Sunday, July 29, 2012

Hot Heat and Hotter Humidty

I am aware that I haven't written in nearly a month and I apologize most sincerely to both of you who read my blog. In my defense I was at the beach for a solid week and did not bring a computer with me. I also didn't take many photos, which is somewhat unusual for me. The first time I went to this particular place I had been a photography enthusiast and spent roughly half my time taking photos with my new expensive camera. This time I used my phone and mostly only photographed sunsets.

The other reason that I haven't written much this month is that I haven't done much working out. The heat had been rough, the yard has been out of control, and there have been a few other things popping up that I have had to take care of. There is always some excuse for skipping workouts and I realize I shouldn't be making any, but I did anyway. I have skipped almost an entire month's worth of workouts now.

Oh, one other reason for not blogging here much is that I've been trying to write. I mean, I've been trying to write more seriously, and this has meant that in the few spare moments I've had for getting on the computer (when it wasn't for work) I was trying to write something reasonably coherent and mildly entertaining. I'm not sure if I've been at all successful on that, but if nothing else I can consider it practice.

On the political front, as long as I'm here and writing random things, the Democratic Party and the United Nations have been working together to try to take away the rights of citizens to keep and bare arms. I don't just mean American citizens, but all citizens of any country that signs the treaty the UN has written up. It's odd at first glance, for a political party to be doing this, albeit as stealthily as possible, during a major election year. The subject is extremely unpopular even with their own supporters in the US. But it is very popular with dictatorship nations like Russia and China, and as anyone who has been paying attention has noticed, the governments of Russia and China both have a disturbing level of influence over certain political parties and certain politicians in all of the various Western nations. So, unpopular or not, they're trying to shove it down our throats like they did in the UK. And as the citizens of the UK have tried to warn us, this is a very, very bad thing.

The Olympics have started. I always plan to watch them and then miss most of it until they are almost over. About that time I begin to get hooked and then POOF! They're over and I'm sorry that I missed so much of them. I want to watch track and field. I don't know if I've missed any of that yet. I always like to watch and see how fast everyone is this time. Every Olympics they are faster than the last. And everyone is faster than I was at my peak. But at least I have old personal best times in certain events that I can compare with the times of the runners competing in the Olympics to give me an idea of how much faster they are than I was. It makes it more fun.

For those of you who know who I am, I have been actively looking for a new car. I have been reduced to talking with car salesmen on the phone. Friday I talked to salesmen in Texas, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Massachusetts. I'm looking for something specific and I had no idea when I started just how hard this is to find. I've been looking for months now.

Anyway, I can't think of anything else much to say. I wish I could say that something exciting was going on in my life, a new child, a new mansion, a luxury cruise, Kim Kardashian stalking me, anything at all. But I'm afraid it's just all been work and stress and trying to get back into the groove of regular workouts. Oh, and missing my friends back home. There has been a lot of missing my friends.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Random Topics

Several months ago I hurt my right hand while planting 3 trees in the back yard. My hand still has not healed. Years ago I hurt this same wrist while playing football. A sports doctor injected it with cortizone several times, then tried a sort of ultrasound treatment. Eventually it was fine. Now, all these years later, it very much is not fine. I was about to go to the doctor, but with the recent Obamacare ruling from the Supreme Court I now don't know if I want to or if I should just get used to handling these things myself.

The Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare is just wrong. It explodes the power of the Federal Government way beyond the limits the Constitution placed on it, which our Founding Fathers did for a very good reason. It further centralizes all power and wealth into Washington, DC, purely for the benefit of sociopathic politicians at the expense of the citizens of this country. It is as if Europe weren't in a dire financial crisis or else we have no way of knowing about it. They are and we do and we know what caused it. This is like seeing your friend losing his house to a raging fire and instead of helping put it out, you set your own house on fire just to be like him. Oh, let's be more like Europe.

Despite the record heat last week, I still managed to go biking all but 2 days after work. I have increased my distance, but I still wouldn't consider my rides to be anything much just yet. I need to replace my pedals with more race-oriented pedals that accept toe clips and then get myself some shoes that will clip into the pedals so I can do this right. If I'm going to bike there is no point in doing it wrong and then going into a race wondering why I'm so unable to compete with everyone else and their toe clips.

One of my cats killed a rabbit last week. We know this because he left it on the front porch. Later, when I went back out to look for him, he wasn't there and neither was most of the rabbit. All he left behind was the feet and its head. The head literally cooked in the sun, leaving a charcoal bricket with ears scorched to the concrete of the front porch. I'm sure the postman is thrilled to see that when he comes to deliver the mail because I forgot to clean it up. Speaking of government-controlled industries that are in perpetual crisis, the post office is no longer going to deliver mail on Saturdays. The government long ago turned the post office into a social class warfare welfare program wherein they only hire black people and women, so now that they are broke and can't seem to raise fees enough to cover their enormous expenses (lavish retirements for way too many employees) they are reducing service. If there were a free-market industry they would lay off workers based on who was least effective at their jobs. But being a government welfare/affirmative action program, they simply cannot do this. They must keep every black or female employee regardless of need or ability to pay and simply raise our taxes and fees on mailing a letter. Small wonder FedEx and UPS have reaped such large profits these last 20 years or more what with everyone choosing to mail all their packages through them. We'd mail our letters through them, too, if it weren't illegal for them to compete with the Post Office for that service. But now that we have email, the Post Office mostly just brings junk mail and bills, with more and more people paying them bills online, too.

And this brings us to the United Nations' push to take over control of the internet, with Russia and China being the two biggest promoters of the idea. So awesome. We should totally let them do that. Then the Chinese government can help everyone see a glimpse into how it feels to live in a country where Big Government controls everything and the citizens have no voice and no rights at all.

It's expected to be less than 100 degrees today. Perfect weather for a bike ride, I think. You know, with my right hand being so reluctant to heal it makes lifting weights virtually impossible. And that is frustrating. Even more frustrating is that with all my frustration, I'd love to wrap my hands, put on some gloves, and beat the hell out of a 70 lb punching bag, but I can't because it hurts my already injured right hand.