Broken

Well, we had rain on and off yesterday.  Misty rain.  Drizzly rain.  Steady rain.  There were no cloudbursts and nothing torrential, when it falls in sheets across the highway.  Temps stayed in the lower 70s (F).  We have the same forecast for today.  Tomorrow things are supposed to brighten up, however if our long range forecast stands, it looks as though summer's quickly moving out of the picture.

And how can I describe yesterday?  There were highs and lows.  The highs were good and the lows weren't really that low, more like a heavy sigh that says "you've got to be kidding me."

The high:  I've mentioned how my neighborhood Giant supermarket was out of walnuts, so I went to my brand new BJs wholesaled discount store.  Their walnuts are... our you ready for this?  2 pounds for $9.99.  Giant's price was $7.49 for one pound.  So I bought 4 pounds for $18 and change.  That should last me for a while.

The low:  At 12:55 PM UPS dropped off my new printer.  I moved the box into the writing room and began unpacking. Once unpacked, I moved the printer to its proper place and began the process of pulling off all the tape according to the instructions.  When I lifted the scanner lid to remove the foam insert I discovered that the scanner glass was broken, and said, "you have got to be kidding me."  Mind you, there were no obscenities.  Not even a simple, "oh, shit."  What I did do was go to my laptop and start a chat with their customer service.  That led to a phone call, which led to an email with pictures.  The printer has been packed up and is now sitting in my living room.  Xerox will let me know when it's going to be picked up.  I was told the process will take between 3 and 7 days.  Here's a pic.  I'm thinking that sometime during transit it was dropped.

Anyway, I ended up spending little time on social media because my focus was on my printer issues.  Honestly, it seems to me that yesterday was a low profile day for the Orange Anus.  About the only thing worth mentioning was Just  Dance Vance and Petey Hegseth getting booed and hissed at while walking through Union Station.  There was so much unmitigated bile being thrown in their direction.  There were people loudly shouting "couch fucker!"  Can we talk about misreading the room.

And this just in:  Orangie's overall approval rating has dropped to 39%.  That's just his overall rating.  I haven't seen any specifics yet on how that breaks out.  Last week is approval rating on the economy was down to 37%; that has probably dropped since he's evidently pulling a TACO with some of the European tariffs.  His ratings are in a death spiral because he's an idiot.  His bragging about being a great negotiator got the carpet ripped out from under it because of his Alaskan fiasco.  He left the European leaders sitting for an hour so he could go call his boss and that's not good.  Everybody needs to start reminding themselves that everything Orangie touches dies.

MAGA: Husks of Humanity

 Well, we have the drizzles and according to the forecast, they will be hanging around for most of the day.  That's okay.  Temps are only supposed to climb into the mid 70s (F).  I guess this should be expected since Autumn is only a month away.  Though, if my memory serves me correctly, the sunny days of summer used to last well into September.  Of course, our cloud cover might be the edge of Erin's skirt as she moves up the eastern seaboard.

Yesterday was a good day and a bad day.  Good in that many chores were completed.  I even got a decent upper body workout done in the afternoon.  Bad in that I'm out of walnuts.  They are part of my breakfast.  In my book, nuts are nuts.  Since they are grown and not manufactured there's little difference between one nut and another.  For this reason I usually buy store brand or generic nuts. Yesterday, my local Giant supermarket was out of store brand nuts.  Fisher's nuts were the only ones left on their shelves and they are twice as expensive, $16.49 for a 12 ounces.  So, after I finish writing this I'll be driving over to my local BJs to buy their store brand which is considerably less expensive:  $12.99 for 32 ounces.  That's what I call a deal.

My new printer arrives today.  I had thought of going out and buying a printer table but have decided to use what I have on hand.  I still have to move a few pieces of furniture, but that shouldn't take me long.  Here's the tile I'm using for a table top, but it's going to relocated next the big aquarium in the writing room.

