Tired out, and time to go to bed...

and I don't do half enough, I have to admire the rest of y'all, EnergizerBunnies all. Anyway, I have turned in my title for my Story on Saturday Night - really live. At the Antique Sandwich Company in Ruston, Wa. Oh, you wanted that linked, go Google it, I want you to show up and buy a five dollar ticket and enjoy good coffee, excellent strange local pies and such - and an evening of Storytelling. My story is "Hey, Old Timer" and it starts out all about me and then moves on to the important main character. Good seats at 7:00 PM.

I have to go shower, my wife's fine example of twenty minutes on the treadmill while I napped the supper away (difficult to keep my eyes open) made me go out and test the machine for forty minutes - yes, it can still bear my weight, the Country Music is more Rock than I like, but did enjoy the distraction from the blank wall in front of me... just me, the music and my mind... dangerous combination. Good night, y'all.

Gosh, what was all the fuss about?

Friday night and I am alone, packing for the weekend. I bought some new work shirts, six, two colors of blue, work trousers four pair, I will wear them out in the wash more than in the work, but that happens when one isn't using the rocks by the stream to beat the wash out once a week, love washing machines. My wife laughed that all the new clothes look the same - I will change the ties, although if I really found four or six that were the same but basically perfect - I would be wearing them all the time. Black paisley, in silk?

I checked our financial situation, and thank you investors in Wall Street, our mutual funds and some other investments are going up in price, like gasoline. I am sure that Washington DC would like me to blame their efforts in the corrections, but I figure the Chinese are buying in while things are cheap. The more they own of our souls the harder it will be to say NO to them, but they are still Communists thugs aren't they? Don't buy real estate in Taiwan. For sure it wasn't the twenty extra bucks (forty in two worker families) that showed up in our paycheck. Remember that, at the next Tea Party - the government does understand that reducing taxes does stimulate the economy - they also know if they don't keep their fingers around your throat that you might start to think you are boss, and they wouldn't like that. They do want you to petition the government, not tell them what to do and when, just ask them nicely and they will see if they can help. Anyway, we are a few thousand dollars ahead of the debts, better and better. But then our home wasn't in an Economic Crisis - just those real smart types in the big cities, they don't buy their clothes at Dickies.

Lots of Appleseeds going on across the nation this weekend, and we will work on everyone's safe shooting and paper punching perfections - hope to see lots of Riflemen recorded for our Nation's future. This is one of those special weekends: April 19th, 1775 is to be remembered the day that your neighbors stood up to the terrible government that was trying to snatch their leaders and take away their cannon, ammunition and military stores (and we can't even have machine guns now without a tax stamp - and our founding fathers had cannons of their own?). I do so think that everyone should read deeper into the Revolutionary War - it was not something to gloss over, it was a painful birth of a new independent nation, one without a King, one where you would be what you could make of yourself. Yep, good shooting out there and have a safe weekend, hope the farmers get the temperatures they need for planting and all those you love are safe and healthy, no matter where in the world they serve, y'all sleep sound for somewhere our service people are on watch and awake and aware to protect us.

Not my birthday yet, but the Vibes are out there...

I keep getting good wishes and that, and the winning Lotto ticket, will make my day. I did tell one of my bosses that if I won the Lotto I would buy the servers and the CD's that the library budget won't buy us.

In the library I continued to try and catch up with the ILLs and all the other things I am to do, being reminded of the almost exhausted swimmer in choppy seas - that salt water is cold and just doesn't taste good when you swallow it and work to keep one's head above the water... I did take an interruption - actually I took a bunch of interruptions all day, only I can work some miracles. The one I was happiest with was with a Russian inmate - don't know how he fell, but he is in the library looking for help and wants me to find the document that he needs. We have a discussion about manners, expectations, Russian customs, Asian Customs - American lack of manners, customs and get your own... he was convinced I was very knowledgeable about human relations and such and must have had a great education. But I told him the truth, spent most or my adult life preparing to fight the Russians --- one of those fights I was always glad that preparation was 99% of the events of the Cold War. I was not in a hurry to fight Russians on their turf, I read and study History. I did find the document he needed and printed the whole thing out for him, our conversation had started with his using a word Americans would only write and never use in conversation - he is very well educated. But I noticed that the Russians are predicting that America is going to collapse by 2012, seems that they think our country is doing many of the foolish things the Soviet Union did before it fell apart. They do say that recovering drug addicts and alcoholics can spot the problems in others with the disease around them.

I don't really need Russians to tell me about America, I am watching it from inside, and I am doing my part to correct the foolishness. New books came in today, I will be taking

Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush

home to read on Thursday (we will have all the new books processed by then), on Friday I am covering the Western State Hospital Library, while my supervisor opens at McNeil Island. Two movies to see this weekend (my birthday present!). Defiance and Gran Torino - if you have to ask why I want to see B+ movies then you haven't been paying attention. I never was an A+ kind of guy... take care out there and go gently.

Good day at the Library and blood on Wall Street...

I am a boomer, and have invested in stocks and IRAs and expected that my wife would have a better retirement because we planned for it (kind of). But someone somewhere wants FEAR to run off the fools so they can feast on the hard work of others. They are doing a fine job, from Y2K to WMD in Iraq, to Hope (which seems to rest on one smooth talking man) the Media pumps the current Knowledge (global warming anyone?) at the folks most hardwired to the message. The Sky is Falling, and sure enough, it is. Anyone old enough to remember what happened when Johnny Carson said, during one Oil Crisis, that there was a TOILET Paper shortage? For the next week there was, the shelves were emptied. The power of the press in panic.

One needs vision, faith, trust and no time to fool around following - get out and lead. For sure the government is lost and behind, but they aren't doing it for Earl, they don't even know my name unless it is tax time.

