Category Politics

So yesterday I expected blow back from my decision to run a couple miles at lunch despite the sore IT band pain I have been dealing with for several months.  Last night I could feel the soreness settling in.  Last night I made a couple movements that resonated soreness through my right knee.  A few times during the night I woke up when I again had the right leg in a position that was painful. This morning things hurt and I have a small limp.  However if I am being an optimist (which I am not), the limp is less severe than the last time I tried to run.  Getting old isn’t for sissies.

Last night I ripped out my old Sirius antenna and receiver and installed the new unit that I really didn’t need.  The simple air vent install kit was much cleaner and less obtrusive than the rig I had in there before.  The cable routing might need some further adjustment but overall I like the end result.

Night time is when the Philips Hue lights really shine.  We like setting the under counter strip lights to a slow color rotation that casts a cool glow.  I moved one of the color bulbs to a small lamp that we used to never use on top of the cabinet by the slider doors.  It’s position is good to light up the corner of the room in whatever shade of color feels good at the time.  Cindy is a big fan of purple.

I am sure most have heard about Donald Trump’s latest stunt where he gave out Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number after calling him an idiot several times (he is going to need a few fresh insults eventually).  Lindsey was another person that criticized Trump’s choice of word’s regarding John McCain and his war service which included several years in an enemy POW camp.  Of course Donald reacted as he normally does when he is criticized, in a juvenile manner with obligatory name calling followed by the disclosure of Lindsey’s phone number.

I found it quite funny how Lindsey reacted, by creating a YouTube video showing the destruction of his phone in various creative ways.  It was a witty way to not directly sling mud while poking fun at the original slinger.

My dad has been on the phone with me a couple times in the last few days looking for some technical assistance.  He needed to figure out how he can broadcast a Bernie Sanders speech to his TV from his laptop.  He is formally hosting an event to help Bernie’s campaign. Marienville, PA is a political hot bed after all, not.  🙂  On the democratic side of 2016 presidential campaign there has been a lot of Hilary Clinton focus.  Hilary is a very polarizing candidate that unfortunately reinforces the political line in the sand since she is pretty much hated by many republicans.  However there are other democratic candidates out there and one of them gaining some momentum is Bernie Sanders.

Many of Bernie’s ideas are focused on the financial state of America and the income inequality that now rivals what happened in the 1920’s before the Great Depression.  A lot of Bernie’s positions are aligned with Robert Reich, someone who I have followed for many years.  In a nutshell he is a greater good type of guy.  Many tea party zealots would call him a socialist.

I like Bernie’s passion for what he believes in.  He is absolutely fearless in his assaults on America’s billionaire class that has seized control of the country’s direction with an iron tight grip.  Unfortunately in reality that will more than likely be his downfall.  In 2015 it is basically impossible for a presidential candidate to be successful without being beholden to corporate behemoths.  Gaining votes is sadly more about mental manipulation funded by lakes of cash top campaigns generate today.

So although I am happy my dad feels strongly enough about Bernie to host a campaign event for him, the realist in me thinks that nobody can knock Hilary off her throne since she has the biggest piggy bank.  If somehow Bernie managed to secure the democratic candidacy it would mean that finally a segment of America is fed up enough to put up a candidate that will truly take off the gloves instead of shadow boxing.

I have to say that I am proud that my dad, despite in demographics/income being squarely in what is usually a me first, fck everyone else crowd, still is able to see the big picture through the fog of disinformation.

So while I was shopping at Costco after work on Friday I got a text from Cindy.  She said the woman she talked to from Dunkin Donuts that was interested in adopting Jaina wanted to come over to pick her up.  I told her it was fine.  I got home shortly after the woman arrived with her mom and two kids.   After I unloaded the groceries I went out back to join them.  Cindy was in the middle of giving them the chicken coop tour.

It then came time to collect Jaina.  I grabbed my large cat carrier to let Anna borrow for chicken transport.  At 10 pounds, Jaina is bigger than many cats.  Cindy and I were able to corral the bird and get her into the carrier. (even though Jaina is probably a rooster he is still a she to me)

It didn’t take me very long to feel sad.  We had Jaina on the ground in the carrier while we were talking a bit.  She/he started making the noises she always does when she is looking for the other four chicks she grew up with.  Almost instantly the four other “babies” came over to the carrier and actually started pecking at the carrier in almost a “hey let our friend out of there” way.  It sort of broke my heart to split them up.

