Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young

Title taken from Facebook comment about my new hooded sweatshirt, which costs so much but was delivered to my mailbox and I am very happy.





     I had too much time to think at the YMCA today, they moved all the old working weight machines out to bring in new improved weight machines since we weren't becoming bulked and ripped well enough already, having seen the vast improvement in the rowing and Expresso.com bicycle machines, I hope the new improved machines will encourage me to start using them again.  One only hopes, what happens is still to be determined.

    Now about the rebellion of the governors against Syrian Refugees, if they cannot have marriage defined by the states, they can't determine which humans they allow to live in their states either, until they break the law.  Then the folks get to charge them, judge them and execute them if they earned it.

    I imagine I will be just as willing to shoot my enemies from another religion as I am to shoot my friends from the same religion.  I haven't a racist bone in my body - if I were willing to have sexual relations with women from any race I am certainly willing to marry women of any race...

   Now, no matter what ever happens with the President Obama, or ISIS, or any terrorist or the media or the rich and powerful elite, hidden and in the open - I will always make up my own mind and be responsible for all my own actions.  I hope all you real Americans will be also.  The FBI and other folks have a long list of folks to be watching right now, am I on it? Don't care, they have enough to do badly... Remember the same security forces for the President, the country, the states, the counties, the townships and other municipalities all work for the powers that be. The broken VA Health system is just as effective as the broken Education systems, and the broken Immigration Systems, and the broken Border protection, and the broken Drug Enforcement system... all government goodness graceless done so wrong. So if I want educated, I read more, I ask questions and I ponder and practice... hmm, notice didn't see the government in that... of course I have used the government to aid my quest for Sainthood, but they don't really work in religious endeavors.

    Since I am convinced that no one, borrower nor lender, ever expects the National Debt to be paid off or even down - I know the fix is in.  The terrorists are going to come, they are going to be home grown, too.  Not that I care much, I am wiping all my ammunition with bacon greased fingers, I am making sure any body bags I have issued to me are lard coated so the body and blood can be cleaned off for recycling the bag for later use. When a new layer of lard will be used to prepare the body bag.

Nice weekend wasn't it?

Well I think so. 
    On Saturday I drove to Port Townsend for a wet Appleseed with thirteen shooters. All instruction and History presented and accepted by them, one AQT for score, and one shooter made a 235 of 250 possible, considering the wet chilly conditions I was impressed although it was his fourth Appleseed and he had made his Rifleman qualification score in the past, it did encourage the others to come back for another day. I had a couple rifles fail to extract, wet bullets sucking on the chamber walls, used my knife to get them out, and asked the man why he didn't carry a knife for just such a thing, all men and boys should carry knives. Then he told me he had a knife when he was six but they took it from him and sent him to the Principal's office when they discovered it.  He hasn't carried one since. How do you play mumbly peg without a knife? He didn't. And we wonder why things go bump in the night now? He was a great man, and was sharing the weekend shooting with his son, so he can't be all bad. Drove the hour and a half back home, crossing the toll bridge and losing six dollars because I didn't feel like driving around it in the wet darkness, I was tired already.

   Got home got the green stuff to make salad out of for Sunday's Thanksgiving Feast for the Church Youth - which because many of them are from Korean families may not have a firm tradition of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy -- and pie after that... the Men in my Bible Study and their loving wives provided. Figure to feed about ninety, fed about a hundred with extra stuff going home for a second meal for those that didn't come. I had some worries about how prepared we were to do this, the Korean pastors like to be in control and we were doing it on our dime and our time. It was a great success.


 While setting up I even got a picture of my Sunday school class, about 90% of them, with me for posterity.

Veterans on Veterans Day, Remembrance Day and mostly Armistice Day...

    I grew up with a veteran as my father, my uncle was one, too. Seemed that everywhere I looked as I was going to school, that everyone was a veteran. There was still a draft and Elvis was drafted, everyone was a veteran, so it seemed. So with my resolve firm when I figured out I didn't really care to spend more time in college studying my room mates' courses I joined the Army to be a Special Forces member, not knowing I was a year too young, not that the recruiter cared about what I knew as much as he cared that I was whole and breathing. Grand adventures or plenty of time waiting for something to happen and fat paperback books in my cargo pockets. I mentally fought in a hundred battles and wars through reading, movies abound with romantic themes of glory - movies just aren't as real as life is, just as we wish it could be. But seriously, nothing ever happened to me, no wounds, no bayonet charges, and all my fears just in my nimble mind.

  In the Roman Legions of the Roman Republic, in the mass of men and spears of the Greek city states, in Alexander's Macedonians - veterans were the old guys with the scars and slaughtering attitude that firmed up the lines and kept the innocent youth from breaking and running when the opposing ugly showed their fangs and snarls.  Most of George Washington's greatest battles were with his military inexperience and then with fighting the Continental Congress for the men and material to keep an Army in the field... thank goodness he beat both the Congress and the British generals. All he really wanted to do was go back home, to Mount Vernon, which is really what all the veterans want to do, go back home. Not that they wouldn't do it again if needed, but you can get very cynical thinking about how few people understand what you do and why you do it. Always good for a little humor about how bad it could be, but you have been lucky, blest and getting by the best you can.

   Mostly you want to get on with living in peace and plenty, you wish your children to be strong and courageous - but you pray they never have to go, and then realize they always do go, old folks need them and their service almost every generation - so we honor the Veterans today, and next May we will honor the dead lost in our wars. Don't get them confused, but always remember them and the price of peace and plenty.  It is beyond dollars and sense.

Time to remember the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month, and give thanks like they did when the guns fell silent.

