Almost the end of September and there is still rum and whiskey in the cabinet...

  You had no idea that two of the cabinet were code named Rum and Whiskey, did you?  Nah, speaking to my inability to finish what I started... haven't missed too much alcohol in my life, all those dry years I remember so very well.  The session at the YMCA took me to new levels of performance for 'that older gent' (my official new title replacing 'hey, old timer')

   Millions upon  millions, when we look back in History, slavery is completely not understood. Although there is real slavery still in backward countries, in the modern civilized nations there no longer is the same creature. There are legal entanglements and contracts and such, but there is much more freedom for those that don't count and they don't have to make bricks without straw because of the change.  I watched the movie Philomena last night, good movie and not my normal fare.  Still gives me thoughts to mull over.  Today, the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, is still taking an immoral stand, a legal but immoral stand on Planned Parenthood and abortion.  I am, still, a fellow very against others deciding my life, my culture, my contribution to the sins of humanity and the world.  Figuring my own stupidity, and Satan will likely do plenty without the cohorts of evil doers in positions of pretense of importance... The control freaks remain the weakness in most government systems, one very competent person can't do it all, and as soon as you add normal humans, you have lost the power of being really competent.

So Blood Moon, full moon and cleaar skies and I still like the North Star...

  Easier to find right in front of my front porch on a clear night.  Still have to admit, no matter how many cable feeds were covering the Pope's visit to America, gushing with their love of celebrities and dislike of religion and gods that frown upon their lusts and lavishness... I hope more people went out to view the moon. My wife talking to her sister in Korea on the mobile phone, took it and the conversation outside to view, then tried walking up the street to get closer to the Moon????? yeah, like that will work.  Tim Durkan took the picture for those not able to get away from the football game, most of Seattle had watched the Seahawks wake up for the second half. I wonder how many other photographers were working on Mount Rainier and other special locations to get the best shot of the event?  My wife was talking to her sister, because she can, and because it is Chuseok, the three day harvest festival thanksgiving in Korea.  Do wish they would decide which letters to use for which Korean symbols, and have some special sweet rice cakes, and get out the new traditional garb on television.

  I am wearing two daggers today and carrying concealed and realize only the medal detectors will get me, since it is a non-traditional carry position, but I have walked, sat, jumped in and moved Cadillac and my wife's car has so many less miles than my Caravan... so many less, anyway they are secure until they are needed.  So happy.  My wife is off to climb the hills with her hiking team and I am visiting the Service department and going to the YMCA.  Spend money like it isn't real, preparing for my selection as the write in candidate for 2016 Presidential Campaign.

Well, the Sun has finally crested the mountains and the big trees to the Southeast, time to get a move on.  Oh, stop, President Obama is addressing the United Nations and the new folks are already telling us what is important in his speech. He does wear that suit well, tie is tied so neatly, and he has grayed well as President. Should have sold tickets.

  

Beautiful Day in the neighborhood, but I was feeling worse as the morning moved along...

    So I crashed with a couple of wife recommended pills and slept the problem away... or so I tell myself. The house looks wonderful, but remember one of the nice things about getting older eyes is missing the dust layering the stuff that just doesn't move much anymore.

   I got my rifles cleaned and oiled by a one time professional, as a soldier and a Drill Sergeant I invented tools to clean carbon from M16, by flattening wire coat hanger lengths, now I see the Chinese are making them to sell to the Americans. Amazing how fast good ideas spread.  Took some Facebook pictures to make folks wonder what I am up to... nothing, just taking Facebook pictures to make folks wonder...

  I even during the clean up and storage and reorganization (like it was ever organized?) I put a bed spread on my day bed for my watching movies to sleep through..

  Did get my Caravan checked for emissions, failed three things, but the government would grant me a waiver for a hundred and fifty dollars, haven't they heard about global warming, carbon monoxide poisoning and other things?

  Big doings here, the Men's Bible study is at our home, days worth of cooking plus some of the ladies will bring more to share. This conflicts with the Church's Mission show tonight, but then we are having a consolidated service tomorrow, so I think we will get all caught up.

  The government has decided I don't know when I am well off and won't give me the winning numbers for tonight's drawing - a repeat of last nights results.  It never matters, they haven't figured out how to use all the money they have been winning for years now. But they get a bit nervous when not enough people play... like the professional politicians get nervous with the people thinking that amateurs could become President.  Just remember William Earl Dungey next November - write it in.