I carried the carrier out front to their car and placed Jaina in the front seat.  Anna said she will take good care of the chicken.  Although at first she is going to be keeping Jaina in a modified doghouse, they have plans to build a real coop and get more chickens.  I couldn’t help but think about Jaina repeatedly over the weekend, imagining how upset she must be without her familiar flock close by.

So on Friday during the day Cindy had busted major ass around the house, getting done pretty much all of the outside chores that clutter the first part of my weekend.  Instead of using this freed up block of time for rest or relaxation I instead decided to just plug another project in there, cleaning the large shed. The shed has gotten rather messy and cluttered.  I probably have not given it a total cleaning/reorganization since I was actively married.  It was time.

The formula for the project was pretty simple.  Pull almost everything out and separate it into stuff you want to throw out, give away, and keep.  Cindy joked that I was a hoarder.  I would say a non-waster is more accurate.  A lot of stuff that was in there were left over materials from the endless home projects over the years.  Scraps of wood, pieces of gutter, leftover pots, and pvc pipe made up a large portion of what I pulled out.  The giveaway items got thrown in the back of the Tacoma and deposited roadside where almost all of it was picked up by neighborhood pack rats during the rest of the weekend.

Speaking of rats, we discovered an active field mouse nest in the shed.  It was carefully created behind the plywood storm shutters and came complete with a mouse.  When I leaned the board back he was down there looking up at me.  I lifted the one board to try to encourage him to take off.   When I heard a crying noise at my feet I realized I inadvertently pinned him under one of the boards.  I lifted it up and he scampered towards the back of the shed.  I then saw him running along the framing up near the roof of the shed.  I was able to scare him out of the shed and over to the pond area.  I have little doubt he will take up residence inside the shed again at some point.

So after most everything was pulled out Cindy worked on sweeping out all of the sand and dirt while I worked further on separating and sorting.  As expected the process had a number of “wow I didnt realize I had this” moments as well as little memory triggers the various items presented when tied to the projects they were from.  One cool item was a small can that I got from either my grandfather or great uncle.  It turns out it was an 85 year old film canister from the 30’s.  It was holding left over fasteners.

Putting the “keep” items back in the shed took much less time than the pull out phase since we were returning significantly less stuff to the 12 x 20 shed.  The AFTER picture of the shed shows the dramatic reduction of items in there.  It’s odd how simply cleaning or organizing a space can dramatically change the feel when you walk in there.  All of a sudden I felt good walking into the shed instead of annoyed.

Shed cleaning is a project that I would normally reserve for the cooler and more pleasant winter months.  After sweating through it Saturday I plan to return it to as a winter solstice only activity.

On Saturday night Cindy and headed out to go see Ant Man, a movie I was excited to see, a feeling Cindy did not really share.  Despite it being opening weekend we got to enjoy a sparsely populated theater with no more than 30 people sharing the large space with us.

I knew of the Ant Man hero but I can’t say I ever read any of the comics.  However at this point, Marvel has my blind trust when it comes to movie making.  I knew nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy and came out of it thinking it was one of the best movies all saw all year.    I can’t tell you the last Marvel film I saw that I did not enjoy.  I’m happy to say the Ant Man has continued that streak, taking a small (pun intended) facet of the Marvel universe and turning it into a thoroughly enjoyable film.  I also liked how they tied it into the current Marvel films with tie ins to the Avengers and Shield.  Of course as is the case with most Marvel films be sure to sit through the end credits.  It was a solid A film and I am happy to say Cindy wound up enjoying the movie as well.  She was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday morning Cindy and I got on our bikes for a Dunkin Donuts ride.  We didn’t get on the road until close to 9:30 meaning we were going to be well into the heat of the day.   I let Cindy lead the entire 10 miles west.  I told her to go whatever speed was comfortable.  I didn’t have my GPS with but my internal effort meter indicated that she was pushing the pace.  She told me her Cats Eye showed we were 20 mph + for a good 5-6 miles straight.

