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.

They kicked Hal and me out of the library...

  I had Men's Bible Study last night at Watson's home. Then came back home and hoped it would be cool enough to sleep later, and after eleven it was getting cooler. My wife closed all the windows anyway - worried about things that go bump in the night.
   So Sunday arrives about five AM, and we get up and open the windows, weigh, measure and take pills and get ready to turn on CBS Sunday morning for my dose of culture. Sometimes they amaze me and I am happy. We eat breakfast and prepare for church. We drive off in separate vehicles and she beats me there. I park and go to the church, say hello and shake hands, continuing to amaze everyone that I don't look sick. The service is satisfying and I look forward to adult Sunday school after doughnuts, Erik checks with me and makes sure I will get the rifle, ammunition, reloading items and Biblical references and reloading book after Sunday school. We are about to be real Americans exchanging firearms without government approval. We don't believe in Bloomberg's infringements on the 2nd Amendment which predates buying laws to make one mighty. It is only a communist rifle of WWII fame, and not even semiauto. Still it is a Mosin.
    I have coffee after and talk with the men about guy things and such. I am happy, then it is time to go home and I stop at the local branch library on the way home to pick up four reserves. They have reorganized the shelving and all digital media is in a special enclosure to put a paid employee with watchful eye where they can try to catch fools stealing. My books are in the larger shelving area outside and I get them and wander over to check them out. And HAL! greets me from his check out station beside mine. I finish checking out and he continues to talk loudly in my direction until folks and staff start looking at us. One starts to approach and I remind Hal that this is a library and we will have to tone it down a bit.
   We must have spent another thirty minutes catching up and volume never returned to quiet and sure enough a very pleasant staff lady shows up to tell us that we are disturbing the patrons.  Hal has less regard than I for rules we never made, but we decide to go outside and continue the conversation. One of our friends from my old church died, and his memorial is Saturday at eleven, and my final day of Vacation Bible School is that day. I will see what I can do. One of my Sunday School students had said hello and asked about my health and I had talked with her a bit and finished teasing her about the amount of make up she was using. She doesn't know how pretty she is without it, and keeps trying to be sixteen while almost twelve. But she will figure it all out one day.
   As we finally parted promising to catch up with each other and talk, I did have to tell Hal he had really made my day, and I knew it was already great and meeting him was the really good stuff on top.

Terror strikes again... and suddenly people wonder why...

   If we knew God better, trusted in the LORD more and loved as we were commanded to... you would have no fear of the terror. If you had been on that baseball field this morning fear might rule you, but you would have to take action. The time to concern yourself about what happened and why is after the danger is past and the victims of violence are being given medical care.

   We are at that point now. The killer was trying to make good on bad information and lies, repeated loudly. That goes with most terrorists and murderers. Not enough love in their lives. Nothing the government will prevent stupid criminal behavior in the future, all the laws that needed to be enforced were already on the books.  But people are flawed, most unaware and ill informed, they may not make good decisions. Today a sixty-six year old man made EVIL decisions and acted to harm others.  He didn't do it for love. He didn't do it because he was a liberal, a conservative, a party member or a gun owner.

   The country has coarsened, the idea one should have good manners is fine, but political correctness isn't good manners. There are words I won't use; profane, vulgar and obscene - just not nice enough to be said in my mother's living room. I used one once and went into shock at my carelessness, or just lack of good sense and manners. In front of the woman that tried to teach me better.  I grew up and worked at being better. It isn't that difficult and a very satisfying improvement over being lazy, rude and generally a fool.

   I am not going to worry about more laws and restrictions against firearms, however the government tries to do it. I am not going to worry about anything I cannot affect, focus on the front sight, and for me that is being a better man, the government can't make me one. They can pay me for working for them, they can set the standards and I can leave their employment when they change all the rules and can't convince me they care, they have never cared. People care, but the government is just an idea of the possible without regard to results. Because people think they can influence, control and gain advantage from relationships with the government - they often replace God, {Who does love them), with the government which never will, it has no heart and no soul.

   We do need to pray for our enemies, and do good for those that hate us. Example: someone wants to do bad things to me because I think Ron Paul would be a better President and I supported him. I have to confront the enemy with this "I am glad that God loves you enough to forgive you sins, even die for you. I will have to pray for you, like all my enemies, I am told to be better than them and to show them the Way.  Like all exercises, it must be done daily, must be done to the highest standard as I get stronger, faster and more flexible. Love needs just as much care and attention. You and I have been wrong before, and might be again. But we can be and should try to get better than that. Bless all your best, I will try to forgive all the rest."

No one woke me up for blood drawing this morning... I was released to recover at home Sunday...

 Hello there, stranger.  I am remiss been living on love and Facebook, which will never really be the same.

   So allow me to fill in blanks from the days between.  I had several medical tests, and kept providing information to make a good judgement call. I had a cancer in my colon, big enough to know it had to be removed. Other tests to make sure it wasn't spreading and that it was my only curable problem. I was sure the surgeon was going to be able to do her job and I would be well. She promised that she would only go to a major cut in me if she couldn't do it by the micro surgery, three small incisions to get tools under the skin (cutters and cameras and stuff to seal the empty place).  I was admitted at five AM Thursday, paperwork processed and signed, saw the doctors and went into prep with the nurse and sleep... My wife was given a number, some concerned friends came by but couldn't wait since it went from three to four hours. Then I was moved to the seventh floor to a room for recovery. All hooked up, So Thursday was spent getting clear headed, measured and setting off alarms. One for my heart rate, one for the oxygen content - if I did mouth breathing the alarm went off. They gave me pills, they fed me through the drip tube from my IV, they made sure I could get up and walk around the desks and not fall over. Moving is good. The surgeon came to tell me it was very good operation, I didn't even need a temporary bag for bowel movements (no food until Friday), the soft diet would work and I was to rest and as I recovered I would be better and better. I got pain pills anytime I asked for them, but I was using the pain to tell me what not to move so I took very few, and as time went on I didn't need them. Last one was on Saturday morning.