  

How to do the final Appleseed of my 21st Century... as Shoot Boss....

  So easy, sign up and go. 

  Just up 405 to Mukilteo and catch the ferry in the darkness and then drive to the range and await Tracey to open the gate.  Had twenty, three canceled and two were No Shows, so we had fifteen shooters, only one left hander, many ARs and center fired noise.  Looked like eight had been on an Appleseed with me before.

  And it went well, right on schedule, good pace, and the weather was better than it could have been. Lots better. My only rain problem was during the final Red Coat target and clean up time, since I couldn't find an underwater writing pen to record the results. And my clip board with notes was packed away with the range host family and they were going to Canada to hunt moose and wolves. The Canadians are promoting hunter safari adventures. If they just bring back the wooly Mammoth and Rhino...

  About 240 rounds on first day, and three hundred rounds on second day. So many opportunities to put a Rifleman score (210) together, one repeat 217, and one new Rifleman 211 on the first AQT of the second day.  The shooters often try to fix more than one problem at a time, which seems like it should work, but doesn't. Too many things to think about and most of the shooting becomes irregular from target to target, from AQT to AQT.  Need lots of dry practice to get repeatable results.

  Tried something new for the peppermint drill.  A sighting Square target was posted with one peppermint one the center square, then the target was engaged, upper left two rounds, upper right two rounds, then lower left two rounds and then lower right two rounds, then the final two rounds on the peppermint square. If you burst your peppermint with the first round you could wait until everyone was finished and then shoot a remaining peppermint on another target. That was a fun one, and everyone could see the importance of Natural Point of Aim, and repeatable shots.  The first day Red Coat target had seven of fifteen shooters getting the head shot, and the second day we started my doing the 'cold bore' one shot on the shingle to see how many were still on target after a night's sleep.

   I gave out most of the remaining tee-shirts, about three per shooter, I got William to come out from his chair and help pass out targets and take a Blue Cap as a volunteer admin for the RWVA... his father was one of the Instructors in Training (IIT) and passed his progress check for IIT2.  All the paperwork has been submitted, and the electronic reports posted and working as seamlessly as we were once told they would.

   Several of the shooters had built their ARs from parts? One was having extraction problems and a feed problem, and his firing pin was piercing the rounds. The feed problem was a lateral split case leaving about an inch in the chamber, which accepted a second round to the point of jamming it all up and open bolt - the Leatherman came out and was used. One extraction didn't work, with the rim broken off by the first attempt. Wolf ammunition from Taiwan, who knew? But then I still don't know.

   After driving off the ferry and going home to unpack on day two, I find an email telling me I had posted my After Action Report in the AAR area of the general forum, and that my Course of Instruction hadn't been limited to viewing only by instructors. Which I knew when I did both, and I had been advised by one of my instructors at the Appleseed.  I also had an email from the accounting department telling me for the second time that I hadn't submitted my form for the Custer, Washington shoot in June? So I made my third form out for that shoot, and my first form from the Reimbursement for this Appleseed. I never ask for money back for fuel, food or lodging (I sleep in my Caravan often - should I bill myself?) but I always report zero dollars expended to be recovered, for the IRS folks as they watch over 501 C3 groups.

   I have three of the shooters responding to the AAR and posting their comments, my and one instructor posting, and I did the Internal AAR without all the Red Coat numbers, but the one instructor took the split round picture and posted it on that IAAR, which is what the forum is designed to do, to share the experiences.  So this is my blog, this is Thursday morning early, and only a little repacking of Appleseed materials and equipment cleaning remains and that will be the last time. I am back to visiting the YMCA and talking with old men about the good old days. When I could do it all.  I forgot to give the 'load' command and was about to call the line 'All ready on the firing line...' that just wouldn't work.  Time for youngsters to step up.

oh, CNN had a Republican Candidate Debate? I thought CNN was democrat...

  I don't really want to discuss the debate, since it was intended to draw audience for commercial promotion of products that I probably won't buy, and since it is to present the prettiest possible fantasy Super President of the last Superpower...  come on, don't you see the Trump versus the field drama and excitement? What that has to do with being Presidential?

  If I think Americans would have difficulty deciding what America stands for... I also believe they would have trouble deciding what a President is supposed to be and do  Article II, sections 1-4, it is all there. You may wonder why President's get a 'by' on their poorer performance, it is because their oath of office is to 'to the best of my ability' while many of the other oaths are 'to defend and obey' without a cautionary clause to protect the life of the oath giver.