On the way back I pulled the entire way into the mild headwind.  I stayed on my aero bars and kept my pedal cadence speed up.  I managed to average in the 17’s for the return trip which wasn’t bad.   As soon as we got home I jumped in the pool for a rapid cool down of my highly elevated body temperature.

Before too long I was in the backyard filming another exercise session.  I had decided I wanted to do some backyard deadlifting, something I had not done since 2014.  Since joining Planet Fitness I have not been doing any deadlifting, they just dont have the equipment or space to really accommodate it.  For whatever reason yesterday I wanted to see what I was still able to pull.

I kept my amount of reps at higher weights low as my goal was to see just what I could still pull off the ground with no deadlift training at all.  I was surprised I was able to use a normal pronated grip up to 345 pounds although part of the reason was I was only single repping at that point.  I only went mixed grip for my final pull at 370 pounds which I barely managed.  Getting twice my current bodyweight off the ground was good enough for me with my lack of training.  I filmed the session, something I haven’t been doing much of lately.

I followed up with my second video of the day, this time utilizing my GoPro and Amazon Echo in another head shaving video.  It’s an odd thing how after automotive repair videos, head shaving occupies the second most viewed segment of my YouTube channel.  There is a weird cult head shaving enthusiast underground out there.  Shaving my head in the kitchen without a mirror in front of me full time was annoying.

So over the weekend Donald Trump’s big mouth got him in trouble again as he said that John McCain wasn’t a real war hero and how he prefers war heroes that do not get captured.  It was a pretty outrageous and ridiculous comment for a presidential candidate to make.  However if you have paid any attention to Trump over the years you know he has a long history of saying pretty stupid things.  Despite his enormous wealth, he reacts like a teenager when somebody disagrees with something he does/said.  In this case Trump was angry that McCain didn’t like Donald’s, Mexicans are rapists, verbal brilliance a few weeks back.

Few fellow republican candidates said much about Donald’s anti-mexican rant as they did not want to draw the immature insults that would surely be reflected back at them as a result.  However the ant-McCain comments has drawn bipartisan criticism.  In true Trump behavior, he refused to apologize for the remarks and instead tried to steer the heat back at McCain.  I wonder how many of those Trump bandwagon jumpers that grabbed on to his anti-immigrant talk have jumped back off that wagon and are now walking down the sidewalk with their hands in their pockets and whistling, trying to act like their support of his candidacy never actually happened.  I never thought for a second that Trump had a snowballs’s chance in hell of being nominated but I didn’t think his mouth would derail him quite so quickly.

In an attempt to address what feels like a perpetual sleep shortage I have moved my weekday alarm clock from 5:30AM to 6:00.  The 5:30 alarm time is something that dates back 10 years or more and was established when I was letting out the dogs, making my breakfast, packing my lunch and cleaning up every morning.  Since Cindy started living with me three of those four things usually are taken care of by her yet I continued with the 5:30 alarm.  The extra time was basically just used surfing my Facebook feed.

I think applying that extra 30 minutes to sleep will be a far more beneficial utilization of my time in the long run.

Most of the complications we are currently dealing with in chicken world revolve around Jaina.  Jaina eating constantly, Jaina making more manure than a horse, Jaina getting disgustingly dirty since she can’t perch, Jaina wandering the coop at night. Jaina, Jaina Jaina….   Well now we have a new Jaina issue, she may be a rooster.

This morning Cindy caught Jaina crowing on tape in a very rooster-esque fashion.  If you look at “her” she already has a big comb and large waddle, other indicators of roosterhood.  If she is a rooster it is rather annoying since Rural King had her bin listed as pullets (females) only.

The crowing comes the day after Cindy was surfing the internet reading horror story after horror story of people trying to raise cornish X birds into adulthood.  Some of them can literally get to be the size of turkeys, crossing the 20 pound mark.  At that size Jaina would not even fit through the chicken door to the coop.  Obviously something needs to be done.

With our hopeful upcoming road trip we need to have our chicken situation settled before we leave.  I think the only way we will be able to do that is to subtract Jaina (Cindy now calls her Bruce) from the equation.  The likelihood we can rehome her to a place that won’t use her for meat is next to zero.  Cornish X were engineered as meat birds much like corn that is engineered to resist weed killer.  She is sort of a freak of nature.

