Thanksgiving, the day after...

    Kind of quiet here, but that could just be that the football games are over and we got to see and talk to the Hawaiian branch of the Dungey family. Skype.com is a nice touch for tech. My wife outdid herself on the dinner, of course. And I lived up to my reputation putting it away. Tomorrow evening we are going to Men's Bible Study and there will be more food to fellowship around.

    I have a new shooter to show safety and safe shooting of pistols tomorrow. My cousin's grandson, will take him and pistols and safety gear to Range 15 on JBLM. Do hope it doesn't rain too much, but this is the Great NorthWest. One thing I would like him to see before we go, my grandfather's revolver and holster from 1908 or so. That would be his great-great grandfather. Kind of cool that it is still around. We aren't doing revolvers tomorrow.

   The game is going on while I type this, not to worry, the invaders from another realm smashed and destroyed my little army and got all my resourses, it will take years to recover. This game is almost too real, in building gives more satisfaction than destroying or being destroyed.

   Y'all take care out there and prepare for the Holy days, celebrate the victory. Be good.
 

Over eighty days and still playing an online game...

  Only little victories, only little ones, but they count - everything is counted.  A player's profile is always around to refer to, and it has lots of numbers. I have won over 2,500 encounters. I find most interesting that humans bring themselves to the game, and are quickly identified as good or bad to play with.  There are folks from around the world, playing throughout the day as the world spins. The computer has much trouble getting the language right, but humans do adjust.

   I have two firearms related events coming up, as of yesterday. One with the RWVA, and one with a young relative. Need to keep healing, or get better at returning to normal life - like they do on television. Going to finish my warm milk and go back to sleep, the game and the world just spin on without my input.

  I am still reading, about the Germanization of Rome's fall. Interesting stuff. Did you see the change of power in Zimbabwe? Life follows patterns. Pray for all the people, they know not what they do.

3D - Digital Distraction Device

   We are all now connected part of the web and everything should be so much better, right?

For the last almost seventy days I have been playing an online War Game, with real people in other places. Luckily, caught a real sinus stuffing head cold and have to stop. Time to rest and see what NetFlix has to entertain me. Or sip my honeyed tea and read my kindle library. Y'all be good for the best of reason - you were built to be that way. Lots of love.

   So well designed to grab your adventurous spirit and suck you into the fantasy world where you only think you are in control. Part of my fascination is testing their limits, what can I do that they aren't prepared for? But since the game has been around and some players still have no idea what is going on, it is a learning experience.

   What is real and you find it very fast, is that the people (live humans in other wheres) are real, and have different orientation to teamwork, goals and how to conduct themselves in internet public spaces. Fun, one could learn so much about politics, economics and social engineering. Bullying and fear don't work any better there than in real life. The computer translator is not good, but then you aren't supposed to be using King James English either.

   Good looking Stellar's Jay stopped for a drink at the bird bath, then went up the tree, almost made me want to grab my camera and take a photo to share, but y'all can come visit and we can sit on the porch sipping something warming and wait for him or his partner's return. We have a sun break today, mostly between rolling rain bands. Lovely life in the Great NorthWest.

Hidden beneath the surface... the center won't hold!

  So I had dry rot on my old porch, now I have manufactured materials that look like wood. As I travel and see old barns, homes and structures - all once proudly standing tall - I realize I am very like that. I put on a suit and tie for church yesterday, and felt like I was looking fine on the outside, and internally rotting. Saturday I was in Onalaska on an Appleseed range, but I didn't have all the energy and strength I needed to perform, hollow man under the read cap. It was a good day with some challenges from myself and the shooters, but I did enjoy being there. Still Sunday was a great day, too. I had to take the fifth and sixth grade classes, and my sixth graders have good memories of last year and we went out and walked around in the sunshine and I found two more picnic tables that weren't there the last time we had been out.