  Which gets me to my evaluation of the candidates: If I wouldn't follow that person into combat, then I am not selecting - nor electing - nor willfully supporting that person as President. I have to trust that person to defend the nation, to do good things in my name for the world, the nation and the LORD.

Lovely being me, just me, Earl the guy at the back of the room...

  The guy that walked on stage carrying a trunk and walked back off not saying a word. Ligonier Valley Players production... I was there.  I have to admit I cannot claim the main character status in any story not my own, and no one would pay to read nor view it.  Lucky am I that nothing dramatic surrounded my choices and chances in my life.  No public acclaim nor acknowledgement needed, thank you very much.  Have to thank God for placing me where I might help, or at least not get in the way of progress.

  Was a bit frustrated yesterday at the YMCA, not about how much exercise I did, for a fat old fool I did a fine twenty-five point seventy-nine miles in hours of sweaty good intentions.  And the ladies were lovely and there were many of the regulars and they said hi or acknowledged my existence with the head nod or wave. No, the two regulars I was looking forward to seeing and exchanging views with weren't there. At our age, there are too many reasons not to show up for the exercise, and two of the reasons, death and hospitalization, are just hovering in our future cause we have seen others on that road before. I am sure that everything is fine - just they have their own lives and don't always get a page in mine, but I should be able to write them into the adventures of the old guy whenever I want. Thinking I am in control of anything.  Maybe I anticipated too much.

  My mother's anticipation of her Fiftieth Anniversary celebration was ruined by my father's early departure, but then old folks do things like that. My wife came home with groceries yesterday, for the Men's Bible Study at our home in two weekends from now.  She has done major cleaning on the windows and the house twice for the same reason and the guest bathroom is off limits to me because she is hosting the hiking group this morning before they drive off. Anticipation makes preparations much better, but you can drive yourself and others crazy with obsessive behavior, can't you? With forty years of bumping into each others plans - my partnership (marriage in our minds) has well build fences to keep our minds from running loose and wild.  Yep, little drama here. We are settled down, we are stable, we could be in a rut and wheels spinning - but then maybe we don't want to go anywhere.  I looked into the passport renewal, and am sticker shocked by costs, didn't we pay our taxes?  Makes me think that we should just plan on walking around the border check points.

  You see, all my guns and all my ammunition and I am not in the nightly news with my arsenal, and for some strange reason the visit to the YMCA is going to work better for me than sticking up a convenience store or shooting it out on I5 in road rage.  Which is exactly why they won't write a book about me, they often aren't sure I was there once upon a time - so I am falling out of myths and fairy tales, too.  Still have that wonderful poem. "I met a man upon the stair, a little man that wasn't there, he wasn't there again today, gee, I wish he'd go away!"

I am obsesive and compulsive and silly...

   Oh how the time has fled... I once counted pushups and situps in the hundreds, once.  Now I have new goals for my fitness: leave the YMCA on my own two feet, don't let them wheel me out.  I keep working that one. A silly one was when tearing the paper towel from the machine after washing my hands, I was upset that the tear was always crooked... that last pull got weak or the technique was wrong, or I wasn't fast enough... But my last visit, I snatched it cleanly and now have a perfectly straight line cut.  Now on to doing that with weights! Or maybe not.

September 11, 1683 Vienna (Wien) that day the Europeans forgot and the Moslems never did...

  I won't even link to it, you should know that day was the first day of the Siege of the Austrian Empire by the Ottoman Grand Vizier, who had promised Rome and Paris right after taking down Austria.  Good movie with bad combat effects and some silly liberties with the truth to promote the story, that link is here.  I say the Europeans forgot it, but it is probably taught in Poland, Austria, Germany and countries of the former Yugoslavia... just a guess.

  So now, those crafty Moslem extremists are sending waves of military age refugees, with cell phones to Europe and other countries with Christian virtues and Western Civilization guilt complexes promoted by Marxist leaning professors - there are some real families that should be saved, but just ship the military age boys back unless the Foreign Legion needs new recruits.  I expect that since our governments have been promoting all kinds of foolishness, they will succeed in continuing their reign of terror and since they won't become part of the successful nations with good intentions that those nations will turn terrible in reaction or suffer destruction for lack of Godliness.  But then I study History and learn from it.

