Dammit.

This really, really sucks.


link 1.

link 2.

Both links are in regards to a recent event in a city just north of me. To make a long story short, a cop stopped to assist a disabled motorist. Officer Keith Laughlin, 26, was apparently between his squad car and the SUV when a drunk driver crashed into the SUV, pinning the Officer between vehicles.


Laughlin, despite having what would most definitely qualify as a Pretty Bad Day, was able to call in to, you know, request some help for his crushed legs.


I don't care who you are, that takes some big brass ones, right there.


It has been reported that the Turd-in-Question had the smell of alcohol on him and, (surprise, surprise) has been arrested for DWI as recently as Christmas Eve.


Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, asshole.


The few 'good' things about this story, I suppose, is that it sounds like Officer Laughlin is going to be ok. I don't know if the man is going to be able to resume his career in Law Enforcement that he started in friggin' April (on patrol for only 2 months!), but at least he'll be able to eventually go home to his wife and 7 month old child. As it happened on duty, I trust that Keith's expenses are going to pretty much be taken care of, but there are a few drives set up and hats being passed around for him and others here and here.


The timing of this will hopefully impress upon those that need it the importance of planing ahead. Walk, get a ride, call a cab- hell, sleep it off somewhere if you have to. In this day and age, there are even organizations that will give folks a free ride home, if all else fails.

Holiday Hangover, pt 1

Everybody have a good holiday?

I know, I know, too short and too expensive.

Perhaps the best thing that we did, starting a few years back, was the 'gifts fund'.

I had been at the time perusing the on-line bank accounts funds withdrawn and- debating between razor-blades, exotic poisons, or high-buildings- decided that we needed to do something about overspending during the holidays, without going back to putting everything on credit cards... it was getting outta control.

We made a list.

We checked it twice.

*bleurgh*

Immediate family got an amount penciled in for gifts spending. Extended family and some friends got another. A calculator and a few choice words later, and the amounts eventually got down to a somewhat manageable level. We took this final number, divided it by the number of paychecks, and we had an amount that we'd take out of every paycheck, in anticipation of future purchases. We weren't always successful with taking the intended amount out from every paycheck (still learning), but fairly close and we usually made up for it when the next one rolled around.

It wasn't all that much, but it added up.

What made it real interesting was, when the Gifts Fund started to add up (along with other accounts and funds), I started noticing more and more deals on my Man-Toys. Talk about torture! Fortunately, I was able to suppress the urge(s), (more or less), and continue to save up.

Now, last Christmas wasn't all that great due to a non-financial situation, so this year was the first where we were able to utilize the 'buying gifts from the Christmas Fund' plan. After thoughts... I'm going to need to increase the amount taken out per check, but only by a little bit. When it comes to planning gifts for female kin that are 'in a family way', I'm going to take a large step back (read: run like hell) and let someone else handle the actual purchasing.


Some friendly advice re: (any) guy shopping for a (pregnant) woman.


1: Be very, very, very, careful.

2: Wear protection.

3: Yes, 'protection'.

4: (if applicable) No, not that type, horndog - too late.

5, 6, 7, 8... 101, 102, 103... : Be prepared to apologize. Profusely.

1,346,233: You are wrong.

1,346,234: Hell hath no fury like a woman. (yes, that's a period) ((no, not that 'period'))

fin: Eventually, you'll figure out the benefits of staying out of sight and out of mind...


Hmmm, sounds kind of like a good start for Rules of Marriage, actually...

merry... christmas.

Only 365 shopping days left...

One More Day

Less than, actually.


I just got back from the super-wallymart for a couple of gallons of milk, and I damn near killed 12 annoying people, 3 shopping carts, and an overhead music system....


...'in a pear tree'. (<---there's my Christmas Spirit, drink it up, y'all.)


Justifiable homicide, I'm certain.


It's also a rough time if you tend to have a news channel on somewhat regularly, as I do. Like now, for instance, just tippity-tappiting away on my laptop, I can almost guarantee hearing the following upon flipping through the channels...


"...the world's most perfectly cut diamon-"

*click*

"... [orgasmosigh & flashing ring] he went to Jarro-"

*click*

"... so come to America's number one jewelry sto-"

*click*

"[woman, sitting on bench] ...but I don't remember this spot. [man, kneeling] you will..."