   I awoke to find a missing wife in our bed. She had a bad dream about North Korea acting up. I got up and had coffee and then sat to my current digital distraction, a war game. They have it pretty well set up, but I have no money to spend making myself feel heroic and powerful, time I have a bit of. I picked up the first book of a fantasy series, and dived right in Sunday afternoon. Life is on holiday here, and lovely outside my window. Thank the LORD.

If the problem persists please hold for the next human interface...

When I was so much younger and beautiful, unless you knew me.

   Terrible about all the water, flooding and destruction in Texas, and in Asia. Let me get another cup of coffee and take my medications and supplements.  Ah, I am back and prepared to continue the death by digital distraction, I am doomed! Found a game and am playing at learning how it works and creating my own improvements in my city and hero... you know the software is trying to program me into spending money, real money, on buying a better me. Are you surprised? Everything we watch and feed upon is making us a lesser creature.

   I have my front porch under reconstruction and I am already happy. Cause my wife is happy. I have an Appleseed to support tomorrow and Sunday.  We will see how that goes on the first day. Wish me and all the participants well. Paid the end of month bills today, will continue to move money at the whim of others. God knows they all need help.

Always looking for a way to extinguish a real American... so many things don't count...

   Skin color, hair style, clothing, language none of that seems to be the defining issue.  So I go back to the Declaration of Independence and those fine words, or the basic Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But that isn't a key characteristic of an American... I found the thing today.

  Sunday, I had church and then tested my fifth grade on King David and his reign. You would have passed it, right?  No worries, they couldn't either, except one young lady that goes to a Christian School where they probably open the Bible. I do like to  make them think a lot. After that I said hello to the Men's English Sunday School (the old guys) and talked a bit. Then the third service was over and my wife said we could go, she knew I was going to eat lunch at home and then go shooting.

   And that was what I did. From two till three something after, I fired my pistols as poorly as one would after a few operations and lack of range time. I need a bit more follow through and reset on the trigger, saw it in the video. No, you don't get the video, I don't claim to be the photographer nor the shooter.

 I might need to wear gloves in the future or just continue to bleed out and hope the zombies just aren't more than four or five magazines worth.  I did notice that when firing with my left hand
I wasn't losing to the pistol. And you would have had to been there watching to see which ones came from which firing position, you can't tell from the targets.

   So Monday there was an eclipse of my Mother's Son, I found a game to play all day and into the night. So I am no longer dying by recliner, I am dying by digital distractions.  And that is a shame. Much more fun with other humans on the range Sunday, than the avatars on the game on Tuesday.

   So this morning, I logged on the internet, looked and turned the computer off until I need it as a tool, like right now. I did build two buildings, but I ain't living virtually, I am working on virtuously. So I called my contractor, Rick, everyone knows Rick, although my wife isn't happy with him, cause he is working with me. And she isn't happy with me (who could blame her, everyone knows her husband isn't as much as he should have been, he just does it his way or not at all).  Anyway, Rick tells me he has about two days left on Kitsap, and then he will be back down to check and see that I have purchased the materials that he listed at Gray Lumber. He says the list is both in his name and mine. I know mine and I figure I will go find the lumber and pay for it and my wife will decide on the porch deck color. So we go, and I don't find it. I go home have lunch and a shower and we go off again.

    Now I called the Lumber company before I go and I found out - why America doesn't work anymore. Really, I talked to two people on the telephone and they wasted my time telling me what they couldn't do.  Sure enough when we got there, very nice operation the three people I talked to couldn't find the list of materials with my contractor and my name on it. Couldn't, wouldn't and just will make excuses until I went away. They had real money and materials to move and make happen. I was just the old guy that they didn't have time nor list nor materials I could pay for. So I left my name, address and telephone number and went home with a stop for stuff to make me wonderful.

   Sure enough, at home is the contractor's number, since I found it when they allow the computers to answer their telephone operation, I will call in the morning before I go to the YMCA. Everyone hates me, hollering at me because I frighten them because they think I can't drive safely, complaining to the lumber company about how messed up this whole operation with Rick is, cause he is a buddy of her husband not on the approved list of ladies that know everything right about the world.