I told Cindy she can start looking at options for Jaina.  I really don’t think we have much choice if we are looking down the road at what he/she will grow into.

Tonight should be the last sleep over night for the dogs.  The week has gone by pretty quick.  They slide right into life at the house very easily.  Seeing both of them out in the yard content brings smiles to the faces of Cindy and I every time.

I need to carve out more sleep time during the week.  Recently I have been not closing my eyes until around 11.  With a 5:30 AM normal alarm time I wake up most days feeling tired.  I think one additional hour would hit the sweet spot of my sleep needs.

I have to admit I find it very entertaining watching what is going on the republican presidential race.  Donald Trump who has entertained me on tv has suddenly become very popular with white, middle aged and older Americans because he basically said Mexican illegal immigrants suck.  It almost seems like he is the 2016 version of Sarah Palin.

Then there is the endless stream of republican candidates that have declared themselves as potential presidential material.  I could not come close to naming everyone that has declared but I know it’s well into the double digits.  It seems counter productive to me.  It seems like on the democratic side it is already pretty much a one person race which can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on your viewpoint of Hilary Clinton.

Personally I am at the point that no matter which candidate wins in the end from either party I really don’t care all that much.  I am convinced that no matter who is sitting in the White House, the true masters of this country are outside the boundaries of national elections.  They are the ultra-rich corporations and their minion lobbyists that dictate the direction the country is going, regardless of the current political climate.

Yesterday I headed back to the local Wells Fargo branch to try to get another wrinkle in my mom’s estate ironed out.  In the last week I received two refund checks in my mom’s name.  One was for her auto insurance policy and the other was from her Medicare supplement, neither check was for a large amount of money.  My hope was since my mom’s bank accounts, which are now closed, were housed at Wells Fargo, that they could possibly still cash the checks for me.  Well I was there for quite a long time but the short answer is no, they could not help me.

I then decided to appeal to the companies that issued the checks instead.  I contacted each of them and asked if the checks could be reissued in my and my siblings name with an OR in between the names so any of us could cash them.  Surprisingly both companies agreed to do so if I jump through some additional hoops.  Of course until I have the checks in hand I am holding my breath.

There are also other large gaps in the settlement of my mom’s estate still open.  The stock certificates she owned have been turned over to Todd who in turn has a personal friend in Wells Fargo trying to get them converted into our ownership so they can be liquidated.  Mom’s IRA account has to be handled uniquely as well.  My naive thinking going in was it could be liquidated in a manner similar to her bank accounts.  Instead the IRA can only be distributed by establishing beneficiary IRA’s for each of us.  Only after these accounts are created can the funds be split among them.  After that it is up to us if we want to leave the money in there or pull it but if we pull it, it gets taxed as regular income.  At this point I am hoping everything is settled by the end of the year but who knows…

So last night Cindy and I watched a lot of election coverage, splitting the time between CNN, Fox News and NBC.  It was interesting seeing the contrast in coverage style between the three networks.  Interesting would not be the adjective I would use to describe the end result of the elections, both in Florida and nationally.   For that I would use words like depressing or disappointing, but certainly not surprising.

Rick Scott secured a second slimy term as governor with a one point victory over Charlie Crist.  To add insult to injury, the amendment to legalize widespread medical marijuana had a majority of voters support it but not the 60% required to make it stick.  On a national level, the trend continued with Republicans gaining a majority in the senate to ensure that outside of executive orders by the president, nothing meaningful is going to happen in Washington for the next two years.  Obviously I am not happy with any of these outcomes but lets analyze them anyway.

In Florida I think the two biggest forces behind the governor vote outcome were money and apathy.  Rick Scott dumped something like $20 million of his personal fortune (after vowing to not use personal funds in this election) into negative advertising during the last two weeks of the campaign.  He flooded every possible media outlet with his awkward, shining cranium slinging two fisted mud non-stop.    Hell my blog had a Rick Scott Google ad running on it yesterday for cripes sake.

Voter apathy on the democratic side was the other culprit in this sad outcome.  Voter turn out in some major democratic areas was reported to be in the 40% range.  Or from a wider angle, Florida’s population is around 19 million people, only 6 million of them cared enough to vote.   Surely better turn out would have resulted in a different outcome.

