A Disaster In The Making
01/03/21 07:12
I'm looking around here and there this morning wanting to find something to get incensed about so I can rage against the machine. Maybe that was the title of a book written by Robert Heinlein. Not sure, don't know my science fiction all that well but I do recall that title from many years ago.
Anyway, I'm not finding a lot of stuff to get all fired up about. Maybe it's just my mood. It could leave me without much to say and that would be a problem as far as this here online journal goes. You're better than that, Johnny.
I'm out and about on my bike again after a two week or more hiatus due to the weather. You'd be surprised how quickly you lose momentum when you stop doing something physical. Now that I'm back out there, I'm riding less far, less hard, and throwing a little less caution to the wind that I normally would. It feels good to be doing it again though. And Spring isn't far off so I can see light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train coming down the tracks. That's a good thing.
I had two most excellent words last night in my nightly game of Scrabble against the Missus. In no particular order, they were as follows: Physio and ezine. I laid one (Physio) down on a triple score tile so that didn't make the Missus very happy. And the missus challenged my other word, ezine, and I think I hurt her feelings with that one. "How do you know that word", she implored.
It has something to do with the electronic publication of reading materials and I've known that word for a lot of years. Of course, I got to go again when she lost the challenge so that only made matters worse as you might imagine.
In my travels on YouTube yesterday, I tripped across a video by a guitar instructor whose instructional videos have been helpful to me in learning to play the instrument. I think it was entitled, "Five Mistakes Beginners Make." One of the five that stood out to me, and one that I'm guilty of making, was specific to the placement of my fingers when moving from one chord to the next.
He says you should be moving your fingers not one at a time to the strings in playing your next chord, but rather your fingers all at once. It is the only way you end up with the appropriate muscle memory that facilitates a smooth chord progression. Muscle memory in your fingers? Who knew?
I can't tell you how nice it is to get into my car these days, turn the ignition, and hear the engine beneath the hood come to life without the usual metal-on-metal scraping I'm so accustomed to hearing. I've had an issue with the starter for a godawful long time and finally decided to get it fixed. I always had this tinge of anxiety when getting behind the wheel because I never knew when it was finally going to not work. You know, not turn over the engine. So now, I just want to hug my mechanic. The fix was expensive, but worth every penny. Huzzah!
Boy, that didn't take long. How long has Sleepy Joe Biden been in office? Four weeks maybe? He sent our military into Syria last night on a bombing mission ostensibly in response to an attack by Iranian militia groups on our forces a month our so ago. He knows Syria is a sovereign nation. Right? This is another wag the dog situation just to take attention away from the fact that he's a senile old fuck and in way over his head as president. But boy, those damn democrats love to start wars. Here we go again.
And no, I will not be rallying around the Commander-in-Chief just to prop this feckless bastard up while he embarrasses our great nation day in and day out. Did I mention that he has no plans now to give his State of the Union speech? He'll not be giving the speech because he is physically and mentally incapable of giving the speech. I think he had plans to deliver the speech and then the administration just stopped talking about it. Crickets. Do we need to have that conversation again about his so-called 80 million voters who "elected" him?
Just so you know, our Constitution requires that he give a state of the Union speech. How about this parade of misfits being vetted by the Senate for positions in Biden's administration? You've got trannies vying for positions in Health and Welfare, Attorney General's who don't view illegal immigration as a crime, black nominees who think every white man is a supremacist of sorts, and military leaders whose first order to leadership was to identify and isolate every conservative in their ranks as a potential threat to the Republic. Oh, and there is this one clown running for I can't remember what who says he never sued the Little Sisters of the Poor. That's a bald faced lie.
The tranny is probably going to get through with flying colors (no pun intended.) What conservative from the other side of the aisle wants to infuriate the LGBTQ lobby and incur the online and in-person wrath of their members? I don't have anything against men who want to be women and women who want to be men, but I draw the line at having them involved in making healthcare policy for our country. Their views are, by and large, not mainstream and, again, we can't have the tail wagging the dog when it comes to this stuff. We just can't.
Yeah, baby! We got da jabs! You know, the virus killer. Pfizer is what they had so Pfizer is what we got. The Mrs was scheduled to get her shot a week later than me but she came along and the National Guard was able to accommodate her. We tried as we might to get one appointment for the two of us but the website was kinda wonky so we weren't quite sure what we had or had not accomplished once we were done signing up. Just to be safe, Nancy came along with me and, like the Baby Jesus assures us from time to time, it all worked out.
That isn't to say there weren't a few tense and nervy moments before we got ourselves out of the house and on the road a little before 8 in the morning. I had firmed things up online so I was good to go. Nancy, on the other hand, was unable to get on to the VAMS website just to check her status. She got stuck in a veritable loop and couldn't get out to save her life. Snow was coming down at a pretty good clip when we were expecting rain so that didn't help anyone's nerves. Calm down, baby cakes. I got this.
