The Clean up Continues

Another cool morning here in Central PA.  The outside temp was 59 (F) when I got up.  That's really good sleeping weather.  We have another day of abundant sunshine scheduled.  According to the long range forecast this weather should be sticking around for the next 2 weeks.  What isn't in the forecast is rain.  This means I'll be watering my garden.

If you're wondering how my raised bed garden survived that storm we had last Saturday, the answer is fine.  Except for one tomato plant that blew over, I's suspecting it's a goner. 

Much yard cleanup was done yesterday.  As I'd mentioned before, I did wear my heart rate monitor.  Total work time was 1 hour and 15 minutes.  The last half hour I was averaging 130 beats per minute, burned 415 calories.  Everything was going well until my chainsaw broke.  Damn.  I could probably have spent some time trying to fix it, but chose instead to order another with same day delivery from the orange retailer I work for.  Well, the new saw was never delivered.  I checked before I went to bed and saw that delivery had been scheduled to between 6 AM and 8 PM today, so I cancelled.  They had over 5 hours to get it delivered and failed.  What they want you to do is pay for an expedited delivery with the guarantee that your purchase will arrive in 3 hours or less.  

Anyway, my yard went from looking like this:

to this:

So, the Republicans pushed through a piece of legislature yesterday that would stop members of Congress from buying stock while they were in office, however, attached to that bill was Orangie's precious SAVE Act.  Eight Democrats voted for this bill.  I don't doubt that they did this because they wanted to be on the record as ending insider trading, and because they know there are not enough votes in the Senate to get it passed.  These 8 congressmen failed to realize that no one was going to commend them for voting against insider trading.  Nope.  Now they're being damned for helping the SAVE Act advance to the Senate.  They failed to understand that in the scope of things, Orangie's extreme voter regulations are a far more serious problem for America and Democracy than trading stocks on Wall Street.

Am I the only one who believes Jim Jordan should be arrested and tried for treason?

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.