Storm Damage

Outside, our temps is a comfortable 70 (F) and the humidity is gone.  Today is supposed to be nice and sunny, and, since today is Sunday, I have to work.  This is a pisser since I do have... yardwork* that needs to be tended to.  The rest of the week is supposed to be nice and sunny, with daily highs in the low to mid 80s (F) with no humidity.  This means that I'll have plenty of time to do my tending.

I postponed my workout for yesterday morning.  My knee was feeling a bit cranky.  I'm thinking of not renewing my Trainwell subscription when it expires at the end of August.  I'm looking at what expense I have and the fact that I am, as I get older, working less and less.  This means starting to rely on my social security, something I'm loathe to do at this point.  Even though it's easy to rationalize spending over $500 for an online trainer, I do realize that sometimes the rationalization is being forced.

And at work we discovered that there was an improvement in the recording of our sales goals.  There was a time when if you set up a measure for installing blinds and someone else built those blinds, you would both get credit.  That disappeared.  Well, it seems that corporate has decided to bring that back, so yesterday when I checked out my sales I had a nice little $3000 credit.  This is a good thing.

*The yardwork.  Last night we had some storms come through.  We got the warnings for lightning striking, but nothing on the high winds and torrential rain.  Well, we got all three: lightning strikes, high winds, and torrential rains.  We lost power for about 10 seconds.  Then this morning when I went to let Howie out, I saw that there was also storm damage.  Several large tree limbs were ripped from the maple trees on the hill behind my house.  The back corner of the fence was smushed; that'll be an insurance claim.  Of course, Howie was delighted.  I could almost hear his little heart singing, "look at all of those sticks, sticks, sticks!"  I got rid of my chainsaw years ago; it was broken, and though I do have my saw on a stick, it's no match for these limbs.  My brother has chainsaws, but he hasn't used them in years, and they run on gas.  I sent out a number of texts and, probably not surprising, none of my friends happen to own a chainsaw.  This means I'm going to have to buy one.  Shit.

On the political scene, it seems as though Lisa Murkowski is going to vote against all legislation that contains the Save Act.  Lisa's not running for re-election.  She has also been served up several plates of shit even though she's been a loyal Republican.  Obviously, Lisa has been reading the Tea Leaves.  If she wants to run again in 2029, she knows she's going to need to get on the side of the majority of Alaskans, who now hate the Orange Anus.  Without McConnell's vote, the Republicans need every vote to pass any legislation.  This is a good thing.

Prepare yourselves, the Iran war is about to go from bad to worse.

Failure: The Only Option

Wednesday. Our skies are slightly overcast.  There is a bit of humidity in the air.  I did laundry yesterday but used the dryer because rain was in the forecast, and rain it did.  Lotsa rain.  We had some wind on my little hilltop, however in the areas surrounding me trees were blown over.  Everybody got the rain.  Some places got inches.  There are tons of pictures of flooded streets and trees down.  Forecasters are predicting today to be rather calm; not as hot and not as humid.  Tomorrow the threat of thunderstorms returns.

My aquariums need a light cleaning, that will be taken care of this afternoon.  Cleaning.  That's actually what's in store for today.  There are many small chores which need to be taken care of, including at least two more loads of laundry.   

Jimmy Swaggart died yesterday.  He was a scumbag televangelist.  Over the years, my mom sent him hundreds of dollars.  At one point when she was in the hospital after a heart attack she asked me to take her Discover card and send him $30 and ask him to pray for her.  I did not.  He was a soulless Christian who preyed on the naive and gullible.  An indicator of how morally bereft he was came this morning when the Orange Anus praised him, telling the naive and gullible how good he was; Orangie and Swaggart were cut from the same cloth.

For those of you who are curious, here's a picture of my carrot.

Yesterday was a big day in Washington.  Vance, the vice president, was the tie breaking vote in Orangie's big transfer of wealth.  Idiot cultists are dancing around singing "yes, yes, let's make the 1% richer!"  That minority group has no idea what they are going to be getting if the House of Representatives passes this piece of shit legislation.  76% of Americans are against this bill, of course Republicans only care about their wealthy benefactors.

There were a number of clips with Lisa Murkowski being confronted by a reporter asking about her vote.  She actually attempted to stare him down.  When that failed, she gave some lame excuse of how, knowing that the legislation was truly terrible, she attempted to carve out a tiny safety net for Alaskans.  If the bill was that bad, she should have voted against it, but then that would have been going against party lines.