And yesterday we learned, that's if we're going to believe anything that drips from the mouth of the Orange Anus, that slavery wasn't really that bad.  Those thinking slavery was truly terrible are Woke.  In case you haven't realized it yet, in the MAGA world Woke is synonymous with Compassionate.  They may feel passion, but not compassion, and half of the time I think their passion is simply synonymous with greed.  They have a passion for money, and a passion for selfishness, and a passion for disliking those who actually feel compassion.  They are simply husks of humanity who love to pass judgement.  They don't lack the ability to understand, they avoid it.  They feel sorry, but only for themselves and those just like themselves.  These people have always existed, it's just that right now they've managed to get themselves onto the main stage.  They do not know there time there is limited.

Finally, Dan Bongino seems to have disappeared.  He was is the right wing podcaster who took a job as the assistant to Kash Patel, Director of the FBI.  It seems Danny found out the terrible truth about how often Orangie is in the Epstein files.  Now he's gone quiet.  Reports are he's going to be leaving the administration completely.  If this were Russia, I warn him to be careful because over there getting close to an open window is dangerous.

Bulk Buy

 Well, yesterday at work was slow.  I was going to stretch the letters out so you might get some idea but decided against it.  Sometimes a simple, brief sentence says everything.  Boring is also a good word to describe yesterday.  This is how it goes.  

Two days left before my weekend.  The temps are going to be climbing into the upper 90's (F).  No rain is in the forecast.  We're finally hitting our normal August and I'm beginning to wonder if our seasons have some how been delayed by Climate Change.  The truth is, we have no idea how things are going to go.  This is all brand new to us and so many are completely unprepared.  At some point, we can expect those living in the areas effected most to move away, to migrate to cooler, safer climes, or the coastal flooding will get so bad they'll migrate inland as the coastline slowly changes.  This is what happens when a large group of individuals favor mythology over science.

So, I decided to buy my walnuts in bulk.  I could by the same brand of walnuts on Amazon as I buy at my neighborhood Giant, but there wasn't really that much of a savings, so I switched to Kirkland.  I'll find out how good they are later this morning.

And I saw that 2 of Loser #45's minions were doing their best to slow down the infrastructure bill.  One of them is from Tennessee, a poor state that could sorely use this bill.  Of course, they're not going to succeed, and more then a few Republicans will tout this bill when it comes time for re-election.  And the fact that this bill will be popular in Tennessee is going to hurt the minions when there names once again appear on the ballot.  And when this bill passes Loser #45 is going to throw a shit fit.  The only legislation he got through was a tax break for the wealthy.

Don't Let your nuts get too ripe

I'm really being serious here.  Yesterday I went to husk my nuts and some of them were too ripe, black, soft and squishy.  Believe me!  There is nothing worse than squishy nuts!  That means the protective shell around the nut has started to break down and the chewy flesh has gone soupy.  I learned the soft way.  Shit.  That husker of mine pretty much shreds them into black, gooey pieces.  A word of wisdom here:  start your husking when they are still fairly green.  If you cup a couple in your hand and they firm and resilient then you are good to go.  After throwing out all of the bad walnuts, I ended up with... 6.

Also, there must have been a teeny weeny hole in the thumb of my left glove.  That's right, I'm stained walnut.  It will eventually disappear.
I went to see my Mom yesterday.  She was sitting outside wearing a blue sweatshirt and gray corduroy pants, and the temp was 91 (F) .  She got a bit testy when I told her she was going to get heatstroke.  She said she doesn't have any summer clothes because my sister wears them.  That's not true.  My sister wouldn't be caught dead wearing my mom's shorts.
Oh, and after a lot of complaining from both sides, the Idiot Jerk in the White House lowered the flags to half mast.  This ass is such a petty sack of shit.  He talks a lot about loyalty but only in regards to himself.  What else can you expect?  I'm sure he's a true believer when it comes to 'honor among thieves.'
I spent some time last night, and a bit more this morning updating my Dell laptop - the one with my cycling & workout info.  Rouvy has updated and I will no longer need to use a blue-giga dongle.  No, my dongle is not blue, in case you're wondering.  However I will no longer need it to connect to my trainer.  That will be so nice.

