Big day today... Men's Bible study at home...

My wife has been throwing herself at this for weeks, it will be a wonderful rest to leave Church on Sunday and get ready to travel to California and get to know the grandchildren (I have mentioned they really are GRAND? haven't I?).

Today is all about the Men's Bible Study, and it has been my turn for awhile, and my wife was getting nervous. It would look like we weren't many things (all of them bad or at least anti-social) if we didn't host it at our home. Now I like Bible study, with the other men, but you may have noticed that I am mostly a quiet recluse and I don't want to bother anyone.

Days in food preparation, furniture movement, figuring out what needs to be hidden or just out of the way. I haven't hurt myself moving anything, although because things are moved I have bruised myself well traveling at speed through a dark house with furniture to bump solidly into, sigh. I have asked for prayers for help against envy and pride, and people thought they were for me, but they weren't. My wife's culture will shame her when she has nothing to be shamed about - me, I am just blest with the best wife I could never have imagined.

The men do like to get together for the Bible study, realizing we need all the help we can get and give, we will sing (badly but with conviction), pray with passion, and study and talk about the lesson, then we will join the ladies - which have prepared the feast and eat the buffet away. There is no way any of us need that much great food - but none of us will complain, and we will try to eat a bit of everything and too much of the stuff we really love. In moderation, then during the clean up the ladies will divide the leftovers - there isn't any way we could finish all the food in three meals.

Well, I had best get back at it, I have some more little things to adjust in today for my wife, some dusting, vacuuming and moving for when they get here in five hours or so... God love you all and be good because it is wonderful.

Blood pressure 112/70 pulse 44, not bad for a fat...

fool.

Woke from a wonderful military dream, Fort Bragg modern, me dressed in NATO woodland BDUs, and challenged by a suspicious Division Commander, who sent his Command Sergeant Major over to bust me. We had a great conversation and helped a young paratrooper clean his weapon and watched a weather weapon system start to crash and burn during a demonstration of its capabilities. Great dream. Noticed today that the US Army is going to decrease eight brigades - nice that we can send in Congress and the TSA to fight the nation's battles in the future. Yes, I insist that the Commander in Chief lead them.

Also in the news that Demi Moore is having problems with whip-it, which I thought was some sluty sex game. I am so wrong, but then watching a sob piece on how troubled she was (she was a military dependent I understand), I figured out she hasn't accepted Jesus and been saved. Although, no one on television would break it down that quickly - I can, because I am not feeding off her fame.

I am almost certain I am starting to believe that Warren Buffet is correct, that his secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than he does. No, I definitely KNOW that his secretary shouldn't pay a higher rate. God only wanted the first and the best and only ten percent tithe to the temple. And He created everything, and destroys it periodically. I think only nine per cent for all taxes of your increase a year, is enough for the government. And quit thinking that the government needs to handle everything, we would all handle what is necessary without the government if it was gone. Really.

Dependence on government got you 9/11 air traffic shutdown, four highjacked aircraft, three buildings attacked and all air traffic shuts down because we can't handle the trauma? London in WWII under constant bombings, Berlin and Leningrad same war - they didn't shutdown in panic.
Just think of what we could accomplish if there wasn't so much government telling us how bad it would be... to be free and independent again.

All of my siblings read my 'rant' yesterday, not one of them has the same idea about what I meant, or even said - I am sure. It is nice to know they thought I might say something meaningful. Thank you all, for the love.

Nope, my choice for office holder makes no better...

Look, if the person is not someone I would follow into combat to take out an enemy machine gun nest - then I shouldn't vote. Guess that make November really easy - and since I am sure it is all too complicated for me to understand I will just read how many to vote for, spin a dial and mark the one that come up.

They aren't following the Constitution of the United States NOW, it won't change on my vote. In Washington State they can't count the votes the same way every re-count except in small counties, so the Democrats add as many votes as they need in Seattle and King County. My one vote doesn't count.

