The Consequences of Public Opinion

 This Thursday morning the temp was 23 (F) when I jumped out of bed.  To celebrate our drop into the lower to mid 20s (F), I pulled out my wool blanket.  Now, I know a lot of you think wool is scratchy, but this wool is soft and supple.  Here's an interesting bit most of you don't know.  Tuxedoes are made from wool.  Yep, 100%, at least the good ones are.  They also started off as a variation of a military uniform, beginning with the peak lapel tailcoat.  

Yesterday was one of those ho-hum days.  I took care of some chores, but mostly putzed around doing dishes and laundry.  I did get some quality treadmill time in and am hoping to get more in today.  

I'm also halfway through the final edit of The Body in Motion.  One thing that's changed about the process is that the changes are mostly being done in Word.  I used to sit down, read the manuscript making manual changes.  While I still like to do that, it turns out that I usually end up ignoring my notes and the changes that are being made are more spontaneous.  This doesn't mean I'm skipping the read through from a hard copy, just that I'm not relying on those notes for changes and rewrites.

I saw this bike being advertised this morning while reading through the Washington Post!  Wow.  Believe me, if I weren't paying for the kitchen, this baby would be ordered!  I did print off a screen shot and will probably wait until sometime in the spring.

Henry Kissinger died yesterday.  He was 100.  Very Old.  He was not a very good man, still quite a number of presidents turned to him for advice.  He was a good negotiator, but didn't really give a shit about humanity.  Fame and ego were everything to him; people were not.

And the funny of the day come from Elon Musk.  For someone who loved being praised for being a great businessman and innovator, his death spiral couldn't be anymore entertaining.  He bought Twitter (notice, I don't say X, formally known as Twitter) saying it was going to become a platform of Free Speech.  For Elon, however, Free Speech put a lot of focus on conspiracy theories, fascist groups, and hate speech.  He simply didn't realize that Free Speech, itself, has some limitations.  You can not say anything you want without having to deal with the consequences of public opinion, and that's something he just does not understand, probably because in his small mind, his is the only opinion that counts.  Anyway, his jumping onboard an antisemitic conspiracy theory seems to have been the straw that broke the advertising camel's back, because advertisers are heading to safer grounds; they don't want their ads airing next to pro-Nazi bullshit, among many other things.  So, in a pique of anger Elon lashed out yesterday, telling advertisers that if they didn't like what was on Twitter they can "go fuck yourselves."  Ouch!  Can you hear me laughing?

That's not a shed, that's a barn

Well, this is my 2nd day off in a row.  I've set myself up in the scheduling system to get sequential days off, every week.  That rarely happens.  The woman who processes the schedules is an idiot, she likes to think she's better then the system.  She isn't.  Whereas in other stores, associates and mgmt set up for sequential days off get 2 days off, in ours they don't.  She's not happy.  She hates the commute.  She hates the store manager.  She constantly complains about the associates.  Hopefully, she'll be gone soon.
Anyway, I had breakfast with my brother yesterday.  His wife likes to do things with wool, include spin it.   Several months ago she bought a $1600 spinning wheel.  That's right, $1600.  And what she really wants is to have a sheep farm.  She, however, calls it a farmette.  They've actually been looking at one with purchasing in mind.  You see she has this overly romanticized picture in her head of how wonderful it would be to raise sheep, and sheer sheep, and spin their wool into thread, and then knit that thread in to scarves, and sweaters.  Oh, and she has a loom as well, so she can make blankets and serapes and, well, I guess anything you might want.
Anyway, he and I were having breakfast and he says, "here, I'll send you the address so you can check it out."  I asked how big it was and he said, "four bedrooms, three baths, and really big shed."  This morning I looked at it on Zillow.  This is the really big shed:

This is a barn

Now, it's only the two of them so 4 bedrooms is a few too many.  They don't need 3 full baths.  And as for this being a farmette?  Give me a break.  This is a farm.  That's not a shed, that's a barn.  And four or five sheep are going to be lonely there, besides, I just cannot picture my sister-in-law wearing her stylish galoshes shoveling out sheep shit.