Words Before Sleep

Feet up, leaning back, drinking my last cup of coffee of the day, while listening to C-span radio, which is running in a different window behind the one I am typing in now.

Relaxing by writing before I cut my hair, clean things up a little around here, before I take a shower and go to sleep.

I had a really fun afternoon at a Staten Island Yankees baseball game.  Hung out with wife, parents, brothers, their wives and kids, 2 aunts, Cousin Bill, his wife and 2 kids.  The early part of the game had nothing to do with them though.  I was getting up every 15 minutes to eat food at the all you can eat buffet, which was hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, popcorn and the like.  I think I had 3 burgers, 3 dogs, a few bags of popcorn, 2 bags of chips.  Something like that.

I was paying attention to the game for a fair bit, and not the people I was there with, not as much as maybe I should have.  Everyone seemed to have fun though.  Brother John bought me a beer.  My wife now agrees, after tasting it, that Coors light is in fact beer flavored water.  We laughed.

Got into a conversation late in the game about who the best metal guitarist was.  I heard Randy Rhoads, I heard Yngwie J. Malmsteen.  I heard Kerry King.  Personally I don’t know that there is any one player that is the best, you have to be great just to be on a stage and perform on that level regardless, so the question to me is a moot one.  They’re all better than we are, enjoy the music and the time you spend listening to it.

Plus, how can you not look at Dave Mustaine?  Lead singer, lead guitarist, fast, precise player who has to sing on top of ripping up the fretboard?

🙂

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Listening to Republican presidential candidate Thaddeus McCotter.  Had this been recorded in 2008, he could almost pass himself  off as a left wing liberal closer to Denny Kucinich then George Bush or Mitch McConnell.

The President says there is an agreement to fix the debt ceiling crisis.  That’s nice.  It is an entirely created crisis.  Created by the media, the S&P and the credit rating agencies, the Republicans, the Democrats.  Hope it works out.  If it doesn’t work out right and the credit agencies get stupid, that screws millions of people.

Maybe with this out of the way, maybe business will release the purse strings and begin hiring people.  They don’t hire now because they are getting along fine.  They aren’t growing, but they just want to make money, so they don’t care about growth.  Unfortunately without growth, jobs won’t be created.  Until American businesses get their thumbs out of their asses and start trying to make America better, we will stagnate.

Government is not the issue, the cowardice of  industry is.

But they don’t care about anything that is not profit, even if the alternative, the spending of more money on people would make them more money.  Rich people are stupid like that.  Some money made without having to be strong leaders is better than taking a chance on a stronger future and actually leading, and the bigger profits that would be made because of it.

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I probably won’t be writing for a few days.  Gonna be hella busy the next three days.  If I can write I will, as always.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Sweat Is Love

I love running.

It is what makes me tick, keeps me sane, or what passes for sane in this mad, mad, mad, mad world anyway.

Sometimes it surprises me when I look back and realize that I have been running for the better part of 9 years.  I started running back in… oh when was it… May 2002?  Something like that.  It was a way for me, then freshly sober after being drunk for 15 years, to kill time and use energy I didn’t know what to do with.  Initially I hid it.  First few times I did it, I wore street clothes.  Denim shorts, regular shirt, no real running gear.

I wasn’t after all a runner yet, and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing at that point.

I would run/walk it at the very beginning.  Run when no one was looking, and walk when traffic went by, or If I thought I saw someone I knew.  I would walk to nearby snug harbor and run in their.  I knew I wouldn’t run into many people there.  I would run for a few minutes, stop and hack up a lung then restart and go a few more minutes.

I was still smoking occasionally at that point, hence the hacking.  It was the running that got me to quit.  I wanted to get in better shape, wanted to use the energy hat I had, and did.  I tried lighting up right after a run a few times.  The last time I did it, I almost vomited all over my room.  At that moment, I crushed the pack of smokes, and said never again.  I did go back and do it once or twice after that, but that essentially ended that.

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Running long and hard is an ideal antidepressant, since it’s hard to run and feel sorry for yourself at the same time. Also, there are those hours of clearheadedness that follow a long run.

Monte Davis

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It took a long time for me to become a runner, to become passionate about it, obsessive about it.  I ran for quite a while before I became a “runner”.  It sounds odd, but I’ll explain for the non-runners out there.  Running is more than just getting your ass out the door and putting one foot in front of the other rapidly and sweating.

In part it’s about knowing you are actively trying to make yourself stronger and faster.  It’s about loving the feeling that comes with being out there on the road with other runners.  It’s easier to handle the stress of being part of this damnably stupid species after a good run.  Thinking clearly is easier during and after a run.  It’s easier to be positive during and after a run as well.  It doesn’t make negative emotions go away, they are part of being self-absorbed hairless monkeys, but it makes being happier with myself a simpler thing to do.