New Toy in Town

People, you are going to need to contain yourselves because... there's a new toy in town.  This little baby was sitting on my front porch when I got home from work yesterday.  Christmas Colors!  And this is actually 2 toys in one!  I can either 'husk' or 'shuck.'  Does anybody which is more fun?  Husking?  or Shucking?  I'm going to need to build myself a box.  You see, the toy clamps to the box (clamps are included, by the way).  The round hole at the top is expandable - that's right, this baby will take any size nut or cob.  Oh, and it comes with a nice crank, too.  You use the crank to turn the wheel as you shove in your nuts... or cobs.  So, is everyone as excited as I am?

And what about that crazy Turkey biz?  The stock market is not happy.  Crazy Christians are, though.  I guess the Turks arrested one, he was on some sort of crazy Christian mission, no doubt.  They said he's a spy.  That has the Crazy Christians in this country pissing sideways.  Because they lubed his slide into the Oval Office, the Idiot Jerk is giving them what they want.  He's going to crash the Turkish economy.  Not that the Crazy Christians in this country care about the Turkish people.  Nope.  You see the Turks are either Muslim, or the 'wrong kind of Christian.'  That means they have no value as human beings.  This is the kind of shit that starts really big, bad wars and they don't care because... well, they're crazy.  Shit, they're worse than fucking zombies.
Anyway, in case you are wondering, I do have wood.  I just have to figure out how to make it into a box.

Black or English

Sunday morning.  Some of you are sleeping late, since that's what a lot of people do on their day of rest.  Not me.  Up at 0430.  No problem in rising early.  There is so much I want to get done.
The replacement gaming chair arrived Friday.  Opened the box when I got home from work yesterday, pulled out the transmitter, and plugged that sucker in.  I have sound... and vibration.  I suspected all along that might be the problem.  What a shame Amazon needed to send me a replacement chair just to replace the transmitter.  This is what happens when companies sell products designed and assembled in China without considering the need for replacement parts.  I have no doubt this is why their customer is so shitty.  There is nothing they can do when issues crop up.
My brother sent me a text.  Walnuts are starting to drop from their trees.  I told him I'd be up with a container, and most likely the dogs, on the 8th or 9th.  I'm also ordering a walnut huller from Amazon.  Odds are that they are going to be Black Walnuts, rather the English, which means they are going to have a lower calorie content and a higher Omega 3 content.  Health food.  Believe me when I tell you "nuts are great.!"

The computer / weight training / cycling room floor is about half painted.  The color is sort of a swimming pool green / blue.  Weird thing is that when I walk into the room, I stepped over the freshly painted floor.  I wonder if that's because of the color.  Once the hole thing is finished, I'll post pictures.
Was it me, or was the Idiot Jerk fairly quiet yesterday?  I found it interesting he was bragging about the economy.  Of course, he didn't mention that the last time it was this good was in 2014 - oops.  And even though the country appears to be doing well financially, his party is showing signs of concern.  His approval rating refuses to go up.  Just goes to show the stupidity of Republicans.  They believe that if the country is doing well, the American people will let any asswipe sit in the Oval Office.  How wrong they are. 

