Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News The RoundTable Roundtable for Summer 2019

F**K June. June Sucks.

First, my Jeep broke down. It's a big Red, lifted(4 1/2 inch Rusty's Offroad), 2003 4x4 Grand Cherokee. Something fell apart in the steering. A bolt came out. Major pain in the ass and over $500 Buckaroos that was NOT in the budget. Don't judge me. I live 3 miles from the nearest paved road, 8 miles to the nearest gas station, 12 miles to the city limits.

Then I lost both my cats. One was still practically a kitten and I loved her dearly. But she was a wild child and chose the swamp life. Didn't come home for days on end, showed up and ate, then left again. I've given her up for dead before, but whether she lives or not she doesn't appear inclined to come home. The Other was my daughter's cat, cranky old thing, took ill and died under my bed. She was a hider so we thought nothing of it when we didn't see her for a few days. But after a few days we didn't need to see her to find her...if you get my drift.

My daughter is marrying her girlfriend. That's good news but it comes with a caveat. She's moving to Maine. I'm disabled and it's going to be a bit of a challenge living alone. I'm gonna miss her too, a lot.

Then, just a couple nights ago, we had just finished dinner and the kid had gone to work(she's 25, a barista at Starbucks), I was standing over the stove munching on a leftover buttermilk fried pork chop when BAM a lightening strike knocked out the power. Tradition around here is when the power goes out we go to town for ice cream so I loaded up the dog and went to the Twisty Treat. Power was back on when I got home but my modem was not blinking its little multitude of green lights.

And my computer was toast. Powerpack and motherboard fried and since it's a custom built gaming machine it had an odd powerpack that had to be shipped from California. A week to get my computer back. And an additional $300.

So I dug this old one out of the closet...It hasn't run since 2013, dug into the Medusa like tangles of wires behind my desk and got the new modem hooked up and configured.

And the old computer plugged into the system...

What a mess...a virus laden mess with a browser hijacker clogging up the works, no wonder I replaced it. And of course it doesn't know any of my passwords any more than I do.

It's windows XP. No longer supported by anybody. I downloaded a 2014 version of Firefox and AVG Free. It's moving along pretty well now.

I'm changing all my passwords to get this computer into Facebook and RR and assorted other places that need passwords.

Then I'm going to get my other machine back and I won't know which passwords I used where and it'll start all over again...

Yesterday my mower broke.

F**K June.

Oh yeah...creaky old ReaderRant software wouldn't let me in but Phil and I created this alternate the last time I had a computer blip. Jeffery and I were able to get me in here.

I went 48 hours with no news source at all. It wasn't easy.

All of 2019 has sucked ass for us too.
A day or two after Christmas Karen fell out of her power chair. She was reaching down to pick up one of the kitties, only she forgot she had taken off her seat belt.
Two broken legs, one such a mild hairline that it healed by itself but the other was major multiple "communicative" fractures and she wound up in a very heavy splint that went from toes to halfway up her thigh for two and a half months.

Then just as we were rounding the home stretch with the healed fracture she got a massive pressure sore right on her buttock, right where the hip bone meets the femur. A major flap surgery followed by five weeks in a floaty bed called a Clinitron, which required her to be 100% immobilized, like in an iron lung.
Then another month hospital bed rest but thankfully in a normal hospital bed.

She is home now but still under strict bed rest orders but she gets to sit in her chair about five hours a day for now.

Yeah, it is not shaping up to be the greatest year for us so far either...and we're still under the spectre of Trump, of course.

Thank God Karen's finally home. Here she is WITH her seat belt on, showing off how limber she can be.

Gregor:

Congrats to your daughter, anyway. I keep a list of passwords on my computer, but every now and then I print it out and take it to my safe deposit box. We've had a few computer failures, but the good news is they have little boxes about the size of your hand that are a full PC for cheap. You just plug in a USB keyboard and mouse, and connect them to your monitor.

I just finished moving my mom's furniture and such into a storage locker. We have to sell her house to pay her assisted living bills. Those places are incredibly expensive.

Interesting (and encouraging) article:

PacifiCorp Proposes Replacing Wyoming Coal Plants With Renewables and Storage


This is how the greening of America happens: When new technologies make fossil fuel use uneconomical, change away from fossil fuel is inevitable. Big coal and big oil will fight it, but money is money after all. If businesses can make more by going green, that can't be stopped.

Hmmmmmm:

Steve Bannon: Trump's business empire [is] a criminal enterprise

Nah...Republicans have dug in and doubled down on supporting Trump. Have you ever seen them back down when they've dug themselves in this deep?

They know as well as we do that he's a fraud. In his business, in his politics and in his life he is nothing but a fraud. They won't be excited about re-electing him but they have no choice and they will vote for him.

Polls show Biden ahead by about 10 points.

If Trump's 35% fanatic base sticks with him and his ideas for multiple election cycles, that could be a good thing. It means the Republicans don't get to have the White House for decades. Instead they nominate Trump or a similar asshat, who loses the general election because most people see what a disaster Trump was. It could be a long time before Republicans nominate someone reasonably competent. The more they go along with Trump's criminal behavior, the longer they will be out of power.

I hope you are right, PIA. I'm sorry your June sucks so bad, Greger. I'm almost embarrassed to say how mine has gone. I've not had much internet access, and have not paid much attention to news. Harvey, our RV, ticked over 60k, and we should be home tomorrow. One more visit with our senior son (who is going through an amicable divorce, but a divorce nonetheless, so is max stressed and depressed), then home just until the end of the week.

We've traveled 3000 miles over the last 3 weeks, finishing the family "gold rush" trip with two of my sisters. We've now retraced our great- great- great-grandfather's sojourn from Mascoutah, Illinois to Nevada City, California for the California gold fields in 1850. He didn't go home rich, but he did make it home, which cannot be said for all of the family. I've seen and learned so much it's a life-altering experience. History meets family lore meets the modern world. We even found where his claim was! Like him, we didn't bring home much gold, but lots of memories.

It's Pride Month.