The National Guard had everything under control. Once we arrived, we drove from point A to point B at the site guided every step of the way by these uniformed Guard troops. They were polite to a fault, uber efficient, and damn good at administering drugs to people whom they've never met, didn't know, and would probably never see again. The first fella checking our papers at the gate admitted that he and I shared a birth date. Likely story, mate. Good opening line, though (me thinking out loud). We all had a good laugh. Next!
I'm not sure why Nancy was on pins and needles. She was almost hysterical when she was getting the shot. They had to promise to give her a sticker or two before she calmed down enough so they could do their job. You would think she would be happy to be getting this thing so she can get on with her life. And, she's seen far worse than this over time so it just struck me as odd. Maybe it was nerves and more nerves. She was fucking oozing nerves and it was starting to make me a little jittery. Not nervous, just jittery.
We're some four hours out now from getting our shots and life is back to normal. Well, what passes for normal anyway. The snow has stopped and it looks like mostly rain falling out of doors. Nancy is lying on the couch reading the paper and I'm here doing what I do. When we think of it, we're feeling pretty good about things all and all. We're that much closer to being fully inoculated against this virus. Come the end of next month when our second appointment comes along, add a few days for good measures, and we'll be out of the rough as they say on the links.
I told Nancy that we should probably celebrate when all is said and done by going out to dinner somewhere. My god, we haven't done that for the better part of a year or more since all of this began. I asked if she might get back to going shopping and doing things like that which we both know she thoroughly enjoys. Her response was slow in coming and that was no surprise. This pandemic has been hard on her and there's a whole lot of emotional scar tissue that has built up over time. That's not going to go away over night. It just isn't.
In last night's Scrabble game, a day later than the game referenced above, I eked out the word "chianti." I hit two double word scores with that puppy! That's a first! It was worth 48 points. Having a C and an H helped pump up the points. The A & N were already down and I just happened to have the rest of the letters needed to make the word. The first words out of my mouth to the amazed Missus Johnny was, "You challenge?" "How do you see these combinations?", she demanded. She actually won the game by one point so ballyhoo for the Missus.
Trump will give his first speech today since leaving office today at CPAC. They say he's expected to announce his run for the presidency in 2024. I'm thinking a Trump / Pompeo ticket might be in the offing. Trump is the presumptive favorite if nothing else and that is something that no one can deny.
He is the leader of the Republican party and still very popular across the board. Since sleepy Joe hasn't and can't give a state of the Union speech then, damn it, Trump should step in to the spotlight and fill that void. I suspect he will do precisely that in his speech today. I'll be tuned in with bells on!
I wasn't sure that I was going to tell my peeps that I was planning to get the Pfizer vaccine because I didn't want to cause anybody any undue consternation. I have brothers and sisters who probably need it more than me so I'm hard pressed to go around telling everybody how great it is to be getting my shot. Then again, if things were to go south after getting the shot, my words to them might well be parting words.
Responses ranged from, "can you pilfer me a couple of doses?" to "Good luck." Sister Weesey (rhymes with cheesy) didn't chime in so not sure what to think there. These were text exchanges rather than telephone calls so there's that. All in good time, my friends.
We put a call into Mrs G last night to let her know that we got our shots. We never did get a call back which I thought was a little surprising. There's a collegial look and feel to this vaccination process that encourages participation and celebrates success amongst its participants. The government may well be relying on peer pressure amongst key groups in order to achieve its unstated goals.
Spokespeople across ethnic and demographic spectrums are on the airwaves day in and day out singing the praises of the vaccines and the economy too seems to be responding in kind. So, why are we not hearing from Mrs G? What up?
I even got an update from our neighbor yesterday on the status of her vaccination. I may have asked the question first, but if she was reticent to talk about it beforehand because she didn't know if we had gotten our shots, she was ready to roll with vaccine updates on all those near and dear to her at the drop of the hat when I got around to asking the question.
She got the Moderna vaccine and her second shot was scheduled some two weeks out. Her boyfriend, John, living in Florida for the winter had gotten his first shot and was looking forward to getting the second of two shots. You see how this works. Like I said, collegial.
I have to be careful about going down too many rabbit holes on Twitter when it comes to this vaccine thing. I need to feel good and stay feeling good about getting the vaccine (Pfizer) that we got. I don't want to hear about how many people died or otherwise have bad reactions to not the first shot but the second of two shots required. Longer term, we just don't know.
I do want to hear that Pfizer is more, I think the word is "efficacious", than the Moderna and maybe the soon-to-be-announced Johnson & Johnson or Astrazenica vaccines. I can live with a 95% effectiveness rate. Anything less makes it simply another version of the wildly popular but sometimes deadly game of Russian Roulette. Do I still have to wear a mask even after the shots? Really?