What Murkowski and so many other Republicans fail to understand is that Orangie's approval rating has dropped to 32%.  He's entering into W. Bush's territory.  The country is growing angrier and angrier and Republicans don't care and right now it looks like failure is their only option.

The Big Terrible Bill

 Here in Central PA we had lots of warning of impending thunderstorms yesterday and there were large swaths of heavy rains surrounding us, but all we got were simple rains.  They did little to drain away the heavy humidity, though this morning it's not nearly as thick.

Yesterday morning I was out in the backyard with Howie when I heard a clunk.  The two tops screws holding my garden hose reel popped free, so only the two bottom screws were holding it to the wall.  I remember that when I installed it I'd wondered how long it would hang there.  The problem is that I have aluminum siding and there is a gap between the siding and the actual frame wall of the house, and that wall is only about a half inch thick.  So, I pulled it free and filled the holes with silicone.  The reel still works, it's just not waist high.

Retail was slow yesterday.  I did set up appointments for a fencing consultation, as well as a carpet measure.  I did not set up a follow up appointment for the carpet measure.  

And right now Republican senators are reading aloud Orangie's big, shitty bill.

Will it pass?  Probably, but certain things will be cut out, such as Mike Lee's amendment to sell public lands.  However, they're still going to cut $930 trillion from Medicaid.  Conservatives hate Medicaid.  They damn it as Socialism.  They think the poor should be more fiscally responsible, should be able to pay for their health expenses without assistance from the government.  At the same time they don't want to raise the minimum wage because, in their view at least, that would hurt corporations and corporations provide a lot of campaign donations.  Most Republican Senators and Congressmen are wealthy and they're more interested in giving themselves a tax break than anything else.  What the Cultists don't understand is that their elected officials simply don't care about them.

And if anyone thought Murkowski or Collins was actually going to demonstrate concern don't be disappointed that they're voting party line.  After all of this time you should have realized those are the parts that have been assigned to them to play.  They are a big part of the problem.  

A cup of cold water

Once again your Friday is my Hump Day.  Of course, I only have a 5 hour shift so things aren't that bad.

We did have a lot of rain last evening... and thunder... and lightening, but very little wind.  During the height of the storm I came upstairs to find both dogs sleeping on the bed.  Some dogs hate storms, mine sleep through them.  Unless they're banging away right over head, I'm pretty much the same way.

Yesterday afternoon I rode 14.5 miles down the Milan to San Remo route.  The entire route is over 58 miles.  I'd like to complete the entire ride... someday.

In case you didn't see, Billy Barr tried to throw himself on his sword yesterday and take responsibility of the gassing of the peaceful protesters.  This had more to do, I suspect, with 90 year old Cracker Jack Christian Pat Robertson releasing a statement that 'the walk and and Idiot Jerk's use of the Bible' was not Christian.  That Evangelical base?  They're fracturing, splitting  apart, cracks and fissures are appearing all over the place.  Son of a bitch!

Senator Lisa Murkowski threw a cup of cold water on the Idiot Jerk.  She agrees with Mattis and might not vote for the Idiot Jerk this fall.  He spit out his usual response.  What she needs to right now is tell him to stick it up his ass.  The more people who tell him that, the more likely we are to see his tiny little, orange head explode before the November election.

And, if that wasn't bad enough news for the Idiot Jerk, it's gets worser!  Senator Chuck Grassley (R) from Iowa has put on hold the nominations of all those Conservatives the Idiot Jerk wants installed.  That's right.  He wants investigations into the firings of those 2 Inspector Generals.  You know?  The ones who are there to keep tabs on the Idiot Jerk, the ones who are supposed to keep his dirty, little schemes of corruption from reaching fruition.  Oh... dear me.  I think this is much more a demonstration of Chuck's self-preservation skills than anything else.  He knows... they're going to lose the White House in November... and probably the Senate.  And then there are going to be investigations.

When I was talking to Lily about this she gave me one of her 'oh shit' looks.

And finally, because there is so much Chaos swirling around the Idiot Jerk, Silly Lindsey Graham has put on hold some sort of wack job legislation meant to further Obamagate...  which is really nothing more than a brain fart by the Idiot Jerk in an attempt to turn attention away from his total incompetence.