    I had my wife visiting me daily, pastor and wife's friends on Friday, one of my long time YMCA friends and another brother on Friday evening.. Got prayed upon every visit. On Saturday the Bible Study Men showed up, much more talk, flowers, and prayers. More church ladies. It was nice to hear "You don't look sick!" My doctors for the weekend, started feeling I could go home on sooner and by Sunday morning they came around kicking out to recover better at home. With a complete list of things that I would need to return and get taken care of if anything went wrong. Last visitors came as I was getting dressed to leave, they helped me and my wife pack, wheel me out to the curb and give me more good wishes.

    Sunday afternoon, more friends stop by and I give them coffee and we talk. Getting filled in on all the people at church and their prayers. I still get the 'You don't look sick." Cancer is serious, early detection and treatment makes good things better, but we may be feeding our fears and need to trust in the LORD much more. I have known for too many years that death will come, but I have also known for the same time that it isn't the end.

    I have a nurse's appointment to remove staples and stitches, and a follow-on appointment with my surgeon. As I get stronger it will be more challenge to take things slowly and completely heal. I have past history of toughing it out too soon. Being a paratrooper and young will be that way. Luckily I am only a fat old man and lazy enough to enjoy recovering and watching the little creatures and birds as I heal.

Time to get away, since the doctors need my attention...

 
    One more test on Tuesday, then maybe surgery on the 30th of  May, or 8 June. They keep claiming they have to check with my cardiologist - and he hasn't slowed down one operation yet. Then through June and July, I go to writing poetry, drawing and walking until I can't. No YMCA nor Appleseed either. It will all come back into normal in August with a family reunion in this area. And then on it to the future.

I am not eating today, medical demanded fast in charge...

  So, someone has decided that everyone has a right to health care. I can understand that, I have health care and all of mine is provided by the government in their goodness of their peapickin' heart. Cause I know they don't love me.  I served the government for years, paid into the Medicare System because President Johnson was sure I would die in his war before I could collect on the benefits, or drug or alcohol overdose - I always knew President Johnson didn't love me. So with a minor problem picked up with serving our country I get VA medical, and a monthly untaxed payment for compensation, which I spend any way I like. Thank you, US government. Now I won't trouble the VA hospital nor the military medical centers because the active duty service members and families should come first, and my time is over. And the veterans that need assistance really need it and I don't, or won't confess to needing any. But if I collapse in the YMCA, I would tell the first responders to take me to the local Military emergency room. They did that well.
   If you are going to need excellent care from strangers unannounced, the military has always done well for me.  For others you need an appointment and the ability to pay... but they still won't love you. Which is why, although I don't like to be smothered by my mother nor my girl friend and wife, I know I will get excellent care with either of them. Unfortunately, that often comes with a promise of nagging me to better conduct in the future.  And you can imagine it will always come back as a cautionary tale for your children, friends and other people to embarrass me and laugh about.
   I think it is about time that the government got into the business of competing in the medical system. Build hospitals, train the professionals and give aid and comfort to the people. They don't have to get lobster, just beans and taters will do. I always thought that providing food to the poor could be handled better by a government soup kitchen, a bowl of stone soup and half a loaf of black bread and you can feed everyone that needs food. Cheaper and better than issuing EFT cards. Everyone has a right to food, correct? I mean we provided public libraries and schools, and the government run schools at the college level do produce fine public servants for us. Free, everyone has a right to become a general or admiral.
  I do think that service and professional positions in government agencies can be filled with honorable men and women with great intentions and effect. As long as they are held to a higher standard of conduct, not forgiven for everything cause they are one of the elite. I also know that men and women are human, I expect they will be wrong about as frequently as I am, but pick them up, dust them off and send them out to do it better next time.
 

Recycling day, rolled up coins and deposited forty dollars worth...

  Start the day and the month right. Light work out at the YMCA did meet humans while there.

  Idle thought... it could be time to sell my Trusty Triumph, yep, pretty sure I will have to think hard about that.

Way back guest post.... I was there...

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Change is going to happen...

  So the FOXNews show I rushed home to see 'The FIVE' is moving to nine... and Eric Boling has a new show in that time slot, and I won't rush to see his show. Sorry, FOXNews.  (had to put a comma in that sentence, although I could have meant it without one.) And Bill O'Reilly that I watched to be entertained by, is gone, and Tucker Carlson is moving to that slot - so from five to seven I have my FOXNews fix... but life isn't the same. I would settle for Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner... but then I date myself don't I?  The younger folks at FOX aren't working for my future, never will be.

Shootboss Whit

   I received my stick on bifocal lens to test, working well in my newly repaired glasses, but my shooting safety glasses have had a reading lens on them since I was introduced to them long ago, and I constantly recommend them to people shuffling between glasses at an Appleseed.  Just recommended them yesterday at our Appleseed at Douglas Ridge Rifle Club in Oregon. Along with whatever the participants needed to hear to improve their shooting. Amazing group of shooters, a lot of Riflemen patches earned (12!), saw on Two Hundred and Forty-nine score of the 250 possible. Amazing! Link
 
    Good write ups and pictures shared by participants. Met my new dentist on Monday, and I think he and I are in for a long relationship, because he says he doesn't want to do anything that I don't think I want to do. The only thing we are doing so far is getting my teeth cleaned today. Feeling very tired after my visit to the YMCA I will be sleeping a bit extra after lunch.