Sprouting nuts

Well, it's Sunday and some of you are sleeping in - that seems to be what a lot of people usually do on Sundays.  Oh, sure, some will get up and go to Church, but attendance seems to be on the decline.  Me?  I did free weights.  An hour's worth.  My free weights are all done with dumbbells and focus on the upper body.  Cycling keeps the legs in shape.
Evidently there was some sort of media event last evening and Sarah Huckabee Sanders got roasted... and some Republicans are fuming.  This is the same party that for 8 years shrieked about Obama's citizenship.  If they can't take the heat they need to stay out of the kitchen.  Am I right?  And, of course, the Idiot Jerk was farting into a microphone out in Michigan totally ignoring his teleprompter.  Maybe if someone told him his fortune depended upon staying on message he might listen... Nope.  I suspect that only happens when he sees someone waving his Golden Shower video.
Anyway, I saw in the NYT how much of a numb nuts he is, especially in regard to the mid-term elections.  Why would he listen.  In his mind, addled as it is, his 2016 victory means he can do what ever he wants.  The polls were wrong then.  He believes they'll be wrong again.  Oh, and I'm sure he's also counting on his Russian friends to intervene should it look like he's losing the house.  If you think you've seen the worst of him already, just wait until the day after the mid-terms.  Don't be surprised if the shit explosion will be so terrible the walls of the White House will be leveled, which will mean a long decontamination period until we're able to rebuild.
On the bright side, tomorrow is always another day.  The temperature is supposed to be a little warmer.  Spring might finally be arriving... or maybe summer's going to smile his friendly face a bit early.  That's what happened last year.
All of the trees around the house have burst into bloom.  Tomorrow, I'll walk out to where I planted my walnuts to see if they've sprouted.  If they have I'll have to write an entry about how wonderful it is when your nuts sprout.

I'll be looking for this

Food for Thought

So, I got a lot of exercise yesterday walking around my brother's new (old) farm:  the barn is... rustic, and the house has a wrap-a-around porch and large fireplace.  There are 2 tall walnut trees by the barn - walnuts are very healthy for you.  Oh, and I got to meet Wendy, the potbelly pig:

My nephew's dog Hudson took a liking to Wendy, not that she was flirting with him, but being a dog he didn't know that, and when he tried to get himself a little porcine pleasure she rebelled.  We all laughed as my nephew's wife separated the two... except for my sister-in-law, whose facial expression went from distraught... to despair... to horrified, which made the incident that much funnier.
My sister and brother-in-law brought my 84 year old Mom, Irene.  She has dementia and didn't remember many of the people around her; some found that a bit unsettling.  She doesn't care as long as people are catering to her and making her the belle of the ball.  I got a nice picture of 84 year old Irene holding 1 month old Irene, her great granddaughter.

Later, after I'd gotten home, I boiled up some bones for the dogs (their Thanksgiving Treat) and ordered their Christmas toys (they get quite a few).

The only disappointment?  I put out a mousetrap last night and this AM discovered that the damn mice had eaten the peanut butter bait without the trap working:  I was left with mouse droppings and an empty trap.  My money says they're Republican.  This afternoon, after the Black Friday rush has passed, I will drive down to K-Mart and buy some new traps.  And just like the damn Republicans, I want the damn things out of the House as soon as possible.

Brothers?

Well, my nuts are planted -2 of them, the only viable walnuts that made the journey from Lebanon to Harrisburg.  To find out if they're viable, you need to husk them and drop them in water, if they float... that's bad, there's air inside, if they sink?  that's good.  They have to be planted about 1" -2" deep because... well, that's about as deep as nutsy squirrels bury them in the fall.
I went to see "Geostorm" last evening and... it wasn't that bad.  Not great, mind you, fast paced though a little hokey at times, mostly during the brother scenes between Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess.  That's right, these 2 guys are supposed to be brothers:

notice the resemblance?   Not in the least.  Marketing was way off for this movie, too.  Every trailer emphasized the CGI weather events, where it's actually a sci-fi thriller with CGI events.  There are good actors here, Ed Harris, Andy Garcia, Mare Winningham... well, maybe not Mare.  And there is pertinence since the Bad Guy spouts off the same bullshit as the Idiot Jerk in the White House which is rather amazing since the movie was ready for release 20 months ago.

And I visited my Mom yesterday; she had one of her incidents while I was there, no strength what so ever.  She was sitting out on the patio and didn't have the strength to get back to her apartment.  It took us about 10 minutes.  An associate offered to call their Med Tech and and told him that wasn't necessary... we've been through this before.  Once she was back in her apartment she laid down on her bed.  I went into her living room and sat down, and we chit chatted back and forth, and then... all of sudden, she zoomed by me in her walker heading towards her favorite chair.   You see, had the Med Tech arrived, she would have checked my Mom's B/P and called 911, and, as has happened before, the EMT's would have arrived to find nothing wrong but would have still transported her to the hospital to be on the safe side.  Believe me, that's gets expensive when it happens every 4 or 5 weeks.