Now, the other thing, most of these laws, regulations and executive orders are because I am a BAD Man, a STUPID man, and UNTRUSTWORTHY man. They aren't going to stop passing that kind of constraint on my terrible behavior. I have a reader that says we have to have rules - his point being that the number of women I have never raped is because of my fear of punishment for that crime. Okay, make it murder, the number of people I don't kill is only because I am afraid of the government coming after me and doing something awful to me in justice for my bad manners. Or, that I am stupid enough to abuse alcohol or drugs - because that is the fun thing to do... I don't need laws against drug or alcohol abuse, I won't. Personal choice, and if you think that any of the Drug Enforcement works - why are all the illegal drugs available within driving distance of you and your telephone? Mostly I do know what is bad, may have consequences and I will have to answer to God for. Don't need the government guidance and direction.

If the number of abortions were based on laws passed against it, instead of the number of sane women that understand what sex, pregnancy and birth means - well, since the government realizes that they can't legislate against bad, stupid and immoral behavior and have decided it is legal - we still have more healthy babies being born than aborted. Sad about the others, but we will meet the Judgement in Heaven.

I have made too many references to a Superior Being and Power, and I know that God exists - that is not your problem but my blessing. So let us go far away from a moral issue.

We seem to be electing stupid people, or people that think we are stupid, evil and can't be trusted and then on top of that - they can't figure out how to pay for their stupid attempts to regulate their goodness gracious on the gullible. They want you to understand it is your fault that they haven't got enough money to pay the bills they make. You will be punished for your success - it is only fair. After supporting all the stupid, lazy, and just nasty people with all their bad behavior with your good work and such, well, you will die - we all die, they haven't written that rule that says we won't yet. (Yes, and then they will tax the estate - don't own farmland in Indiana).

Doesn't matter which party you are talking about, doesn't matter which candidate - it isn't going to change, the real people in charge don't want it to change.

You can make a difference, every day, by being the best human being possible, having lots of love, good manners and living outside the law. They won't even notice, they haven't got control of the criminals yet, there is no way they will ever get control of the saints.

Seems to be getting back to normal...

Sliding through the television stations looking for background I passed the most current Presidential Candidate debates and thought to myself that looks so like Reality Television no wonder I can't be stopped to pay attention. I was reading an Elmore Leonard Western, Gunsights, he tells a great story and television quickly fades. My wife was away celebrating the New Year, the Year of the Dragon, and I was wrapped up in the West as it never or always was. Combine that with reading Girl Hunter (I skip all the recipes - would eat them just not going to cook them) and I had a dream about taking a shot.

So folks dream about love or the distant second of sex, some folks dream about Heaven and many are stuck in nightmares of Hell with sweat and pain and waking frightened. I am dreaming of being with a group of men on a hillside going to shoot some other men on another hillside and I have a very fine rifle, and am adjusting the sights to hit them. Adjustments made and I am ready and I raise the rifle and get my sight adjustment, sight picture, pause, focus on the front sight and squeeze and hit perfectly the biggest bull elk. I feel like Abraham not having to sacrifice Isaac, ever grateful to the Lord.

More wind storms on the way...

Which means more stuff coming down on our homes, power lines, and roads. Or that the media is proudly announcing that the Newt has taken South Carolina. And I don't want a fat, old politician on his third wife (did she pay any attention to how he treated the first two?) as my President. I especially don't want one of the biggest problem creators from the Congress to get back to making really bad laws. He is smart enough to know what should be done, but he has no sense of honor in his word, no sense of shame and wouldn't lead me in an attack on a pillbox. So I guess I will just point out that the three other candidates had more combined votes than Gingrich received. he wins on having the others fighting for the disenchanted ones.

I had a wonderful dinner of ribs, and the Blues are playing, reading about Triumph at Kapyong, Canada's Heroic stand against the Chinese in Korea. The Princess Patricia Light Infantry (which has an interesting military history in WWI and II, too). War is so much simpler than legislation, no it isn't but far from the battlefields and bullets you can relax and read about it. Never knowing about tomorrow, never sure about waking up.

Keep me in the dark and feed me...

treat me like a mushroom. The power went off about twenty-four hours ago. I know the power companies have been struggling with the falling ice and trees, bad roads and darkness most of each day. They announced on the radio that the Legislature lost power for about two hours and went home.