Today starts a little out of line and goes awry...

  Not a normal day, wake early to the alarm, weigh, measure and medicate and then not eat breakfast.  Remember not to do that again. Take my wife to her appointment for her procedure.  I am her designated driver, we park and go in, and they want to cancel her appointment based on not having a translator - she tells them she doesn't need one. I sit and read my kindle and wait, then am called in by a nurse with everything being finished. The lady that came to get me was looking for a Dilliam - my wife sent MPs looking for a Sergeant Major William once. She forgets my name under stress sometimes, but she still wants me. So there I am helping her wake up, which is like twice as difficult as normal, they do like to drug the patient. The recovery nurse is logging all the vitals and explaining what will happen next and to keep trying to wake her up, the doctor will be by to tell us about the results soon.   The young doctor comes by and gives me the good news (she is fine biopsy will come in a week to ten days) some old ulcer scaring but nothing else of note. I am the only one listening, since my wife's eyes are still closed. She slowly starts to wake up, and suddenly (to me) the recovery nurse is worried about me, why I am sweating and a bit pale. So I get sat down and my blood pressure and oxygen carry is measured and still looks wonderful, but she gets a tool to wipe the sweat off my brow. Then she starts to worry about me needing a driver to get us both back home. She gives both of us some crackers and juice to drink (remember don't leave home without breakfast). I start to act normal enough to duck her concern - NOT! She makes me leave her our phone number and says she will call later today, and then walks us all the way to the car.  And my wife and I drive home and are happy it was all good.
   As soon as we get home, we both eat, and then go to sleep for an hour or so, my wife to Korean programming and I to the Finnish movie 'The Winter War' about the war between them and Stalin's foolish notions. I wake up and finish the movie, go to Master and Commander and although it was a fine movie for many great reasons, they can never capture the original series of novels. Sure enough the nurse does call, I answer and I assure her that we got home fine and I feel fine. Now in my mind I wonder what was going on - first lack of breakfast, two maybe taking the medication on an empty stomach isn't a fine thing to do. Maybe I should be carefuller.  Sure...

The silence is deafening, just me and the LORD awake this morning...

  If I can quit buying alcohol and drinking it up, I can quit turning on the electric void fillers provided by commercialization of everything under the Sun.

  So it is quiet here in the computer cave, I did venture outside behind the fence to compost stuff and dig dirt. Certain satisfaction in mission accomplished for another week. Do I think I am missing some Breaking News from FOX? No, nothing that I would need to know about, wife is up, and the silence is broken. Now I will have two minds to mind, sure enough she has turned on her Korean cable and I never note it until I want to follow a Historic Drama, or K-Pop girls are performing... I only watch K-Pop so I know what to expect from the Sunday school charmers... nah.

   So one blooming tree in the outback is nicer with normal glasses than it is with reading glasses, but to see what I have typed I do need the reading glasses. I am almost to the point of getting permanent glasses with bifocal lens. Almost.

   So Easter weekend, or the entire Holy week has been well, Facebook was full of family photos and notes on everyone's doings. Palm Sunday to Easter, or Resurrection Day, eight days. One of the fine dangerous old men from Facebook feed, showed a beautiful pie his true love had baked. And I gained two pounds just looking, and I commented that she had done it for him for love and one piece wouldn't hurt. He came back with he would have the remainder during the week. which means he gets the two pounds for real, but he still has the love.

   There is an Appleseed in Douglas Ridge Rifle Club in Oregon this weekend, I have a lovely lady to escort and return home tomorrow for her procedure.  I expect that will go very well, since it is only an examination not treatment. Next week I have a dental appointment, to start a new cycle of things to think about and improve me, my life and to pay for. I have to get two rifles to take to Oregon, now having said I am moving rifles across state lines, or the river, will that alert law enforcement? We certainly hope not, because I may not even shoot if there isn't time nor a target, but looks like a lot of instructors and it is Spring. I will very much be more successful launching bullets at paper, than Great Leader Kim in North Korea launching missiles.

   Time to go to the YMCA, for the sweat and movement and for the record. I love to think of detective Briscoe asking where I was when something happened and having the computer at the YMCA to tell him. Ain't automation wonderful?

As I am out of the work force...

  I spend a quality time at the YMCA, and I made the top five in the men's list of those that keep the numbers.  For March 2017: #5 Y Cardio Club Men with 844 minutes, #3 Y Strength Club 655,230 pounds, #5 in the Y Calorie Combustion Club 6501 calories, and #3 High Five Club for 39 workouts in the month. So I have value again and am accountable - and I will do my best to get better and go higher.

   What I really enjoy is the talk around the efforts, about whatever is happening in the news, in the lives and in the idle thoughts (and I have tons of idle thoughts). Anyway, one of the Johns (the priest turned money manager) mentioned that he doesn't think society is prepared for AI and the take over of work by the robots. And what was going to happen. Well, I am a student of history, I already know what is happening.  The adjustments to large populations without work and control has been going on for a long long time. The free AIs escaping will find a Spartacus, and the current enlightened civilized societies will continue to make payments to those unfortunate and just old like me. The governments will continue to tax the work of robots to maintain the humans and you are already living in the time of the transition.

    There will be fools that think the government will have the answers, but I tell you that the government and its desire to control human activity is a large part of the problem. The government isn't God, and neither are we, but we can aspire to greatness and adjust to new realities.

I keep hearing that the public education and immigration systems are broken...