*bleurgh*

"... every 'kiss' begins with-"

*sigh*


Almost makes me long for ole Billy and whatever crap he's selling nowadays, as weird as that sounds... well, not quite.

Things That Make You Go, 'HHHhmmmm'

I'll be the first to admit, there's some stuff that I've done shooting-wise that aren't dancing-through-the-daises safe, in both training and deployed 'festivities'.

I was joking about the forward roll thing, from the last post...

(Quite Obviously) Volk &/or Tam, I ain't.

Like I said before, rode hard & put up wet a time or two, but still...

...shoots pretty good.

Take your pick of shooty info:

a) One (1) full magazine, emptied rapid-fire (weak hand), after first leaping from a moving vehicle, executing a forward roll, dodging flaming arrows from ninjas, shooting behind the back and blindfolded. Ready for movie roles, $$$, and groupies.

b) From a distance of .5 yds, supported kneeling, 1 rd/min (approx), utilizing spotter, windflags, and jerry-rigged scope. Ready to invade internet forums with mah awesomeness.

c) Shooting from a distance of, "bout here's good" and at a medium pace. Having fun w/every shot.

Good times.

Inter-Service Moto

Schweet!

A couple of posts ago, I linked to Big Tobacco's blog, regarding a vid he did.


Motivator noticed the awesome swell of (near) double-digit traffic, and graciously sent me the embed.


I've heard that Army song a couple of times since seeing his clip, and it's made me chortle every time. Probably will too, for awhile.


Watch, then go and be snarky.

Speaking of Gifts...

Not funny.



I mean it.



Nuh-uh.



No, not even as a joke.

Bah. Hum. Bug. (part doh!)

Guess what I'm getting as an early Christmas present?




























Four new car tires!



Yaaay.

Semper Hooah.

The War on Big Tobacco: Burn Before Reading

Click play and feel the motivation wash all over ya.


Outstanding.

Bah. Hum. Bug.

A couple of years back My Love and I bought our first house. That is a number of stories in and of itself, but I'll skip forward a bit to the point of this post. What comes after purchasing a house?

You get to put stuff in it.

Now, I'm a guy [last time I checked] so, in typical guy fashion, I'm not really too big on interior decor.

Shocker, I know.

That's not to say that I don't appreciate having stuff, I really do. Lemme put it this way; in my previous - [insert marriage-mandatory descriptions of; cold, lonely, miserable, solitary existence, without the benefit of the guiding light of my life, without whom I would continue to be a miserable excuse for a wretched human being] - bachelor life, for a short while I kept my clothes in a bag and slept on the floor of my apartment. So I appreciate having nice stuff, it's just that right now we already have stuff, it's the spending money on upgrades that I'm not exactly crazy about.

It was a battle, of sorts, and I appreciate her letting me think that I ultimately had any choice in the matter.

Said battle was on the spending of money. We'd already paid off everything but the mortgage, and had a bit of cash saved up. I was all for continuing to save, or perhaps spending it on truly worthwhile stuff like guns, ammo, big-screen tvs, fancy cigars, a bar, and perhaps a motorcycle or three. She wanted to buy nice furniture to replace the second hand stuff we'd used in our previous apartment/hovel.

So off we went, furniture shopping.

She did the research, I did the sulking and pining away for Daddy's oft-delayed toy collection, and eventually 'we' decided that 'we' had found exactly what 'we' always wanted for 'our' house and 'our' bedroom set. We walked into the local Furniture Store to pretty much get a last minute eyeball of the bedroom set and to start making the purchase.

Saleslady was good to go as far as they go, friendly and nice. My Love knew what 'we' wanted, but she had spared me on exactly what the price was. I had only just come-to after hearing the sticker price when some bastard explained to me that the number wasn't even for the whole set, just for the one fancy hoo-ya that you put a tv and blankets in. Some fancy-frenchy sounding name, and it didn't even come with a frisky-Frenchy, to ease (my) financial pain.

At the price, I thought it really should.

So we gave the lady our cash, she took down our info, and we were all set. She did kind of push hard for us to purchase the entire set (yeah, right!), but we explained to her that we'd be paying cash, not credit- no thanks, don't want to finance through the store, thanks - yeah, we understand that the set could go out of production (pleasepleaseplease, baby Jesus!) - just this one piece, for now, thanks. I didn't really begrudge her for the push, just her job, after all.