I am in fix me mode, found all my dollars and today being a pay day I have control of them, I know I have three debts to my Credit Union, what the payments are (and the interest rate is fixed), and I am paying off the two credit cards. Come to think about it Citi Corp canceled one of my unused credit cards, which is fine with me I don't think it is a good time for more debt. I will leave the excess money for y'all to fight over. I am not selling anything that I have invested, today being Friday I will plug in the numbers at the closing bell and find how badly beaten my Mutual Funds and stocks have been had - but they were for my wife's maintenance not really mine. Truthfully, there are some really great companies out there that are sliding down to below their base value, and the wolves are waiting to bite.

Remember it is a MARKET and the last sale price was an agreement between the buyer and the seller. So that couple of trillion dollars of value lost in the market is a measure of how much the last High seller took away from their sale and the current LOW seller took away from their sale. Both of them walked away with money going out of the market (well, yes they did) and the buyer is holding paper to believe in for the future. The government is going to love to compute the taxes on all these sales, and some investors are going to love losers to offset the winnings (I will never understand that, but I don't have that kind of piles of profits to plunder - tax me!)

Yep, time for breakfast gruel and to remember that the Tango is beautiful, but you have to get on the floor with music to make the magic happen, wall flowers and frightened fools just watch in wonder - how did he get such a hot babe? Get out and dance - the economy is only measured by the government; the workers, shoppers, business men and crafters are the economy and I am sure Frank James is looking at his portion and the next year differently than Uncle Sam - unless you understand that Hope comes from a great heart and a love of doing the best one can.

You have been selected by...

I have received my summons: Jury Summons, You have been selected for Jury Duty! Official Court Document -- Do Not Discard

Yep, on the 15th of September, 2008 Year of Our Lord, I will be reporting to the Courthouse for Jury Duty. Should I carry a pistol so I can lock it up as I go through the disarming process at the entry? No, I shouldn't make bother, take some good books to read while waiting and see what they have for me to do in Judgment and Justice - I will do my best.

There will never be enough time, so plan a little bit...

Goal for my day, shoot the postal match for Sailorcurt, okay, it wasn't just for him. I had to fire my rifle and I wanted to fire it well. I also wanted to put discipline back into my day - start with medications, measure, coffee, devotions and breakfast and exercise -- without checking the blogs to find out if anyone missed me and if I could add my two bits worth (the dollar has really declined).
No, I didn't make it perfectly, temptation is terrible and I think I am suffering from Disoriented Hive Disorder, I really do pile too much on to a small plate and am surprised when it falls off...

Still, all I had to do was share a bit of banana and strawberry jelly on toast - talk to my wife, take her to the YMCA and drive off to the range and engage targets in serious measurement of my sharpshooting skills. I will relate that bad guys twenty yards from me had best have a large bullet proof vest - I was all over that target with the little 9mm, sigh. I always wanted to shoot the buttons off his vest, but it is velcro now isn't it? I gave up and went to the rifle firing area, put the target up, engaged to find my zero - yep, still there for a hundred yards (what kind of a dreamer shoots twenty-two at a hundred yards) and I was only firing on the fifty yard mark.

So I moved onto the postal target and shot ten rounds. Day is done, now pick up the brass, put the firearms away, take down the targets, pack out and drive off to find my wife waiting, patiently for absent husband. I really don't want to know what kind of trouble she thought was delaying me, but since she had worked out for and hour and a half she was hungry - having given me half her breakfast sandwich, we went to Than Brothers Pho Place. Don't I love being in the Crossroads of Civilization Collisions - there is so much good out there my mother never gave me.

The one I brought to the dance...

Once long ago in far away Germany I lived in Nurnberg, was an Operations Sergeant for a great Artillery Battalion of the 1st Armored Division Artillery. The days were long, and full and I get to go home and have a fine dinner with my wife and son, then go sit in the easy chair and read or watch the news. Life for me is always better than I deserve. So I am sitting in comfort and about to zone into mellow when my four (working on five) year old son comes up beside me to get my attention. Being the great father I was, periodically, I turned to him and asked what was up. He said "Dad, Mom said to tell you Happy Anniversary!" So busted...

This is the woman that took her money and bought me my first Colt .45, the one I still load up and take to war. The woman that kept the hearth and heart fires going and sent prayers and love when I was away doing creative destruction for Democracy. This is the lady that I take to dances and would fight for at the drop of a hat, and don't ask to dance with her unless you are willing to fight me, of course she would want to dance once in a while - even with the guy with two left feet and no sense of shame nor rhythm. Rumor has it I could score points by taking the day off from work and my priorities and spend it on her and us. Sometimes Rumors are true. Bye! God, have I been blest for thirty-six great years... plus the three and a half before we wed.

Resolutions or resolution?

End of the year is about here; I have completed weeding three hundred and four items from the collection this month. Weeding is one of those terrible secrets about Public Libraries that those that love books don't like to talk about, needing space for newer and better (one hopes) circulating items. But I could use the same treatment in my home, getting rid of the excess I will never use again, or in my life getting done with those wasted minutes in a life poorly spent. Here in the prison the inmates have a sentence and time remaining to be served and they are experts at what they must do to get out any sooner, unless there is a surprise they didn't expect in their future. I have to come up with a six year plan, all I have left before I start draining the Social Security Trust Fund with the rest of the Boomer generation. I figure to also look at the ten year plan at the same time, having been granted three score and ten years as the life of a man. There are several things I won't become: a Presidential candidate, a suicide bomber, a holy man, nor a drug or alcohol addict. I do have some things I would like to do (a bucket list?) and some titles I don't have yet but would like to (a fine fellow?) and positions I could work at earning (Elder?). Well, back to regular work, buying new titles to replace the ones weeded.