Today is my grandfather’s birthday. Damon E. Grim. He was born July 18, 1895. He’d be 125 years old if he was still alive. He’s my favorite relative of all time. Happy Birthday!

Still no Internet. No shows by the repairman Friday and Saturday. Supposed to come today. I’m using expensive mobile data to upload this.

Started building a “screenhouse” this weekend. It’s a place to grow vegetables that keeps  chickens out. Sorry, no pics, expensive mobile data used to upload this.

Have a good week!

We’re getting ready to switch to the competition. They cannot be worse. Not possible.

Uploading this using my data connection. The ISP makes the internet intermittent, then people turn on their mobile data. And then the ISP makes more money! Brilliant!

Angry this morning. Internet and other things.

But it’s Friday!

I was sleeping good when the alarm clock went off this morning, but when I  turned it off, I was quite awake.

I put 6 cups of water into the coffee maker and got only two cups out.. This has happened before and it’s quite weird.

This mornings sunrise.

The week is going fast and I’m glad.

This morning I thought it was Tuesday, it was counting my shirts that got me back on track. Two already worn this week, not one.

I’ve been reading about the train crash in Italy. We were just there, in the north. The crash was in the south. Still, two trains, 100 km/hour each. Head on. Dang.

Frustration level is medium-high this morning. Don’t wanna go to work.

Have a good day!

Kind of like Wordless Wednesday, but it’s Tuesday!

Monday again. Looks like rain. Don’t want to go to work. It’s my 56th bday. We had a good weekend, but I think the hottub motor is burnt. I took it apart as much as I could this weekend. Everything looks fine, except this horrible burnt electronics smell. I can’t look any deeper into it without draining the water. It lasted about a year and a day before dying. Warranty and a day. our fridge died and was replaced. Our dryer died and is getting replaced. Italy trip. I think there’s more than I’m remembering right now…

When I was a kid, a refrigerator would last 20 or 30 years. Now, I think stuff is engineered to last just slightly longer than the warranty. I bought a paperback book. Read it once. Read it again and the pages started falling out. Engineered to fail.

But everywhere I turn there’s something wrong.As you know, I’ve been swimming every day since it is light early enough. The past few days, the ladder has been “up” so you can’t use it. Usually, it’s only up when there’s rough seas. The thought occured to me that maybe the dive shop has been putting it up to prevent access.

There was a government Beach Access sign there, which has been taken down in the past three days. The dive shop that was there before the one that’s there now was usung the beach access “alley” for storing some stuff, and I undeerstand there was an understanding that it was OK as long as the public could access the sea on their property. It appears that the new shop owners are trying to stop access.

Now I gotta make some calls.

I’ve had a good run, free from excessive anger, but I think it’s about to come to an end. Lately, everything irritates me soo much. Work. The news. On the news, I’m hearing about things that happeened 10-15 years ago that I remember happened differently. I think politicians are trying to re-write history before it’s history.

I don’t want to be angry. I want to maintain the I-don’t-give-a-crap attitude that I’ve had going for what seems like a long time.

I got nothing more to say today.

This morning on the BBC, there was a speech about the Iraq conflict in 2003. HERE’S a link.

It irritated me because there was nothing in it that I didn’t know back then.

I got nothing to say about Saddam Hussein. No way am I supporting him here. That’s not my intent. But the US said, “You have WMDs, disarm or we’ll attack”. Iraqq said they didn’t have any WMDs, but every day on CNN they showed Iraq destroying weapons, crushing missiles with front end loaders. To me, it looked like they were trying to comply.

But the US went in there anyway, killed Saddam and found nothing.

I think the whole thing was mainly a personal vendetta by George Bush Jr, because Saddam said he kicked his dads butt. (George Sr’s mission was free Kuwait, which be accomplished. Schwarzkopf wanted to go on into Iraq, and I think George Sr did good, sticking to the mission.

The point is, nothing has caused me to change my initial assessment, or indicate it was wrong.

FIFA:

Five minutes into my first match of the world cup, I knew FIFA was corrupt. I said “Wouldn’t it be great if Costa Rica won?” Everyone said, “Oh they would never let Costa Rica win, Costa Rica doesn’t contribute enough to FIFA, or have the facilities to host a world cup.”

My thought was, “Who are “they“? and what does that have to do with anything, it’s about how well you play futbol, isn’t it?” And I knew they were corrupt. I remember a game where Costa Rica scored first, and the refs turned on them. Giving CR penalties where there were none, and ignoring blatant penalties by the other team.

I knew FIFA was corrupt, apparently each and every fan knew they were corrupt.

A year or so later, everyone at FIFA is busted. Who’s surprised?

I think I’m stupid. I don’t trust my own assessment in almost any situation. I don’t think I can grasp these complex political situations. But in hindsight, I don’t do half bad.

Look at Iraq today. Saddam Hussein wouldn’t have put up with that ISIL crap from the beginning. They wouldn’t be there.

I can’t believe the US has these two ridiculous candidates running for president. What the heck is going on in this world?