I didn’t really become a “runner” until it hit me that running did that.  When I realized it, that was the moment I became one.  It made me want those things more, to have that be part of me, and have me be part of it.   I wanted to be better, and running made me better.

Running is also obviously about trying to go fast, or long, or even short or slow if that’s all that can be done at that time, because it’s about trying, about pushing.  Those who come here may see that on top of the page there is a place marked “running commentary.”  If you go there, the word “push” is in some way shape or form, in every single day’s comment.  Some days’ even a short run is hard, injuries, illness, and weather can all make for hard going.

It makes me far beyond happy when I can get out there and run long.

The last two months have been, perhaps, the best running months I have ever had.

And they come on the heels of an annoying injury.  I had, 2 weeks prior to the Memorial day 4 mile race here on S.I., strained my right hammy. Could not run on the damn thing and for a few days I could barely walk on the damn thing.  After missing the race, and being INSANELY pissed about it, I began the road back to running.

June 1st, 1st day back, The day after the race, I ran 1.9 miles.  I could barely go.  I limped. I snarled.  I barked in pain.  I stopped once just because it was too painful to go, something I don’t do unless it is absolutely necessary.

June 2nd, I ran 1.9 again.  This time I did it without stopping.  There was less pain, but it was still a hairy damned  mess. I was still snarling through the pain.

June 3rd, I doubled my distance to 3.8 miles.  The pain was less of an issue, but it was still there.

June 4th, I ran longer still, 5.2 miles.  The pain was disappearing. I began thinking about increasing my stride length again.

It took an additional week, maybe a bit more, for the pain to disappear completely, but starting that 5th day I had returned to my more or less regular running regimen.  And increased the intensity.

Since that 1st day, I have taken 4 days off.  I had taken 58 days off since January 1st, including 2 weeks off each in January and February due to inclement weather and an annoying calf injury that went away when I changed up my running shoes.  I ran 573.26 miles from Jan. 1 to June 1, a span of 152 days.  I have run almost 400 miles since June 1st, in just 60 days.

Gotta keep trying.  Gotta keep pushing. Life is sweat, sweat is love, and if you don’t work hard at what you love, what you love doesn’t matter, now does it?

Going long tomorrow morning.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Recession, Part II?

I read the news from a variety of sources every day.  Bloomberg, The Los Angeles Times, Xinhua, Voice of America, Sydney Morning Herald.  It keeps me honest, jumping around like that, keeping from getting all my news from one source.  I’ve been no different in my viewing, listening and reading of the debt ceiling news.

The news has been dark from all sources, obviously.  The news has been nervous sounding, also obviously.  The nervousness is born of the fear that we, as a nation, will be irrevocably damaged by this current political exchange.  Seems right.  The Boehner plan, that failure that threatens America’s immediate financial future, has already been shot down by the Senate.  Meaning that the Reid plan is now on the table, and may run into as staunch an amount of opposition as Boehner’s plan ran into. 

It will not get much in the way of backing of house Republicans when it moves back to the house for final authorization, and there will probably be some house Dems who will not vote for it.  So there is some level of trepidation about the congress being able to pass a workable deal.

It is also dangerous because we are already dealing with a seemingly wounded economy.  The consumer sentiment index is down, durable goods orders are down, MBA purchase applications are down.  Many signs of a dark immediate economic future.  Oh yeah, and GDP is growing at a slower rate than was expected.

If this debt ceiling thing becomes the mess that it looks like it could, it may well start  us down the road to a fresh recession.  The economy is already stalled at this point, this could stick a fork in any progress made.

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America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself

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And there was progress made.  Without stimulus, there would be millions less jobs out there than there are now.  Unemployment would be significantly worse.  The dollar, for all its weakness, would be even weaker than it is now.  States, which are in horrible condition fiscally (due in part to balanced budget amendments in their state constitutions, AHEM) would be considerably worse.

There may well be progress made this weekend.  The Senate is going to go discuss the Reid plan and should be able to have some kind of a vote (barring a filibuster) on the Senate floor by Sunday, leaving some time to at least get this to a vote on the floor of the house before this debt ceiling bomb goes off on August 2nd.  This weekend is going to go a long way to figuring out whether the economy will move along with the possibility of finding some strength, or whether we sink into recession part II.

