what i learned at appleseed

i learned that a beard and a six position collapsible stock are only compatible when firing from the hip. aimed shots… not so much.

i learned that if you’re going to sight your rifle, you should either do it on a range by yourself, or bring binoculars and a buddy to spot for you. or at least binoculars.

i learned that if your rifle isn’t sighted in, expect to spend some time doing it. a lot of it.

i learned that you should have one of those nifty brass catching things if you’re shooting an ar-15 and there’s someone shooting on your right. (the guy on my right learned that too)

i learned that every piece of hot brass that lands on you is hotter than the last one. and i learned that the consequence for trying not to flinch to avoid losing your NPOA (Natural Point Of Aim) is blisters.

i learned that the guys that work at the range can shoot (at least in the technical sense) better than you. it doesn’t really matter who ‘you’ are. they’re better.

i learned that if there’s a problem with your gun, regardless of who’s there for what, no one really wants to help.

i learned that the sights on a removable carry handle for an A3 suck.

i also learned that there are people out there who believe that not only will it be up to the american citizens to protect america from the government, but those people believe that it will be accomplished thru marksmanship from 400 yard distances.

i learned that the battle to defend america is supposedly only going to be successfully accomplished with M1 Garands.

i learned that america’s defenders will not need to concern themselves with FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Radar), night fighting, CQB (Close Quarters Battle), artillery, armor, apache attack helicopters, airstrikes, or any of the other technological advances of the modern military. 400 yard headshots on advancing troop officers will be enough to keep your walmart shelves stocked.

i learned that no real shooters use bipods, or single point slings. every shooter worth his salt uses an M14 sling.

i learned that for demonstration purposes, instructors shoot the way they’re instructing. but when they shoot for something besides instructional purposes, what they’ve taught isn’t used. (hmm)

i learned that even tho you may go to learn to shoot, you’re not going to get much interaction with the instructors unless you already know how to shoot. or you brought an M1. or you have big tits.

i learned that the answer to every problem is to ‘practice the fundamentals’. (and if you happen to have an M3 carry handle that is jacked and your sights are off, and change with every shot, you’re lack of marksmanship can still be attributed to YOU not have enough practice with the fundamentals of marksmanship)

i learned that if you have problems (like shooting four rounds of targets – which is 160 rounds of ammo) there is no one there who is supposed to be teaching you to shoot who will stop at your pristine target the fourth time around, and say ‘hey buddy… what’s going on?’ (apparently, it should be obvious that the shooter isn’t following the six fundamentals of shooting.)

i learned that shooters are responsible for lollygagging while changing targets. (unless there is an M1 Garand conversation being hosted by the range crew – then, the shooters are expected to wait until it’s over)

i learned that every rifle should be assumed to have operable sights, and that those sights are always at battle zero. (i learned this, because the instructors pointedly and deliberately spent no time on adjusting sights – the lesson was ‘the british are coming, grab a rifle and start shooting’) (and if you can’t, it’s not because you grabbed a rifle with bad/misaligned sights, it’s because you’re not practicing the fundamentals of shooting)

ok, now, really, i did learn that buying guns and putting them in the closet until the zombies come is not a good idea. you need to get out there and spend some money on ammo. you need to find out before the zombies are coming if your sights suck, and need to be replaced. or, more to the point… i need to.

i learned that i should probably get a bipod.

i learned that loctite should be used on your sights.

i learned that taping my stock so it doesn’t pull my beard hair is ok. (as long as it’s a suitably manly kind of tape. green duct tape, or green heat tape – can’t be something unmanly like regular grey duct tape)

i learned that at 400 yards, if you have bad sights, you’re not hitting shit. (you’re also not hitting midgets at 25 yards) but, i feel confident that if you need to hit the guys coming up your stairs, or the buick full of zombies in the parking lot, you don’t really need your sights with an ar15 and a full mag.

i learned that a bad day at the range with your buddy… is still a bad day. we should’ve gone go-karting.

i learned that in addition to having graphite in your gun kit, you should have spay lube too. wd40 makes tiny little bottles that would fit nicely.

i learned that saving money buying non-name brand mags is a bad investment. and i learned that waiting until the zombies are coming to find that out is also a bad idea.

i learned that unless you’re paying to use the 400 yard range, you’re only paying for the 25 yard range and ‘to scale’ targets, that make you think you can shoot at 400 yards.

i learned that your mags should be pre-loaded to the best of your ability. speed loaders are great, but speed loaders aren’t as fast as ‘already loaded’.

i learned that there is no substitute for the right tools for your gun. adjusting your front sight with a the tip of a hollow point because you were too cheap to buy the right tool won’t really get the job done.

i learned that my ar jams for everyone but me.

i learned that you should bring your gear with you from the car, or you’re going to lose your lane assignment to someone who did.

i learned that shooters don’t pee. after 2 liters of mtn dew, and a big bottle of water, i never had to go to the bathroom until the gear got back to the car.

i learned that you should bring your own staple gun

i learned that you have to turn your hat backwards when shooting prone. (not just to look cool, or ‘go faster’, either)

i learned that ‘follow thru’ is harder to practice than it is to talk about.

i learned that ‘keeping your eyes open’ is also harder to practice than to talk about.

i learned that ‘learning to shoot’ means following someone else’s time-table, and not really worrying so much about whether you can shoot. (let’s just get thru the lesson plan, folks) if you want to ‘learn to shoot’, pay the range fee (not the ‘instructor fee’) and spend the day getting to know your gun.

and, finally, i learned that when ‘they’ say to bring a back up gun, you should.

to the lady in the produce aisle:

let me start by saying that i will NOT apologize for what i did to you. however, i will apologize for scaring you the way that i did. my intention was not to be threatening, or to conjure up some past episode of spousal abuse that you may have experienced. my intention was to correct you on your public misbehavior, and to protect my child.

i knew that our leisurely stroll through the grocery store was atypical to other people’s lunch time schedule. you see, i’m on vacation, and i spend a lot of time away from my family, so when we get the chance to be together, we like to relax and have fun. we like to walk slow and take it all in.

i knew when i saw you that you were a bit high strung. some people, you can just tell, are like that. it was also apparent by the way you were pushing your cart in and out of the throng of people deciding whether to buy dairy products or produce, that you were in a hurry. maybe this friday afternoon shopping trip was scheduled during your lunch hour, i don’t know. you were moving as if it was.

sometimes i get in a hurry too. i know that it’s a bit frustrating when you’re in a hurry, and you get held up by people who just seem to be strolling along, and you’re unable to get around them.

i knew what your plans were when you pushed your cart abreast of me; i, casually falling behind of my wife and daughter, while i was tickling my infant son in my arms. not everyone shops at the organic store on their lunch hour.