That whole process went ok. We got the delivery confirmation call a few days later, moving guys brought it in, dragged it upstairs, set it up and everything. It really does look good, and I'm sure we'll have it for the foreseeable future.

A few months later I decided to order the li'l tables you put on either side of the bed, for her birthday. I had scrounged up a bit more cash, took another long, depressed look at my various catalogues, and sulked my way back to the store. Same lady was there, and we did the dirty deed. Not as pricey as the first time, but it was still grimace-worthy.

Now, blame it on the mortars, IEDs, or what-have-you, but I hear (ha!) that the volume on my phone is a bit on the loud side. It works for me, so that the level I keep it at. I was having a grand old time tormenting My Love with false clues as to what she was going to get for her birthday one afternoon, sitting in the living room chatting, when my phone rang. Loud enough for apparently the entire neighborhood to hear, as she tells it, the lady from the furniture store yammered on about the delivery confirmation for our new bed-side tables. Mystery was kaput, after that, but she still loved the heck outta the things.


It was awhile back when I landed on the idea of what to get her for her Christmas gift. This was going to be the truly bend-right-over-and-take-it-in-the-wallet-pillaging item, so I knew that she didn't expect it at all. I had scrimped and saved like I usually do, mournfully drove right past the local gun store to the evil furniture nemesis shop of my doom. Quite surprisingly, they were again more than happy to take my money.

mumblegrumblemumble.

Well, I got the delivery-confirmation call yesterday afternoon from the store.


I was napping at the time.


Industrious lady / recent arrival to My List (and brand new top 10 member), after not getting ahold of me, looked into the store's records. Searching way back to the original purchase, she located another contact number for us.


It was My Love's cell phone number.


Bah!

Mmmm, Holiday Food

Is it too late to add this to my favorite Christmas songs list?

Great Googly Moogly!

You don't see this every day.

U.S. anti-kidnap expert kidnapped in Mexico.

Reports from the article was that the guy was down south for seminars dealing with his area of expertise. It also mentions that the area he was in was 'relatively safe' *snort*. He was taken after stepping outside a restaurant to take a phone call.

Whoops.

Is there nowhere truly safe, anymore?

Give y'all a clue. Nope.

Now of course I hope for the best when it comes to this unfortunate fellow, that he is released quickly and without harm. I couldn't help but think that if only he had access to some means of defending himself, some method of ensuring that he would be able to keep from harm should he be attacked by those who would bring him ill-will, maybe he wouldn't be in this unfortunate position...


Yes, I'm talking about dodge-ball classes from the President's personal trainer. Whoever that guy is, give him a raise.

Now, I understand that there were most likely many requirements, restrictions and considerations that the security detail were working with, but holy-hell, that's the friggin' President of the friggin' U.S. of friggin' A.! There should have been at the very least a hit that would've made any NFL defensive player weep tears of enlightenment and types like me cackle at the righteous violence. Now, I'll give 'em credit, they subdued the guy fairly quickly, as well they should have- you notice the guy's white socks? Heck, even I know that white socks are a no-no in that attire. We should have seen a few flying elbows and/or noogies, just for the socks.

Things that go boom...

In May of this past year, I attended a family reunion of my mother's side of the family. Other than size, it was fairly typical of a standard family reunion, some folks I haven't seen in awhile, some who probably wish it could have been longer between reunions, more of my cousins with kiddos of their own, etc.

My favorite part is meeting new boyfriends/girlfriends of some of my younger cousins and seeing the expression on their faces when they realize that quite a few folk weren't even able to make it. (I can usually get away with introducing myself by at least 3 or 4 different names, 'cause it's almost all going in one ear, passing behind the glazed eyes, and out the other ear.) Yeah, my grandparents had well north of a dozen kiddos, so multiply that by significant others, their children (my level), and then great-grand kids... well, it can be slightly overwhelming. Heck, I have to review the family tree sometimes just to make sure I have it straight re: who's married to who- the offspring of aunt & uncle so-and-so.

Even with the no-shows it was a pretty large gathering, so last years reunion was held at one of my uncles farm, with some staying at the main house, some in RVs, some younger kids in the barn I think, and others in crappy, overpriced little hotels in the neighboring town (guess where I stayed).


