Anniversary

Our outside temp was 55 (F) when I woke up this morning.  That meant we had good sleeping weather last night.  Today's high will be either in the high 70s (F) or the low 80s (F).  I don't really care because I'm going to be working on this Labor Day.  The forecast for this week has been revised down.  We will no longer be having highs in the low 90s (F).  Instead, they will be cresting in the upper 80s (F), which is a step in the right direction for Autumn.

And I did work yesterday.  Things were slow.  We're in a holiday weekend and the only shoppers we're going to be getting are those looking for a sale.  Our appliance section did well.  That's where the deals are.  As a result, I got my steps in fast.  And, of course, today is the actual holiday.  As usual, I work.  They're bringing in food.  Someone said mini-tacos.  I guess that means we're going to be eating teeny, weeny, tiny tacos.

And then this happened as well.  

Overnight the Orange Anus has been pumping out all sorts of AI slop on his Truth Social account and bragging about all of the billions of dollars he's made while president.  This is against the law, but why would he care about that.  In his addle-paddled brain he is above the law.  Rules and Regulations have no meaning to him because he's special.  His idea of helping Republicans get out the votes for the midterms is to throw a mini-Republican convention in order to celebrate himself.  Two nights long, he will be speaking on the first night... and in case that isn't enough for his cultists, he's going to be repeating his performance on the 2nd night as well.  I understand Republicans are coming up with excuses to avoid his ego extravaganza.  Sorry guys, it ain't gonna help.  Perhaps you should have thought about your future in politics before selling your soul to the Orange Anus.

No lights

 It rained yesterday.  While it would have been if the forecast was just a little wrong, it wasn't.  So, while we had a storm that was little more than steady drizzle with heavy cloud cover, much of the world got to see the aurora borealis.  While the cloud cover is a little thinner this morning, the best of the solar storm has passed.  Today we're supposed to warm up into the mid 60s (F),. but the showers are supposed to remain.

I did get in 2 miles on the treadmill.  That was good.  I'm getting my Greek body in shape for my trip.

I work today, but I don't have to be at the store until 2.  I had the same schedule Wednesday and Thursday, though on Thursday my brain misfired and I showed up at my normally scheduled 1 PM.  So, I'll get an extra hour of pay this week.  I did have to let management no to keep it from showing up on my performance review.  They do that now.  Too many early ins, or too many lates, and they will dock your performance.  How's that for micromanaging?

The dog sofa is sitting in pieces on my front porch.  It will stay there until next Monday evening, at which time I will move it out onto the curb.  There is so much space in the writing room now.  Behind the sofa, I discovered some dabbles of trim paint on the floor, so I'll grab my little sanding bar and erase them.  I also have some renew finisher to put that satin sheen back on the planks.

There was testimony at Trump's election interference trial, but most of it was technical.  One of the amusing facts that came out was that he only personally signed checks when there was skullduggery involved.  I doubt very much if he did so because he wanted to and his personal touch, rather, I suspect he did so because he wanted to be personally involved, because he thought he was too shifty to get caught.  He definitely thought he was too smart to ever get caught.

And I saw that Melania has decided Barron is not going to be part of the political process of getting his biological father nominated, he's declined being a delegate from the Crazy State of Florida.  I find this funny.  It almost seems as though Melania doesn't want her son to be just another puppet child for the Orange Anus.

One final thing.  Evidently the RNC is really unhappy with how the Secret Service is setting up crowd control for their convention.  A park, one quarter mile away has been set up for protestors, and the RNC thinks that too close.  They want a secure belt around the convention hall that's much wider.  Makes you wonder, what are they worried about.  Another Chicago?

Standard Operating Procedure

 SOP for me is always the same, on the first day of Vaca I sleep late.  It's the only day, usually.  And, since this is Monday, I won't ride the bike.  Mondays are always my rest days.  That doesn't mean I'm going to laze around all day, just that I'm not going to  climb onto the bike saddle.

I sold a flooring job yesterday to a woman wearing an Idiot Jerk mask.  She said, "since I have to wear one I might as well wear one I believe in."  I said nothing.  I did nothing.  It's against company policy to smack sense into customers.  We are there to take their money, nothing else.  I suspect my silence said volumes.

On the way home from work yesterday I stopped at my neighborhood Giant and picked up a bottle of Oyster Bay, Sauvignon Blanc, it was on sale for $13.99.  It's from New Zealand, a country which has gotten a really good handle on this pandemic.  I also watched the last episodes of The Umbrella Academy.  I had seen somewhere that the show was cancelled, but then I've also seen it's one the most popular series on Netflix.  

I was thinking about the approaching conventions, both Democratic and Republican, and the size of audience they will attract.  Biden has the Poll power.  He's going to have a running mate, a female, most likely black.  Everybody's going to want to hear what they have to say.  The Idiot Jerk?  Everybody knows exactly what he is.  The only ones watching him will be his base.  Can we talk about dismal ratings here?  