i wasn’t in a hurry. your apparent tension at being slowed down by us “looky-loos” was immediately troublesome to me, but like i said, i was there to enjoy some time with my family.

and besides, the kid’s sized shopping cart that my four year old chose had some alignment problems. i guess the last pilot wasn’t driving it with the consideration he should have been, and maybe took the miniature cart out into the parking lot, maybe hit a curb with it, and now one of the steering wheels was just a bit sticky.

it’s tough to be four, and finally get to push the cart, only to find out the cart you chose was going to fight you the whole trip thru the store.

i could see you keeping situational awareness over your intended path through the store. as much as you kept darting your head back and forth scouting your path, i’m surprised you weren’t giving yourself a tension headache.

now, i saw when the gap between me, and my wife and daughter opened, and i knew that you were ready to make your move. i’m sure you didn’t even notice that i slowed down just a little bit more, to let you take it. we weren’t that far from the next aisle, and i knew that even if you didn’t need anything down that aisle, you’d go that way to get out from behind our slow-poke group.

i guess the whole thing is really the store’s fault. i mean, how could any of us have realized that just when you were really starting to red line, to lose your patience, just when you were about to make your move, that stupid little wheel on my daughter’s kiddie shopping cart was going to hang up again?

it’s crazy. they should have some sort of maintenance plan in place. maybe an on-call mechanic, or something. do you suppose there’s a shopping cart triple-A service?

now. let’s first talk about what i perceived. (if you’ve read my first blog, you’ll note that i’m a big subscriber to the “perception is reality” paradigm).

i saw you stop suddenly. (i know we haven’t known each other very long, but, in that short time, i think i’ve done a pretty good job getting a general idea about your behavior)

you’re not usually the type to stop suddenly. (does that mean you’re a pisces? i can’t remember) you seem to be the type of person who would rather accelerate thru the smoke. you know, go high and outside, and just sort of cross your fingers, and hope the faltering drivers made it to the infield.

but, stop you did. then, your WHOLE body lifted up and forward.

you were looking.

your body language said that you didn’t choose to stop, but rather something stopped YOU.

as i followed where you were looking, i noticed the front of your cart was VERY close to my daughter. and then i noticed, that she had stopped too, and was turning to investigate something.

now, i’ve been with my daughter all four years of her little life. my daughter (like a lot of four year olds) has the mindset of “out of sight, out of mind”. which means, that she very RARELY looks BACK to investigate something. (there ought to be some sort of program or something we can get these little hoodlum four year olds into. i mean, we can’t just let these little fuckers do whatever they want, right?)

anyway, i noticed something strange just then. i noticed that her feet were at an odd angle to the way her body was facing. and that her feet didn’t move to follow what she was investigating.

here’s where perception becomes so important.

the reason i grabbed you and pulled you back, is that i thought you had run over my daughter’s feet while you were trying to pass us into the cereal aisle.

the reason i grabbed you so hard, is because you’re a full grown woman, and the reality is; that i would need a firm grip to move your body weight, especially if you were unwilling to move. (i’m sure that once you realized you ran into her, you’d move, but i wasn’t really counting on you being able to come to that realization on your own)

the reason i pulled you back so abruptly, is that i thot that not only had you run over my daughter’s feet, but that you were confused about what had happened and stopped while you were still on them.

now, (i notice i keep saying “now” a lot – weird)

i know that you probably didn’t take as much notice of me when you passed me as i took of you. i don’t think that’s at all related to any sort of training i’ve had in the past, as i think it’s just a part of who i am.

i can see, since you didn’t notice me when you passed me, that you might think that i was the one who approached you, but really, that’s not the way that it happened. (and that has nothing to do with perception, it’s just a fact)

i know that in society today, strangers don’t normally touch strangers, especially to correct something they’ve done. however, i don’t think your reaction was at all in proportion to what had just happened.

i can see how your perception of it may have offended you. but, given the uncommonness of it, i would have expected a reaction more in tune with “let’s find out what happened”.

back to the things that i notice, that some other people don’t; (and that’s not to say that i’m hercule poirot, i’m sure that some people notice things that i never notice). but, i did notice that your response was not directed at me. you began yelling at me, but, your eyes were scanning the grocery store looking for your audience. apparently, my one year old son and i were not enough for you.

it’s a little distracting to talk to someone, let alone argue with a complete stranger in the organic food store, when their body language says that they’re playing it for the audience, instead of the incident.

here’s a little something that you may not know about society; no one wants to be involved in your little drama. they want to see the blood. they want to watch the paramedics, but really, if there’s no blood and no paramedics, they have their own shit to do.

the whole thing may have gone smoother if you’d have stopped screeching “did anyone see what he just did to me?!”

here’s another little tip. when confronting a protective parent… don’t. because i don’t give a fuck about your drama. i don’t give a fuck about your tears. i don’t give a fuck about your witness list. i don’t give a fuck about your injuries. i don’t give a fuck about your name-calling. i don’t give a fuck about your opinion. and i certainly don’t give a fuck about whether you think i have the right to keep you the fuck away from my kids.

you put my daughter’s safety at risk, you fucking cunt. (oops, this is an apology. sorry, cunt)

back to the apology. i know, from the short time that i knew you, that you have a hard time calming yourself down. and i know screeching is not your normal tone of voice. (but if it is, i know you’re not married or dating). and i know how frustrating it is for you when you can’t make headway by screeching at people. we all have our faults. one of mine, is that when some hooker in the grocery store won’t stop screeching at me, i tend to get more aggravated.

i don’t think i was the instigator, but, one of MY character flaws is that i don’t mind being the aggressor. so, when you wouldn’t shut your fucking mouth, my base response was to move in.

i know you felt intimidated by me closing the distance between us. i could tell by the way you stepped back into the canned vegetables and the jars of organic pressed garlic. i apologize for that too. (but, really, i had my one year old in my arms, did you think we were going to try out for the UFC right there? all three of us? come on…) (besides, my left hand was the one clenching. everyone knows i’m a rightie)

so, what i’m trying to say, is that my reactions were all based on my perceptions. i realized after my wife started pulling on my arms, that my daughter was fine. (i gotta tell you tho, if my daughter was hurt, i’d bet that my wife would have taken my son away from me.) (and really, you should write her and thank her for reading the situation so well. if she’d have pulled the boy out of my arms, you’d have probably left the store in an ambulance. – isn’t weird how people can communicate without talking?)

anyway. right then, i was thinking “no harm, no foul”. it got a little crazy for a bit, but, except for you, no one really got hurt. and eventually, i’m sure we’d have written each other some kind of little love notes like this one, both kind of explaining our versions of why we acted the way we did over by the celery and leeks. but, i gotta tell you, i admire your tenacity.

