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.