The medical marijuana defeat is another testament to the power of money to mold the minds of the general public like play doh.  At one point, support of medical marijuana in the past 6 months was polling in the 80%+ area.  Basically everyone thought it made sense.  All it took was 10’s of millions of dollars of carefully targeted and crafted advertising by those that have little moral/social concerns with MM but instead had large financial stakes in defeating it, to derail the movement.

In the big picture, my life does not change significantly no matter who is sitting in the governors office.  For “me firsters”, that is all the further their concern typically extends.  However I have this flaw that causes me to care about the bigger picture, caring about stuff like the environment, equal rights, wealth distribution, and caring for those less fortunate than I am.  I also admire honesty, likability, and composure in a political candidate. Anyone that watched any of the Crist/Scott debates should have seen there was a glaring bald black hole on one side of the stage in those regards.

I am very disappointed in the election results and would categorize it in the same realm as how I felt in 2004, when the worst president in my lifetime somehow managed to get reelected.  However perhaps that experience is what has somewhat dulled my senses with this outcome.  Florida residents have the governor they deserve.

I had a very busy evening.  Even though it wasn’t raining there was still a lot of standing water in the yard.  Well I needed to mow anyway.  Mowing on  waterlogged, muddy grass requires a different mowing technique.  When entering an area that still was very wet I had to make sure I was hitting the spot in a straight line and with adequate momentum.  Failure to do either of these things could easily result in the tractor getting stuck in the bog.  You do more sliding  than turning in these sort of conditions.  By the time I was done I was able to knock down the majority of the grass but many spots in the yard looked like a 4 wheeler was let loose to wreak havoc.  Normally I would have just let the grass alone since it was still so wet but since my dad is visiting this weekend I wanted to get it done.

While I was mowing I had the chickens roaming around, they absolutely loved following behind me, harvesting the freshly mowed grass for bugs.  When we first got the chickens they were terrified of the mower and wanted nothing to do with it.  Now in the same manner they have warmed up to Cindy and I, the tractor is now not so scary.  Gaining their trust has been a fun experience.  Seeing how even chickens have personality, curiosity and playfulness makes me so happy that I no longer support the industry responsible for subjecting these animals to such cruelty.

While we were eating dinner we stumbled across the second Florida governor debate.  My dislike of the current Florida governor Rick Scott is well documented. His opponent, Charlie Crist, actually was the governor of Florida as a moderate republican from 2007-2011.  He has since changed his party affiliation to democrat, reenforcing my already favorable opinion of him.

Unfortunately I tuned in after #fangate, which was a great way to illustrate just how much of an a-hole Rick Scott is.  When Charlie Crist does public speaking he prefers to have a small portable fan with him to help keep cool.  In the debate guidelines Charlie even had use of the fan explicitly included.  Well shortly before the debate was about to begin Rick Scott had a shit fit, saying that use of the portable fan was in violation of the “no electronics” provision.  This provision is to prevent candidates from looking at notes/messages on a portable device during a debate as a crutch.  Anyone with half a brain would realize that a fan does not give a candidate an advantage with speaking points.

Well Rick proceeded to act like a child, threatening to not participate in the debate unless the fan was removed.  The debate was actually delayed for 7-8 minutes until someone thankfully talked sense into Scott, realizing that he was looking bad with his temper tantrum over something so insignificant.  The fan stayed despite Scott’s whining.

When the actual question and answers started flowing the difference between the two candidates was staggering.   Scott, in almost a Sarah Palin-like manner had a few go to zingers he relied heavily on, often inappropriately wedged in because he had nothing else to say. I was amazed just how awkward, nervous, and unpolished Scott was on stage.  He spoke too fast and often in broken/incomplete sentences.  His attacks on Crist were clumsy and delivered in such a way that carried no weight.  The biggest tool he had in the box was that Crist was governor when the entire country was in free fall.  Scott tried to make the point that somehow Crist was largely responsible for how the nationwide fiscal crisis affected Florida which is utterly ridiculous.

