all you dummies out there, it's not about voting for the candidate, it's about voting for survival.