I hate it when it's soggy outside...

I hate it when it's soggy outside, as it tends to make me unmotivated to go and do what I should be doing this morning which is to ride the bike around the countryside, but alas, here I sit writing this instead. I guess it's not a bad trade off for the most part. I do have a wedding to attend this afternoon as well, and I'll be going stag as the SO had some other things and or plans for this weekend which included visiting with her Mom and her sister, which is not a bad thing at all. That's what Steve-O gets for telling me about this whole wedding thing last weekend as opposed to say, getting an invite out or something like that. But I can't blame the kid, it sounds like something that I would do to some of my friends, and it is probably something I will do to my friends when the time comes for me to get hitched. So instead of riding the bike, here I sit typing away at the lappy. It's not like it's raining outside or anything like that, it's just not dry out there, and there is an 80% chance of rain, so why bother? It's still too early in the off season for me to care about riding when it's crappy outside, but later on this off season and into the new year of 2006, I'm sure that there will be days like this where I will indeed be riding my bike out in the crap, so I can slack off for today, and well, yesterday. I rode the trainer (yuck) on Thursday evening for a short while to keep the legs loose. Anyway, yeah, I'm sure down the road I'll be riding in the crap more often than not, so it will make up for this one day of indiscretion, and whip my ass somewhere down the line. I just poked my head out the door though, and it's still not raining, and it's still wet out there. I know what will happen should I suit up and venture out onto the roads of Orange County. As soon as I get out about an hour from home, the rain will come fast and furious, and I'll be completely sopping soaking wet by the time I get home. Like I said, I don't want to be miserable riding right now, I'm still in the phase of trying to find the love for riding again, so better not push the motivational levels. I did ride 5 times last week, which for me, is a great amount of riding compared to what I've done in the previous 2 months. Next week, 6 days, but that will of course mean riding tomorrow regardless of said weather. Yeah, I can do that. I like that I'm talking about riding so much, it tells me that I'm getting obsessed with it again, and this is a good thing. Also next week, I'm going to start running in the mornings. Yeah, running. Can you believe that shit? I can't.

I finally got the watch I was bitching and complaining about. It only took me about 3 weeks of trying to get the right one to finally actually get a watch, and of course, the entire time that I was trying to get said watch I was wearing the old watch, which wasn't actually telling time so much as telling me well, not what time it was. Gladly, I have the new watch, and it does kick ass, just for the pure looks of it. See previous posts for pictures of said watch. Nike is making some seriously kick ass watches these days, and I can't help but to get one. Another thing that I'm going to get is another laptop case. Yes, I already have one, but I found one that I saw last week that I want a lot more. I'll hold out on it for a little while though, just because. It's not that expensive though, so maybe I'll get it today. While I was thinking about money, I dodged off of this blog for a few minutes and just paid all of my bills. I love technology sometimes, OK most of the time. But there is still something very cool about the written word. I look at my logbooks from work, and sometimes I even amaze myself at how much stuff I'm able to write out in longhand over the course of a year. Right now my notes and or logbooks are averaging around 300 pages a year, which is a lot of writing. I'm actually kind of amazed that the habit of writing just about everything down during working days has kept up with me. I started in during college when I had a professor who made us keep logbooks for our labs, and it continues to this day. Professor Dvorak, thanks for instilling a good habit. Funny thing about that is that Dvorak wasn't even in my department, he was in the EE department, and I just happened to take a class in programmable logic controllers, and he taught it. Yeah, I know, I'm a dork. I can't help it. I am en engineer after all. Still trying to shake that mojo after all of these years. Which reminds me, it is now official. I've been out of school for 10 years now. Seems like yesterday I was graduating, had long hair, and no job prospects. It's good that times have changed that's for sure. I don't know right now if there is anything that I would do differently. At least for the time being. I of course would have liked to have had partied some more whilst at school, but then again, I didn't. Can't go back and do it now. Well, I could, but now I'd just be the scary old guy hanging out in the corner. And this is something that I can abide by at all. I'm just way past that now. Which in and of itself is a good thing. How did I start this paragraph writing about a damn watch that I bought, and end up talking about the "old days". Yeah, I don't know either.