i wasn’t expecting you to find us in the checkout aisle and start in again. and, the store’s lack of policy on uniforms really had me believing you brought friends, instead of the store manager.

but, i want to thank you for being a crazy fucking psycho bitch in front of your newly acquired captive audience. it helps that you brought them over so you could start screaming obscenities at the front of the store, in front of not only my children this time, bet everyone else’s children too. you’ve got to admit, when you’re standing there crying and ranting, it makes it a lot easier for the outside lay person to judge what the situation really was. it really helps MY credibility, when your story changes too. i like the part where i went from grabbing you, to hitting you, and then back to grabbing you. (hey, let me ask you this, who do you think the manager believed? the screaming crazy bitch, or the two calm parents protecting their children from the screaming crazy bitch?) (at one point, there was mention of calling the cops. who do you think THEY would have believed?)

i thot it was especially creative when you tried to get my four year old to vouch for you. but, here again, i have to apologize. i know that raising my voice, and stepping between you and my daughter could really appear to be a menacing advance. i suppose it didn’t help that i was so dismissive of your concerns when i told you to shut up and leave. (but really, we’re back to that first tip of “confronting a protective parent”. it’s even more important that you don’t try to re-involve the child of a protective parent in your episodes of hysterical uncontrolled drama)

i have to tell you tho, when you were trying to create some atmosphere of male-on-female-domination-type-casually-accepted-domestic-violence, i really got a charge of your description of me. i know that i cast a somewhat intimidating posture, and i know that the build of my body has a lot to do with that. that you see me as “a 250 pound scary man” was, i think, more of a compliment to me than you intended. it also shed a lot of light into your own inter-personal relationship history.

oh, and in response to your question to my wife: “i don’t know if he hits you…?” hehe. i gotta tell you, we both laughed about that one. that was the one thing that you said that we left thinking “man, you know what i SHOULD have said?”

but, i’m sure that it was fun for you, just for a little bit, to try to project this little spinster’s fantasy of “all that is wrong with men” onto the situation we were involved in, but i’m sure that if your own parents were as close to you as we are to our kids, your whole life might have turned out differently. this mindset that you are the victim might not be such a powerful force in your day to day life. maybe you should see if there’s some sort of 12 step program out there for you, huh? some kind of outpatient thing. maybe you should just call your folks and ask them why they didn’t love you? (fuck, maybe you WERE adopted, huh?)

(here’s what we came up with – later; my wife was going to say “he does, but i like it”; i was going to say “regularly, that’s why she’s so well behaved”) (it sucks when you can’t think of that shit during the conversation)

i’m getting a little off track.

i realize now that you didn’t, in fact, run over my daughter. i hope that you’ll accept my apology, and understand my concern for my daughter. i will try, in the future, to keep our lolly-gagging out of the way of other people in the stores we visit. i hope you can walk away from this with a newfound understanding of what your own impatience may one day cause, and how your actions have put not only a child’s safety at risk, but yours as well. i honestly don’t think you’d be such a cunt if you actually had hurt my daughter. i’m sure that deep down, you’re human like the rest of us, and that hurting someone else because you were in a hurry to get your handpicked organic coffee beans is just not worth it. or… at least if you if you had hurt my child and were somehow indignant about it, i’m sure i could have helped you learn to see the errors of your ways.

and i know that apologies are supposed to usually end on a light note somehow, but i want you to know; i am not the typical protective parent. i’m one of those OVER protective parents. i knew from the minute i put my hand on you, that the possibility existed that i might go to jail over it. but really, i’m not going to be a fucking pussy about whether or not i should protect my children from inconsiderate assholes too hell-bent on their agendas to offer the simple courtesy of not plowing into a child in the supermarket. and, i’m sure if the cops did show up and start taking statements, the situation would’ve gotten even more tense when everyone found out we were picking up pizza dough and bananas and i had a 9mm and three clips in my fanny pack.

all in all, i’d say that this was a misunderstanding that turned out reasonably well, and that we all learned something from it. i hope your arm feels better. i know it was pretty rough, and there’s probably going to be some bruises for a couple of days, but i think we both have a clearer understanding of why all of this happened now.

it’s probably not going to make you feel any better, but, when i left the store today, after talking to you, i really felt great. it’s weird, but having the opportunity to teach an adult manners really seems to be something i could enjoy.

goodnight grocery store cunt. i hope your coffee tastes like shit.

on racism…

if a racist dies alone in a forest, does anyone care?

I like that. I wanted to open with a joke, but, that seemed cooler. So, now onto the joke.

What do you call a black guy flying a plane?

He’s a pilot, ya fuckin racist.

Let’s move into it. I have three children. What they learn about the world, and more specifically, about right and wrong, they’re going to learn from me. So, aside from balancing a checkbook, and protecting themselves against STD’s, let’s talk about what I’m going to teach them about racism.

I’m not going to teach them what I learned as a child. In third grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Ramirez. I remember that my step dad had helped me with some homework, and I got the answer wrong. When I told him about it, and what Mrs. Ramirez said, his response was “Ramirez?! That explains it. Are you going to listen to me or a fucking spic?”

Gosh, pop… since ya put it that way…

After he was gone, there was another male role model in my life. A career cop. Used to laugh about going out and shooting ‘cans… you know, afri-cans, mexi-cans, puerto ri-cans.

He had some career cop buddies. One of them, my male role model was not shy about telling, was the son of a one time grand wizard in the kkk.

I grew up in a house where saying “nigger” was as accepted in the house as saying “mashed potatoes”. Age was no pre-requisite. I couldn’t say “fuck” or “shit”, but, it was ok for me to tell a story and use descriptors like “nigger”.

I grew up listening to the same trite racist bullshit that any white racist gets stuck regurgitating from their own uneducated upbringing. I have no idea what the trite racist bullshit is that comes from racist-not-white-families, but I imagine it’s along similar lines.

I could get into all the slang little words that we used to use, but they really just don’t add any value to my story here. I suppose you can use your own imagination or recollection and fill in the blanks, if you’re going to get fixated on that.

I was old enough to buy alcohol when I left “home”. I wasn’t even old enough to have a driver’s permit when I left my parents, but home in this conversation is an area, and not an address.

I joined the military, and promptly began to see the world. For me, the military was a lot like jail, except everyone there volunteered to go. One thing different about the military though, is that open racism is strictly not tolerated. That’s not to say that there weren’t undercurrents, and cliques, but there was not the same demographics as you would find in say, county.

I was in a position where not only were my beliefs shunned, they were openly challenged.