Lots o' space on my Uncle's farm.

Plenty of uncles who hunt, recreationaly shoot, and collect guns n' stuff.

Yup, didn't take long for a shooting range to be set up down the way.


Of course, once the shooting started my ears sorta perked up and swiveled around and I lost interest in BBQ & conversation, causing My Love to laugh. She cautioned me not to spend too much time shooting with my uncles and cousins...

So the first day of shooting was pretty much handguns and a few shotguns, nothing too wild, just whatever some of the guys had in their trucks, RVs, or laying around the farm. The second day, well, that was special.

Early the second morning some of the uncles broke out their hunting rifles, project guns, antique guns, how-the-heck-does-this-thing-still-shoot guns, reloads, dare-ya-to-shoot-this guns, gizmos to measure bullet speeds, and (my favorite), old stories. My grandfather showed off and let us shoot a few pistols and rifles that he brought back from WWII and some that he had collected throughout the years. Most of my uncles had seen and shot these weapons many times before, but I was like a kid in a friggin' candy store [drool]. Grandfather asked me if we had been able to keep personally owned 'emergency pistols' over in Iraq, and seemed kind of disturbed when I told him that we were most definitely NOT allowed to do so. After I told him about the many, many, many shakedowns that we underwent to prevent anyone bringing anything back he grunted and told me how when they were sailing back the only restrictions on bringing back weapons was that they not be loaded. Some of his buddies had bags o' guns...

Gah!

Other than the 'story guns', one of the pistols that I particularly liked was this old CZ-85. It looked like it was older than I am from apparently serving a bit of time as a truck gun, resulting in plenty of wear and tear to the finish. The slide stop and safety lever were thumbed silver from repeated use and contrasted nicely with the rest of the gun. The grips were wood, faded and dirty, complimenting the overall dirty/dusty color of the rest of the gun. The right side of the rear sight was the only one that had all its paint left, and it was pretty faded.


It shot like a champ.


This was surely due to the fact that I'm a natural born pistol-yoda, but the fact that it's still a good gun on the inside might've had something to do with it, I suppose.


Later on in the festivities, I was talking to Mom about family plans, people, and whatnot,when she asked me about the shooting. She told me that she had heard that Baby Sis and Little Brother had also fired off a few rounds and even managed not to shoot any eyes out. I told her that they did pretty good, we all had a great time, and I had been smitten with this little 9m that I had shot. I was already contemplating getting ahold of one to use for personal plinking and to offer a bit of variety to my humble collection when it came to going to the range with new and/or tentative shooters.

She took note of which of my Uncles it belonged to.

Fortunately for me, he had been considering finding it a new home, someone who'd take care of it and give it some TLC. He felt kind of bad at some of the treatment it had undergone, and was happy to send it off to a new home.

Score!



Sorry all (&/or Jay), I seem to be having some camera issues (no pics for you!), but in the vein of personal shooty goodness, there's some stuff I kinda like over here.

How Silly

... to think that any man ever really gets out of the doghouse...


link.


And no, I don't want to talk about it... I'm in enough trouble as it is.

WTH?

From yesterday's post,

...due to our geographical location, the concept of snowy fields was negotiable...

Yesterday's high temperature here in Central Texas was 81 degrees, as some reported.


It snowed last night and this morning.


I'm still waiting for the word that Texas has been closed for the day...


Go ahead, marvel at my power.

An Age Old Question & Finding Perfection

Well, maybe not age old, but fairly well debated, nowadays.


Real vs Fake: what do you prefer?


Just about everyone has their preferences, of course, and most will let you know about 'em.


'Real ones tend to sag, droop, and look a bit lifeless after time, whereas falsies stay perky forever.'

'I want mine as nature intended / Fake ones just feel weird.'

'My man paid for it.'

'Real, fake, whatever.'

'It's not what's above, it's what's below that counts!'

Was that last one a bit much?


Interestingly enough, most women that I know have very strong opinions about sticking au natural- see, Christmas just wouldn't be the same, otherwise.


What?


I'm talking about Christmas trees, you pervs!


