Before starting our Christmas festivities with family, we all tested for Covid as some in the family are immunocompromised. We used nasal swab home test kits.
The store was out of the rectal test versions that I prefer. Anyway, with these nasal tests, one red line means you are negative for Covid, and two red lines mean you got the Covid.
Pretty simple, right? I was grateful that my test yielded only one red line. But what did what was underneath mean? Take a look.
I have enjoyed being involved in international business, both import and export, for many years now.
Working internationally with import-export has helped me realize that people the world over are just like me, trying to eke out a living and provide for their families. I wish those in the US who fear “furriners” could have a chance to interact more internationally. I think the US would be a less fearful and more accepting nation.
I export a bit to the Middle East these days. I have a wish for the New Year. One of my customers is a company in Saudi Arabia called Uranus Advanced Trading. I also export to a company in Bahrain that employs an individual who I want to go to work at Uranus Advanced Trading. Why? His name is Anil Titus. Yes, I want Anil Titus busy at Uranus. Yes, I am 10 years old.
And yes, I realize this post is not very Christmassy, but I promise I have a holiday gift for you in the next post as we continue to slog through my 12 Days of Blogging. A gift receipt will NOT be provided. Be nice and pretend to like it.
I took a couple weeks after November ended to determine if I had lost a weight loss battle or the entire war. The month of November was certainly my weight loss Waterloo, and I don’t mean the city of Waterloo in Iowa, home of the Sistene Chapel reproduced in spray paint on the walls and ceiling of a warehouse turned into a restaurant that is now closed. Thanks, Covid.
No, I’m talking about Napoleon’s Waterloo where he lost his final battle while also gaining 5 pounds thanks to a cheesecake binge. I lost a major weight loss battle in November. Fat cells are now occupying my liver, and they are threatening to invade my pancreas unless their demands for sugared sodas and cake are met. However, I may not have lost the war. Signs in December are positive about returning to or close to my goal weight I met over the summer.
I can break November into 2 distinct halves. The first half of November was characterized by 4 things:
Can you tell me why it is always men, not women, who we hear about ending up in the hospital with things stuck up their backsides? The men always seem to “fall” perfectly onto the item that then gets lodged up their bum. I’m using a British term for derriere since the man in this story is from the UK. Here’s the latest story that UK readers may have already heard about.
Rectum??? It probably almost killed him. Full story link here. If you don’t want to click the link, here are some dimensions to ponder. The mortar shell removed from his tushie was 170mm/6.69″ long and a robust 57mm/2.24″ in diameter. It was designed to penetrate a tank’s armor. This is a good spot to add any lowbrow joke of your own. I have already exceeded my limit. Anyway, you know the old saying, “The mortar the merrier.”
I should warn you, this is going to be a long post. Wait, wait, don’t click away. It’ll be long, but with lots of pictures including one of our new puppy dog. Whew, I think I saved a few of you from ditching me and this post.
I rarely do a post like this one. It’ll be chock full ‘o pics from the television, or if you’re in the UK, the telly. I usually reason that if you wanted to see the program, you would have watched it yourself, and you don’t need to see me regurgitate a program that you chose not to watch. Gee, I may not be doing a good job of selling this post. Did I mention our new puppy’s pic is coming?
The show I watched was The Rachel Maddow Show. Some folks call her the liberal version of Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity. I call her a smarty-pants who uses actual verifiable facts rather than conjecture, fear-mongering, and lies, also known as the staples of those named Fox News hosts.
Anyway, she was trying to help people again last night. Specifically, she warned against these practices …
Here in the USA, we just finished a 4 day holiday weekend. Some people still call it Thanksgiving, but as a Democrat, George Soros pays me to refer to the holiday as Pre-Slaughter of Indigineous People Day.
Anyway, I’ve had better holiday weekends. Since I received my Covid booster 10 days ago, I’ve been sick with respiratory symptoms. Do you think maybe that when I asked for my Covid shot, they actually injected me with the Covid virus? Did I need to be more specific that I wanted the Covid vaccine, not the virus? So, I was a bit logy on Thanksgiving when our kids came over. They couldn’t tell the difference.
I was disappointed in my oldest daughter on Thanksgiving. No, it wasn’t because her pasta was a bit too peppery, although it was. It was because she didn’t notice Yorick. You remember Yorick, right, my new real human skull? My wife, who has a keen eye for design decor, suggested I move Yorick to the other side of our fireplace mantle to provide more balance and symmetry. It works!
My daughter didn’t notice, and when I pointed out Yorick, she was appalled. And yet, she’s the same daughter who visited the catacombs in Paris to see the ossuaries packed with bones and skulls. When I visited Vienna, I headed underground to see the same thing. I figured she was a chip off the old block. Turns out that my daughter thinks that human remains should be kept underground and not passed around the family room. Looks like I raised an elitist!
I did feel a bit better yesterday, so my wife and I went out to dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I was leaning toward a private, heated, plastic bubble at this restaurant.
