Don't I love missing all the 'new culture'...

I loved reading Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, and they don't write them like that anymore. So I just finished the latest Jack Reacher in my local library, while I wait for some other requests of books by long dead authors. And it was well written, kind of, it was interesting and I could see how only Jack Reacher could help the FBI in Nebraska and Iowa as he was on his way to Virginia.

But as the bodies start falling in conflict with Jack, he hasn't found one man with a knife in his pocket so he has to use a key to cut through some kind of tape holding an FBI undercover agent to a chair. WHAT? Jack doesn't have a jack knife? What kind of man is that? Then I remembered the author is from England and likely thinks all knives have to be registered. Or, even worse, there are now more people not carrying a knife with a sharp edge and a pointy point. Because TSA won't allow them to travel, because they might cut themselves or decide to stab some poor person twenty-seven times before they cut their heart and liver out to eat - like the rebels in Syria have been video taped doing. I do know, having seen inmates use them, keys can be used to cut through a lot of stuff, even as a poor weapon but better than nothing.

Well, I am trying to get better, and I bought Pacific DVD set and a DVD set about the Korean War - so since I must wait another day to get my motorcycle back from the shop, he actually said I might think about new tires, but I will see if I can make Minnesota on the ones I have - I have only 31,000 plus miles on the bike and it is the second set of tires on now.  Maybe it is time, I will keep my eye on them.

I think that America should withdraw entirely from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. And continue to send women as ambassadors to all Muslim countries. But then you do understand that Earl doesn't put more money into bribing my enemies nor worrying about their feelings based on their culture or illusions of importance. And Earl will never be asked to represent America to the world.

And lastly, since Good Morning America and other news shows have continued to point out to Earl and the rest of their audiences that Kim Kar- and Paris Hil- had to release sex tapes to become important and famous. Well, I never saw the tapes, and I am not releasing any of mine. Like I would do more than those few I have done on my shooting. Time to go read one of those dead authors. 

Perceptions abound... all around...

My wife doesn't want me to be a Muslim man, she wanted me to wear shorts at the YMCA yesterday. Color me shocked and shy.  Personally I don't care if I don't wear any clothes for myself unless it is cold or wet. But I can walk around naked all day - what my mother instilled in me was not to affront anyone else - so if I cover myself it isn't because I am sure I have something to hide but that you really aren't interested. Just an old wrinkled fat man, balding and not beautiful. God sees right through fig leaves and into one's soul.

So I did, I wore shorts all day at the YMCA and will again today, it doesn't matter to Earl, I will sweat and clean up after I am finished with the machines. I was in my normal running shorts on my jogs this week, trying to find that run stride. I seem stuck in jog, maybe I should try skipping a bit, and some silly prancin'?

ONCE UPON a time, a younger Earl was a jogger and road runner, and thought that 3 miles just wasn't enough and certainly not cool. So since my trot around the block is 3.1 miles I am not happy, if it were only a 5k. It always sounds farther in metric, doesn't it?

Rifleslinger has issues - isn't that the way the women would say it? He shoots well, except he wants to shoot better than that... and awesome is where I would rate him. Roberta doesn't see the same person I do in this picture, but her expectations color her view. Her description of riding that machine did no justice to the cool. And the PC leadership making politicians happy are working on making women be all the can be in the services. I remember wanting to be a Ranger, wear the tab and such. But I never wanted them to change the standards so I could play. Watch Blackhawk Down again, and tell me where you wanted to put those women in that battle. Where did you want them? The military is supposed to defend the country and win the wars. Everything else isn't worth paying for, you could put women in the IRS and they can go farther, and the TSA is in need, so there are positions to be filled, just not in the combat arms - Ripley was a creation of the movies. Alien and Ripley have about the same reality in my reason.

Other women told my wife she had a handsome husband, but they need glasses may no longer be married and always could have no standards -- for sure, I am not interested in other's perceptions. They might think America has a reason to worry over Syria. Isn't Afghanistan enough?

Depart from ordinary...

Somehow, I missed weighing, medicating and measuring yesterday -- and I didn't expire.  didn't eat the right foods either - and didn't suffer the loss, nor the less.

Totally a great day, now back to the regular scheduled program.

What were you going to be when you grew up?

I was always going to be a real soldier - but I also knew I was going to be a DAD.

I never knew my father - the way my brother and sisters did. I would only have glimpses of the husband my mother married. I was the first child I had to break trail, negotiate new rules, learn to live in our house and quietly go out to conquer my world. He would always be there when I fell on my face, busted my nose, wrecked the motorcycle we had rebuilt together - he had the wrench turning down to a science - I just had the desire for freedom.

We didn't talk enough, he left when I had finally found my adult voice and I was a proud father with a son going to Europe on his first long tour. I am of the personal opinion that he didn't want to put up with my mother's fiftieth wedding anniversary, and he didn't want to go out like his father - long, slow and feeling useless. He knew that we have lots of widows in our families and few widowers. He slipped away while my mother wasn't looking.