The list of examples is long, and not what I wanted to get into in this, so I’ll cut this part short. The short version, is that I decided that the person I was groomed to be when I was a child, was not the person I wanted to be. I didn’t even agree with what I was raised to believe.

I have a neighbor. He’s probably asleep in his bed right now, all comfy and cozy. I met him a while back when we moved here. Always been real nice to me. Super friendly guy. He made a comment about our plans to move the other day, along the lines of, “careful if you’re going to move there. There’s a lot of blacks around there anymore.”

What the fuck does that mean?

One of my best friends is a black guy. Is neighbor talking about best friend?

When I first met best friend, I was new to the area, and trying to find out his name from other people that we worked with. I described him. To a black girl, a black guy, three white guys, and a White girl.

Now, you might have noticed, I said “three white guys, and a White girl”.

that wasn’t a typo. When I think of this girl, I think of her as a White girl, with a capital w.

not because she was super white, but because beneath her politically correct façade, she was just fucking busting at the seams to go get her own little swastika ankle tattoo.

I described (future) best friend as black, tall, with a mustache and three kids.

Her smirking response was “why would you use “black” to describe him?”

To which, nearby black guy (not best friend) responded, “why would you deny calling him by the color of his skin? Should he be ashamed that he’s black?”

I don’t have the answers for past white injustices to blacks. I was born in Neil Armstrong’s heyday. Before that, (until the end of Reagan’s heyday), not only did I not count as a part of the situation, but, I wasn’t even aware there was a situation.

I don’t have answers for white injustices to Japanese, either. Or Native Americans. But, holy fuck, if anyone should be pissed off, it’s the Indians. Have you been to a reservation? I have. They fucking suck. It’s nice to call them sovereign nations, but, really, they’re just shit-holes in the middle of nowhere that no one else could possibly survive on.

And I do know that aside from the public school apologies that the white people have made, there are other injustices that have been done to blacks, as a society.

Abraham Lincoln.

I grew up, listening to racist bullshit at home, and learning racist bullshit at school. I was in the military before I ever learned the truth about Abraham Lincoln.

Honest Abe didn’t save black people. He wasn’t a supporter of equal rights. Abe Lincoln, on the day he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, was owner of over 300 slaves. (not “employed” at the white house. Abe had over 300 of his own slaves, both through his own purchase, and passed on to him from dead relatives, and as wedding gifts)

Abe has been quoted (in his own letters) as saying that he despised the idea of freeing blacks. That it was a horrible idea, and would likely be the doom of society.

Anyone know why he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, then? He signed it in order to collect taxes. Crazy, isn’t it? They didn’t teach that when I went to school. And why not? Why not teach that we had a president who was manipulative, and crooked as a three dollar bill?

Ok, here’s the (maybe not so) quick and dirty, about why Honest Abe Lincoln freed the slaves to collect taxes. (and by the way, now that the internet is around, this is all pretty easy access stuff, but, the textbooks still haven’t changed)

Lincoln’s time was during the Civil War (everyone’s pretty aware of that). What gets looked over (holy fuck is wikipedia just another propaganda machine), is that just before the Civil War, was the Mexican-American War, which (including building up to the actual war) lasted about thirty years. I say about. It started around 1836, and the Civil War started in 1860.

The reason the Mexican-American War is important to Lincoln, is money. Thirty years of bickering, skirmishes, and then war is a pretty expensive endeavor.

That money had to come from somewhere, and it came from taxpayers. The problem in 1850ish, is that the tax laws were different. The bulk of tax money came from… anyone? Merchants. Companies. Industry. And most of the America’s industry was… anyone? Anyone? In the southern states. Fuck Bueller, pay attention. We’re talking about shipping companies, textile companies, agriculture.

In the north, there were cities, sure, and small time businesses, but nothing really substantial enough to call an industry.

Now, we’re paying for a war here, folks. 30 plus years of this shit. Remember, just before that was the War of 1812. only two years there, but, still, we just fought the only world superpower!

Now, here it is 1860, and the “industry” that’s carrying the government’s bullshit tactics (I mean bullshit folks. Ever hear of the Mexican Armada? Not the Spanish Armada, the Mexican Armada)

Anyway. The north keeps up this bullshit, raising taxes, spending on things that it votes on based on size of population (where the north has the weight) but the money’s coming from the south, who keeps losing the vote not to spend it.

So, the south said “fuck you, read the constitution. We’re exercising our rights not to put up with your bullshit”. To which the north said “whoa, fuck, we can’t let them go, that’s our money cow”.

Now, enter foreign policy. The north went abroad looking for support. And the south went abroad looking for support. And the supporters looked at who had the most money, and they sided with the south. And everyone was very dignified, aside from the terrorist bullshit that the north perpetrated, (a different history lesson), everyone followed the “gentleman’s rules” of warfare.

And, since the north saw that everyone was playing “gentleman’s war”, did the one thing that would stop the foreign gentlemen from supporting the south from seceding. They told everyone that the south was playing dirty. And they did this with the Emancipation Proclamation.

The passed a law that said that the southerners had to conduct their industry without the use of slave labor, a practice that everyone, northerners and southerners, exploited, and which the southerners would lose a great deal of their profit by paying or losing the people it used to use as slaves (even tho the pay wasn’t that great)

The northern lawmakers decided “yep, that’s a good idea, that will keep our money cow with us, it seems like an easy enough trade”

They had no intention of freeing blacks. They just wanted the foreign gentlemen war supporters to stop and say “oops, shit, we can’t support the south, they’re breaking the law. We’d be supporting criminals”

Even tho the law was just a tactic, it worked. And now, history remembers Abe Lincoln as the president who freed the blacks, and fought the dirty southerners from seceding over their belief they should be able to own other human beings.

Rather than the scumbag dirty politician not-so-closet racist and slave owner that he was.

Freeing slaves had no importance to Honest Abe.  Honest.

Ok, that was definitely the abridged version. You should google it sometime. And google the Mexican armada, too. And then, google the opening shots of the civil war.

Back to my story.

A friend of mine (in a conversation on the phone) told me that the state that I was thinking of moving to, had the nation’s highest crime rate (specifically rape) AND the nation’s lowest education scores. As a lover of the internet, I looked it up. It turns out he was wrong. I did find out that there is one state out there that has great scores. Lowest crime in the country, and highest education scores. I told my buddy about this, and his comment was “that’s because they did it right, they kicked all the blacks out”

One part of me is not surprised. Some years back, according to the story, this buddy got drunk, and got a swastika tattoo (cleverly hidden beneath america’s glorious flying eagle.) from the day the swastika was recognized for what it was, he’s said that he was drunk, doesn’t know how it got there, and regrets that it is there.

But it’s still there.

