Random Nuclear Strikes

Afghanistan is not worth the bones of single Nebraskan private.  We should let the Afghans rot.  My guess is that most Afghans want today what they wanted in 330 B.C., when Alexander the Great rolled through.  They want to be left alone, to live their life as they see fit.  True, they live their lives in a crappy manner, and their culture is extremely defective in myriad ways, even if not infrequently individual Afghans display strong virtue, usually of the martial type.  For the most part, Afghan cultural defects have nothing to do with their failure to buy into modern liberal democracy, which is what we offer them and in which they have no interest, and everything to do with them being a mountainous (and thus insular), poor, tribal culture not blessed by Christianity and the (pre-modern version of) Western culture it created.  But that they live in in a crappy way is not our problem to be concerned about.  Most Afghans support the Taliban. …I bet the number of Afghans who want truly democracy or any aspect of Western culture, good or bad, can be counted on one hand.  Why we should be involved in any of this is beyond me.

— Charles Haywood, The Worthy House, Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor (Clinton Romesha).

Hey! How you doing? It’s been a while. Have a seat and let’s talk.

When we last met up, I went off to welding school and became a certifiably insane person who gets paid to play with fire (aka: a Welder). It’s good work, and I enjoy the you-know-what out of it. But there have been some life altering events that went along with it since then.

The biggest being that Wifey-Poo and I split up, amicably and without drama. I kept Firebase Blue in the divorce because she wanted to travel, so that was good. No need to set up preps and defenses elsewhere all over again.

Shortly thereafter, I injured myself doing an activity at age 47 that I did easily at age 25, and my left knee will never be the same. If you’re curious what the activity might have been, click here.

After some healing, I re-entered the dating world.

Let me tell you something: Single moms see a home-owning dude with a healthy work ethic and get thirsty. Really thirsty. And scary clingy. But, after 18 months of that and I decided to take on a relationship with someone I knew before the divorce. We’re co-habitating now, and she’s amazing. You’ll probably meet her soon.

And during all of that, I decided I needed to lose weight. With a torn up knee, both hiking and running were out of the question, and I can basically forget ever having “leg day” at the gym. Rowing machines were also out, as were most of the interesting martial arts, and I’ve never enjoyed swimming as exercise. So…

I bought a mountain bike.

The Trek Marlin is an entry level dual purpose type of bike. For around $700, it’ll do everything one of those big box store “mountain bikes” that cost half as much will do, as well as take on fairly rugged Cross Country trails. I know, because I started out on one of those big box store bikes I had bought years earlier and was collecting dust in the garage. I rode it around my local paved and light gravel trails, but as soon as I got off level ground or even slightly sketchy unpaved downhill trails, I felt like the thing was going to fold underneath me.

So, twice the money gets you quality, capability and confidence.

And boom, I was hooked. I was riding every weekend. Weather didn’t matter. I found new places that were just down the road or across town that I never even knew existed. And then I started slowly enlarging my radius for how far I’d drive to go ride. The bike even got a name: The Pale Horse.

I lost 60lbs before the arrival off the ‘rona. But with the bullshit that went along with that (my work schedule blowing up to 55hrs a week so that had no free time, my nutritionist not seeing clients, the parks that held my favorite trails getting closed) I gained 30 of those pounds back during the summer and early autumn of 2020.

But my adventures continue!

And that is what I hope to start posting here. I’ll do my best to stick with chronological order, and get you all up to speed in the near future. I have been posting these on my IG and FB, but one of those formats limits the word count of your story, and nobody reads the story on the other.

I hope you all enjoy them.

“Saint” Roger Benitez, senior U.S. District Judge for the U.S. District of Southern California, to be precise. The man is truly a Godsend.

It’s me.

My maternal grandfather was an Arkie — like the Okies from Grapes of Wrath, but he and his wife moved to California from Arkansas in the 1930s. As a kid I was always puzzled by Grandpa’s tendency to use “country” not to refer to the United States as a whole, but to a specific area of countryside — as in, “Well, fact of the business, that whole week I’d get up of a mornin’ and walk about the country for an hour or two before breakfast.” Or: “I don’t much like that country — not enough trees.”

Spotted this piece of art by George Callaghan on Twitter — Vivre dans le pays vert, or “Living in the green country” in French.

(To embiggen images below, right-click and open image in new browser tab. Yeah, I’m still figuring out why click-to-embiggen doesn’t work.)

Reminds me of a few of my favorite artists:

Grant Wood:

George Tooker:

And, of course Eyvind Earle and his fantastically styled yet still absolutely true depictions of California’s green and golden coastal farms, hills, and valleys.

Seen at Traction Control blog. Very cool. Saving this for when I get around to redoing the workbenches.

Info on how to get yours here: http://tractioncontrol.well-regulatedmilitia.org/drop-in-t-track-channel-covers/

The 70th anniversary of the Chosin Reservoir battle happened last year, so I did a daily post of Sergeant Orville Bierkle’s war diary entries — with illustrative links — in the seminal Calguns.net thread to commemorate it. Entries span from September at Inchon to December 7 when the Sergeant arrived wounded in Japan. One commenter said the link-filled diary was better than a documentary, so that was gratifying. You’ll need to tab through the thread to get to September 2020. Check it out.