When Scott was asked questions that were intended to get him to clearly offer an opinion he more often than not talked awkward circles around it.  I found it especially entertaining when he was asked about his opinion on gay marriage and he gave a non-answer, refusing to endorse or condone it.  The debate panelist pressed him, pointing out he did not actually answer the question.  Scott spit out the same non-answer.  It was ridiculous.

In contrast Charlie handled the questions and barbs from Scott intelligently and with little difficulty.  He had no issues giving Scott some strong counter punches, including reaffirming the biggest and incredulous skeleton in Rick’s closet, his management of the company that was whacked with the biggest fine in US history for Medicare fraud and how Tricky Rick pleaded the 5th something like 75 times during the proceedings.  The fact that Scott was able to get elected the first time with this in his background is still astonishing to me but a testament to the ability of lots of money to sway the opinions of the lightly informed masses.

Pretty much ever single issue that was presented to the candidates I found myself aligned with Crist’s position and opposed to Scott.  Of course the appearance and likability between the two candidates is not even close.  Charlie carries himself so much better and is the more likeable candidate by a huge margin.

I was laughing out loud at Scott’s closing remarks which were delivered in the same clumsy manner as the rest of the debate.  He closed with saying something in haitian and spanish in a manner a 6 year old Russian kid would read the Gettysburg address.  It was simply awful and transparent.

Seeing the debate deepened my inner disgust that the governor race is supposedly neck and neck.  Contrasting the two candidates side by side makes it seem impossible to me that Scott is within 10 points of Charlie.  If Scott somehow manages to buy himself into a second term utilizing the financial juggernaut at his command to once again brainwash the sheep it will indeed be a very sad day in the Sunshine State.

After watching the debate I still had more to do.  I needed to get presents wrapped for Cindy’s birthday which is Friday.  After that Cindy and I worked on splitting up 800 race timing bibs into 32 envelopes for the cross country meet I am timing on Saturday.  Thank goodness Cindy helped me.

Last night we finished up season one of The Strain.  Although the show isn’t on the same level as Walking Dead or Breaking Bad I still enjoyed it and look forward to season two.

I talked to my dad and step mom last night.  They left yesterday from western PA on their trek down to Florida.  They are using a less aggressive driving plan, not arriving until Friday.  They made it into North Carolina on day one.  So far the trip seems to be going well.

Today is my sister Torrin’s birthday.  I know it’s a tough day for her since it will be her first one since my mom passed away.  Torrin spoke to mom more often than anyone else and I know her death has been very, very hard for her.  When she came down to Florida we leaned on each other to get through the emotional wringer.  It made me feel closer to Torrin. I hope I can continue to receive and offer her as much support as she needs from now on.

So as I mentioned yesterday, over the weekend I was screwing around with Cindy’s Keurig which was not drawing any water out of the reservoir.  I got it to pull water but once it did it started leaking water underneath the brewer during each brew cycle.  I had read that if you call Keurig and report a problem like this out of warranty they will give you a price break on getting a new machine, so that is what I did.

I called them up and described the issue.  I did not have exact purchase date info so I told them it was received as a gift in December 2012.  Well evidently when you state the item was a gift they are much more lax with requiring proof of purchase.  The nice woman on the phone said the machine just was inside the 15 month warranty period (I thought it was only a year), she would send me a brand new replacement, for free, wow.

I had no expectations of getting a new machine when I picked up the phone.  It was yet another of my personal countless examples of , “if you don’t ask, you never will know”.  Of course Cindy was quite happy to hear the outcome of the call as well since she was just about ready to pull the trigger on buying a new Keurig.

One of my FB buddies posted a video clip of two guys discussing how Ronald Reagan (whom I voted for) was the grandfather of the “us versus them” mentality where “us” were white Americans and them were the minorities that were using our tax dollars to collect government entitlements undeservedly.  This is the backbone of the anti-government movement which is still very prevalent today, which is charged with two primary tenants, LOWER TAXES and LESS SPENDING (on entitlements).

The point of this video discussion was pointing out that this is actually a brilliant strategy devised by those in the upper echelons of society.  By getting the masses to focus on “us vs them” it has allowed tremendous tax cuts to come online the last 35 years that started with of course, Ronald Reagan.

It is not a coincidence that the income inequality chart started a dramatic upward charge at the same point in history.  Yes everyone likes a tax cut but the reality is the trend that was started by Reagan 30+ ytears ago has been the driving force behind the historic income concentration at the top of our economic scale.