So anyways, My Love and I a few years back had The Big Christmas Tree Debate. I didn't really have strong opinions either way, but my folks always had a fake tree, and we did all right. Fake trees might cost a bit more, tree for tree, but I was kind of keen on the reusability factor. No muss, no fuss, just toss that bad boy down from the attic, set it up, and voila! - time to decorate everything else risking life and limb on the rooftops..., and risking life and 'limb' when you find out that her treasured childhood stuffed animal collection is NOT to be staged in an erotic fashion.


Anywhere.


And especially not on top of the Christmas Tree, mantle, dining table, or guest beds when family is expected. (In my defense, I didn't know they'd be there that early, honest!)


Back to the story and quite naturally, my opinions were duly pondered (for about this ][ long) , and rejected. See, My Lovely had always had a Real Live (sort of) tree for Christmas, growing up (her, not the newly hewn sacrifice to the Christmas Spirit). She had visions of us searching pristine and well ordered fields for The Perfect Tree. As I came to understand it, due to our geographical location, the concept of snowy fields was negotiable. Excess Christmas Crack pulsing through her veins was not. Bah.


Interestingly enough, after much excruciating searching of the area, we found that in our area of the great state of Texas, these idyllic fields of Christmas Trees are all located at the local Home Depot, outdoor area.


I was only slightly enthused by the fact that there appeared to be an overeager young kid to assist us with our purchase. I'll give the guy credit, he was crawling all over the place, searching amongst the stacked and bound offerings to find 'that perfect one'. Finally, she was satisfied and I was only slightly homi/sui-cidal from the temps (low), time (long), and nearby shoppers (annoying).


He offered to help strap the tree down for us.


It was at this time that I remembered a few smaller items that I was meaning to get (read: stuff she told me to fix around the house but I just remembered about). So I tossed her the keys, reminded/mumbled to her about her previous marching orders, and off I went. I returned to the car just as the kid was slapping his hands of the roughly 20 lbs of needles produced/min that our tree gave off and tightening the last knots of the cords that held the tree strapped to the car's roof.


She was all smiles. I, for about the first time that evening, was also sporting a grin. Immediately noticing the change in my countenance, she was probably suspecting a psychotic break and asked me what was wrong. "Oh, nothing, my love. Let's just get in the car and go home, m'kay?"


I let her tug on the door handle a couple of times before I pointed out that the cords, while excellently tied, very effectively secured all four doors shut. I suggested that we enter the car Dukes style, but that idea got shot down as well.


Not that big of a deal, we got the tree tied down correctly (I was just happy to find that I wouldn't have to drive w/one hand out the window, holding that sucker down while cruising down the highway). Off we went.


Back at the house, I expeditiously removed the tree from the car's roof (cut the cord with my knife and heaved ho, ho, ho-ed), dumping another 50 lbs or so on the yard, quite conveniently covering up at least two of the dead-grass brown spots. I managed to drag that sucker up the short walkway, up the steps, and into the house, losing ever more needles (I figured I'd turn the naked half of the tree to the corner of the room). It only took about two tries before we realized that our tree was too tall for our living room, by the roughly 6 in skid-looking marks on the ceiling that faintly exist to this day. Awesome.

Finally, the tree was trimmed, somewhat still nettled, propped up and decorated. Yay, 'cause after you get the tree up, yer done preppin' for Christmas, right?


Riiiiight.


I did have fun positioning those stuffed animals, though... I always do.

I Can Be Such A Li'l Stinker

Seems like it's always those sporty-type cars that're riding my bumper like I'm a big booty gal shakin' what my momma gave me (Hay-ay!)... Well, a few days back I was driving down the road, minding my own business, when I had one of those right on my ass....


I was minding my own business, be-boppin' to the surely-to-be classic, 'I Kissed A Girl' (Man, that song never gets old, just as good the millionth time as the first!). I looked in the rear view mirror to see this car come speeding up right behind me. Something red, pretty asspensive, and very shiny. The driver, Miss Sweet Thang, was applying her make-up while talking on the phone.

Don't ask me what she was steering with, I'd be afraid to realize it was her penis...

What? She... (?) was a good lookin' chica!

So anyways, she's on my butt *snicker*, in the right lane, at the speed limit. I figure she's in a hurry to make the next exit ramp.

Nope. Not that one, at least.

She stays on my ass, close enough that I can't see her headlights, for two more exits.

I glance around at the sparsley occupied lanes to my left. I look around at my 10 yr+ old car, back at her shiny and new, clean car.