   The key to the old traditional American, the real American, was that they made things happen, fixed the broken, mended the hurt, got rid of the problems found the happiness and truth. The current crop seem to think running around making excuses or discussing what they can't do is the way to make others love them a little more. Do we have more complaints than solutions? Are we borrowing money for something we could live well without, do we ever have enough, are we complaining about what we don't have, instead of being thankful for all that we do? That is where the country went wrong and now there are no survivors, builders, explorers, nor fun loving folks at the corn shucking bee.

So ten minutes too much on FaceBook.com, I keep forgetting how much money is made from my participation...

   So I submit my Arbor Day survey, without the donation to all their good works. I unboxed all my OGRE sets to look upon and think about. The dining room table has no table cloth again, I could put my toys to paint and play with upon it. There are still old marks from long ago and far away there.

   My wife and I had some bedroom talk, I need to eat less, walk more and get a life away from the screens. At least until I am worn out from something productive.  OLDE follks bedroom talk isn't very interesting, but always important and well meant. There is a very large pine needle ant hill close to my opening into the backwoods behind my fence. It stands about four feet six inches tall.

  I have just burned out the last light bulb in the two bulb ceiling light, so I put a head light on to type by, not for my fingers, but so I can see what letters appear upon my screen and if I look around I can also figure out what goes bump in the twilight of morning breaking.

  I like the idea of nail polish, red and blue for the cardboard tiles to play OGRE with. On edges, before I go wearing them out and moisture seeks new homes. Any opinions? Silence is calming.


    I have to have my pistols prepared for shooting on Saturday, just in case my young cousin wants to shoot, safely and on target. And it is about time I got back on a range to see what I can do, too. Okay, enough, I will have to return to real world now and prepare to greet the day, there are adventures out there to quietly slide by and miss.

It isn't that difficult to hit a mansize target at 100 yards with a flintlock musket, but to do so under command with the enemy shooting at you and your friends takes a special kind of love.

I know where I stand and you are wrong...

   So two groups of people urged on by media madness, to confront each other over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Three people die and that is wrong. I am with Robert E. Lee, who never thought he should be so honored. His idea of honor was much more basic and real, and he lived his entire life as if he knew what mattered.  I think that he really did.

   But the rewriting of history will never change, and so who he was and what he did and stood for will be a point of contention of groups of people I wouldn't want to be associated with.  God loved him, and he was blest, but he suffered more than most because he couldn't save all he thought was worth fighting for... Just like I have said, I know where I stand and you are wrong. But we have all been wrong before, I expect we will all be wrong again. God still loves us more than we deserve.

Good start to August, named for a famous Roman emperor...

   Got up before four, weighed and took my blood pressure, consumed my medicines and supplements. Still not youthful nor handsome, sigh.

   Not prepared for breakfast I read the Bible and worked on ideas for Sunday school... none of which survive first contact with the children. (I did learn a lot in the military) We are going to replace Saul with an understudy, some shepherd boy.  Last week I fluttered around gathering Men's Codes, looking for where it is written about traits and principles of conduct and such, being a product of equality they would have to work for young females, too.  OR really lose half the class's interest. I found a ton, and it was interesting, but these are only fifth graders, short attention spans that would rather seen a video than read an essay, let alone a chapter in a book - or a book. When I was that age, I was reading books by the light of the street light outside my window - needed glasses a bit the following years, off and on. But they were real books.

   Anyway, I ended up saying that God wanted to give the people a King, what would be some great characteristics for a King? Most important first. You, gentle reader, may play along but use a President instead of a king. Don't ask the media, they seem to need something to feed upon, sacrificing nobles to make peace with God has not been favored for centuries. The children came up with about fifteen, and we were using the kings Saul and David, although we haven't started David yet, everyone knows.

