Root of all Evil

 Well, we got snow.  Not much. An inch, possibly an inch and a quarter of the stuff fell overnight.  Unlike most dogs, Howie was much more interested in finding a stick, or a stone, to bring in the house to trade for a treat.  Our temp is hanging around 25 (F).  We will not be warming up today.  That's our high.  After tomorrow, our temps will be moderate up into the mid 40s (F).  That will be fine.  December has been an expensive month for heating.

I did my morning workout yesterday, and that went well.  Because of the new piece of gym equipment, I've moved the weight bench and the dumbbells into another room where there is more space.  Who'd have thought that my second floor would become a gym? By the way, for those of you who haven't been to Greece, the root word for gym means naked, so a gymnasium is a naked training area.  Unlike those Greeks of long ago, I do wear clothing when I'm working out.  I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Being that yesterday was Saturday, I also worked.  Retail was slow.  While the store did hit our sales plan yesterday, the flooring department didn't.  For the week we are quite a bit below plan.  During a chat with our store manager, he implied that our district was doing much better than most. j This problem is not going away anytime soon.

And, as I said, Howie was more interested in finding a stick, or stone than playing in the snow.  That doesn't mean he didn't get a snow nose.

Orangie was chosen to do the coin toss at yesterday's Army/Navy game.  The idea is to get the coin to flip end on end and he chose to use some sort of floofy launch toss.  There were a lot of comments on social media because he truly did not look as though he knew what he was supposed to do.  This is abnormal.

And there were more shootings, but in Rhode Island and and Australia.  Hate is a seed that needs to be planted before it can grow.  Both religion and politics plant a lot of seeds.  Does this mean they are the root of all evil?  That is something I do not doubt, especially when it comes to religion, and religion is not going to fix itself.  That will need to be done by others.

Blinding oneself

 Today is my Thursday.  I am so looking forward to tomorrow being my Friday.  Alas, I'm scheduled for one of those crappy 1 day weekends on Thursday.  After that I'm working 2 on and 1 off for almost a week.  I don't get a full 2 day weekend until may 19.  I am really looking forward to those 2 days.

Yesterday I deal with a couple who had originally bought blinds with pull cords.  Cordless blinds, the ones you just push up and pull down, are more expensive.  Frugal customers opt for cords.  There was just one problem with these corded blinds.  The wife is tiny, not even close to being 4 feet tall, and the cords were too high for her to reach.  This turned into a really big issue.  I don't deal with complaints, so luckily I was out of the loop on this one.  However, I was the one who had to redesign their blinds.  They were nice, but took advantage of their problem and changed colors because they didn't like what they had originally chosen.  Honestly, I really dislike dealing with Custom Blinds, but then I don't like them,  Perhaps it's negativity of the word itself.  There isn't a single blind in my house.  I have drapes and curtains I can either pull open... or pull shut.  There's no way I'm going to blind myself.

And there are so many types of blindness.  I work with a young guy, a young Republican, who tried to correct me yesterday when I said "vaccinated people will help us reach Herd Immunity."  "Being vaccinated has nothing to do with that," is what he said.  He has already had Covid and has told me he figures he's got  8 - 10 months immunity, after which he just might get infected again.  Blindness, you know?  This is the voice of a man who's political party is in a slow death cycle.  One can only hope things speed up, for clear eyesight is never coming to them.

Sunday Chores

Today is Sunday, supposedly a day of rest, but not for me.  This is my first of 3 days off - that's right, I was scheduled for a mini-vacation... right.  Think I'm going to spend the next couple of days playing video games?  Not quite.  I have chores to do... well, some of them are more than chores.  This doesn't mean I'm only going to soil my dainty fingers doing housework, nope, not in the least.  I've been slowly scraping the paint off of my kitchen walls - it's very, very old, and, as the Idiot in the White House might say if he knew anything about painting, a very huge project.  So, that's on the docket for today, and maybe tomorrow.
And speaking of the Idiot in the White House, there was an interesting article in the NYT this AM questioning whether he was going to embrace the crazies of the American Caucus the way they want, or move towards the center, maybe even work with the Democrats.... (that's right, some fool actually wrote that).  The idea is that with the crazies he's never going to get enough votes to pass anything, however by re-positioning himself to the center might get some of his agenda through both the House and the Senate.  To be honest, I started chortling after the first paragraph.  Right, like the Idiot in the White House is going to disenfranchise himself from every thing he loves, abandon his ego and his sycophant advisers.  Anyway, it was a funny article.
In the mean time, it's time for me to use the vacuum to suck the dirt out of the living room rug.

This is not me, both of my vacuums are canisters

And then later this afternoon I'll sit down and play video games, Mass Effect Andromeda, and, of course, I'm playing as a hottie again.

Politics and our current religious war

In this election year both the politician and the businessman are saying they will defeat those Krazy Muslim Extremists.  I wonder how they're planning on doing that.  Neither gives details.  The truth is that is just verbiage Americans want to hear, specifics are not required, they just want someone to tell them "hey, I'm going to kill those mothers."  In campaigns, people say a lot of things.  What they don't say is several things will need to happen in order to take out those extremists.
One of those things is putting troops on the ground.  No one wants to say that.  No one wants to hear that.  Bombing alone creates a lot of damage, buildings get destroyed, people die, and anger grows towards those bombing.  The US carpet bombed the hell out of Vietnam and achieved... nothing.
More important is getting those people on our side.  This means you're going to need to cut back on the anti-Muslim rhetoric, which is where Clinton succeeds and Trump is a total failure.  Republicans completely fail here, mostly because they've got that big Evangelical foot up their ass.  Islam is the enemy.  In other words, if we end up with a Republican president this war will go on for years.. and years... and years.

And if Trump wins he just might start throwing nukes all over the place because he doesn't really understand nuclear weapons, or the damage they do, or the amount of radiation they produce,or how using them is the ultimate failure.  

Whether you like it or not, Islam is here to stay, so make nice with them.  This means our troops can't call them ragheads, or what ever the current derogatory slang is for Muslims.  This is how the world is and we may be a super power, but we don't rule the world.

The dollars and cents of politics

I had a hearty chuckle yesterday when I saw something about one of the Koch brothers said that under certain circumstances he might be able to support Hillary Clinton, I think it was Chuckie, but don't hold me on that.  Of course, many are believing his comments were made to tweek Donald Trump since he's not in the least bit dependent upon their secret financing.  Me?  I don't think so.  I think some brave soul smacked them right between their dollar bill eyes with the reality stick.  You see, they've been helping to fund the campaigns of those (Republican) candidates they felt easiest to control, and while they've had some success with local elections, presidentially speaking, they've been flushed down the toilet.  Remember Scotty Walker from up north?  He was a fav of theirs.  So was Ted Cruz.  That's right, Teddie's a bit beholding to the Koch brothers.  Of course, Ted can't possibly win in a general election.  In fact, there's a whole laundry list of Republicans who are... indebted.  Translation?  The Koch brothers are one of the reasons the GOP is on the verge of going down the shitter, not that they'd ever understand this.  Not that they'd ever really support Hillary since she'd probably find some way to raise their taxes.

So, why would Chuck even bring up Hillary?  Damage Control.  You see if they can get all of the Libertarian followers, the one's who would normally vote Republican, to go Democrat for this election cycle  Hillary might actually win by a landslide.  At that point they could go knock, knock, knocking on her door and say, "hey, remember that landslide you won by?  We helped."  The Kochs have realized that this year, the GOP is going to tank and when that ship goes down they want to make damn sure their on one of the lifeboats.  To them it's just the dollars and cents of politics.