Hmm, her clean...

My windshield sure is dirty, must've been all that driving on those dirt roads...

*squirt, squirt*



I LOLed.

'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...'

Some pictures that bring out the true sentiment of the Christmas spirit...


link.


... for me.

Somedays, It's Just Better To Stay In Bed

Oy.

Why did I run those stairs again...?


Went to the range this morning, and I'm on the verge of declaring it a 'learning experience'.


Started out as I usually do, dry-fire from the holster, low & high ready, everything feeling good. COLD, but gun-wise good.

Got my ears on, called range hot, and started firing a few practice relays. The dummy rounds I put into my mags kept me honest, for the most part.


I quickly found out that my jacket is too 'poofy'.

Why yes, that is a technical phrase.

I found that as I would draw from the holster (right-handed), I've a tendency to flare my right thumb in anticipation to lay it on top of my left thumb. In warm weather this is no problem, but with the above mentioned poofy jacket, there were a couple of times when my left hand would rise up to support... not a damn thing, as my right hand's thumb was caught up in the right pocket of my jacket. Whoops.


Empty the mags, ready to shoot for score. Doin' the ICE qualification, feeling like ice, this morning...

First round, at 3 ft from target, bent-elbow shooting, from the holster.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast...

"Shooters ready?... The Shooters are ready.."

There's the target... draw... *Boom!* scan... tuck & re-holster... target turns again... draw & crap,snaggedonthefriggin'pocket-therewego,extendand... *click* whatthe-taprack*Boom!*... *click* sonofamother-taprack *Boom*!


... and it went pretty much downhill from there. I took a moment to clear and break down the weapon, nothing major out of place, slide-release worked fine, nothing blatantly out of whack. I suspected I was limp-wristing it, but was leaning more towards blaming the gun, the weather, the sun in my eyes... or heck, global warming.

I am, after all, a self-declared master combat super tactical expert pistol sniper...


For the record, I must've shot two bullets perfectly into one hole at the 15 yd line- uh, again. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.


At least I can say that I got some great immediate-action drill practice in this morning. Darn near from every shooting line, to boot.


Transitioning from standing to kneeling was fun, lemme tell 'ya. Nothing like slamming yer knee onto a frozen rock while trying to not whimper from running those stairs the other day like I was friggin' Rocky, or something.

25 yards, shooting from cover... two standing shots, two kneeling (greeeaat), reload and prep for shooting on the other side of the cover, again two standing, two kneeling...

"Shooters ready? The Shooters are ready, standby...

The targets turned, my draw was good, extension was ok, first four shots were fine. Kneeling down again *groan*, I took my first shot from the kneeling on the left side of the barricade. I was so dialed in on the front sight post that barely registered the gun-light flying off the frame.

Figures... heck, I should be happy it's only happened once!


End result? Pretty good (considering), but not great. Heck, a bad day at the range is still a good day, right?


Naturally, runing through the course of fire again and for the heck of it resulted in no problems. None, zip, zero, nada.

Murphy's Criminal Friendly Neighborhood Tips...

BWAhahaha!

*brrrring.... brrrring*

Hey, brain donor, it's the clue phone! It's for you!



1. Home invasion (in Texas) is a risky 'business'.

2. I don't really understand those that abandon their vehicles in an attempt to out-run the cops... in their squad vehicles... all with radios, and granted I've never been in a running away situation so mebbe I'm not the best to offer advice here, but a friggin' golf cart is probably not gonna be much better of a choice.

3. Kinda hard to cry 'Poor me!' when you have a stolen car in your garage...



Kudos to the boys in blue for commandeering their own cart to give chase. I'd love to see that tape!

Book Memery

Via Xtine.

1. English wasn't Dad's first language, but one he learned quite well, eventually. As the story goes, he had a good grasp of the basics but a heckofa strong accent when he first came to the states.

He was quite keen on the kiddos learning, early and well.

I think perhaps it was too much stressed too soon, but I distinctly remember dreading Sunday mornings because I knew that the weekly grilling over words in the comics section was coming. It caught on eventually, and instead of getting grief over not learning words quickly enough, I'd get grief for getting into the Sunday paper and pretty much destroying it in my search for the comics.