   Adults may ask also what are the best characteristics of the people... not the followers, just the people.  I thought about asking how many of those desirable traits you have... but making someone really look at themselves, it is tough enough to do for me - you have no idea when I found I had wrinkles, December 1985, so I won't do more than mentioning it to children and then fly on to something else.

    Anyway, I was wandering looking at David this morning, three statues are outstanding, sculptors Michelangelo - Donatello - and Bermini  (which make me wonder why Bermini didn't get to be a TNMT, since his was the best David about to  cast his stone shot).  I like the video, since pot bellied old guys can play, too. The haunting music isn't bad either. New words for consideration: sling, shot, auxiliaries, scouts, slingers (pole slingers), and the physics of why the wind up... and how even Palestinian youth are still slinging rocks against IDF and police and in the Spanish Civil War ( no none of the Sunday school students would even know about the Spanish Civil War). Hondo

Well, doesn't that make me special... A +

  For years I have known I could get an A plus if I worked hard, studied and didn't go to sleep during class. And I haven't found my oldest medical evaluation with the draftboard and US Army, but my ID tags have said B POS for years, and years and years... But two recent blood tests for type have come back A POS. So I have be wrong for so long - just lucky I never needed a blood transfusion (I understand they check the patient before giving blood always now).

  So I have to go to a new diet since everything is based on internet knowledge now.

Plant based low fat diet:
  Fresh fruit
  Legumes - beans, lintels, peas and peanuts
  fresh greens
  whole grains but wheat is a bad thing, so I am stuck on oats, barley and rye.
  vegetable oils are fine
  soy products are, too
  pineapple
  tuna
  less domesticated meat
  (but dinosaur would be fine)
  NO HIGH CARB DAIRY, no chocolate,

Not only is life better in moderation, but information for my best behavior and health gleaned from the internet is only as valuable as the effort I made to find it. Expect me to be a new improved fat old man when you next find me.

oh, you aren't looking for me? it is well...

   On the home front, three days of contractors making my home better, my piles of money lighter, and my wife already planning the next improvements in everything wore me out, I could only walk two miles on Thursday, and my visit to the YMCA produced no sweat on this fellow.  I went and got a hair cut.  Remind me to relax and enjoy the little lady running her hands all over me (I never do, never have, she just isn't allowed that close to my comfort me zones). I stopped and bought a new ID tag, chrome and polished (four lines: name, old service number, A POS, and religious affiliation).

   I remain upset with National Geographic and their GENO2.0 done by Helix.  I paid my money and no matter how many times I call to get assistance to accessing my results they have a denial loop they put me on. I enjoy conspiracies but don't really believe humans are that smart, I guess going to snail mail and written correspondence before I have to get bad mannered and stupid about it - one more try on phone call and internet then, pray and be better than they deserve. I am so irrelevant, they must all be Hillary supporters.  Do they still exist? Kind of like looking for people that believe in the Republican Party - just figures of MSM and common DC delusion.

  So a very important man, recently promoted based on the Peter Principal is upset with how badly no one is listening to him, so he decides to 'leak' to the NEW YORKER, which no one in real America reads except to see if anyone took classes on print communication. He would not impress anyone outside of his family and friends - he looks and dresses based on the Good Fellows, swears badly for effect, is forgiven by an attention seeking press, because if I don't watch it they get not so many dollars. I don't watch soap operas because all the people I know are better than that, and now that the MSM, the White House, and elite first class folks aren't better than that - I just don't watch anymore.

  I go off to read, or play a game or research my Sunday school lesson, the children are better than that. Think I will mention about language again, most of them can speak in two languages, and likely know all the vulgar terms for body functions and dysfunctions, but they do need to know they shouldn't use it - they really are better than that.

So my son comes up for air and I get a call... and it sets me to thinking...

 Which my sister quips back 'so thinking is not normal?' Don't I really love my family that knows me so very well? Yes, I do and I thank God and my parents for those blessings.

