Rainy Day Friday

Our flood warning expires today, though skies will remain overcast until sometime tomorrow.  We might have showers, and then we might not.  Tomorrow morning we've been told to expect snow flurries.  Highs will not get out of the upper 40s (F) until sometime on Sunday, then they'll be climbing up into the mid 60s (F) for a while.

Tomorrow, being that it's the first Saturday of April, will be our Kid's Workshop at the store.  Kid's Workshop is the reason my start time on Saturdays is 1300, or 1 PM, whichever you prefer.  While people think this workshop is good community outreach, we do it mostly because parents normally buy at least one thing while they're in the store.  They also have to deal with associates trying looking for leads and measures.  If Kid's Workshop wasn't a great resource for growing our sales, we wouldn't be doing it.  

The sun did come out yesterday afternoon and I got things done.  Grass seed was planted.  Twigs, sticks and branches were picked up.  I took the small Samsung TV off the wall in the training / computer room.  It still works, even though it's over 15 years old, so I'll see if I can find someone to take it off my hands.

I have a list of chores to do today.  I'm hoping the sun comes out again.  That would be nice.  Sadly, according to Accuweather, the day's supposed to be dreary.

I'm thinking this show looks very good. 

I will have to go to the post office today to buy stamps, a pack of 12 probably.  I rarely send things through the mail, but occasionally stamps come in handy, like in mailing my ballot for this years Primary.  There are a lot of Democrats running for all of the positions and they've all been sending me fliers.  The one thing that stands out among all of them is that they all claim to have stood up to Trump, or the MAGA cult.  One of them, Jenelle Stellson, is going after the insurrectionist Scott Perry in a very public way.  Whether it will help her or not, is something the voters will have to decide.  

We don't have open primaries in Pennsylvania.  You can only vote for your own party.  Democrats have money.  Republicans have Trump, so I'm wondering if they're candidates are mailing as many fliers.  

And, speaking of the Orange Anus, only 10 days to go until his first criminal trial begins.  Prepare yourselves, he's going to fly completely off the rails because he's going to have to sit in the courtroom through the proceedings.  This is Karma on a grand scale.

 

The Long Blinks

 Well, we're under a flood warning here in Central Pa that's in effect until Saturday...  and it's only Wednesday.  Today the temps will climb into the low 50s (F), which is only a few degrees warmer than the high 40s (F) we had yesterday.  The rain is not steady, arriving in waves that can be drizzles, or soakers.

I'm going to have to go out into it today to him my local Giant supermarket.  I need dryer sheets.  And paper towels.  And, according to Accuweather, we are under a yellow zone of heavy rain right now.  Hopefully that will pass by the time I leave the house.

Yesterday, I signed up for 3 months of Greek on Rosetta Stone.  I'd take some courses about 2 years ago through Pimsleur, they were fine, but not great.  The idea is not to become proficient, that would only happen if I moved to Greece, rather it's to become knowledgeable.  I mentioned this to a friend who told me that "most of the Greeks speak English well," and I'm certain that's true, but I'm of the belief that knowing a little instead of none at all is a sign of respect for the culture.  But then for the longest time I've had this deep interest in the country, so for me this seems to come natural.  Would I learn Swedish if I were going to Sweden?  Probably not.  

I made ribs in the air fryer for dinner last evening and they were delicious.  I was going to take a picture of them, but didn't think you wanted to see a pile of bones.  However, I will tell you that this is what they looked like before they were eaten.

Keith Edwards had a clip of the Orange Anus on his Instagram account this morning that I sort of watched, sort of being the two most important words here.  The sound is always turned down, especially since I can't stand the sound of Trump's whiny voice.  Rather than listen to the lies, I watched his eyes as he spoke, and, as is the case with most liars he blinked frequently.  Something else I noticed, when he blinked his eyes were shut for at least one - two seconds.  That's a long time.  I Googled what Long Blinks mean, and discovered that if the person is listening they may indicate understanding.  However, if the person is speaking they can mean something entirely different.  Long Blinks can be a sign of nervousness, or anxiety, or over thinking.  Since we know he's a pathological liar, we also know his deceit is spontaneous, he doesn't think about the lie, he just says it.  Trump doesn't care if he's getting fact-checked more and more, so I suspect there's something else bothering him.  Possibly his upcoming Hush Money / Porno Trial is upsetting him, the fact that he might be publicly humiliated and lose in a court of law.

The Expendable Group

Another Friday and another weekend approaches!  And not only is it Friday! it's May Day!  And we, up here in Central Pennsylvania had hellacious rains all day yesterday and through most of the night.  We are under a flood warning until Saturday.  But then, this is what happens in the spring... every spring.  You would think we'd know by now.
The grass I cut 2 days ago has grown fully back and is very green. 
I filled out my application for a mail in ballot yesterday.  One questions asks how long I've lived here.  Crap.  Years and years and years was not an answer they were looking for, they wanted something more precise.  I had to go into my archives to pull out the paperwork.  Son of a bitch.  It's been 26 years.  My actual closing date had been delayed early January to mid February because of snow.  I drove a red truck back then and after closing my Dad and loaded it up nightly to ease up the pressures of moving day.  I had asked a number of other friends (with trucks) to help move the big stuff.  The night before the final move we had another large snow storm (between 14 and 20 inches) and instead of having 5 trucks we ended up with 2... and made multiple trips.  Fun.
I saw where the government quietly ordered another 100,000 body bags. They're also expecting a serous uptick in the body count from Georgia...  loyal Republicans have no problem with human sacrifice.
In case you didn't know it, we have a new minority group in the United States: Angry, Fat, White Guys with Red Hats and Guns.  They showed up in Lansing, Michigan yesterday to protest.  I was trying to figure some sort of an acronym to describe them and all I could come up with was Dumb Shits... and that's not an acronym.  These guys want no rules what-so-ever.  They want a post-apocalyptic lawlessness in which they rule the land.  Demonstrations like this to far more to hurt their cause then help so... well, more power to them.  You see, in spite of what the Tucker Carlsons, and the Rush Limbaughs say, most Americans are comfortable with the Stay at Home orders.  This doesn't mean they're happy with the regulations, just that they understand the reasoning behind them.  The new minority group?  They do not.  Their actions make them an expendable group.  The Evolutionary Tree is filled with branches that died off because of either stupidity or genetic inferiority.
And finally.  Customers do come into the store with out any type of face-coverings.  They, too, are part of this expendable group.  Maybe they want Granny to die, I don't know, or maybe their missing the DNA code required for reasoning.  Anyway, Marc posted this and I'm reposting it here in the rare chance that one of them might read this blog.

