Tunnel Vision

Outside the sun is shining brightly on Central PA.  The temps are a bit cool, sitting at a chilly 52 (F), but this afternoon things are going to be warming up.  Forecasters are telling us that we should be hitting the mid 60s (F).  This is Spring.  It's May day.  Summer is only a month and a half away.  I can't wait.

Retail was very slow yesterday.  We might have missed our plan by $100,000.  Wow!  That's a very serious dollar amount to be off.  Is it the economy?  I'd say yes.  One of my tile installs came in to go over her quote.  Some things were cut out to bring the price down.  She did not buy.  She told me that she's waiting on one more quote to come in.  She also asked if we were going to be lower than that quote.  If she thinks we're going to price match, she's wrong.  She did seem pleased when I told her that even though product prices might go up, the quote was good for a year.  I got the idea that she's planning on waiting about a month to make a decision.  

Otherwise, yesterday was pretty meh. 

My aunt's funeral is on Monday, so this morning I put in a bereavement request.  I can't remember if we get bereavement pay for aunts and uncles, though for some reason I think you do.  I think the Orange retailer I work for considers them part of your immediate family.

My friend Chris, from Greece, is in the Himalayas.  He sent this picture with a comment about it being more than 999 steps.  This is in reference to the staircase up the side of a cliff in Palamidi, Greece.

Evidently Scott Jennings, a cultist on CNN is taking a short break.  He announced this on Monday, and then last evening dropped the F bomb against Adam Mockler, a young, outspoken Liberal on TV.  People are calling for his break to be made permanent.  We shall see.

And in their haste to destroy the Voting Rights Act, the conservatives on the Supreme Court failed to look at how easily Democrats might turn it into an advantage.  This is because conservatives live for tunnel vision.  There is no big picture for them, just that tiny pinprick of reality at the end of the tunnel.  The fact that Blue states could do exactly what they want the Red states to do never occurred to them.  But then this has always been a problem with Conservatives.  They're only interested in how the policies they live for will effect themselves.  The fact that those same policies might be weaponized against them never reaches the state of a cohesive thought.  I don't doubt that it bumbles around in their brains like some nebulous incredulity, as they scratch their heads curiously saying, "what?"

The Voting Rights Act

Here in Central Pa we had overcast skies yesterday and the occasional drizzle until around 4 PM, and then it started to rain, a soaker, as they like to call steady rain.  Today, forecasters are calling for on and off sunshine with our temps topping off in the the low 60s (F).  This means everything is going to grow.  That means I'm going to have to mow the lawn, probably tomorrow morning. Yeah!

And yesterday was productive!  All my veggies have been planted and fertilized.  Laundry was done.  Cleaning was done.  It was a good day.

Yesterday was also a good workout day.  While there's an exercised called a dumbbell thruster, there were no squats.  I'm going to go easy on the squats for a while.  My left knee is still a bit wonky and I don't want to do anything that might actually damage it.  

My aunt Lois died yesterday.  She was 91.  She was a very nice lady.  When I was born back in 1952, my dad's parents drove down to Florida because I was the first male grandson to be born.  Lois, who was 18, was with them.  What an adventure that must have been for her!  In today's America a lot of people will fly their families down to Disneyworld.  It's so commonplace, no one thinks about it.  But 73 years ago Florida would have been like traveling to a totally different country.

I snapped a picture of Howie on the the futon yesterday.  I've gotten a lot of comments about how big he's gotten.  Believe me when I tell you, I don't think of him as being big, he's just my little booby boy.

Of course, yesterday the Supreme Court smashed apart the Voting Rights Act because a majority of the judges, all white, believe that minority groups no longer need to have a unified voice.  The racist Sammy Alito wrote the majority opinion.  Sammy wants a white, Republican, authoritarian government running America.  Future generations are not going to see Sammy as a decent human being.  Quite the contrary.  They will look at his racist opinions and define him as what he truly is, a bigoted, phony Catholic.

And gas prices increased again yesterday.  Since I didn't go anywhere, I don't know how high they went locally, but from what I'm seeing online, 40 cents seems to be the standard increase.  This is how you lose elections, no matter how much you gerrymander, or how often Sammy Alito stomps his tiny racist feet.  Hint, hint, gas prices are not going to go down soon, not that Sammy has to worry about the price per gallon.  

Finally, Elonia Musk was in court yesterday.  He and Sam Altman are going head to head, legally, about Chat GP, I think, and Elonia's verbosity and bullshit got to be too much for the judge.  Yepper, the judge told him to basically shut up.  Elonia found that rather... disparaging.  Now, how nice is that?