35 days wasted

Thirty five days later we're back to square one.  Exactly where both sides of Congress had agreed on to begin with. Then Trump reneged on his promise to sign the budget and shut down government for over a month.  Unfortunately our republican congress did not have the backbone to stand up to him-until it became obvious the democrats were not going to cave.  It was then that republican congressional leaders somehow managed to get Trump to back down-for 3 weeks. 

Many  of his base are calling him a 'caver'.  They stupidly wanted him to stick to his guns.  Well, he'll have a second chance three weeks from now when it starts all over again. 

There's much talk about Trump declaring a national emergency and pretty much stealing the $5.8 billion from somewhere else.  I hope it's challenged in court because the only national emergency is of his own making. 

On and on it goes.  A rogue, lunatic president running the country into the ground while a republican led congress stands by.   That's the national emergency!

Hello, Winter

Winter is finally here in earnest.  Snow to rain to ice and bitter cold Sunday the 20th leading to power out at 2:30 P.M. but back on at 11:30 P.M.  Fortunately we have a wood burning stove and a portable generator that powers all essential appliances i.e. furnace, pump, refrigerators and freezers and some lights.  We were even able to which recorded TV shows even though we didn't have cable or Internet service.  Cooking needs to be done on the wood stove or our gas grill.  We didn't hook up our electric range  since it draws too much power.

We ran the generator for 7 solid hours but when it isn't running,  the wood stove keeps the house comfortable.   We bought it 7 years ago and it sat unused for 5 years.  But for the past two years we have used it for 3 prolonged periods of outages.    Power outages are a pain but without the generator it would have been much worse.

Now we're considering the possibility of switching to a propane run whole-house unit that would power everything.  There is significant cost involved in doing that but it saves me going through a big hassle of having to move the car, pull out the generator, hooking it up, starting it and then going downstairs to switch from 'line' to 'generator.   Every time  we're done with it for the day or to refuel, we have to reverse the process.   Not a major deal but a bit of an inconvenience and if anything ever happens to me where I can't do it, my wife would be helpless.  Anyway it's a thought.

In the meantime it's normal New England weather. 

Happy birthday

Sure the news has been dismal, i.e. government shut down, miserable weather on our doorstep, other stuff but the good news is today is our awesome grand daughter Brooke's 15 birthday.

Where did the time go??

Anatomy of a temper tantrum

Donald Trump is a 300 lb two-year-old having a temper tantrum and holding the nation hostage.  And where the HELL is Congress in this.  Just over-ride his veto, pass a budget  and move on.  What a pathetic bunch of losers.