Dad scraping paint on home. 1958?

  I had forgotten that he has been busy and absorbed by the mission and the men and this break was the first opportunity to address his personal life worries. And I went all Alfred E. Neuman on him, and told him I was fine, then realized that was what he had heard before my operation, so he had no idea what had happened, what the biopsy revealed, the after action reports from the surgeon, the new cancer doctor, nor how I was back to regular meals and regular diet. In some respects I think about how every time I went home on leave from some foreign adventure or operation, the local television sets hadn't missed me, the same soap operas and game shows droned on... just background noises, and I had been where people weren't like me, doing my best to understand and learn and take care of the men and the mission.

   I learned some things about his future, and saw a current picture of him posted by his wife, between all the garbage scrolling on Facebook... and then I settled back into my life fasting for my visit to my doctor today and thinking about where I am on my recovery at the YMCA, my only personal measuring device on how my recovery is coming. I am unhappy, but then realistic about my age... almost seventy and growth hormones don't swim in my blood stream anymore - with all my preventive medications I am happy that oxygen, carbon dioxide and energy do... and I will look back and think that it didn't take long to get back to my old self... but we all lie to ourselves about some part of our lives,,,, so we don't get frustrated. Or that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

  Have a picnic for the English speaking church members this weekend, and Sunday school and Church services. While reading Charles Murray's Coming Apart , I realize that I don't like being called 'white' as much as I don't like being called 'English' -- and that Charles Murray has a lot of things he doesn't understand about religion and faith... but then I am reading it to find out what happened to my America in the period he is writing about... and it is interesting. Oh, for those that don't know the Koreans (which is what we think they want to be called - which isn't) call the Americans (which most of us are on the government service level) call us in Korean because of the language we normally use - being a Revolutionary War Veteran wanna-be I object to the label. Being an almost reasonable man I understood what they were saying in Korean and they are using their national term for English not the one for American which they are also.

Well, shower time and get on out the door, to the doctors and then the YMCA. Y'all be good, or even awesome beyond expectations... make our ancestors happy!

Disappointed aren't I...

  Monday started looking like normal and I went off to slay dragons and trolls or just do whatever I had imagined at the YMCA. But I didn't, the whole set of weights and reps done and I had only enough left for a minimum of bike and rowing... which was not where my mind had taken me before I showed up.  And I was content to just sit and ponder and that wasn't burning any calories, making me younger, nor much of anything upon the chair except in the way. Get cleaned up and go on home to hide. Made coordination with a contract estimator set up an inspection and then vegetated watching whatever.

   Tuesday I was determined to do what I hadn't on Monday, so I got 5Ks of rowing in, and then did nine and a half miles of the bicycle, and not one weight lifted nor moved, and I lost my bifocals on the bike... someone has them, check this morning... so I went off to get some shoes to wear so my feet don't hurt. Good idea, new size and two pair and they are just fine. Walking returns tomorrow, which is today. Along with the estimator. And wife's household allowance. Too soon it will be August.

Things keep changing...

  During my brother's visit he made sure I knew that the Ligonier High School had changed mascots, since he had some memory of my drawing an old bearded hillbilly with rifle, and a jug. Probably for some competition to decorate something at the school. I remember that drawing, but labeled the mascot as a Mountaineer (I always liked the image and the title).  But now and I don't know when they changed it the Ligonier Valley High School have a ram as their mascot, and are called the Rams, and the school colors are red and black. The school colors of Ligonier High School were Blue and White.  I graduated in 1966, and our letters for the teams and cheerleaders were LV, no longer L.

   The change was in the air, of going from Ligonier High School to Ligonier Valley High School, in line with the redistricting of the Schools and the supported areas. And when I received my diploma I found myself graduated from Ligonier Valley High School, not Ligonier High School. When I mentioned graduating from Ligonier Valley HS a comment came from an older graduate about I couldn't have in 1966, since the official change hadn't happened yet, for the district but the High School was already shifting into the new terminology. Both of us are correct, just working on the information available.