The part of me that is surprised, is that part that listens to him tell of how jesus and the bible have saved his life, opened his eyes, and turned it all around for him. He’s got a super nice wife, and a litter of kids. He’s got the ‘keeping up with the jones’“ life.

This all comes back to my own kids.

I know that racism exists. I feel like John Travolta in pulp fiction, having a conversation with Samuel Jackson about whether tv exists or not. No, I don’t believe in it, but I understand that it exists.

Contrary to popular racist vs. racist rhetoric, I do know what it’s like to be a victim of racism. What I’ve never experienced, is facing racism every day of my life. I don’t know what that’s like. I’m lucky that I don’t, and it’s unfortunate that other people do.

So, what should I teach my children? Should I teach them to live quietly, to co-exist, but to understand that the defense against racism is more racism. Should I teach them that when something bad, or ugly happens, something perpetrated by a person with different skin color, that they should condescendingly think “oh, well, obviously they don’t know any better, after all, they’re black.” (or whatever they happen to be)

Should I teach them that as long as they continue to live and grow and work in geographically white areas, that then they can live as god intended, but that their happiness is in jeopardy if they live among non-white people?

I don’t feel comfortable doing that. I don’t think that everyone is a racist. I think racism exists more in certain communities, but, that’s because like minded people tend to congregate. But, “like minded” can be almost any category, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with skin color.

I don’t want my kids to be afraid to talk to anyone. I also don’t want my kids to be unsure whether they should call their black friends black. They’re not afraid to call old people old, so why wouldn’t they say “she’s the Korean girl in my class”. Should I teach them to be blind to what people are? Why would I deny calling a Korean person Korean?

I know what I’m teaching my kids. I’m teaching them that racism is wrong. What they have to come to terms with, is that racism is not just “white vs. _____”.

It’s hard for me to watch my kids try to play with other kids on the first day of school, and get shut down because they’re white. (and, I don’t think this should turn into “a taste of your own medicine… whites have done that to blacks for a long time”. My kids, though white, never approached anyone in a hateful or demeaning manner. And let’s get back to Reagan and Neil Armstrong. Remember them? That’s when I came into the picture. The civil rights movement had done what it could do before I was old enough to get into pre-school. So, I’m not real clear on what I personally have to atone for, before my kids don’t have to deal with this shit)

Now. Is that the final rant of the fading racist? That I didn’t do it, so I shouldn’t have to pay for it? Does the denial of responsibility of slave-ownership (as slavery was abolished several generations before I was born) make me not responsible, or just mean I’m spouting excuses for what’s left of the white man’s penance?

I don’t think I’m a racist. My skin crawls when I hear racist comments. I don’t think Vermont has low crime because “they kicked the blacks out”. I think they have low crime because their gun laws are carry-friendly. (look that up, too)

I know that racism exists. Just because I don’t believe in it, won’t make it go away. Lots of people have their own thoughts on the subject, and that’s their prerogative. What I’m trying to figure out, is whether I want them influencing my children.

Except for the White girl in my earlier story, the people I’ve talked about have proven themselves as honorable in every other way. Should I alienate them from my family because of their racist beliefs? Should I talk to them and explain that while I like them, I will not tolerate them discussing those beliefs with my children? Or should I just let it be, and let my children experience other people’s beliefs and decide for themselves?

I would like to point out, that the racism I encounter in my adult life, mostly comes from my white friends and acquaintances. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard my black friends utter some disparaging remark about someone with skin color as the basis. My friend Jay makes disparaging remarks all the time, but he’s a very intelligent person, and is usually talking about dumb people. And dumb people come in all different colors.

a day in the life…

bills. the honey-do. car maintenance. taxes. work. raising kids. planning for the future. (and then working towards that plan) something just broke, and now we have to figure out how to fix it. don’t forget to run the vacuum cleaner. and how the hell do you spell vacuum? is it v-a-c-u-m-e? whatever. i’ve never been able to pin that word down.

the whole point is, my day is a constant never ending slide from one chore to another. and in between all of the things that i’m trying to do, i can see that my wife has been ready to take a break from her list of things to do for at least the last three hours.

i never saw my parents going crazy like i’m going crazy. i asked my dad the last time i saw him if it’s always been this hard. i thot maybe i was doing something wrong. that maybe there was some crucial strategy that i didn’t know about that would make all the pieces come together, and then i’d be able to take the family camping every weekend, and we could all lounge around watching a football game and eating fritos and cheese dip.

he said it’s always been this hard.

so, i guess the only light at the end of the tunnel, is “the” light at the end of the tunnel.

so i guess from here on out, it’s just going to be a struggle and i’m going to have to like it. i was under some misconception that life was going to be fun, fluttering from fun experience to fun experience.

so, taking the time to sit down and put nifty little tidbits of my life on the internet is a sacrifice that i make grudgingly. it’s not that i have nothing to say. i have LOTS to say. i just don’t have time to say it. i’m not going to be able to finish this before i have to get ready to take my two girls to see “alvin and the chipmunks”. and while that’s going to be fun, it is also a sacrifice. i have a window in the jeep to replace. i have to clean the garage, and decide what i’m going to take when we move. oh yeah, and i have to help my wife pack the house out, because we’re going to be moving soon. in the meantime, the windows in the house all leak, and especially in the office where there’s also a draft from the swamp cooler that won’t seal, and the fireplace that also won’t seal, so, my feet are cold. and once my feet get cold, they seem to stay cold all day.

today’s sunday, and it’s my only day off this week. work is starting to pick up, so, it’s not going to be long and i’ll be so busy that i won’t even be around to bitch about being busy.

(long break from writing)

the movie’s over. baths are done. the office got moved to the front room, and the front room got re-arranged. the dining room chairs all match now. and my paintball gun is on the “for sale” shelf. the dinner dishes are in the sink and my wife’s not speaking to me again. one more day, just like all the rest, is coming to a close.

i’m going to bed again with a sense of non-accomplishment. it’s hard to get a plan moving when you keep getting pulled one way or another. i have my priorities, and my wife has hers. that was complicated enough. now we’ve got a seven year old, a three year old, and a six month old, and each one of them has their own priorities, too. and since you’re only three once, and you’re only seven once, and i’ve got the rest of my life to be an adult, it seems that the easiest compromise is that my priorities stop being priorities. and why not, the bills are paid and the power’s on, so what else do i have to do that is more important?

truth to tell, my seven year old gets less of my time than she ought to. she’s too little to carry heavy shit, and too heavy to carry, so wtf do i do with her? her body’s starting to introduce all the chemicals and hormones that little bodies make, so, her memory is shit right now. i can’t even have her help me with light work, because by the time she gets where she’s going, she’s forgotten why she’s there. (then she has to come back and ask, and usually forgets why she came back – at which point i have to stop what i’ve been doing for the past two minutes, and work this over with her for twenty minutes to figure out what she wants, which winds up being to find out what i wanted in the first place.)