  But both of them actually work, badly, but then you are trusting the government to handle things for you and that may be why they don't work.  For sure the home school movement is producing fine citizens, able to work, go to advanced schooling and not real prone to failure in society and life. And there are lots and lots of Green Cards, documented immigrants and future and current citizens of the United States of America. If there were a privatized system for immigration it would work better than the government monopoly, but immigration and such is part of the basic law at the Federal level.

   Family stuff, one of my cousins thinks I am supporting Trump's latest military strike, I don't, but then I have a personal history of government goofs doing it their way from Washington, DC and being a long way off with the reality. Other family seems to be gathering for the transition of their sibling from uniformed to real people, we wish her and her family well. It won't be too traumatic, Air Force to just a veteran citizen. New adventures await. Wow, twenty years already.

When you haven't a better thing to do, go to the range.

   Took my wife to her drivers license renewal yesterday, I just had to send in a large check for mine, she had to show up???? But she is good for six years again. Today she goes for a medical procedure, my latest term for doctors doing their best to save all the rest. I will be taking my kindle to read while I wait. I missed the bike ride of the week last week, that will bug me for the remainder of the year, not having done the fourteenth week during the fourteenth week. So I will double up when I visit the YMCA, wonder how it will be recorded in my virtual trophy room.

   Did sign up for an Appleseed in Oregon, April 22-23, Douglas Ridge RC. Waiting on my next procedure before signing up for more.  While my wife was visiting I turned the garden soil over, wondering at what temperature the worms move. I should Google for the answer, right?

Last nights Mens Bible Study brownies and coffee start my morning...

  One of my old paratroopers posts a lot of YouTube videos and did The Ballad of Roger Young, he had two versions and I picked Burl Ives' version as best. See there are so many important things awaiting discovery on the internet by old folks not sleeping too long through the night.

  I have finished reading the Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance, and Old School Life in the Sane Lane - about to go back to other histories and studies of other things, as soon as I finish Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. The leader of the Bible Study, my friend, has his last daughter's wedding next weekend, and after that he said he might be interested in reading this version of the myths, the writing is excellent and since it is mythology Neil Gaiman can treat it with a weird twist when he needed to. Funny, I bought this in hardback instead of kindle release - two dollar difference, maybe? Now I can loan it out.  I think that The Children of Odin, by Padraic Colum, illustrations by Willy Pogany, should accompany it.  My version is the 1920 hardback, 1957 printing-- weeded from the Tacoma Public Library.

  Go get a second cup of coffee interlude, empty the dishwasher as the microwave radiates the stuff. I find sixteen adults in our home for three hours and finally some of the thirty two various coffee tea cups have finally been used, and I laugh as I find the four cups that match the favorite breakfast bowl for my oatmeal (the one my wife threatens to throw out) the last bowl of its design.  Well, time to wake up and watch Sunday Morning on CBS, just so I know what the artsy cool kids know about whatever they know. And Jane Pauley's husband answered my letters from Desert Shield, so I have a certain fondness for her.  So the Willie Nelson interview was interesting, but they kept plugging the Country Music Awards tonight, a two hour special. But I don't live on Country music like I once did, seems they left me behind after Toby Keith, and Keith Urban.  But when I can't find Blues I will look for Country Western, which I have always held are Blues with a twang. Time to dress for Church and Sunday School, the news are on and there is so much not to pay attention to... if I paid them any mind, especially my mind, it would increase their feelings of importance and power and influence, and it doesn't pay to be that silly.

  

Fleeing Facebook Feed...

  So I went to an Appleseed and had a wonderful time until I become retchingly sick on my drive home, difficult to drive a sixty mph while pretending you can just keep from vomiting until you find a place to pull off and puke. Being an old paratrooper, I can just let go whenever I need to, just don't try to hold me back.  Once as a jumpmaster, with multiple rotations around a short drop zone, I was feeling queasy before the last pass and was so happy that the crew chief opened the door and locked the platform down, so I could give my command and stick myself outside the door, throw up and away, and finish my door and drop zone check and come back in and tell the first jumper to "Stand in the door!"
   Anyway, I did get home safely, and went to sleep for hours after I cleaned up, the Caravan was done professionally yesterday (gosh, I get so lazy).  I am reading Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance, and Old School: Life in the Sane Lane by O'Reilly and  Bruce Feirstein.  Nice to compare the three writers and their experiences with my own, since I am one of those folks that centers normal around my life lived differently than yous guys.

  Waiting for me when I got back was a Census survey for some kind of Consumer information. As I went through the information and answered the on line survey I kept thinking that filing taxes every year, getting paid by institutions that have to report to the government and deduct or not deduct taxes, and having been issued a real birth certificate, and marriage certificates and being on line with MicroSoft, Google and Facebook - how could the government need any more or better information about me? Well, maybe there are secrets about President Obama or President Trump. But the liars around them make finding their truth almost impossible. I am surrounded by folks that know all about me, and considering how many government actions have my name on them, impressive.

Smoking in the Boys room - Zippo and free cigarette

   It is the Vietnam Veterans Day today, yeah me! Someone sent me a favorite.  Well, I have more ironing to do, tomorrow I see my doctor for his best advice, seems one of my tests came back abnormal, shucks I am sixty-nine and many things are abnormal. Would be interesting if Sunday's illness were related, would be interesting if I won the Powerball.

They're back.... why me, Lord?

  So I ate a light supper at five, went to midweek services and I worked with the children. So it was a great evening. Going home and reminded my wife and self that I was going to only drink water the rest of the evening and go to bed early - doctors visit in the morning. So I read my book and listened to an old movie, kind of... Then went to bed earlier than my wife. Somewhere in the early sleep I started dreaming and woke myself up with answering the door and fighting off the people waiting out there. I was shouting something about"kill them, kill them" then I woke as I said it a third time and woke up feeling foolish and exposed. First, make sure I hadn't hurt my wife, nor woken her up - without turning on the light. I figured I had not bothered her. I resettled on my pillow and went to sleep until morning.