Part one sucked, in part my job disappeared because of it, and I still haven’t fully recovered.  Let’s get this debt ceiling stuff finished, so we can all get on with our lives, and we can get to getting America working again.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Let’s Adjourn

The Face of Failure

The house of representatives has adjourned for the night.  Not normally a big deal at 11:00pm on a thursday night, not exactly a reason to write about anything, but tonight is different.  The house vote on the debt ceiling deal was supposed to happen tonight.  It was delayed for hours before the house decided to call it a night and try again tomorrow.

The reason for the delay?  Simple.  John Boehner has not been able to get a consensus amongst his own people large enough for the vote to pass through the congress.  And if the bill can’t get out of the house, it can’t go to the senate for a vote, to get shot down and changed by the senate to create a more signable, if not passable bill. And if the bill that comes back has more in the way of revenue increases, or the cuts aren’t deep enough, it might not survive a vote after the senate gets a signable bill back to the house for a final round of votes…

It is a labryinthine maze that it must run through, filled with intrigue and horsecrap.  John Boehner can’t get his own people to follow his lead, in the moment when he needs them to follow that lead to show a unified face to the nation.  And even if he can get the 4 or 5 votes more that he needs to pass this version of this bill, how will he be able to hold that semi-consensus together for the stronger round of cuts the Democrats in the Senate will send back to them?

My guess, and  I am not the only one saying this, is that he might not be able to.  He will need the democrats during the second round of votes, because his own base, as it has here already, will abandon him.  The tea party has it’s own agenda, and it is not necessarily Pro-America, and it is not necessarily pro-business, nor is it Pro-anything.  It simply hates government, and it is in government, so it’s sole job is to implode the government.

For those who voted tea party in 2010, you asked for this, whatever “this” that happens next.  If this thing goes worst case scenario, and there is no guarantee that it will, but if it does, and you dislike the results in our economy, you have no one but yourselves to blame.  Any damage that happens is directly your fault.

I’m sure thoughts like that keep them warm at night.

BTW, the market saw this happen and the futures market tanked.  Hope you guys like market volatility, you’re gonna get some.  And much of the market thinks, according to what I can tell from listening to bloomberg radio, that the Boehner bill is at once too small and too much of a political football, and it won’t help things.

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I’ll write to you later, America.  G’night!

New Horizons

My last day on my current temp job is a week away.  7 days.  Next Wednesday.After that I’m looking for a new job, new horizons.

The job I have now is a good job, and despite the fact I don’t get paid much I work hard.  Example:  Today I helped break down 14 – 6 x 4 x 3 (big enough to live in)  fiberboard cabinets, took down a series of electric light fixtures, moved 12 – 5 drawer metal map cabinets, dollyed up several others, and moved the last of the boxes that had to go down to the 11th floor, to make it a grand total of 325 boxes on that floor.

And I would have gotten more done, but the boss was around, and he likes to dither, and isn’t quite as strong as I am.  He had to work the metal map drawers with a pry bar to loosen them up.  They’ve been in the same spot for 40 years and are stuck in place.  I was ripping them out by hand.  Frankly the man slowed me down a bit.

He might be around tomorrow, but with other people being around, the extraction crew is coming in to help break down the other archive room, I foresee a day of hard work again tomorrow.

It is this work ethic that I bring with me to work every day.  I wonder how I can manage to get that into my resume, because everyone like working with people who work like I do.  Never have I heard a complaint about my work ethic.  Ever.

Gonna find a way to do it, and I will get that permanent job.  I’ve had enough of this temp work/ part time work crap.

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Speaking of people looking to work in new places….

I was waiting to hear what the first deal of the year would be in the NFL, post deal was going to be.  I was guessing that it was going to be McNabb or Haynesworth getting the boot from Washington.  I haven’t heard much about Haynesworth, but McNabb is said to be out of Washington and in Minnesota.  That should be a pretty good fit for him, and the Vikes do have a decent receiver corp(minus one), at least at the moment.  But that wasn’t the first move that I heard of.

Before I heard about McFlabb going to Minne, the move I heard first about was Matt Hasselbeck heading to the Titans.  That looks like a really good maneuver on the Titans part.  The titans have been in need of a good QB to get the ball to Nate Washington and Kenny Britt (and hopefully a free agency find or 2), to compliment the ground attack of Chris Johnson.  Hasselbeck instantly makes the Titans a better team.

Super Bowl contender?  No.  But they’ll definitely make some noise in the AFC South.

Other moves worth talking about?  Former New York Giant Barry Cofield signing with the Redskins (dammit), The Seahawks signing Robert Gallery and Sidney Rice, and the Bengals signing Bruce Gradkowski.  That last  is a good deal for the Bengals, due to the carson Palmer is “considered to be retired” by the Bengals, and that means they were in need of a new starter.  Sounds like Gradkowski will be the new starting QB in Cincy, unless something startling happens soon.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night