Things in the political world right now are starting to go the way I've been wanting them to go for a long time now, well, at least since 2000 when Bush stole the presidency. It only took 5 years for the American people to come around and realize that he's an imbecile. Not a smart man, not a good leader, and all of that other jazz. His approval rating right now is in the gutter, and staying there no matter what he tries to do, and this pleases me. Last time I checked, it was hovering in the 39% overall approval rating range. This coming from a man whose former approval ratings, at times, were above 80% (post 9/11). Now he's tanking, and I'm hoping that he's taking the rest of the Republican party with him down the tubes which it appears that he is. This isn't to say that I don't like Republicans at all, this is not true. There are some out there that have had some good ideas, and have done great things, and I can't deny that. It's just that Bush and all of his loyal followers are not the the ones that have done great things. Bush almost singlehandidly is bringing the US way down, and it's going to take another 20 or so years of hard work to bring it back to where we were when he took office. Yes, it's true. This isn't some blip on the second term radar though, look at Clinton. Even after he was impeached by the witch hunting Congress, his approval rating was still over 70%. I guess getting oral sex in the Oval Office really isn't the same as say starting a couple of wars, and bringing the deficit to all times highs, exporting jobs, and playing strongly to your special interest groups. I just wish that people had been actually paying attention to the real issues during the election last year instead of listening to the rhetoric of both sides. Bush has never had a firm stance, or a firm control of any of the issues. But as I've said before, he won on the simple premise of fear, God, gays, and guns. Fear from the fact that his folks kept trotting out ads that essentially said if you vote for the other guy, we're going to get attacked again from terrorists. Funny, I seemed to remember that he was in office when we were attacked on 9/11. Nobody paid attention to that. God by invoking the name of God and religion as much as possible. Gays by coming out for an amendment to our Constitution that would have banned same sex marriage nationwide (who said Republicans were for smaller government anyway??). Funny, I thought our Constitution gave us our rights, not take them away. Guns by playing strongly to the gun lobby, and making it appear as if the Democrats wanted to take your guns, and bibles. The best bumper sticker that I saw during the campaign was Sportsmen for Bush. Totally an oxymoron just from the mere fact that Bush would pave everything if his corporate cronies told him to, and there would be nowhere left to hunt and fish. Bush has been extremely bad for the environment, and continues to be bad for the environment. Just the other day, the House passed a bill pushed heavily by the Republicans for taking away some of the laws and requirements to build refineries, and to take away environmental restrictions to those refineries. The vote was supposed to be open for 5 minutes, when the Republican leadership saw itself losing that vote, they kept the vote open for almost an hour, and squeaked it by with 2 votes after twisting and breaking arms on the floor of the House. Tragic. I hope that the American people see him for what he really is after all is said and done. Someone controlled by corporate greed and money, and essentially the rich kid that always got everything he wanted. Even the Presidency of the United States. Sad.

I was listening to talk radio one day, and heard someone float a theory on there, that I thought was weird at first, but then as I thought about it, it started to make sense. Bush is tired of being President. He's tired of the responsibility and power that he wields, and tired of everything demanded of him. He's tired of running the country, you can sort of see it on his face. He looks exasperated all of the time. And by all indications, he's not working that hard. He had a damn 6 week vacation just a month or so ago. When was the last time anyone you know got 6 weeks off at a time? Yeah, that's right, never. Bush actually holds the record now, right behind him are his Dad and Regan for taking the most vacation time during his presidency. Wait a minute? Isn't he supposed to be running the country? How does one do that being on vacation half the time? I don't get it. But yeah, if he could resign the Presidency tomorrow, I think he would do it. Well, I mean, he can resign if he wants to, but if it were really realistic. And just like every other "business" that he's run, he's run this one into the ground. Except this time, it's an entire country instead of a State (Texas), or actual companies (Harken Energy and others). How did we get here? Oh yeah, it's also good to see the Republican goon squad up on the Hill finally getting their due. Delay, indicted. Frist, under investigation. Rove, possible indictment. Scooter Libby, under investigation and possible indictment. Michael Brown, removed from his position. The list could go on and on, and only make me happier. Still though, there are those on boards that I visit that keep defending the administration no matter what happens. Tooth and nail. I have got to admire their loyalty, but isn't there some point in time when you do realize that there are things going wrong? I guess they have the old rose colored glasses on tight mister. Very tight.