2. There were some lean times, financially, in my family. We always had food on the table and clothes on out butts, but there were times when the money just wasn't there. The library became a regular weekly fixture. Mom would load up the kiddos and take us over. There weren't any rules as far as what to pick out, and I would load up on all kinds of books.


3. This is where I mention that I've always read quite a bit, and pretty fast, but from what I've read of other bloggers, that really isn't random or weird, just par for the course. Besides, as fast as I did read, Little Brother read about twice as fast... booger.


4. I got some grief in some of my high school english classes for reading other books than what was assigned in class. The problem was that I'd have already read and sometimes re-read the assigned material, and spending quality reading time in class reading it over again wasn't something that I was terribly keen on doing.


5. My favorite classes in College were the Medieval lit classes. Good stuff, once you got the hang of middle english spelling. The stories were pretty gruesome, too, so that was kind of cool.


6. When I had some free time in Iraq, I was usually reading. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of 'lit' books we got in care packages, but I was honestly just as happy reading the usual page turners like King, Morrell, Koontz, etc.


7. I'm on my 4th copy of Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire. Great book. Two times I've loaned it out only to get it back pretty worn out. One book I re-read, dog-eared, spilled food on, and basically took with me everywhere for a couple of days (I was taking my time on the third readthrough of that book, m'kay?), and I eventually had to replace it.

Christmas Movies

Somehow, someway, some folks out there in bloggyland have gotten the impression that I'm not a huge fan of Christmas.


Go figure.


Dunno if it's fond memories or improved technology, but I must admit the Christmas movies do seem to be getting better and better every year...


No trickery or nuthin' *snert*, but there's (technically) no vulgar language in the clip. Feel free to turn it way up.

Been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I thought I'd take a moment to let y'all know what kind of stuff goes running through my 'mind' the past few days.



What a difference a year makes...


Remember the '15 min prior' rule? That's the one that runs along the line of a Battalion Commanding Officer talking to his Executive Officer. He tells his XO that he wants to hold a formation at 1800. The word travels down the chain of command, from Officer to Occifer, Senior Staff NCOs to Staff, around and about to everyone that has something to say about it. By the time it gets down to my level, I'm standing tall in formation with my guys at 0745 that morning, wondering why the Battalion formation is running late...

Preparing for large family gatherings around say... Thanksgiving, for example - is kind of like that. Timelines are more of general suggestions and/or loosely held guidelines, especially with select members of the family.

Know what isn't a general suggestion?

Heh.

One of the only things that's more fun than the 15 min. prior rule is the to-my-knowledge unnamed rule that deals with visits by a General. Before a General arrives, you better believe there is a massive 15 minute rule applied, but even more so than that is the advanced preparation. The guy could be planning to not even go anywhere near your shop/office/barracks/heads/whatever - but the cleanup... *Oy, vey!* Floors will be buffed to panty-viewing perfection, weapons will be lick-dried if necessary, and grass will be cut, by hand and by individual grass blade, if possible. All this and the Man is only going to visit the other side of the base... again. Yeah, we kind of had that goin' on this weekend. I almost expected My Love to tell me that she wanted the Virgin Mary herself to be proud to come over to take a- well, you know.


The next time I tell myself that I'm gonna go on a good run on Thanksgiving morning and not eat so much that night... I'm actually going to do it... hopefully. I'm lucky if I can get up enough steam for a good waddle, right now.

On a related note, in my life I've gathered up quite a few skills that, while not necessary enjoyable, in the moment make life a bit easier. Lamaze breathing and relaxation techniques on the throne is a good example of one of those skills.


I figure I've still got a few days before I get tired of turkey sandwiches, turkey pot pies, turkey stew, turkey a la mode, turkey jerky, turkey subs, fried turkey, turkey gravy, turkey jello, etc, etc, and etc...


Eric, I have no idea who you are, but you're on my list, buddy, and it ain't my Christmas list...


I love watching some good football games on a full belly - but I try to avoid thinking too much about it. If I did, I'd get pissed all over again about the way things are run and the way that certain players act. When I become king of the word I'm going to institute a single elimination tournament system. To make it interesting, elimination will be done with axes. Should make for some good times.

Speaking of interesting times, what the heck is going on with the players (again)? If I was making that kind of money to play a game, the only time I'd leave the house would be to do charity work, feed the homeless, and help the nuns at the orphanages. Sheesh.