Anyway, I'm not finding a lot of stuff to get all fired up about. Maybe it's just my mood. It could leave me without much to say and that would be a problem as far as this here online journal goes. You're better than that, Johnny.
I'm out and about on my bike again after a two week or more hiatus due to the weather. You'd be surprised how quickly you lose momentum when you stop doing something physical. Now that I'm back out there, I'm riding less far, less hard, and throwing a little less caution to the wind that I normally would. It feels good to be doing it again though. And Spring isn't far off so I can see light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train coming down the tracks. That's a good thing.
I had two most excellent words last night in my nightly game of Scrabble against the Missus. In no particular order, they were as follows: Physio and ezine. I laid one (Physio) down on a triple score tile so that didn't make the Missus very happy. And the missus challenged my other word, ezine, and I think I hurt her feelings with that one. "How do you know that word", she implored.
It has something to do with the electronic publication of reading materials and I've known that word for a lot of years. Of course, I got to go again when she lost the challenge so that only made matters worse as you might imagine.
In my travels on YouTube yesterday, I tripped across a video by a guitar instructor whose instructional videos have been helpful to me in learning to play the instrument. I think it was entitled, "Five Mistakes Beginners Make." One of the five that stood out to me, and one that I'm guilty of making, was specific to the placement of my fingers when moving from one chord to the next.
He says you should be moving your fingers not one at a time to the strings in playing your next chord, but rather your fingers all at once. It is the only way you end up with the appropriate muscle memory that facilitates a smooth chord progression. Muscle memory in your fingers? Who knew?
I can't tell you how nice it is to get into my car these days, turn the ignition, and hear the engine beneath the hood come to life without the usual metal-on-metal scraping I'm so accustomed to hearing. I've had an issue with the starter for a godawful long time and finally decided to get it fixed. I always had this tinge of anxiety when getting behind the wheel because I never knew when it was finally going to not work. You know, not turn over the engine. So now, I just want to hug my mechanic. The fix was expensive, but worth every penny. Huzzah!
Boy, that didn't take long. How long has Sleepy Joe Biden been in office? Four weeks maybe? He sent our military into Syria last night on a bombing mission ostensibly in response to an attack by Iranian militia groups on our forces a month our so ago. He knows Syria is a sovereign nation. Right? This is another wag the dog situation just to take attention away from the fact that he's a senile old fuck and in way over his head as president. But boy, those damn democrats love to start wars. Here we go again.
And no, I will not be rallying around the Commander-in-Chief just to prop this feckless bastard up while he embarrasses our great nation day in and day out. Did I mention that he has no plans now to give his State of the Union speech? He'll not be giving the speech because he is physically and mentally incapable of giving the speech. I think he had plans to deliver the speech and then the administration just stopped talking about it. Crickets. Do we need to have that conversation again about his so-called 80 million voters who "elected" him?
Just so you know, our Constitution requires that he give a state of the Union speech. How about this parade of misfits being vetted by the Senate for positions in Biden's administration? You've got trannies vying for positions in Health and Welfare, Attorney General's who don't view illegal immigration as a crime, black nominees who think every white man is a supremacist of sorts, and military leaders whose first order to leadership was to identify and isolate every conservative in their ranks as a potential threat to the Republic. Oh, and there is this one clown running for I can't remember what who says he never sued the Little Sisters of the Poor. That's a bald faced lie.
The tranny is probably going to get through with flying colors (no pun intended.) What conservative from the other side of the aisle wants to infuriate the LGBTQ lobby and incur the online and in-person wrath of their members? I don't have anything against men who want to be women and women who want to be men, but I draw the line at having them involved in making healthcare policy for our country. Their views are, by and large, not mainstream and, again, we can't have the tail wagging the dog when it comes to this stuff. We just can't.
Yeah, baby! We got da jabs! You know, the virus killer. Pfizer is what they had so Pfizer is what we got. The Mrs was scheduled to get her shot a week later than me but she came along and the National Guard was able to accommodate her. We tried as we might to get one appointment for the two of us but the website was kinda wonky so we weren't quite sure what we had or had not accomplished once we were done signing up. Just to be safe, Nancy came along with me and, like the Baby Jesus assures us from time to time, it all worked out.
That isn't to say there weren't a few tense and nervy moments before we got ourselves out of the house and on the road a little before 8 in the morning. I had firmed things up online so I was good to go. Nancy, on the other hand, was unable to get on to the VAMS website just to check her status. She got stuck in a veritable loop and couldn't get out to save her life. Snow was coming down at a pretty good clip when we were expecting rain so that didn't help anyone's nerves. Calm down, baby cakes. I got this.