  Today isn't a holiday in America, it is a day of remembrance.  I remembered and went shooting my battle rifle, always a good thing to do.  With a new acquaintance at his very nice range.  He had some homemade reactive targets - like the shoot and see ones but full body size, and he had some interesting shooting drills - one round standing, drop to kneeling and fire two more same target, do again at the next distance, and then drop to kneeling and fall into prone at the longer distance.  Interesting.  Not a particularly timed event but it could be worked in... but why? two positions per target, just three rounds expended and total of nine for the course and then look and determine what would make it all better.

   A good challenge and I can always learn something, which I did.  Next month we meet to do some pistol work. That should be even better and more fun.  He gave me the big tour, talked much and introduced a few folks. Some serious older shooters there (the remainder of the world is busy paying taxes) and some nice special and specialized rifles on the benches.  A very fine day, and I don't even feel the least bit guilty for missing my YMCA period today.  Telling myself improvement in all directions begins tomorrow.

  My wife left me for church, revival this evening and a children's dance and choir performance from far away (the kids stay in different homes to sleep and snack).  She had a fine time relieving stress with friends, singing traditional songs loudly and performing... I wondered what stress she had in her really retired life. Then I remembered who her husband is and totally understood.

Reading the fears, so many fears fed...

    I don't fear firearms, I don't fear people with firearms, I am sure the Wild West was never as wild as the folks in Hollywood would want you to believe. I also don't fear the police nor the government agencies in their foolishness - which normally strikes when a bigger fool gets put in charge of something they have little idea about.  I want professionals to have the best training they can get, 83 shots that didn't hit the target makes me think the police need better training and they shouldn't be allowed to think more bullets in some direction are going to be effective.

   I don't fear refugees from terror, as long as they come as families and not from California.  For sure the people that come, have families and raise children and find work or start a business have done wonderful things for themselves and their families and our, "OUR" country.  Where are all our fears coming from? the media needing your attention, the half truths and sad truths thrown around to make you think it will happen to you if you don't do something, vote a certain party and want to be liked, loved and respected?

   I am still not running, one of those fears I haven't conquered yet... I wasn't like this once, what happened? It is too nice a world, a day, and a life not to participate fully to the limits the LORD has put within me.  May all your fears flee before the light of reality, not this shadow world of entertainment and rumor...

We're all American and proud to be... don't we wish the media would pick that up?

   I love being a 'real American'. but that is my definition and how I think of myself.  Everyone else, including my brother would try to box me up in his definitions of 'my problems', everyone should have a label - but it is foolish. We almost all were given a name, and answer to many that our parents wouldn't have used for us - but we know whom they were talking about... don't we?  Then I realized as the frenzy over Black Lives Matter - but truer still, all lives matter.  Then I thought about the fact that I am All American.  I like that description...  we are all American...  how we got here, when we came or even why we came... once we are here we become American... in the school of hard knocks and not in the politically correct sense.  You have been watching the refugee invasion that ISIS or just expanding Moslem solidarity is pushing on the 'guilty Europeans' who didn't start it and aren't responsible. There a some very rich countries that aren't taking refugees, with the same governments, religion and language. Anyway, we can take refugees, immigrants and terrorists - have in the past can do it again. Just get the government out of the business of government and watch us adjust and accept the strays from the world.

   Well, my wife got me a date today, so I went to lunch and met a nice man. We share an interest in shooting, we are both veterans, and we have time on our hands since the economy is so wonderful... or how to entertain oneself until reality smacks one's face into the dirt.  So after a nice lunch we are going to meet at his range and shoot rifles on Friday at nine, I also have to pick up my refill so I am still in touch with my frailty.

   I have classes to prepare for, one for Sunday school and about the Samaritan women at the well and how some people oppress those that are different... fifth graders, they should be able to handle it. And the Appleseed is coming up.  Hmm, best contact two people that haven't signed up to instruct yet. All the shooters have filled the slots.

I have it on good authority that men and women aren't the same...

   Actually, no matter how the popular culture tries to level the field, men and women aren't the same. And the PC policers will be crying that we have to include all those refinement in categories or acknowledges enhancements.  I being a simple man, know that men and women aren't the same.