While my Mom was recuperating on her bed, I checked through the news feeds on my phone and saw the Idiot Jerk was giving some sort of impromptu speech in the Rose Garden.  I flicked over to Facebook to see what sort of comments he was getting, and it was so funny.  I don't know what he was saying, but everybody was calling him a "Liar," and I had to laugh.  Rapid fire comments, maybe 2 or 3 per second, from different people and they were all the same.  People were calling him a "Liar," and a "Dirty Liar," and a "Rotten Liar;" no vulgarity, mind you.  One thing is for certain, the Idiot Jerk never looks at the comments on Facebook, otherwise he'd blow a gasket. 

My nuts

So, it's Tuesday morning.  I have about 180 lbs of dogs jumping around on the bed playing with their squeaking, purple squirrel, and from all of the squeaking it sounds like they're having a grand old time.
Last week, when I was down in Lebanon and stopped by the Gingrich Memorial Pool, I picked up a bunch of walnuts.  My first thought was to husk them and eat them when I got home, however, I got to thinking.  Wouldn't it be really neat to take some Lebanon walnuts and plant them here in Enola, forty-three miles away.  They're fast growing trees, producing fruit in  5 - 6 years.  True, in 30 years they can reach a height of 100 feet but let's face, I'm not going to be living here in 30 years.  Out of all the walnuts I brought back, only 2 are viable - but that's all it takes since they are cross-pollinators.  I'm excited!  Sometime tomorrow morning I'm going to plant my nuts.

Also, in 3 days Assassin's Creed - Origins gets released.  This game is already garnering some major accolades.  It's still not too late to buy some stock in Ubisoft because this game is going to make a fortune (thinks hundreds of hundreds of millions).  Here's the final release trailer.  I can't even imagine how great it would be to climb up the face of the Sphinx.

And, if you're interested in the "Do Nothing Party's" shitty tax plan, well, evidently there's already heaps and heaps of issues going on behind the scenes, what with the Idiot Jerk saying 401K's aren't going to be touched and the GOP desperately trying to find some small way to keep from diving head first into the Cesspool of Debt.  I'll bet they're terrified that their Kansas failure is going to slap them silly.  Kansas, you ask?  Yepper.  They've already used a conservative spin on that state's failed tax system and things went horribly wrong.  Corporate tax breaks don't create jobs, they merely pad pockets and provide bonuses.  Conservatives are great believers in "do as I say, not as I do."

Nuts, dates and oatmeal

So what exactly is a healthy breakfast, well depending up on who you might be talking to the definition may be a little complicated.  If you're on a diet regime your breakfasts are going to be geared towards losing poundage while still keeping you satiated.  Cookies and milk, or just a couple of pieces of fruit are not going to cut it.  I like oatmeal.  I eat it for breakfast just about every day, and not the instant variety.  Instant oatmeal has been processed to a point where it barely resembles the cooked oats it's supposed to be.  My oatmeal consists 2 teaspoons of walnuts, one date chopped, a half cup of old fashioned oats and a strong dash of cinnamon.  I add one cup of water and nuke the mixture for 4 minutes at 60 power, or, I throw it into a pan and cook it on top of the stove for about 4 minutes.

This is what it looks like when nuked.

I can remember telling my Dad that I never added sugar and he gave me this "oh my God, how could you not sweeten up your oatmeal" look.  And recently I told a friend and she gave me the same look, adding "don't you find that bland."  NO, I don't.  I want my breakfast to provide me with nutrition, not artificial sweetners and flavors.  It's not bland, it has walnuts, and a date, and a dash of cinnamon.  It suits me just fine.