I was really lucky to have had my father - free haircuts as long as I lived at home, standards I could grow into or I would hear about it. Questions about why I wanted, or would or what had I done - he wanted to share life with me. I never saw his life, he would have shared - I don't care what one says - men hardly talk or the conversation is critical. I did better with his teasing.

You know, of all my regrets, I can never be the fine father he was. Didn't have enough children, and I never ever saw him run anywhere - especially in an emergency. I hope I handled all the emergencies with his poise.

If you want my opinion of the world's troubles - they didn't have the benefit of my father's care. Looking at my cousins, around the world, they seem to have done well - similar fathers? Actually, since their fathers, and mine, were very quietly focused on our Heavenly Father that seems to have been a key. And I won't ever be that good either, but I am trying .

We know they are monitoring everything...

Yes we do know. Subject of books for years, a government that will control us, watch us, pick us off one by one. New books come out where the person disappears - goes off the grid. And the government fears that. 

Verizon fears losing all its customers, but most of you think you must have a telephone, many think it should be in your pocket, with email, GPS and instant gratification.

So, as I watch the business news, I remember that much of the turmoil on Wall Street, or any market is information, and knowing  before the market moves, and the computers are faster and faster - the movement of money is so quick. So does SEC monitor the phones? the waves? Do you understand why messengers are used to keep secrets? Yeah, same system that George Washington used - send the mail and have trusted agents to do your work.

Well, so off the grid, no GPS broadcasting thingy in my pocket, on my wrist, under my skin and the Sunshine calls me to the road this morning.  One day it will be illegal to drop off the monitoring not that anyone beside computers will be looking at the trillion of bits and bytes. Yes, it will.

TGIF it is a great day to be Thankfull for...

So shouldn't every Friday be great? I think so...

I am feeling a bit tired, have been at the YMCA working out and getting that hard body, which I can only find portions on on me - after I have been pumping iron and working out a bit. So I put the garbage cans on the curb had breakfast and coffee and prepared to get the Trusty Triumph out the doors and down to the shop for service and safety checks.

I heard the ravens mobbing some predator bird and looked to see which one, if I could find it. I did it wasn't flying but perched upon a limb in the edge of the Green Belt - the back woods, behind the backyard. So I pulled my little Canon out and zoomed in to get the shot. So I could share how cool it is to be backward backwoodsy kind of folk. Too Cool.

I started my bike up, got properly prepared (sunglasses under full face helmet, gloves) and rode off a little. Then stopped and took some more pictures - this has no telephoto lens, just 4x by 4 digital. Pretty good for a cigarette pack size camera without film.

 It was lightly drizzling as I went, not even enough to wash off the bugs on the shield. Get to the shop, talk to the mechanic, get my order in, and then wander around looking at all the other bikes on display, talking to the other male customers about motorcycles, gear and goings (one is thinking about Iowa to see parents) - I mention going off to Minnesota soon. We talk fool experiences a bit (when we were wrong and it laid down). When my wife picked me up for the trip to the YMCA -- I realized it was just like talking firearms and shooting at the range. There may be bigger or better but this one is mine - and all that I can do with it - this one is mine.

At the YMCA I hit a few machines and worked some calories and heated up. And as it is the end of the YworkWeek (I may go tomorrow - but will probably shoot and cut grass instead). I feel like the Tea display I caught as I got my 24 oz of  black coffee from the barista. And a nap and covers is in the immediate future. Have a great weekend and make the NSA jealous, and the IRS plotting to get you cause you rock and don't have fears enough without them hounding you.

Pork Belly and six left turns to go...

A high school friend catching up after forty plus years told me proudly that she had abs, finally. Which was not impressive to Earl as it was to her. I was more impressed by her position in career choices and  business success - is it a guy thing? But I have long known about the recliner fat feature of where your fat pools as you laze back and mindlessly entertain the brain. And even working men don't normally look like the WWE hunks, unless you have been following the old school ones like Brute Benard with his big belly.

All that came to mind as I did my skin cancer self examinations, always looking for signs of trouble. As I pulled skin around and tightened it, I found I had abs! Which I had seen before in High School football locker room in about 1964. Presently they are hidden behind that pork belly that is much looser and doesn't protrude like it has in the recent years. So the time spent working out (rowing and biking and some weight machines) at the YMCA has been positive for my fitness and health. But then I do have time, I am so retired.

Anyway, the showers are scattered today, so in the break I decided to go for a gentle jog - just to prove I can still do it, slowly and steadily. It is away from electronic tethers, and only the spy satellites will wonder as I wander about what I am doing away from the forms of electronic monitoring - ie, Blogger, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Outlook and cablevision service. I took my best thoughts, started out with a prayer for World Peace and then moved on to other religious reasoning, interrupted by story lines of heroic action adventures of Earl (only I will ever know what difference a daydream will make). So, fifty three minutes and fifty seconds later I am back home safe and sounder than when I departed.

Time for breakfast and more coffee - a day is a whole twenty-four hours to make.