now, we’re working together (which she absolutely loves – getting some time alone with dad) and we’ve spent thirty minutes doing two minutes of work. at this point, it’s time for a cigarette, and i haven’t got the patience to explain to her why daddy’s quitting smoking, but kicking her out of the garage so that he can smoke, which means she leaves feeling dejected, and i’m so pissed off i can’t bring myself to call her back out to help again. (i usualy just work as fast as i can, and then act surprised when she comes back out. “oh, you were coming back? well, honey, the only thing left is moving the heavy stuff around”)

that’s horrible isn’t it? horrible or not, that’s how shit gets done in my garage.

and weekdays are even worse.

there isn’t anything getting done on weekdays. first of all, i’m gone eleven hours a day, so i can get eight hours of pay. the drive sucks ass. and as soon as i get done with the assholes on the road, i know that i get to go from road-rage to ‘mommy saver’ in the creak of the front door. because when i walk in the door, there’s homework, usually some sort of pretend dance recital, dinner’s getting cooked, and the baby’s fed up with not being the center of attention. so, as soon as my day is “over”, my job as ‘wife relief’ begins. and i gotta tell you, i’m no good at this.

the baby can’t fucking stand me, unless i’m passing him to mom. the seven year old is working on homework, and when i try to help her, it’s like trying to get an eggshell out of a bowl full of raw eggs using your fingers. you can almost get it, but it just keeps slipping past. the middle-est is usually wound up because (even tho she won’t kiss me goodnight) she is a complete daddy’s girl, and wants me to watch her, or listen to her, or “give her a word” like i’m doing with her sister. (everything to my three year old is spelled H-F-A) (and no, that’s not an acronym that means anything, it’s literally h-f-a)

just about the time i’m losing my patience with the oldest, it’s time to clear the table anyway, because dinner’s ready. did i mention that i’ve usually pissed off the youngest to the point that he’s screaming by now? when he goes into his firetruck scream, i’ll stand really close to my wife and either look helpless, or impatient. in between moving shit around on the stove, this usually has the effect of pissing her off, and having her take the boy. here’s where i’d gladly swap jobs with her, but by now, she’s pissed enough that she’s sick of looking at me, and slams everything onto plates while moving around me as if i were a counter in the kitchen that got put in the wrong place… annoying and in the way.

after dinner, it’s the bath routine. the bath routine runs until the bedtime routine. the bedtime routine either runs longer than it should, or the kids go to bed “in trouble”, usually for bouncing on the bed and waking their brother up. after the bedtime routine, it’s time for my shower, and then my bedtime. then it’s up in the morning to do it all again.

i spend most of my day angry. i’m either angry at my boss, or angry at my wife.

i get pissed at my boss because i can’t quit. as far as jobs go, it’s an ok job. it’s good pay, the work isn’t that bad. but, i’d rather be at home. and since i can’t be, i just stay pissed.

then i come home, pissed, or pissy. and my wife is frustrated from her day. and now we’re feeding on each other. she’s ready to go nuts, and i’m the pressure cooker that’s been building pressure all day. somebody will say something, and the other one isn’t about to take one more ounce of shit from anybody. we’ve both taken enough shit during the day that we don’t have to take anymore. so, now it’s on. hallway sex.

i don’t think we’ve really gotten to hallway sex that often.

i need a way to vent my steam away from my wife. that would be about the best thing that i could change about my day to day life. if i were steam free when i got home, i could handle the ‘tag’ better i think.

fuck, maybe i should go back to smoking weed. i’m calm then. i guess i really can’t tho, if i’m getting a job that may do work for the department of (whatever). we drug test now once a year and randomly, but, there are no d.o.e. jobs on the board now or in the future. but, what about the move, i have to ask… what sort of job will i get then?

guess weed’s out.

it’s what i do

I work for an environmental company. Yes, I’m one of them. It’s not as bad as it sounds though. In fact, either I’m getting green in my old age, or the things that this company is doing, really make sense. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it first hand I don’t think.

We have two types of clients. Either the Department of Energy (ours or someone else’s – like Canada for example), or a polluter. “Polluters” as far as my company is concerned, are only industrial plants that use coal fired boilers. (papermills, electric power plants, etc)

I’m learning a lot about coal fired boilers. But, I really don’t have to, to do my job. I’ll get to my job in a minute.

Our company, on behalf of one or both types of our clients, will go to a plant to see what we can do to reduce a very specific type of pollution. We’re not there to stop “acid rain”, or “greenhouse gases”, or any of the other things that you probably think about when you think about industrial plant pollutants. Most of those are already regulated, measured, and to the degree that they can be (or at least that they are fiscally feasible to be), controlled.

Things may change, but, right now, we go in to go after Hg. Hg is the chemical symbol for mercury. Mercury is bad, bad stuff. It’s all bad, but, most everything else is being addressed. Mercury is a slippery pig to capture, so no one has really tried to (at least successfully). (at least, until now)

What we do is really no secret. There are some secrets involved, but, I can share with you what anyone who works at a plant that we visit might know.

We take activated carbon, and spray it into the exhaust gases coming from the plant. The idea is; that mercury will attach itself to the carbon, and fall harmlessly out. (it’s not the same stuff in your thermostat – even when it falls out, it’s going to stay with the carbon, and not be vapor in the air anymore)

And that’s it. That’s what our company does. There’s a lot of fanciness and technicalities involved, but some of that starts to approach the secrets that I’m not going to be discussing. And, I have to say, I only agree with keeping secrets when it’s for a capitalistic purpose. We’re not keeping our service from anyone; we’re just making sure that we get paid for people to use our secrets.

Now, as far as what I do, I’ll start with the mundane first.

There’s a lot of shipping and receiving, and moving stuff around. As you can imagine, power plants are fairly large. They’re built like obstacle courses. It’s pretty much a building, or a set of stairs that was erected around the boiler, and all if it’s pieces and parts.

I’ve gotten pretty good at using a pallet banding tool. Driving a forklift is usually helpful. Packing and unpacking boxes efficiently is essential.

Unfortunately, that’s the bulk of my job. Or, well, at least it used to be. The lead technician had a failed suicide attempt that turned into a successful partial lobotomy, so the position he left has opened some doors for me. The lead tech was pretty territorial, and so training was nonexistent. Any time a problem of a technical nature would arise, this tech would bumble his way in, and come up with some more pallet related issues for the other techs to handle.

So, thanks to the lobotomy, my job has gotten vastly more technical recently.

So now, here is a description of my job.