I know the world is sick of Covid, and everything is opening back up, despite breakthrough cases of Covid continuing to take the lives of double-vaccinated people who thought they were safe. I’m slowly trying to safely head back out into this weird, new, masked Covidy world. I recently went to an outdoor football game, and I went to a basketball game in a big indoor arena. I felt safer outdoors at the football game, but the seats at the basketball game were positioned in such a way that I felt okay about being there. But indoor restaurants? No, thank you. I’ll take the food to go.
I enjoyed safely meeting with friends over the summer at restaurants with outdoor patios. But last night, it was below freezing out, and I was scheduled to have dinner with friends. What do we do? We decided to head to a place with an outdoor patio that they wrap in plastic and keep cozy with overhead and tableside heaters. Even better, live music was scheduled for last night.
They looked fun and upbeat with an indie-artist vibe to them, sort of a cleaner-cut version of the Strumbellas from Canada. Take a look and you decide.
My exercise, health, and weight loss posts are generally my most viewed posts, so why would I wait until the middle of November to report on how I did in October? I guess it’s basically because I don’t care that much about what happened. There, I said it, and it feels good. I made my goal weight over the summer. When I sit in those special chairs at the pharmacy that take my pulse, measure my blood pressure, weigh me, and check my Body Mass Index, I no longer get the flashing warning to stand up before I break the chair. I’m now in maintenance mode.
Maintenance mode is not very exciting, and I don’t have much to report. I may have been able to lose more weight in early October as the weather was quite good to start the month. I probably could have left my pool up and swam until mid-October, but I didn’t. I walked and biked as usual, but my steps do show a slight seasonal reduction.
And that is because good mental health is key to good physical health. In the middle of October, the weather took a nasty turn for the worse, as did my mental health. I deal with SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I had to adjust my supplements and start doing this a lot.
Thanks, Dr. Wolf! Now where is it that Dr. Wolf practices medicine? Oops, she doesn’t. It’s not that she’s so good at medicine that she no longer needs to practice. It’s that she’s NOT a medical doctor, but has a doctorate of philosophy. So, when you see these anti-vax/mask/swab “doctors” dispensing bad advice, just understand that they could be a doctor of thinkology like Dr. Wolf, and have zero experience in medicine.
As for DNA harvesting, even my kids don’t want my DNA, so why in hell would the Chinese want to harvest my DNA? They can have all they want. Why would I care? Are they going to clone me? Great! Give my clone an opportunity to be a better me the second time around in Beijing.
The lesson that we should learn is to beware when you encounter a Wolf in doctor’s clothing. I mean, even this lying, anti-vax/mask Covidiot has an honorary doctorate.
I was cool with the tracking microchips in the COVID vaccine, just in case I wander off and get lost. But the aluminum aliens in the vaccine reported in a recent blog post proved too much for me. I thought it was maybe a random crazy story, which of course I blogged about as fact, but there’s even more reporting on it here.
End Times conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain "an egg that hatches into a synthetic parasite and grows inside your body." pic.twitter.com/mOUHaztXT0
In addition to running TruNews, which appears to be banned from most social media for some reason, Rick Wiles is an evangelical pastor! They’re not allowed to lie, right? Sure, he wants $100 million to build an end-times media empire, but who can blame him? I’d build an end-times media empire, too, if someone wanted to give me $100 million.
Anyhoo, something had to go. I know aluminum is non-magnetic, so I thought I’d focus on the microchip rather than the aluminum alien. I had seen videos of people becoming magnetized from the vaccine, so I figured that the microchips were probably the source of the magnetism. In order to find the magnetic microchip, I put spinach on my vaccinated arm. Why spinach? Duh, spinach is high in iron, and iron is magnetic. I shook my arm, and I decided the microchip was probably located in my arm where a leaf stayed (magnetically, I assume) stuck to my arm. All sounds logical, right?
My next step was to find a doctor who was an open thinker like me and willing to remove my microchip.
The operation was a success, and this is what my arm is sporting today.
I’m very late reporting on my weight loss trials and travails for September. I shouldn’t be late with these weight loss posts as they are my most popular posts on this blog. I think it’s because despite differences in politics, religion, etc., we all share the same struggle with weight control, except for those naturally skinny people with self control who never have to exercise. Oh, I hate them so much. Anyway, here we go, better late than never.
When I last posted about weight, I was 3 lbs below my goal weight at the end of August. Success, right? Well, not exactly. September turned cool, my swimming stopped, and my body started to get ready for a winter hibernation by eating everything in sight. I immediately re-reached my goal weight from the opposite direction and shot up above it by several pounds. That’s just how my body works. It doesn’t matter that my steps were strong again in September.