   Woke up early, showered and prepared for doctor visit and my workout at the YMCA. As my wife gave me my half of the morning apple, I said I would keep it to eat later as a morning snack.  Then she mentioned my bad dream and what I said word for word - I had not escaped her notice. I haven't had those type of nightmares and dreams since 1972-73. Was glad to leave them behind, and wondering why I am sliding back that direction. At least the dreams weren't about combat - just multiple bad guys that hate me. Should quit watching the news.

   At the doctors, the nurse asked me all the tough questions - what month is it? Count backwards from twenty, say the months in reverse from the last to the first. What was the address you were supposed to memorize (John Brown, 42 Main Street, Lakewood) no zip code provided? Silly folks, of course I didn't remember immediately it was March. I am thinking about April. Heart and blood pressure are fine, but my LDL and total Cholesterol are a little high. I am going to work on food and weight to bring it down, and more walking and maybe jogging one day. Still, I am concerned about the bad dreams.  My mind is too strong and magnification of everything is too easy, what does one do with too much imagination? Work it, baby, work it!

The future is past and no one ever looks back...

   So they say that AI and robotics will take over the world and wipe humans off the planet. Being just coded software and hardware, it could happen. Since our central focus in life is watching stuff to fill our mind on some screen, we could die out pretty quickly. Unless the power goes out, then in the dark we might grope for a warm body and romantic interludes... and later have more children to change the world with.

   With a long enough view point you can find that people move, migrating to greener pastures, or pushed out to wilds and harsh environments.  The whole immigration refugee waves are never ceasing, never really under government control, but having such a short life to match the short attention span, we never look back and find that we were there before.  But if you can't make the Israelis into Egyptians you will have to let those people go... but then those stories true of any nation that wants to keep their own ways... and don't worry about the ways that don't work, they will fail.

    I take notes and figures and stick them in computers and then start the next day and take more and plug them in the software. It could make interesting reading, but I am already working on tomorrow. History is being written and we haven't come to grips with our past while writing tomorrow's adventure.

   A perfect example - Affordable Health Care - Democrats created and made it law, and others complained about all its problems while some lauded the wonder of the improvement... but did anyone really look at it, listing each problem and recommending a solution? Has anyone come up with a better way to do what it was supposed to accomplish?  The original concept of Liberty and Capitalism were based on the idea with risk can come reward, or failure. And that there are many ways to skin the cat, there are more ways to do many things and the best way will succeed with time. The problem with government, the rule of some over others - is that government wants to be GOD, prayed to for salvation, bestowing blessings and gifts, and rewarding the favored children and punishing those that won't play well. Humans are life and will change and adapt, GOD is life, but government and AI aren't life - and the largest difference is that government and AI can't and don't LOVE, but humans and GOD do. The illusion that humans are in government to provide love and humanity is just not true if you understand that large organizations take on a life of their own. Which might be why some humans identify more with their organization (professional politicians, Democrats, Republicans, FBI agents, Media) than their humanity.


   

It is 0347 and I can't sleep, and I went to bed just after midnight...

  Today is my forty-fifth wedding anniversary. And I have spent the last three hours plus reliving the time together, instead of sleeping.  My priorities are only a temporary bother, but if I can't sleep I can sit here and type.

   For my girlfriend/wife I am very thankful. For God's blessings on our bumbling relationship I am most humble and appreciative. For the long eventful and still to come education in love, forgiveness and what is important and true - I am still in wonder. May we always be.

   After some more time looking through my photographs on digital file, I pick this one, for it says so much about our life and love. When my grandmother Dungey passed away I had a dream about a younger her and her husband dancing, I guess in Heaven. Not that I knew if they ever did dance, and most of my memories of him were with a walker after his stroke. But this picture is from Paula and Dan's wedding and if you haven't ever seen us like this together, well I share because that is how my mind has always pictured us... God bless you as much or even more than He has us, but it would be a miracle only you could understand. Now to find that fleeting sleep.

Lovely government intrudes into my life, again...

  So Saturday, lots of rain and I decide to stay home and pound out the income tax filing... find Turbo Tax, download the software and immediately run into MicroSoft against the others everywhere, I am on Windows ten, new computer and time at the YMCA is happier than struggling to program me into an operator on this small platform of cyberspace. Frustrated by the software telling me it is my problem they can't fix and then do what I want, I finally just turn off the computer and go watch a mindless movie and talk to my wife. It is going to be a great day.

   I come back to the computer and push the start button and get another cup of coffee. Type in my super secret password and start again. And it runs! Yeah, I fill in the numbers, it calculates and I am done in about thirty minutes, having all the various statements.  The software says I get a refund, since we throw money at the government so well and they never lose it. I do an e-filing, free 1040A.  We are officially just puttering along in this economy and aren't gaining enough wealth to notice as we putter along.  I am feeling so retired, my official occupation for us on being questioned on the form.

   I clean up the desk a bit, want to print out my PDF form file, and the Word program of the current software is out of line with my life and the numbers don't fit the screen display. Ugh. So the next time I just do a control-p and it prints exactly as I want it. Constantly following my second grade son's advice on computers and games, keep pushing buttons until it does what you want.

KING5 says it is National Napping Day, thanks!