And what about Pence?  He's been snapping back little verbal attacks against liberals, as one would expect from the the toad playing the Idiot Jerk's mini-me.  He has to do this because if the Idiot Jerk loses badly, it will interpreted as a sign that he did something very, very wrong.  Can we talk about SOP here?

Aaannnd, they're off

Last night I was supposed to work an overnight, I didn't.  The night before I condensed 8 skids of 5 gallon buckets down to two skids, putting about 30 buckets out on the floor, and all of that weight stretched my arthritic back a bit too much.  Yesterday I was real sore.  So, I took off last night.  I watched Hillary's speech.  She's a good speaker, not great.  She gets her point across with out adding any frills. Some people like the frills, I don't.  Be plain spoken, be brief, and get it done.  She did a fine job at attacking Trump.  I got a big laugh from the line about baiting him with a Tweet.  I suspect that will be one of the avenues of attack.  They are going to bait him incessantly.  I can already hear her, during one of their debates, calling him Don.  How fast would that knock him off point?
As the camera panned over the crowd to focus in on Bernie Sanders I could only wonder why no one had told him he needed to pull that bitter stick out of his ass.  He is one angry old man.

And speaking of Hillary, she's going to be in Harrisburg tonight.  In fact, as the crow flies, she's going to be about 2 miles away from my house.  I'm not going.  Eight years ago I went downtown to see Barack Obama speak from the steps of the state capital.  Believe me when I tell you that was a magic moment.  Not that tonight isn't going to be magic.  I'm just older and don't want to deal with all of the traffic.

On an lighter note, I saw where Melamia Trump's website was taken down.  Evidently she has a lot of veracity issues, especially regarding her academic background.

On an even lighter note, Donny Trump, Jr, complained that Obama had plagiarized some of his father's speech.  Evidently he didn't realize Obama has been using that phrase for years.... hhhmm, obviously this egg didn't hatch far from the nest.

And for poll watchers, now you can start to watch them, but always take them with a grain of salt.  Remember, Republican polls showed Mitt Romney winning big.

Dead Elephant in the Room

Well, the Republican Convention is over... as is the Republican Party.  That's right, there's a dead elephant in the room.  No matter how much they tried to and pretty up the smell with snazzy visuals and loud music, there were cadavers lying  everywhere.  Not that I watched any of it, the daily headlines said everything.  The word 'disaster' appeared quite a lot.  Instead of having legitimate speakers they had... well, nobody of any real importance, no one who had any  real political sway.  They couldn't even manage to get Clint Eastwood and his chair.  And still, the Trumplodites went wild.
Trump's pick for VP, Mikey Pence, gave a speech and might as well have been talking to the wall because everybody was talking about Melania's plagiarism.  That was really funny, a lot of verbatim phrases from Michelle Obama's speech, and they thought no one would be smart enough to pick up on it.  They think Americans are so dumb they didn't even run that speech through plagiarism software.  But then you have to remember, Trump didn't buy her for her brains, he bought her for her looks.
And then there was Ted Cruz....  Let's just key the theme from Psycho and leave it at that.

Caitlyn Jenner spoke... who cares.  Well, at least he spoke, of course it was during lunch hour and there were on a smattering of people in the hall.

So did Peter Thiel, who is an openly gay man.  He also doesn't seem to understand that if those people in the convention hall, sitting on their hands, ever truly got into power, they would not only pass laws to take all of his money, they'd pass laws to put him in a concentration camp with all of the other gay people in this country.  He doesn't understand that in their socially conservative view, he is the enemy.

In the four nights the Republicans were in Cleveland there was no unification of the party, and though they like to pretend everything is happy dappy, mostly what they did was stab themselves in the back, over and over and over again.  I am so glad I'm not part of the clean-up crew.  What a bitch it must be to find a dead elephant in the room.

Why aren't companies hiring?

The Democratic Convention is in full swing and I'm not watching it.  Even though I'm a registered Democrat when casting my ballot I'm Independent, you know, those people Republicans try cater to but really don't like.  Both parties say they know how to create jobs.  Here's a little tidbit about why companies aren't hiring.  Of course this isn't news.  Any American with average intelligence should have figured this out a long time ago.  What we have is an employers economy, one in which employers make all of the rules.  If your productivity dips they'll can you and hire someone who keep up with the pace they demand.  As long as the money keeps piling up in their bank accounts nothing is going to change.  If they can get twice the work out of two employees why should they hire a third?  Jobs aren't being created because they aren't worth the expense.  All tax breaks do is put more money to their bottom line.  Oh, sure, at some point down the line they will hire that third employee, but not until it is absolutely necessary, not until they've worked their employees to the bone.  When that will be is anyone's guess.  One thing is certain, Wall Street is doing just fine with the unemployment rate as high as it is.  Recovery is going to continue to be slow and nothing is going to speed it up.