Civilization is dying but we are in denial...

So how do I know, why I just look at my fat unhealthy self, remembering that I am woefully underemployed and doing the same thing to myself that the culture around me does about its struggles to survive. I won't and it won't.

When we first landed on the Moon, I was a lean mean fighting machine, engaged against the godless Communist North Koreans. Highwater marks of Space Exploration - Star Wars and Star Trek would feed our need for success, don't really need to go into breathless radiated space and danger, do you, dude? Along would come other unmanned explorer launches, good stuff for years and years. But we don't do anything with them. We get computers to help with science and business and play games upon. Some decided that blue collar sweaty work was not good enough - and although the blue collar folks built the country, the white collar ones own it, and write the History of how it came about. So, dirty work is frowned upon, clean everything becomes the goal, and dirty big industrial triumphs are driven off shore. We can make money in service industry, robots and other places can manufacture.

That was the direction of the culture and the dying United State of America, while I was fighting or preparing to (always more practice than practiced 15:1). And I was good, could run road races, invested my extra, owned homes with banks, owned cars, had pets, kept wife gained son, and was still always doing the basics. You know the basics, learning, loving, leading, looking and laughing. I ran, exercised, read, wrote, talked, worked, attended more training, devoloped training and others. I was busy.

But like the country I got older, ran less, exercised a lot less, read more, wrote more, spent too much time on my past and not enough on my future. And today, like the country, I am in denial. I am alive (not very healthy and a doctor and a pill won't fix the years gone wrong - like asking an addict to take his disability money, instead of asking him to cure himself). Well, I can work on the me, I can't work on the country, sorry.

I got a book by Frank W. James, about Effective Handgun Defense, a very good book, but like I was telling someone the other day, we don't practice to fight with handguns. Or we would drop behind cover, get firearm in shooting condition and then shoot those trying to shoot us. What we practice is standing still, crouched and still a major target and shooting at targets that don't move and have exposed the largest amount of flesh possible. I do know there are people that do practice real combat shooting, but they aren't on television nor cinema, and there just aren't enough of them.

What happens when the teenage love rejected fool walks into the Mall with all his glory bent on making a name for himself. Hide, get fiream into shooting mode, shoot target until it is no longer a threat. We don't practice that enough, we are always asking why the police aren't there yet.

I tried talking to Qwest about my lack of internet access, they sent a computer voice to pacify me, it didn't but then they don't care, they aren't giving me any of my money back for the hours I had no service. I also wanted to use my scanner to scan a new photo of my grandson, but can't, since I was routing through the wireless which is now so much less. I could go to Comcast couldn't I? Listening to CarTeach his experiences haven't been any better. Maybe I should just get back on the Trusty Triumph and ride. Yeah, I did talk to NFO today, might get to meet him, if the traffic is better than normal, or not, we will try.

Later, I have met Old NFO, had coffee and hamburgers, lots of talk and stories and promises to get together again one day to shoot if we have more time. Sound barriers broken in the Sound while protecting the President today... not to worry, the young ladies are still beautiful and the Trusty Triumph got me home, God is Great and this day was good.