The Independents

 The new week is starting off with temps in the mid 70s (F) here in Central PA.  Yesterday our thermometers climbed up into the upper 90s (F), in fact the temp was 98 (F) on my ride home from work.  That was a bit warmer than the weather forecasters had predicted.  Their prediction for today is a high in the upper 80s (F), we'll have to see how close they come.

And yesterday was pretty much a meh day since I spent most of it at the flooring desk.  I did hit my measure and lead goals for the week, and no, I didn't not set up follow up appointments in order to try and force customers to buy.  This is not only about closing that sale as soon as possible, but also about micro-managing your associates.  Believe me, the great orange retailer I work for has always been micro-management oriented.  It is corporate headquarters in Atlanta who decides when the A/C goes on in the summer and the heat goes on in the winter.  

There was a moment of brevity yesterday when a senior woman came up to me and showed me a 1/4 inch nut and told me it was brass.  She then asked if I had brass nuts, of course I knew what she meant and told her where she could find brass nuts.  Still, that bit of levity was shared by myself and others several times over.

I've been watching Murderbot on Apple TV.  Who ever that that Alexander Sarsgaard could be funny.  One of the many things I like about the show is its opening theme.  It reminds me of those old TV shows that had themes composed by up and coming composers, like Lost in Space.  How many know that the composer behind that theme was John Williams... you know, the Jaws, John Williams.  Here's the theme from Murderbot.

So the Senate is going to start voting on different line items today for Orangie's tax break legislation.  They're trying to make the tax break he gave billionaires back in 2017 permanent, and then give them another tax break because billionaires can never have enough money.  This piece of legislation is vastly unpopular.  Do you think Orangie and the rest of the billionaires care?  Absolutely not.  Who likes this tax bill?  Republicans.  Of course Republicans have never actually been economically savvy.  I find it pathetic that so many Cultists believe this bill will bring them tax breaks.  This is because in their tiny minds they know how much Orangie lies, however, they just don't believe he's lying to them.  And when things fall apart, they will blame the Democrats because blaming themselves would mean they'd been lied to by their fearless leader.

Will this legislation die?  I don't know.  As I said this legislation is unpopular and it is growing more so by the minute.  Still, these legislators are terrified or Orangie's base.  Without those votes they will lose their jobs to Democrats, and staying  in power is what drives them.  What they do not comprehend is that Orangie's base is a minority group and it's the Independent voters that put them, and then keep them, in office.  Right now Independents are totally pissed off at this legislation.  If this bill dies, it will be because of the Independents.

The Bilious Bill

 Our temps did hit 90 (F) yesterday.  We had full sunshine, too.  The day was very nice.  The same forecast is on tap for today as well, but then the chance of thunderstorms begins to increase.  I did turn on my Central Air because my upstairs gets quite a few degrees warmer than my downstairs, often by 10 degrees or more.  Since my bike, rowing machine, and dumbbells are upstairs I try and keep the temps comfortable; I don't want to suffer heat stroke on one of my rides through Italy.

To counter the expense of running my A/C, I'm drying more loads outside on the drying rack.  Everything except pants; they dry wrinkled and I don't want to have to iron them.

I mowed my front lawn yesterday, baked a loaf of bread, so I'm counting yesterday as a good day. I have a list of chores to do today and I think it's pretty extensive.  We'll have to see how many items I end up checking off.

So, this week I have 4 days off, Tuesday thru Saturday.  My schedule is the same next week.  Because I've have so much time off I thought I'd be able to get much accomplished, especially in the writing department.  Well, that ain't happening.  This doesn't mean I'm not getting a lot done around the house, I am, it just means that I'm not sitting down at the computer and firing up Word.  I'm hoping to change that today.

So, it looks like Tomwellborn has come up with a variation on the Orange Anus.  Nice.

And it seems as if Orangie's Big Bilious Bill is in trouble.  You see because Republicans have a small majority in both the Senate and the House, they thought they had enough rubber stamp votes to easily get this piece of tripe passed.  Sadly for them that while some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene (sp) did just that, others didn't, they read the entire piece of legislation and found some serious problems, like borrowing trillions of dollars for Orangie's tax break.  This borrowing is a standard practice for Orangie.  When he's neck deep in debt, he'll point to all of his borrowed cash and say "look how rich I am."  He lives for the appearance of being wealthy.  This is one of the reasons for his 6 bankruptcies, rather than fix a problem, he throws more money at it.  

And in case you were wondering, the chaos is only going to get worse.  

Bill Pay Hell, and how they screw you over

I don't know about you, but I pay all of my bills through my bank using a service called 'bill pay.'  Such a deal!  I haven't bought a book of stamps in, oh, maybe three years.  Everything was wonderful, until this past week.  In the past, I just keyed in dollar amounts without really looking at when the bill was actually going to be paid.  I mean everything was getting paid on time so it didn't seem to be that important.  On 6/6/13, at 7:15 AM, I keyed in three bills and for the first time I looked at when they were going to be paid.  To my surprise I saw that two were going to be paid on 6/10 and one on 6/12.  I was quite surprised.  My brain grappled with this information and forced itself to wrap some form of logic around the two being paid on Monday, 6/10 - I mean, there was a weekend involved.  However, the being paid on Wednesday, 6/12 just didn't make any sense.  I immediately sent an email inquiring what might be causing the hold up.  The response was not what I was expecting.  You see my bills are actually being paid by Bill Pay (cap letters) not my bank (?) and the timeliness of payments depends upon the relationship Bill Pay has with the biller.

This can be inconvenient as hell

Well, the first thing that went through my mind was "hhmmm, that sucks."  So I shot off another email asking if I might possibly change that payment date.  The response from Customer Service at my bank was negative.  Changing the pay date is not permitted, payment date is set by the relationship Bill Pay has with the biller.  Even more distressing was the fact that 'a check was being cut on 6/12 and being mailed on 6/13.'  Bill Pay is mailing a check 8 days after I keyed the dollar amount to be paid.  That's 8 days, and you have to figure it's going to take the USPS at least 2 days to deliver the payment.  As far as I am concerned, this is pure horse shit.  I shot back another email asking how this was supposed to be convenient.  My third response was a rather generic "if you have questions you may want to call our 888 number."  I'm not calling.   Nothing is going to change.  Bill Pay is supposed to make things easier, not complicate them.  I went back and looked at all of the bills I've have paid through Bill Pay (hundreds and hundreds) and saw that those billers who accept electronic payment (UGI, PP&L) get paid right away, those who don't (like my dentist's office) have to wait.  Obviously Bill Pay wants me to write my own checks and only use them for electronic payments, which is pretty damn stupid.  You see the billers who accept electronic payment?  I can pay them myself, I don't need to use Bill Pay.  Like I said, this is horse shit.