The National Guard had everything under control. Once we arrived, we drove from point A to point B at the site guided every step of the way by these uniformed Guard troops. They were polite to a fault, uber efficient, and damn good at administering drugs to people whom they've never met, didn't know, and would probably never see again. The first fella checking our papers at the gate admitted that he and I shared a birth date. Likely story, mate. Good opening line, though (me thinking out loud). We all had a good laugh. Next!
I'm not sure why Nancy was on pins and needles. She was almost hysterical when she was getting the shot. They had to promise to give her a sticker or two before she calmed down enough so they could do their job. You would think she would be happy to be getting this thing so she can get on with her life. And, she's seen far worse than this over time so it just struck me as odd. Maybe it was nerves and more nerves. She was fucking oozing nerves and it was starting to make me a little jittery. Not nervous, just jittery.
We're some four hours out now from getting our shots and life is back to normal. Well, what passes for normal anyway. The snow has stopped and it looks like mostly rain falling out of doors. Nancy is lying on the couch reading the paper and I'm here doing what I do. When we think of it, we're feeling pretty good about things all and all. We're that much closer to being fully inoculated against this virus. Come the end of next month when our second appointment comes along, add a few days for good measures, and we'll be out of the rough as they say on the links.
I told Nancy that we should probably celebrate when all is said and done by going out to dinner somewhere. My god, we haven't done that for the better part of a year or more since all of this began. I asked if she might get back to going shopping and doing things like that which we both know she thoroughly enjoys. Her response was slow in coming and that was no surprise. This pandemic has been hard on her and there's a whole lot of emotional scar tissue that has built up over time. That's not going to go away over night. It just isn't.
In last night's Scrabble game, a day later than the game referenced above, I eked out the word "chianti." I hit two double word scores with that puppy! That's a first! It was worth 48 points. Having a C and an H helped pump up the points. The A & N were already down and I just happened to have the rest of the letters needed to make the word. The first words out of my mouth to the amazed Missus Johnny was, "You challenge?" "How do you see these combinations?", she demanded. She actually won the game by one point so ballyhoo for the Missus.
Trump will give his first speech today since leaving office today at CPAC. They say he's expected to announce his run for the presidency in 2024. I'm thinking a Trump / Pompeo ticket might be in the offing. Trump is the presumptive favorite if nothing else and that is something that no one can deny.
He is the leader of the Republican party and still very popular across the board. Since sleepy Joe hasn't and can't give a state of the Union speech then, damn it, Trump should step in to the spotlight and fill that void. I suspect he will do precisely that in his speech today. I'll be tuned in with bells on!
I wasn't sure that I was going to tell my peeps that I was planning to get the Pfizer vaccine because I didn't want to cause anybody any undue consternation. I have brothers and sisters who probably need it more than me so I'm hard pressed to go around telling everybody how great it is to be getting my shot. Then again, if things were to go south after getting the shot, my words to them might well be parting words.
Responses ranged from, "can you pilfer me a couple of doses?" to "Good luck." Sister Weesey (rhymes with cheesy) didn't chime in so not sure what to think there. These were text exchanges rather than telephone calls so there's that. All in good time, my friends.
We put a call into Mrs G last night to let her know that we got our shots. We never did get a call back which I thought was a little surprising. There's a collegial look and feel to this vaccination process that encourages participation and celebrates success amongst its participants. The government may well be relying on peer pressure amongst key groups in order to achieve its unstated goals.
Spokespeople across ethnic and demographic spectrums are on the airwaves day in and day out singing the praises of the vaccines and the economy too seems to be responding in kind. So, why are we not hearing from Mrs G? What up?
I even got an update from our neighbor yesterday on the status of her vaccination. I may have asked the question first, but if she was reticent to talk about it beforehand because she didn't know if we had gotten our shots, she was ready to roll with vaccine updates on all those near and dear to her at the drop of the hat when I got around to asking the question.
She got the Moderna vaccine and her second shot was scheduled some two weeks out. Her boyfriend, John, living in Florida for the winter had gotten his first shot and was looking forward to getting the second of two shots. You see how this works. Like I said, collegial.
I have to be careful about going down too many rabbit holes on Twitter when it comes to this vaccine thing. I need to feel good and stay feeling good about getting the vaccine (Pfizer) that we got. I don't want to hear about how many people died or otherwise have bad reactions to not the first shot but the second of two shots required. Longer term, we just don't know.
I do want to hear that Pfizer is more, I think the word is "efficacious", than the Moderna and maybe the soon-to-be-announced Johnson & Johnson or Astrazenica vaccines. I can live with a 95% effectiveness rate. Anything less makes it simply another version of the wildly popular but sometimes deadly game of Russian Roulette. Do I still have to wear a mask even after the shots? Really?