I still have to pack and unpack things. But, now, when I’m done unpacking them, I actually get to set them up and initialize them.

We use one particular brand of equipment to monitor the mercury in the gas, and what our testing does to that mercury. We have the control side (the inlet) and the test side (the outlet). Our little carbon spray happens roughly between the two.

It’s kind of like throwing a cup of flour into the rain. Your flour is going to get wet. Now, if you want to stop the rain from getting the ground wet, you have to figure out how much flour to use, how to best throw it into the air, and what to do with it when it soaks up the rain and falls back down.

We do the same thing with carbon and mercury (though it’s not as daunting of a picture as my example)

First, the gas is all contained. We know where it’s going, and how fast. So, we know where to throw our carbon.

We know how much gas there is. And with our control analyzer, we know how much mercury is in the gas.

Once we throw our carbon at it, we measure again (the test side –or- the outlet).

So, we know what we started with, and we know what we want. (most plants don’t want 100% removal – it’s not required yet…so it’s more cost effective to get exactly the amount of removal that is required)

So, using math, we take what we started with, and what we have left, and we adjust the amount of carbon that we throw at it, until we’re at the removal we’re being paid to achieve.

So, my job… the reason behind my title, is that I make sure that our analyzers, the control side and the test side, are both working correctly.

It’s pretty constant maintenance and troubleshooting. As you can imagine, the stuff coming out of a power plant isn’t very friendly. It tends to eat metal. (yea, and further up the stack, we’re pumping it into the air…. Nice)

So, as our metal parts fail, and things stop working, I make sure that we can get our equipment back up and running as quickly as possible. (wouldn’t “as quickly as possible” fit at the end of anyone’s job description though? Seriously.)

there were some folks wondering what i do for work, and there it is. that’s my day, and that’s howitsdone

the woman i love

I don’t want to go to sleep tonight.  It’s been too long since I’ve traveled, and it’s hard to fall asleep alone again.  I’m feeling a little gypsy, too.  It was almost three hours driving to the hotel, and I love driving like that.  We used to drive together like that.  From the coast to anywhere.  From the west coast to Colorado.  From the gulf coast to Indiana.  From the east coast home.  I miss it.  I love to drive, but it’s always better with her. 

I love turning the fader on the stereo to the back, and talking quietly with her, so the kids stay glued to the TV, and we don’t get interrupted.  I love when she falls asleep while I’m driving.  I love the mad search for a bathroom, because the kids wait until it’s an emergency to let us know.  I love digging out the snacks that she’s made, and passing them around inside the van, and everybody gets to nibble while we’re still making good time. 

I love the way she’ll reach over, and take my hand and put it on her leg.  I love when we can just ride without talking for awhile, and the kids fall asleep, and we’re both ok with not being too loud for them. 

I love the way she calls me all the time.  And even when I’m busy, I love the way it pisses people off that she calls so much.  They don’t get calls like that.  I guess they’re more professional.  Fuck you… they don’t have what we have.  Haven’t been thru what we’ve been thru.  Some of them have seen where we’ve been, but they haven’t been there.  (you weren’t there, man) 

I hate the way people think they know things.  Someone asked me the other day “how did Katrina affect you?”  How ‘bout nunya?  Fuckstain.  I look good don’t I?  You think I look so good that I haven’t been thru some fucked up shit?  Fuck you.  And fuck your horse too, target. 

But don’t think I don’t know why it looks so good.  It’s her.  My bride.  My wife.  My better half.  She put this together.  And I love her for that, too.   

So, yea, asshole.  I’m gonna answer the phone every time she calls.  I didn’t fuckin marry you, did I?   

I have this weird thing when I yawn.  Apparently, it aggravates my tear ducts.  So, when I yawn, my eyes water.  My middlest says “daddy, you’re weeping”.  I think she means “leaking”.  It’s cute.  They don’t normally see me weepy.  That was the point of that. 

I get weepy a lot tho, when I’m alone.  Not cause I’m alone, really, but because I’m not with them.  I’m just a fuckin pussy with two extra mags. 

It gets so bad sometimes, it’s hard to drive. 

That’s why I can’t sleep right now.  I want to talk to her.  I want to talk about her day.  I want to tell her about my day.  I want to talk about tomorrow.  And about next year.  I want to talk about all of it.   

I love pillow talk.  I like laying next to her in the dark and talking to her.  It’s good for me.  It makes us both stay up late, but I still like it.  I love talking to her in the morning.  I love talking to her in the middle of the morning.  I love talking to her until I pull in the driveway, and then talking to her some more in the kitchen. 

I love the way she can do anything.  I love that it took her four minutes to do the cat riddle, and it took me almost twenty.  And I had to use scratch paper.   

I love that she understands my need to be a perfectionist, even tho I’m a complete fuckin slob.  I love that she knows what I think without asking, and I love that she doesn’t want me to talk to her about it.  I love that she thinks differently than me, not because I want to think that way, but because she does.   

I love when she compliments me out of the blue.  (it’s ridiculous) and (it’s bigger than I thot it would be)   Those were both pretty inside jokes, that don’t mean anything close to what you’d ever come up with on your own.   

I love that she relies on me to fix shit.  I love that she comes to me to ask advice on how to confront people.  And I love that she rarely takes my advice on how to confront people. 

I love that she has a tattoo that I never get to see.  I love the way she makes my coffee, but still can’t make a sandwich the way I like.  But I love that she makes me sandwiches anyway.  I love that she asks me what I want for dinner, even tho I don’t care what we have.  I love the way she tells me about the deals she got when she went shopping.  I love the way she remembers to get people shit for their birthdays.   

I love the way she snores.  And I love the way she denies that she snores.  I love the way she wakes me up when my alarm goes off.  I love the way she smiles at me when I kiss her in the morning.  I love the way she wants to cuddle all the time, even tho I don’t love cuddling.  I love the way she’s taller than me some days. 

I love holding her hand when we’re out together.  I love going out to dinner with her.  I love her little spy flashlight that she reads with when I have to go to work the next morning.   I love the way she’s still shy about letting me see her coming out of the shower.  And I love it when I do anyway. 

I love the way she throws her head back when she really laughs.  I love the way she always tells me to be careful when I go somewhere.  I love the way I have to drive slower when she’s with me.  I hate following her in a separate car tho, because of all the morons on the road, driving as if the love of my life wasn’t in the van in front of me. 