Yes out of control government spending and reckless taxation are indeed problems that always need to be addressed. However the fact that a MASSIVE portion of the population is blind to the danger of the country’s wealth being ultra-concentrated at the top is amazing.  Repeatedly history has shown us what happens when this occurs yet through careful manipulation, the wool is once again being pulled over our eyes.

One of my politically conservative FB friends grabbed the video link and reposted it, describing it as one of the most ridiculous things he had seen.  He seemed to think that the point of the video was that all corporations are evil and the video was little more than an attempt to further that image. He continued by explaining that corporations provide the jobs and pay the taxes that help government function.

Instead of getting into a round and round discussion about it I would simply ask what logical conclusion should be drawn when historic corporate profit margins and stock market records are co-existing at the same time as an overall consensus of a poor economy and lackluster job market?  Something stinks.

Last night I “made dinner” for Cindy and myself, juice.  When I was flying solo I had a period of time where I was juicing pretty regularly and days I didn’t juice a lot of my meals were wraps with just veggies/nuts in them.  It’s probably not a coincidence that when I was doing that I weighed 10 pounds less.

I got away from juicing primarily because I found it to be above the hassle quotient I was willing to tolerate with food prep.  Between prepping/cleaning the fruits/veggies to juice and the pretty messy clean up afterwards I just tired of it. Not only was cleaning the juicer a PIA, cleaning up the food shrapnel that sprays out during the juicing process was annoying as well.

Well last week I got the inspiration to pick up the juicing ball, at least on a limited basis.  I am thinking maybe I could do it one or two times a week as a dinner replacement.  Cindy, who is always game for pretty much anything healthy lifestyle related was excited to juice.  Well she was less excited after taking the first sip.

The juice was a mixture of celery, carrots, tomatoes, and beets.  By the time I was finished the juice container was filled to the very brim.  I would best describe the juice as tasting very “earthy” as in like you were drinking dirt.

I attributed the taste to perhaps me not cleaning the beets as thoroughly as I should have although I don’t think I did anything differently than I did in the past.   The only thing  I might have done differently in the past was add an orange or apple to it as well.

Cindy tried to amend the dirt juice by mixing in some orange juice from the bottle.  She said it didn’t help much.  I choked mine down as is.  Cindy got hers down as well.  So our dinner last night consisted of a salad and the cup of dirt juice.  Surprisingly I didn’t feel ravenous later.  Despite the bad taste, the juice was a super concentrated shot of everything great fresh vegetables gives you .

I watched some of the Olympics last night, I originally thought the opening ceremonies were last night.  Instead it was just some of the events like snowboarding and skating.  Still I watched a hour or so of it.

I mixed it in with doing so server work at the office from home.  I have been trying to get a few things implemented this week and have only been partially successful in doing so which is frustrating.  I followed up with getting to work an hour early this morning to continue tweaking.

This weekend has a lot of potential things to keep me busy.  I may try to start it off with putting in 3-5 miles at the local track to see how my tricky right knee feels.  After that the chores will begin in earnest.  I would like to get the auxiliary trans cooler I bought for the Tacoma installed and perhaps a partial trans fluid swap while I am at it.  I have the supplies to change the oil on Cindy’s Miata as well so that should get knocked out too.   The front discs on the Tacoma are going to need to be replaced in the near future as well.

So yesterday I was pointed to various stories that were tied into a statement made by Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary.   The full statement was this:

Over the longer run, CBO finds that because of this law, individuals will be empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods, like retiring on time rather than working into their elderly years or choosing to spend more time with their families. At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in health care, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

However conservatives took a few key words to represent the statement in a manner that is obviously 180 degrees different than how it was intended.  This tactic is used again and again by the media to gain influence with the massive portion of the population that are too ignorant, lazy , or indifferent to actually form their own opinions.

Carney was saying that the availability of the ACA act allows individuals to not be stuck in a job that is inadequate in other ways because it was the only way they could get health insurance for themselves and/or their family. They can instead pursue other work or even start a business without fear of not having a way to get affordable health care insurance.  Conservatives and their media counterparts instead ingested this positive idea and crapped out that instead it means it encourages people to quit their jobs, stay at home and have others pay for their healthcare.