Best tool for the job...

  So I went and shot a hundred and twenty rounds through my 1911 Colt Model 70. I had a couple of little problems and worked through them. Which makes me think that I might need new magazines and some gunsmith work.  In the reflective light of mowing the wet grass this morning, I realize that buying my way to happiness will never be as effective as working my way to the point of good shooting on time on target.  Since the pistol isn't most of my problem, and I am easier to reprogram for success than the ammunition, magazine and pistol.

Not doing it for the glory of God, nor in the name of the LORD...

  just means not very important, and probably sure to fail. But the challenges of the country are not found in the belief in God, they are found in the belief in other men and women, and the lack of faith.

   I was raised to believe that a promise was a promise, that a man's handshake was part of the bond between us and meant that we could work together for our good.  I was raised to think I should carry out my work, duty and service to the best of my ability.  And to know that sometimes it wouldn't work nor be enough and admit failure and get up and try again.  Conquer the problem by solving it for myself then others.

  I finally realized that no one in Washington, DC or in the banking systems around the world expects to have the debts paid off, they all expect to stay chained in partnership forever since both lender and borrower get their needs satisfied.  If you are a little borrower, the lender owns a piece of you, if you are a giant borrower then you control a piece of the lender. The governments are about power, which in the big picture isn't muscle and iron, it is what you control.

  Who controls you? Where is your contribution to the powerful? Why?

    

Okay debate analysis...

  I watched another debate, and sure enough, I have noticed finally (I am slow about stuff) that the opponents are the candidates and the moderators, that is the two sides with agendas.  The moderators have to promote drama and interest - this last debate was against the World Series, and all the professionals were wearing uniforms with total fan involvement. The amateurs were in suits in indoor comfort in Colorado. That they were amateurs was pointedly pointed out by an off his rocker sitting governor from Ohio, the too long sitting governor of New Jersey was running for Presidential Office as to be considered highly for Attorney General with a possible Supreme Court nominee future. Doctor Ben Carson is concerned for the nations' moral health while the survivor of the Clinton political machinery was proposing making big changes in how the Federal government conquer big ticket health killers.

   It is good there are so many different ideas on stage, one size fits all is the bland beige Democratic Socialist Party poop and no one wants to step in it. 

   Did it make my mind up? Nope, there are several people on that stage and would do a better job of the President than the opposing party... but we will have to wait and see what the folks behind the curtain will allow to lead us... cause you do know the fix has long been in, don't you?

  If I believed that Jeb! and Marco liked each other enough, Jeb! striking out at Rubio's poor attendance record on votes were because Jeb! is saving his best for later when he gets anointed by the Establishment Olde Foggies, and boosting Marco's poll numbers and performance opportunity for the night. Jeb! reminds me of the student that has everything except true reason for living and a solid sense of his silly, and then has no standing in the clique because everyone is playing by different rules they make up as they go, which is just not fair to someone that is given every opportunity and still is boring.

   I will point out that the difference between 2011 and 2015 is four years, and the Republicans were not well served last time by too little choice, and this time don't seem well served by too many choices, but I was involved last time, since I thought I could really make a difference... I know so much better now. Aside from very real voter fraud, which has been prosecuted for the last two years from that last election, and is still on going --- to all the fast stuff the GOP did to the TEA Party and the tea party to produce Romney and Ryan, who were never ever going to win against the Real African-American Peace Prize winner, there was never a doubt the fix was in, and the lack of real honor in the political classless folks means to me it will happen again... and war games on the computer give me a more satisfactory victory. Like every day on the range is better than an hour on television viewing.

Where did it go, where do we start, how do we survive...

    America is gone, right after Western Civilizations 101... a relic of a different age and a new human race evolved... NOT.

   Getting back into Sunday School teaching (??? guiding might be a better term) I understood I had forgotten youth and the constant effort to control ones growing self and everything around them, call it play, learning, developing or stretching into the unknown - it is constant.  I have been ill and mostly just a problem to be around for over two weeks, but the children actually became nicer as I tried to  perform; thank them, their parents and the Lord. But as I sent them on their way Sunday I wanted them to find a definition of Honor, or as they would in England 'Honour'.  There are so many words I use and know and are part of my life and definition that my brother knows and has changed the meaning of over his years of growing. He also has different core values, but then he isn't the future of the world - his grandchildren are.

   I never see Glenn Beck, since he departed FOX before the Five, but he was pointing to the culture and the elite establishment, to include political, as being out of touch with mainstream Americans, which aren't really in the center of the foolishness - but the whole group is immoral, accept others as immoral, and think that will make a better world.  He also said that the America that will come from descending into that immorality will be so very evil and ruthless that it would never be forgotten but held up as the worst ever.  Got to be first as something, don't they?

  Anyway, what attracts followers of the different candidates is the failure of the current, in both parties, of elected officials to get it done well, on time, on budget and working as promised.  Which is the result of immoral behavior, we aren't telling each other good myths, fairy tales, and moral stories where good triumphs through - thought, planning, execution and lots of sweat and the good Lord's blessings. You know, like functional families, farms and small businesses and crafty stuff... little very important things.  There is a sad lack of heroes held up as examples - as I repeat to my instructors on the rifle ranges, never teach nor demonstrate the wrong way to do anything - it becomes a focal point. Always emphasize the right way, the best way, the way that the body will make the best shot - once the shooter is out of the 'I' of the shot.

   Time for breaking fast, I watched 'Waterhole number 3' last night, enjoying the movie, thanks to Roger Miller my favorite laughing balladeer.  Code of the West.