   Pear sharing season, and my wife has skinned, cut, sliced and blended the pulp and made stuff which she shared well.  Which leaves a lot of excess vegetable matter which is fine for making into garden soil compost... except she won't wait upon Earl to get up and do it right. So she goes and tries (badly) to do it without me.  And then goes back to doing what she does best, making more vegetable matter mess... and I have to do that lot, and go find the mess she left me... she really hates me.  Being Sunday I have little choice except to forgive her and think again about locking that back gate to keep the bears out of the back yard - or my wife away from the composting which she doesn't do 'my' way.

   I studied John the Baptist this morning, preparing for Sunday School, fifth graders and they all are faster than I and I have to be prepared.. or was that in the Boy Scouts?

It is not just in what you call it, but how you intend to use it...

  So watching one of the most savage movies I have ever seen on the screen this afternoon, and the doorbell rings. I go answer it to find a large truck on the street with a large guy wanting me to accept his delivery, he says he will get it to my garage door.  Okay, I was expecting a serving tray and a drop leaf table from my aunt in Minnesota. She has been down sizing and sharing her treasures for years and these are the two she hadn't sent me before.

  Now I should have taken a before picture of the half pallet with two large plastic cardboard boxes on it. But I was remiss. If the Armed Forces had had packers and movers like my aunt's money hired, I wouldn't have lost so much broken and bruised or visibly antiqued furniture over my many moves.  Or I could have bought higher quality furniture? Well, it arrived well packed and I easily cut through the plastic wrap, then found the steel bands interesting (forgot what we used in Nam to get through them when unpacking ammunition) all I had on me was my trusty Leatherman Wave, so I opened the pliers and cut through half, then repositioned and cut the other half. Take it off. Back to cutting tape and plastic. Then inside the big box more cardboard triangle supports, and through them to get the drop leaf table out. There was almost three yards of bubble wrap around the serving tray.  After I swam through the plastic foam peanuts to find it.

   They sit in a place of honor in our dining room now. Pictures.

 Which brings me to my point about what you intend to do with it as opposed to what you call it.  As I found the interesting notice on the door of the YMCA telling everyone that it was a safe place - no drugs, alcohol or weapons allowed - I have been carrying the entire time, the police never take their equipment off either.  Why? Because we are carrying tools, tools that could become weapons upon need, but only tools.

   That terrible violent movie I was watching had the main character killing several men with a claw hammer, a most certain result of where he placed it violently.  But that was his intent, he would still call it a claw hammer and a tool.

  I am certain that I will be finding many more dangerous tools in the Home Depot, but it is the intent not the name one must worry about being on the receiving end of.

Awareness is very important... watching or studying something may not be true...

  In the world where someone is going to kill you... you aren't normally aware until you face the pain and the fury and then have to respond to it. Whole courses on survival are taught in the military as a extra level of proficiency in working as a unit in not normal conditions, you have to be aware, get the basics quickly because as water evaporates, cold freezes and more misery is to be forever endured your animal response is hibernation and that doesn't promote awareness. Not much thinking will be done.

   In the normal world everything is hunky-dory, and then it isn't. The policies of the government are mostly behind the times, the reality and looking for more information... and guess what? The government deciders aren't the ones dying. So Katrina comes ashore, Hurricane Sandy slams the boardwalk... people saw the storms coming and clung to what they know best as long as they could.

   If you were in Afghanistan when the Soviets left, or Iraq when the Americans departed, or any country after the last power shift, economic or political disaster - you don't leave until you know you must. Then you look to somewhere safe and you move. There is a fine movie from China :
Remembering 1942, worth your time although it is a hard movie and a real but sad story of a family not being aware, a government that doesn't care, and neighbors that just won't share.

  All immigration is the moving of people to new pastures, but when you consider them refugees you have a better idea of what the people moving are going through. They are on an adventure, not a final journey to the graveyard, they come looking for work, a place of safety, a place to enjoy life remaining. Europe and the almost empty (not crowded) industrialized countries are waiting for them. The Germanic tribes moved into the weakening Roman Empire, the result was different, but they became more civilized as a tribe. People move away from danger and chaos - if you think your nation is safe and you don't need to worry about the crazy leaders of other countries - you don't understand how small Earth is and most of it is water.

   I am wondering where all the civilized citizens are going when the whole thing collapses. Have you a place in your future to flee to, to have shelter, food and water? There will be lots of work, very little law and manners will be frayin' and hearts beating fast. Are you seeing what is going on? Or are we all labeling it something nicer that is nothing to fear and won't solve the problem?  For sure, see where you are before your history is on the Discovery Channel.