  So my youngest sister, a fine computer science and mathematics teacher in a Catholic school, tells me that I was wrong and the team was the Mounties not Mountaineers, which are the mascot of the West Virginia University in Morgantown where she went to school. The Yearbook was named the Mountaineer, and was often decorated with the bearded hillbilly, rifle and jug -- she pointedly tells me I am still wrong. Sigh, I am not wrong - so I go and look and the nickname of Mounties worked for cheers at events but the real name of Mountaineers was properly placed in prose when ever it was needed for honoring. So I check my yearbooks, 1962, 63,64 and 66.  I notice the hillbilly missing on the 1966 yearbook. I find printed text about the team season in one. Take pictures to prove my point -  I could be at the YMCA since my wife woke late I am not. Post pictures on Facebook where I have to show how right I am...

   I am finally surprised by the wealth of information from Wikipedia here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligonier_Valley_High_School

Of course, I am really smart enough to know I will always be wrong about many things with those that really know, but  I do love laughing at myself as I pretend to care what everyone else thinks, I just don't tweet.

Email from nephew: can we send some packages to you?

 The idea was a big ride with his father and some with wife, on motorcycles from Denver, to California to here in Washington and on to Canada, Calgary and back home. They would stop and switch between riding gear for the cooler air and mountains in Canada. In payment we could go to a restaurant and eat dinner. My answer was 'sure send them here and you pick your place to eat'. So I knew when the two FedEx boxes arrived not to open them, they made a great place to put my current reading and coffee for the couple of weeks as I recovered in the recliner.  He sent email for everyday they traveled and it made interesting reading and a fine log of the adventure.

  So on the third of July they arrived and were welcomed, and my wife made dinner with spaghetti and salad and desert of carrot cake and we talked and ate and changed out riding gear and got them a place to shower and sleep. They were talked out and road weary so the firecrackers and frightened dogs outside didn't keep them awake, and after a breakfast they rode off to catch the ferry to Canada at Port Angeles. After 3,000 miles of safe motorcycling on this trip, my brother lost to gravity on some gravel as he turned into a rest stop near Sequim and he went down hurting his pride, helmet and motorcycle. The medical response got him on a back board and to the hospital in Port Angeles, the tow truck got the motorcycle and personal items to locked storage at twenty dollars a day, the state police gave him a ticket for a hundred and fifty plus dollars for hitting some traffic control devices and bending a pole. The emergency room folks hooked him up, ran a bunch of tests and nursed his bruises and road rash and gave him pain medicine, light. He was fine to return to normal life, with his right arm immobilized by a sling. No broken bones but lots of soft tissue trauma.


  My nephew called and my wife and I went up and met them at the Emergency room, and packed my brother out to return to our home for reorganization and calls to all those they needed for help and action. My nephew rode back without lunch, since we stopped to feed before heading home. First hamburger since the operation, it was great!

  Got back home to find my nephew had stepped upon a floor board on the front porch and broke through to the crawl space beneath, dry rot is almost as bad as termites, we knew about the dry rot but after three surgeries this year alone it had been too long delayed, it will move to the front of the line now.  So we settled in for more smart phone conversations I didn't need to hear, and more fireworks outside to include rockets and more noodles, salad and desert and sleep.  The beginning of the new plan took shape, motorcycle movers contacted, airline ticket purchased - worries about everything discussed and choices made. In the morning nephew packed out and departed without breakfast hoping to beat the commuter traffic, here to Missoula, MT by bedtime.  We had breakfast with my brother and got him to the airport on time, can't check the bags in earlier than four hours before flight time, so we waited thirty minutes but that was fine.

  My nephew's log for his ride today catches up on his father reaching home and solidifying his plans for recovering his motorcycle and regaining his better health. So it is all good, and I had a fine visit with them these last two days, brightened my recovery a bunch and made me feel useful - just an illusion but nice to be needed.