Anyone with the ability to construct a sentence of more than 5 words should be able to see just how ridiculous it is to interpret what Carney really said as meaning “Americans should stop working to “pursue their dreams” (stay at home).  It’s absolutely moronic yet sadly there are millions of Americans that will eat every morsel of this bullshit and come back asking for seconds.

America is so fcked up.  Thank you Koch brothers for your diligent and tireless work to ensure this is more and more the status quo every single day.  Distract the masses by pitting them against each other while those at the top chuckle at all of us from their golden balconies.

Last night was the running club board meeting.  The meeting seemed to suffer from an overabundance of verbosity.  I got a lot of doodle time in.

After the meeting we headed over to South Street and had the required amounts of fun and good times.  Tuesday was karaoke night.  There were some REALLY poor singers there however the most interesting thing was when after 10 pm two “adult” songs were sung.  One was performed by a young woman, it was a dirty version of the Little Mermaid song, which was mildly disturbing.  The second song was equally dirty if not slightly more so.  The few beers I had made me laugh out loud at both of them, despite my confusion about why I was hearing it.

Congrats to Trey Radel, a congressman based out of SW Florida.  He has the dubious honor of being the first US Congressman to be arrested on drug charges since 1982.  Apparently in addition to being a self admitted alcoholic, he also has a liking for cocaine.  He got arrested trying to buy some from an undercover agent at the end of October.

Nowadays it seems much more fashionable for congress members to be rocked by sex scandals.  Getting shamed with a drug bust is very old school.  Way to represent!

I actually got a Dufisthenics app published on Google Play yesterday.  The “real” app I am trying to get published via conduit.com is nowhere to be seen at this point.  I started the submission process for it last week.  Yet, by submitting my Dufisthenics app manually on Google Play I was able to get it out there in less than a day.  Manually trying to publish an app on Apple’s developer platform unfortunately is not so simple.

I had asked Jeremy to install my Dufisthenics app since he has an Android phone.  However, in typical Jeremy fashion he decided to be difficult about it and refused to do so.  Instead I now am wrangling with an Android simulator to see if I can successfully launch the app.

To atone for the lack of eating discipline Tuesday evening, my Wednesday night dinner was pretty sparse, an avocado and a sweet potato.  I mixed in a bunch of stuff into the mashed avocado including hemp seed, sunflower seed, chia, almonds, and hemp oil.  I had a huge cup of water to wash it all down.  For desert I chowed down on a protein bar that had been sitting around for quite awhile.

The meal was far from fine dining but it served its purpose.

I was very tired last night and fell asleep between 10 and 10:30.  A little before 2AM I woke up having to pee.  I did so and laid back down, expecting to immediately fall back asleep.  My expectations were not met.  Instead I rolled around and was unable to reenter the land of slumber, despite feeling exhausted.

Somewhere around 2:30 AM I gave up and shuffled out to the kitchen.  I spent the three hours that I would normally be sleeping in front of the computer doing a mix of work/play (WoW).  When my normal 5:30 AM alarm went off I felt like I was ready to go back to bed.  The drive into work today was quite challenging, my eyeballs just did not want to stay open.

To make matters worse, tonight there is a race after work.  By the time I get off the race site I will be in pure zombie mode.

So we are entering day 3 of the partial government shutdown, the end result of the Senate/Obama refusing to engage in the budget hostage negotiations that House Tea Party clowns are trying to force.  Although I think the shutdown is the latest example of just how dysfunctional our congress is, I can’t blame democrats or the president for flat out saying NO, and meaning it.

Allowing the tea party to derail laws/legislation in this manner would set a horrible precedent and only encourage similar behavior in the future.  So as far as I am concerned every day this goes on just puts another layer of mud on congress in general with an extra thick facial on the tea party “generals”.

It make me smirk when I see republicans acting like they are the negotiators, they are the ones looking for a compromise.  To me it is like the school bully trying to steal your lunch money but then kindly offers to let you keep half of it.  Congress must really believe the overwhelming majority of Americans are truly brainless lemmings that are unable to discern anything beyond the snappy one liners that fill social media and news outlets.