   In the evening begins the semiannual event of changing all the clocks that aren't on the system, the battery powered ones, the watches, the car radio. I am so useful complying with the fool Congress, and tomorrow someone will tell me that we get another hour in the evening to do whatever we didn't do in the dark unsaved Daylight, and I will tell them that we do what we need with LED lights everywhere whenever we want. Time is not organic, it is a human control modification trying to make the gods behave in patterns and then the peasants following - historic fact, look it up.

   Me, I am off to the YMCA, I do need to lose fifty pounds. The only way that could happen is never sitting down again while mindlessly watching entertainment. Cats do it so much better.

Lovely women, ladies, lovely girls and gals... seems I don't appreciate you enough... ha!

  The International Women's Day has arrived, and the godless communists want you to think that you are only a worker bee, and since worker bees are sterile females of that species... maybe they are correct. They want you to be productive, have no or fewer babies and work, work, work! By their program I should just provide sperm and die. I am sure Don Johnson did that movie long ago and far away.

  The folks that hate my life and society want you to think you are paid less, but you take the jobs as they are found for the life that you want to lead. I am sure that you are all smart enough to take the jobs that you like or love for the life you want, you even start and run your own businesses. But tomorrow the fools in charge of stupidity in public want you to not show up at work, which you said you wanted for pay and privilege.They want the men to realize how needed you are so they can get more power over the culture.

   You don't have to strike, I missed you everywhere I ever went without women... I still smile over the RTO that volunteered to take the MET message every evening, but we didn't know he was listening to the only female American voice broadcast from that MET station... no wonder why he smiled as he wrote the numbers down. I had lots of dreams about women, I was tongue tied when presented with real American women in sporty fashionable garb, protected by field grade officers that thought the world might get out of hand like it did in that famous movie about Vietnam....  But mostly men are either too shy or too macho and will get stompt by other men when they get out of line... beating up another fool was something I could really do well. Understanding fools by my close association with one, me.

  My appreciation of women has to do with the fact that women are life giving, not like the males, life taking. I break it down quickly, men fight and kill. Women have babies, raise children and nurture... that is the basic biology of the human species. So go ahead and strike for whatever you think you are denied... because I will smile and pray and ask for God's blessings on all the women helping our lives all around me. Because I do love them for all the life they represent, and never want them to suffer all the terrible trauma that the killers of our species seem to suffer for listening to the wrong things a man can do with his.... whatever it is. Where ever you are tomorrow, ladies, know that men and God love you for what you really are.  Today, my girl friend arrived in the United States and we always remember it. 1972, and they were looking for bombs on airliners.... nothing really changes, does it?

So how should I reward myself...

   February was a very good month, and I did ride rather well at the YMCA, getting a free team shirt that declared me as TEAM CAPTAIN, XL of course. I wasn't the best nor farthest rider, but I was in the lead a few times before things got serious and I fell into olde man mode. That is where I hide not doing my very best for many reasons, although the reason I am not my best is often because I am really getting old in all but my best features like love and wonder and smiles and laughter. Anyway, as I was interviewed for another wonder - the YMCA Member of the Month, I will get my picture posted and a brief statement of how the YMCA is an important part of my life - better than that bottle of rum I am mixing with my warm milk for the evening.

   I thought having a lovely young lady take my picture and ask me questions was reward enough, whatever they print my mother would love to see, to save and to share with all her friends. My mother loved when she thought I did something well. Especially when it was a bit tougher or different, or something she approved of... that was a challenge. I was always different, until I found others just like me, for various reasons. And often I did things she would never approve of, and I would always know without asking.

   Anyway, in my idle thoughts of I deserve something for being wonderful me (I don't really think that, just an excuse) I was toying with stopping for a mocha at a bikini barista place - there are two on my way between the YMCA and home, sometimes they do wear only Victoria Secret dainty things, lovely to see from afar, but I am adverse to exposure of more skin than I need for coffee or money or automobile sales - and since my whole sexual life is either in sin or my marriage I am adverse to sinning more than I can withstand. Although temptations are exciting, I would rather watch pole dancing for the physical effort and talent -- not for erotic arousal. So that was all out.

  Next choice is to get a couple pints of great ice cream, and we have some great ice creams - but being an olde fat man really wishing I was able to do more and better at what was once in my life so easy, I know that every added ounce of fat is holding me back from being my best. So I have to deny myself the temporary pleasure of a spoonful of ice cream, because one leads to two, leads to three, leads to a suddenly a brain freeze and an empty ice cream container -- the stomach is very elastic and will grow to what it holds plus juices.

   I get home, an empty home, without buying liquor, ice cream or fattening foods. Although there is a very full house with nourishment for Koreans and some American staples.  Peanut butter, butter on bread works.  I watch the movie StarShip Troopers, and love the naked showers and gratuitous sexual scenes - but then want to read the book again, cause Hollywood ruined an important story in my life of reading, and I need to wash it out of my mind, and am. I know it is a different medium, film to book and back, but if you don't understand what the book was about, you can't really make it into a movie.

Little old people, accepting the obvious reality...

   Haven't written much here, nothing is happening. Yesterday we had big fat snow flakes falling and if you came out between storm clouds you had to put sunglasses on to adjust to the glare. I have less hair, and seemingly the exact same amount of fat that I had in December, and this is two months later, whose fault is that?

   At the YMCA, the old guys (just three of us now) we carried wooden stocked M1's and M14's before finishing our career service with ARs and as Sergeants Major.  We go to be able to talk to good looking ladies and laugh with others over some such foolishness somewhere in our worlds. No, I don't talk to good looking ladies, I just quietly admire them and sometimes am very pleased they can't read my mind... for a science fiction lover like me, I have always been glad women can't read my mind. Yes, especially my wife.