Geez, wouldn’t you think I would make a little extra effort to average 10K steps? Anyway, my body’s metabolism just slows down in cooler weather, maybe to get ready for my winter hibernation? I would be willing to give hibernation a try as I like long naps. Fortunately, the weather warmed again and some of the weight came off. Right at the end of September, my weight had come down to below my goal weight again, but seemed to be heading up. I waited to see what would happen. Well, here’s what happened.
How many pounds of weight lost is too many? For me, I’m not sure that number exists. If you recall from my post about July weight loss, I had made my original weight loss goal. It took me over a year to lose 20 pounds. I still felt puffy, so I figured I would continue on. But continue what? I’m not on a diet. I just eat right. I had even cut back a bit on exercise from last year, although I still posted a respectable average daily step/bike crank total in August.
After swimming 9 miles in July, I scaled back to 7 miles in August. So how did I lose 3 more pounds in August? I don’t have COVID or any other deadly disease. I’m starting to think it may have to do with one of the two mystery supplements I started taking at the beginning of June. They weren’t a mystery to me, but I have been teasing them a bit in this blog. Well, it’s time for their big reveal.
Yesterday, the mites delivered an anti-Ivermectin cartoon on this blog that blew up the internet. No, wait, I may have gotten that slightly wrong. I’ll try that again. Yesterday, the mites delivered an anti-Ivermectin cartoon on this blog that blew. That’s more like it. Anyway, the mites joined a legion of others that are begging people not to take livestock dewormer Ivermectin for Covid. Here’s known cable news smarty-pants Rachel Maddow trying to explain why people are taking a livestock dewormer for Covid.
The Mississippi DOH confirms today that at least 70% of the recent calls to poison control in the state have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers. Where the heck did people get the idea to do that?? pic.twitter.com/Fe66D0zWV5
Oh, right, Fox News. There are potential side effects, like death. And take a look at what has happened to conservative pundit Ann Coulter after taking Ivermectin.
Anyway, I have been blogging a lot about water since I have been swimming across Lake Michigan this summer in my backyard pool. After swimming more miles than expected in July, it became mathematically apparent that I would likely make my mileage goal by the end of summer. I started to think about finishing with a flourish or grand gesture, and I had one in mind.
I was aware of this event as I had considered competing in it in my younger days.
I certainly couldn’t finish the 5K (3.1 miles) unless I was being towed by a boat. But I had done a mile open water swim in July, so I am pretty sure I can slog slowly through the 2.5K (1.55 miles) course. Oh, you’re asking why it is called the Big Shoulders swim?
Editor’s Note: Nobody asked.
Well, Chicago was called the City of Big Shoulders by poet Carl Sandburg. Of course, he also called Chicago the Hog Butcher for the World. I think the swimming race organizers chose the better name.
I was moved by the passion of this speaker in this video tweet. You may have already seen it. When someone speaks with such passion, I feel there has to be some truth to what is being said. Well, let’s take a look before we unpack what is being said.
Such passion. Such raw emotion. Such an apparent lack of facts. There’s so much to unpack, so I did just that because if I’m anything, I’m helpful. Oh, and I like to poke fun at people like the speaker. Come join in as we take a deep dive together into this video.
July was a real up & down month weightwise for me. Up is not the direction I want to go, but 2 personal trips, 1 business trip, and a family birthday party throw my eating and exercise plans off a bit. I was up a couple pounds, down a couple, up, down, up, down, etc. But the final result for July was down 3 lbs, and I made my goal weight set at the beginning of the COVID lockdown.
It wasn’t because of my steps. They were down, under 10,000 per day, but purposely so.
As you must know by now (since I post constantly about it), I am swimming across Lake Michigan this summer, primarily via laps in our small backyard pool.
Out of sheer boredom, I have been trying to schedule some open water swimming. But Saturday, my attempt to actually swim across the actual Lake Michigan was actually rebuffed as Lake Michigan was actually closed! Actually! I took our youngest daughter to stay with our oldest daughter on Saturday for a sister-bonding sleepover, and we stopped at beautiful Montrose Beach in Chicago on the way for a quick swim.
Montrose is a beautiful urban beach, complete with sand dunes. But on Saturday, it was closed because of a brisk wind from the northeast creating some dangerous riptides. I still wanted to give it a try. Where were the “my body, my choice” anti-vaxxers when I needed them to back me up?
Anyway, we walked and relaxed a bit on the beach instead of swimming. I had already gotten some laps in my pool, and after a half mile on Sunday (that’s 175 laps!), I find myself here in Lake Michigan.
As I teased in my last post, I was tempted after my swim last Saturday. Being America’s Friend, I was speaking to a total stranger despite the stranger wearing very tight shorts and sporting a somewhat satanic beard.
I was also wearing very tight swim shorts, and they were quite wet. We were both standing just outside the women’s locker room. And then the stranger tempted me to do something I haven’t done in years. He slipped me his card with his contact info. If I gave in to the temptation, I would meet the stranger again on the 1st of August for a dalliance into what I can only describe for me as … forbidden fruit.
The stranger had tempted me with this irresistible offer.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 