I love her cooking, and I love telling the story of the first meal she ever made for me.   It’s endless, but I can’t keep writing forever.  Eventually, I have to get some work done.  That’s just howitsdone.        

profound

i just saw my wife’s introduction to my blog.  wow.  i feel wholly unworthy.  and quite unable to live up to her expectations.  (or perhaps yours, if you have any since reading her introduction)

i don’t want to banter on my blog.  it’s not going to be a regular event (my blogging, not my bantering).  i have a person that i love to chit chat with.  i married her.  i don’t like chit chatting.  (unless it’s with her).  i prefer to be mysterious.  i want people to wonder.  you’re not going to know what i know.  you’re going to hear some things, and you’re going to presume some things.  either of those may be true or not.  and that’s how i like it.

and while for some people “perception is reality”… that is only true until you’re wrong (which is when people say they had a “misperception”  it wasn’t a misperception.  there’s no such thing as a misperception.  you perceive what you want to perceive, so how can that be called a misperception?  you perceived a false reality.  it wasn’t true, but you perceived it as true anyway, either because you were misled [you'll never have to buy another knife again!], or you made a judgement without all the information [that never happened to me, so it couldn't have happened to anyone else]).  so, what you’re going to perceive about me is going to be just that, a perception.  it may or may not be reality.  as this is my very first blog, i think it’s appropriate to discuss some of the realities of what you WILL encounter when you read my inner most thots.

you may have already noticed, i don’t like using the shift key.  it’s not because i’m in any way lacking in grammatical knowledge.  it’s for the same reason that i don’t dot my “i’s” when i write by hand.  it wastes time.  i could capitalize the correct letters, but why?  didn’t you see the period?  or the question mark?  couldn’t you tell that “i” refers to me?  did i need to type “I” for it to register?  no.  i didn’t. 

i tend to write first person.  “you” may mean different people throughout what i write.  it may mean no one.  perceive what you will.

i cuss.  i even cuss when i write.  (folks, today i yelled “fuck you” in a theater hallway that just emptied from alvin and the chipmunks)  i have random limits.  i drive to work and back with a gun in my lap, but i put up with my boss’s idiocy.  sometimes, i will write to my audience, and sometimes i will write to myself.  if i have an audience that has never seen a written cuss word, then you’re bound to be educated reading my blog.  if you feel you’re too tender to read a written cuss word, then, you probably already stopped reading.  and if you did, fuck you.  if not, fuck yea!

 i have random thots.  (i spell shit wrong too, because it also is faster)  but, i don’t much get into the text language.  i can read shit like “ltr” and “rotflmao”, but, really, i prefer not to write it. 

i write better when i write aggressively.  which will not necessarily indicate that what you will read on my blog will be aggressive.  but, when i write aggressively, i write aggressively better than anyone else i know. 

i’m not going to discuss my personal realities.  it’s irrelevant to this blog.  my personal realities are much more random tho, than my written realities.  it’s hard not to, tho.  i’ll do my best.  and if i do discuss my personal realities, skip the next line, and read the one after it.

i’m not always right, but i’m always convinced.  i’m always convinced that until you can prove logically why i’m wrong, then i’m not wrong.  “because you’re wrong!” is not proof that i’m wrong.  (i may not be right ALL the time, but i’m right THIS time)  (“i saw it on tv” and “i read it somewhere” are also not proof that i’m wrong.)

i’m contradictory.  but i’ll never contradict myself.  deal with it.  i am.  i have my opinions, and i have my realities, and they may not always be the same.  in my opinion, the strongest should prevail.  in my reality, i’m not going to push you down and steal your wallet.  that doesn’t mean i shouldn’t, it just means that i won’t.  well, really it just means that i won’t today.  tomorrow could bring anything, including a reason to convince me that my reality should change.  it’s unlikely, but if you discount the possibility, well, if you discount the possibility of what MAY happen to a person in their life, then you’re just not as smart as i am.

i don’t tend to sugarcoat things.  right now, i’m writing to an audience.  when i write to get something out of my system, it can tend to get… intense.  if you can’t deal with intensity, then it sucks to be you.  which brings me to…

i’m confrontational.  back in my heyday, i was the fucking MAN.  i’ve settled down some since then, because it’s hard to turn it on and off, and wives and kids don’t really like it when it’s on ALL the time.  used to be, if you had a problem that you couldn’t deal with, you called me.  i was like a fucking cleaner.  now, it takes me a bit to work up to it, but when i do, it’s still pretty good.

you’re going to encounter the good things in my life.  you’re also going to encounter the bad things in my life.  and because my expectation and perception of where this blog will go, you may even encounter yourself in my blog.  you may be called out by name, you may not be.  and if you’re in my blog, it may be good, and it may not be.  some blogs are nice to read.  but if anyone out there has the perfect life, with no problems, and no arguments, and everything is leave it to beaver peachy, then you’re a fucking liar.  not that everyone has to SHARE their problems.  they don’t.  you want to keep that shit behind closed doors?  go ahead.  it’s your life.  but when asked if you have a perfect, problem-free life, the answer should either be “i’d like to keep my problems to myself, and not share them around”, or you should paint a meek smile on your face and keep your fucking mouth shut.  i ain’t right all the time, but i’m right this time. 

in my reality, on my blog, people have problems.  i have problems.  i have lots of them.  if i had a nickel for every problem that i had, i wouldn’t be writing this, cause there ain’t no plug ins on the beach in key largo.

some of my problems stem from me.  some of them don’t.  reality is perception, remember.  perceive what you will.  read what i write as the gospel, and you’ll find in ALL of my problems, that i’m the poor poor victim.  that’s true of listening to anyone.  just remember, perception is reality.  if you can perceive that there is another side to my bitching, then you see that reality.  if you can’t perceive that, then you’re left with the reality that i write.  perceive what you will.  will my writing always be biased?  why should i tell you?  if you’re susceptible to bias without verification, then i’ve got some property to sell you, too.  (remember, “i read it somewhere” isn’t proof of anything)

i’m not always going to hold your hand.  i WILL lead you astray.  i want you astray sometimes.  the best food is along the game trail.  and if i can get you off the game trail, then i have more food for myself.  sometimes, i will bring you back to the trail.  sometimes i’ll explain how or why i led you astray.  sometimes i won’t.  the reality is, i didn’t have to tell you that much.  these are things that any good reader should know already.  (are you a good reader?  can you read gooder?)

and now, i blame my wife for keeping me up so late.  if it weren’t for her overzealous introduction, i wouldn’t have felt the need to get into all of that.  (yes i would have – but, i wouldn’t have spell checked)

now, it’s close to the time i should be waking up, and i’m liable to wake the littlest of the clan when i shower, so, before it happens, mary, sorry, but it was your fault anyway, remember?

and finally, to whoever decides to read what i write, occasionally or as regularly as i write, welcome to my madness.  i’m bound to dissappoint, and likely to upset, but i’m fat enough to be cuddly, so why don’t you come on over here and give me a hug?  carl likes hugs, trust me, this is howitsdone.