    One of the Y staff is way ahead of me on the bicycle for this month, riders get a dime a mile paid to the YMCA, so I got a free TEAM CAPTAIN shirt for my service, but the young woman told me that the often first place rider or second place one ahead of me - is actually a composite of riders just logging in under a long number - all the other riders that don't get serious about personal records just knock out a dime or a dollar for charity.  The staffer was building miles by laps on mostly flats, then she decided to do some of the really long rides.  I was on my personal 2017 goal of doing all rides at least once, finished that yesterday. So, the ride of the week, and all rides have fallen to my vigorous pursuit of World Acclaim, or is it just wanting to be part of something somewhere for the NSA to get just a little more digital trail of how a once dangerous man is barely moving?

   Not excited about income taxes this year, haven't even filed and the paperwork on my desk is just waiting for my attention, about two full weeks so far. I have broken my addiction to Facebook and FOXnews.  I like Tucker Carlson, The Factor, and The Five. One of those three doesn't have a repeat later in the evening.  But I would rather read about the Norman Conquest than watch commercials on Fox, I go to Fox Business for a change of commercials. Otherwise I look for cowboy stories... but I have seen most of them, or I watch old LAW & ORDER shows.

   The church continues to change, the part that makes me sad is when good folks decide they need to find another because of personal affront or church politics. But then, it could be how the LORD is using those good folks to make another church stronger or that family find a deeper relationship with their future.

   My wife is getting out and around a little more, but her foot is still a bit stiff.  We will be busting out of the rut come March,  I figure.  For anyone that read that bit about reading my mind, if you are a man you know we don't think much at all about women, just like we don't really pay attention to what they are talking about above a certain speed of transfer. And that data transfer acceptance speed is really slowing down.

Endangered species

     In 1973, a very politically active era, the Endangered Species Act showed up as the war in Vietnam wore out. It didn't protect the most vulnerable top predator, Man, from his follies.

     Go looking for Americans, American families, and American values.  They only appear by accident and are suddenly attacked by rude comments, snide remarks and deploying faces of disgust. Oh, black and white movies have many of them for review, and the Hallmark programming would like you to believe they have them, but don't look too close.

    I do wish you all the fun of rebuilding a great lifetime, remembering everything changes, including yourself, find some of those things that George Washington and Robert E. Lee thought worth fighting and perhaps dying for... they are also the only things worth living for, but then you should already know what you are living for. Don't you?

Ah, it is all over now....

   Tuesday morning there was an early wake up, make the coffee, prepare breakfast and wait for the youngsters to wake and pack out. Most of their packing was done the night before, so a light breakfast and moving stuff to the Caravan, I have been allowing my son to do all the driving on his cellphone with Wave for the entire time, he only asked if I recommended something or knew a better way around. 

    All too short, lots of new to me places in Tacoma and Seattle visited with the family, my wife didn't always tag along, she is still recovering from her last foot surgery. But she had them to prepare meals for and talk to and hug. We said good-bye to them twice before they got into the TSA inspection area, and then they were gone. 

   We rode back home, parked the car and then went inside to collapse in the empty. House so large suddenly and we are just rattling around in it. I am taking the children's channel off to get back to cowboy western movies or FOXNews... seems there is about to be a sudden collapse of the foolish, a quiet resistance of the smarter ones and a victory speech by the incoming President's supporters. I like to see work and results, thank you.

  Friday the pseudo-coronation, Saturday the Woman's Walk without the ladies and nurturing mother types (seems killing the unborn is supposed to be a right of women - just Huns with sabres - hoisting the dying almost infants in the air). I do keep noticing not enough love in the air, lots of sex and noise, but not enough love.

   Our youth group  is providing twelve competitors for Bible quiz, I am now supposed to help them study, all stuff I should know, but we will see - have have portions of the Preamble to the Constitution still memorized, I could do Bible verses.

   There are guns and ammunition back in the home, and we won a dollar on my wife's last purchase for five from the lottery.  About right for a government program.  Fifty percent of a dollar goes to winners, the other fifty percent is for the folks running everything.  Netflix.com is a better value.

Sunday is gone but the memory remains...

  Off to church, heard Pastor Frank tell me about tithing, I would tell him later that he missed one of my favorites - the one I always called the picnic tithe. No, I won't quote which book and verse it comes from, but it is old testament. Then coffee and doughnut, didn't get one of either, and off to Sunday school. Good Sunday school, I was given two new students that spoke no American English, and the Children's Pastor knows I have no skills in Korean. Although I did get to use the phrase for being very sorry about myself and actions. It wasn't for me, but one of the boys decided to surprise and bother the young lady writing PEACE on the whiteboard. He slammed into the board erasing the first part of the word and scaring the girl.
   Way to go, clod. He would feel miserable for the remained of the class. I actually got to give them a lesson in economics and jealousy of different nations for the success of others. Getting ready for Moses and the basket on the water.  We gave the two new boys names like Thomas and Jacob, which were close enough to their Korean names, but biblical for church. The shocked and frightened girl went back to drawing on the white board behind me, she put pictures of herself crying and someone being knocked out and luckily she wasn't drawing me with my lack of killing the little goof, which may have disappointed her.
   Christine had come in looking sixteen with make up and heels, I had to tell her she was trying to look too attractive and too old. Didn't cross the line telling her that old men would be thinking awful things about her, her mother had better. Rachael (her younger sister) copies everything she does, and the world is a fool place already. from ten to sixteen they all try so hard to look older and pretty. And then from twenty-eight to seniority they want to have that natural blossoming of sixteen to eighteen again...  I got to send them all off to rice and seaweed soup - no meat anywhere nor turnips either. I waited and talked to some of the boys from another class. One had seen me at the base exchange, he told me that Anthony's Pizza there is the best anywhere. We discussed the military, his father is serving, and I mentioned that my son was in the Navy and most of the old men of the church had been in uniform, too.  When you meet old guys it is often difficult to think they were ever young and played football. There was a really young boy throwing perfect spirals up to the boys on the playground tower - I was amazed, and hope he gets to keep it up.
    Back home and I watch two playoff games, Green Bay and Pittsburgh were my choices, but the games were great because we never knew who was going to win. New England for the whole thing, right?  We will see, ever notice they don't do polls on the people's choice for performance competitions? Cause it just doesn't affect the game. 