There's bad rain, and bad chairs

Evidently it rained like hell all through the night.
The warnings continue.  Water is about 1.5" in the basement.  I haven't run the pump yet.  I have a stone foundation so what runs in, runs out naturally - no drain.  The map shows dry to the south for a couple hundred miles.  So hopefully, as far as my basement is concerned, things should start to dry out.  Forecast was for the pattern to move to the east starting around midnight last night.  They seem to have been a bit off in their timing.
So, how much rain did we get here?  I put a bag in this Tidy Cat liter container and use it when picking up dog poop.  As you can see, it's nearly full.  figure half of that is from torrential downpours splashing in.  I'd say, locally at least, a good estimate would be between 7 - 8 inches of rain.

And I just checked, the water in the basement is already receding, though it is raining... again.
Because I play video games, I bought a gaming chair.  Sharp and snazzy, lots of bells and whistles: speakers by the head, vibrations to almost think it's kinky and... it doesn't work.

  No sound.  The advertising claim that it was wireless is... well, practically fraudulent.  What you get are RCA (red and white) audio cables to connect to your gaming consoles.  However, newer consoles (those sold since 2015) don't have RCA jacks.  This means you need to use an alternative audio source, like your TV.  My jacks are on the back of my TV and my TV is mounted on the wall - no go in that department.  You can also connect a transmitter to your TV's headphone jack.  That doesn't work either, I mean, it lights up, but transmits nothing.  So, I tried contacting their customer service - what a joke.  I was on their "live chat" for almost an hour and 15 minutes and moved from #2 in the queue to #1.  Calling their customer service was courting failure right from the start.  You get a 'thank you' message for calling, get transferred to customer service where, after 8 rings, you get another message asking you to either leave a message, call back later, or send an email.  I called several times and ran through the same routine every time.  I did send them an email.  After 10 hours I got a response:  "thank you for your email.  We are forwarding your email to our customer service department."  In the end, I contacted Amazon.  They're replacing the chair.  Let's hope this one works.  The company that sold the chair is Ace Casual Furniture.  Buy from them at your own risk.  Oh, and they got a really detailed, bad review on Amazon.

Flood Warning

Well, here it is Tuesday, I'm off work, and we're under a Flood Warning!
I have about 1 inch of water in my basement.  Not that I'm concerned, I have pumps.  This has happened before.  My parents grew up in a small town called Pine Grove.  It made the news yesterday.  Hershey Park was closed yesterday.  We had flooding like this about 12 years ago and some of their animals drowned.  Now they take extreme precautions.  Right now, we have a steady rain, not heavy, the kind we like to think of as a 'soaking rain.'  That's fine.  My basement floods when we get torrential downpours.
Sticking with that water motif, I'm going to segue into Aquaman.  Cute, huh?  Sounds a bit fishy to me.  Anyway, the trailer for Aquaman was dropped at Comicon.  Looks good, very colorful.  Best line in trailer in decades:  "Redheads, you gotta love 'em."

I'll go see it, not because I'm a big Jason Mamoa fan.  I always thought he came across as a bit too scaly.
Finally, a bit about the economy.  Everybody is smiling.  The Idiot Jerk in the White House smugly gives a thumbs up "see how it's growing under my administration."  For those who don't know, the economy grows when people spend money.  The more they spend, the faster it grows.  True: unemployment is low.  False: people are making more money.  That's where the stink comes in.  Personal debt is growing by leaps and bounds.  Banks don't care.  Retailers don't care.  And sure as hell, the Idiot Jerk in the White House doesn't care.  They don't care if the average person is spending around 26% of his or her paycheck on debt alone.  Their philosophy is:  just give them more credit.  As long as people are spending money like it's going out of style the economy is going to grow.  This is why the Fed increases interest rates, to slow down that growth, to keep it from becoming overwhelming.  Corporate America likes to fluff over interest payments.  They want  Mark and Mary Moron to just get another credit card, or apply for a Home Equity loan in order to go on vacation.  Conservative economics say that if you spend more money, businesses will make more money and they will, as a result give out larger pay increases.  Well that never happens.  Pay increases are bad for the bottom line.  For them the P & L is Holy.  In fact, that's one of the things you hear about this economy.  Where are the pay increases?
So, is the economy great?  Sure, as long as you don't look at personal debt.  High interest payments are at the point of breaching the dikes of our personal savings.  Financially, the country is under a severe flood watch.  The flood warning is just around the corner.