Well, stay there folks. I am no longer ready for living off the grid, not like I once was. I keep hoping the power will come back on and I can find out how wrong O'Reilly is about whatever. Or so I can recharge my laptop, or have a hot meal. Last night we had sandwiches, then this morning cold cereal, then by lunch my wife was warming something on warming candles (you know the kind one uses at a dinner party) --- then I remembered I had a Coleman gasoline burner (from those roam around paratrooper days before 1994) and she had purchased a propane burner for just this kind of emergency (this has happened before just not recently). So I went out and got them from the storage. Filled the burner with gasoline, tried to read the instructions in Korean for the propane one - not going to happen. She sees what I am doing and warns me about the danger of explosions (happened to her brother-in-law) but she pulls out a newer burner, and it has instructions in English. I start it and we start heating water for coffee, and seaweed soup for the evening meal. We will survive.

One of the stories I read long ago, was about a survival situation and the people made a spear first, later they remembered they knew how to make a bow and arrow and did so. I had always thought everyone should have made the leap to bow and arrows first - but unless one has been crafting basic bows and arrows, flaking flint arrowheads and such - it doesn't come automatically right when you need it. Other things come first, the other thing is waiting for rescue -- how many times do you hear of someone dying alone somewhere - no one knows they are missing, has any idea where they are, and they never light up a tree to call for help, they keep trying their cell phone or iPad and they aren't in range - but it is what we are prepared for and will do in an emergency.

You see two or three young men bothering a woman - what do you do? Call 911, take a video picture, pull your gun and shoot the three or at least threaten them? What do you do? Well, I am betting you will do your best but be frozen by culture and convention - unless the woman is related to you, or you have thought about it and practiced a response. Survival isn't automatic, one has to know the exits, has to be aware of threats, be prepared to struggle for air, the last of the water, for the fertile females or the last of the seed and breeding animals. It isn't just all the regulation and laws that strangle our natural wariness, it is lack of danger - ease of life - the certainty of civilization. We didn't invent it, but it has always surrounded us in some kind of comfort, only when we go off on military adventures and see the savage hidden just under our skin, do we really want to get home and that hot shower.

The end of the world as we knew it...

There were snow storms dumping Winter wonder on us, beautiful, and the traffic accidents and school closures started. I cleaned the drive and sidewalks, because I was raised that way, I fell a couple of times, old man on icy surface, and hurt my wrist trying to stop myself, but not enough to stop shoveling when I got back on my feet. The next storms were icy rain, coating the limbs of trees, weighing down the branches. We heard the trees crack and the branches fall, hoping it wasn't on any of our roofs. When the light returned with the Sun behind the clouds, we could see why the power was off all over the Sound, the Puget Sound Energy folks were out with trucks repairing and cleaning up, and then our lights went out.

Not too bad, would miss the internet and some of my favorite daytime television, but we had light, and then the power came back and we were happy. I took pictures of the downed branches and the poor Pink Dogwood, it is shorter by about four feet. I get a steak dinner and watch O'Reilly talk about things he knows nothing about. He had a Civil War quiz that had General Jackson shot by his own men, true, and he said that was what he died from, but it wasn't he died of pneumonia as a complication of losing his arm shattered when he was shot.

After dinner my wife tried to get me to go take a shower, in case the power went out again, I said I would get one when I got ready for bed. She took one, and as she finished and was drying off the light was gone from the home, we went to find the flash lights. We already had the emergency radio out with new batteries, I got the kerosene from the garage and filled the lamp, that is one great reading lamp, I ought to buy some more. Two candles, personal flashlights, and a gas fireplace for warmth. The world has come to an end as we knew it.

We sit in the recliners facing the blank television, telling stories about long ago, in her village before electricity, I mention the government that decided to hook all the farmers up to power, long ago. So they could sell refrigerators and washers, radios and power equipment for some farming tasks. My son had called while the power had come on the first time, he had heard about the ice storms (he was in Florida, I believe). The emergency radio is the one I bought long ago while a paratrooper, I wanted one that I could get shortwave on, for news while I was far from home. It had kept our battalion well informed about the First Gulf War, thank you BBC, and I was able to introduce my commander to the Hobbit as we waited to invade Iraq. We listened every morning as I shaved and packed for the new day. It is on Classic KING FM, nice to hear harpsichords, and classical music is soothing. If it returns to the latest Ice Age, it has been good knowing y'all. Good Night!