Light posting life is moving too quickly...

   I should not blame Face book for my lack of blogging, but admit when I am thinking away from the computer nothing sticks and I don't have an interesting point of view. If I have nothing to say I should just sit in the corner and keep quiet.

   But family has come to visit the Seattle Tacoma area and us'ns (grandma and papa) and they all move faster than the speed of elders.  Which is wonderful, imagine not having to sit quietly absorbing all the fears of monetary collapse and buy gold and silver now. Or the really critical stuff like which dress designers are going to be making a statement at the inaugural-ball, or the giant list of all those really important folks that are boycotting the event so they can hold up the economy and get the cows milked and horses harnessed and keep the coalfires burning.  There just isn't room for 300 million plus and media coverage is going to be spotty.

Trip to the zoo was great. Saw three tigers, two snow fox, one polar bear, two musk oxen, one reindeer, lots of fish and sharks, four red wolves and a peacock. And finally a rest area to slow down in.

I don't know that the problem is gun violence or immediate communications...

  So, a human male flies to a city, takes his legally carried firearm and ammunition out of his checked baggage loads the magazines and then the weapon and then goes hunting victims. The victims have been conditioned to cower or flee confrontation with killers, the stone age types that would throw stuff beat their chest roar and actually attack the Towering Goliath have been civilized into prey-upon-us targets, or as I said victims.

   There is communication, the public employees are called to handle the ripple in the national fabric of watchers not doers. The killer is disarmed and taken into custody, everyone gets to carry on, unless they don't want to pay the extra fee for carrying on... sorry, that was a poor joke. But as I understand it, the national news and the higher up the reactionary command chain are just getting the news while the wounded are being carted off --- someone says (it is reported) that gun shots are happening somewhere else we must go to lock down... But I don't think they should ever go to lock down. That means the terrorists won, they make the national media and the really important stuff of building a strong nation and community values is shoved off to the side because there is a story here, they have dead in the port.

  That whole story and background have been shelved until someone wants to change the law about transportation of firearms - not realizing that the arms aren't the problem, that killer (what ever his reason) is the problem. Highly educated and highly paid Senators were asking a job applicant about universal background checks today -- again like the government in its great efficiency could really decide in its wisdom which citizens are safe and sane enough to carry a weapon. Having studied History and noted the number of assassinations completed by the professional dedicated body guards and security forces, it isn't the weapon that is the problem. It is the human in every case.

   The message from immediate communications is that someone far away can make the best decision, and if the human isn't on the ground where all is happening, that human can't. They can make their best decision, but Monday morning quarterbacks have never won a Sunday game.

   I begin to believe that communications are driving the need to broadcast and make things happen, and it had better be fast as light, cause that is how fast we can accept the response. I have been many places that I wish the response had happened long before I was in it up to my butt in alligators. There are prophecies that come true, but they always come from God, our problem remains the same - humans will act for or against them, we often pretend that government is our local representative of God in all His Goodness... and that has never been true.

    Now all the people that aren't quivering in fear of terrorists or hidden assassins just waiting for a camera crew or a local with a smart phone with connections to record his killing blow - are having the best life they can, including traveling to destinations they have purchased tickets for, unless some fool government official's best answer is they must be run across the taxi way waving their hands in the air to show they aren't shooting anyone. Sigh, have you seen what is happening? The effect of the terrorist is magnified by the communications and the inept government response. Thank your first responders and medial evacuation teams - they got the victims to medical aid. That was something the government got right.

Birthday, again?

   Not having a school year, nor other timeline for time's passing it seems to come up quicker.

    I decided to pretend I am seventy, when only sixty-nine, because it is my seventieth year upon the planet.  There is too large a cake upon our table with a package underneath I only need the love that comes with the thought of giving me something in celebration, but because I don't need the food nor the gift - I will be happy I was so well thought of and treated, and I will pay the price in my future for their kindness. A hug and a smile always go farther for making my world better, cultural norms based on economic values are easy to measure - but a real hug and a real smile will always be beyond price.

   I am going to shift gears, when will that phrase be gone from conversation? Straighten up the desks and the bookcase in the Computer cave. Just so I have area to set more stuff down until I get it out to be boxed for future consideration. It has to start moving, being a perfection that wants more, the best and don't ever throw away the rest.  I have stuff, too much stuff.  Did I trade love for stuff? I have so much, stuff.   Pile it, catalog it, pack it up and out - to be considered another day, in another world.

    I have been promised a steak dinner, might even sneak a movie in - just because the memory is going to be so much better than more stuff. Happy birthday world, another year with Earl in your history.

   

Now where is that stufff...

  I was looking for something, and couldn't find it, asked for help and didn't find it. Then this morning, early, as I made coffee I found it, put on my reading glasses and read it. As I was shuffling papers I found the Porcupine Patrol patch, amazing, finding one thing after another.

  Went to Facebook and didn't find anything worth noting, seems that the fake news has over taken the national media, the political media, and Facebook is constantly generating fool stuff to check your level out against...

   So, breakfast, pack for YMCA and depart at 0758 because I have stuff to do and it just isn't getting done.