I am off!

See how relaxed I can be at a picnic? Goodtime had by all.

Off to church, then the highway.

So I am off to the English Ministry picnic at North Fort of JBLM...

Although my mind is on I-90 to Rochester, Minnesota - all 1782 miles worth, with a couple of detours for visiting and viewing (I was thinking scenic highway in the Badlands of South Dakota). The Google Map program tells me I should make it in 26 hours at about seventy miles per hour. With fuel and rest stops and say hellos it should take more - but not as long as a trail drive or slow ox cart nor the buffalo migration.

I am traveling light, only leathers, rain gear and snacks. Regular food stops will only be at Subway - can't wait to get to Sheridan and see if the Visitor Center will still allow me to find Facebook and my email. No I am not taking any electronics of my own - that rainstorm wiped out too much that last trip. Just my little camera in a zip lock bag.

So if you are somewhere on my route, and you want to say hello, just get on your motorcycle and catch me, if you can. Or, say something before I leave the church on Sunday. I had better cut the lawn before dark tonight. Take care and God bless all your best.

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.