What's Goin' On...

I’ve been away a while, I know… lots to say and no words to say it with, I suppose…

The weather has been just unbelievable lately… it’s exactly what I moved here for, and I’m so glad I’m finally really learning to make the best of it. The fact that I can leave the windows open all day and let the kitties enjoy the sounds of the birds, then come home and open the patio so they have that extra space and the additional entertainment of dogs being walked and whatever else goes on through the evening… it’s funny, I get home from work and they greet me as I walk in, but within about 60 seconds they’re lined up at the screen door waiting for me to open it. I had a couple of adventures to the mountains, although since my last post I’ve not been… I got a little gun-shy (no pun intended) after throwing more and more money into the Jeep… I’ve decided I need a bit of a break from that, so I went full-recluse for about the past month. I’ll be heading out again soon… blooming season for the saguaro is right around the corner, and I’ve got to go see the sights. I picked up a tent and a sleeping bag, and I plan on doing a 1-nighter from time to time just to get away from the air conditioner through the summer. The kitties will enjoy the time away from me…

Of course I didn’t move here planning to be single and living in a 1-bedroom apartment with four cats… but I have really learned to appreciate the life I live and the joy they bring me. I love the heat of the summer here, but I don’t want to have to close them in. It’s actually kind of depressing, knowing the season is coming where I’ll have to run the air once I get home, and then of course come about mid-June it’s like what winter is in Ohio, in reverse… my ears and nose don’t freeze, and I don’t have to scrape my windshield… but there’s no doubt it is hot, and air conditioning and swimming polls are where it’s at. Kitties don’t like swimming pools, so they get air conditioning. I might be found by the pool from time to time…

I’ve been busy, kinda, in my personal life, yet not busy at all. I know, it makes no sense… except inside my own head. I live a very busy, yet not really busy life… I do a lot for such a relative homebody, yet I do very little for someone whose mind is so active and who actually struggles sometimes to find the time just to relax. Being so devoutly single these past couple of years, I’ve learned it is kind of nice that I can do whatever I want whenever I want, or I can do nothing at all and nobody can tell me otherwise. It can be, therefore, extremely difficult to get motivated and maintain focus… yet there are times when I am so focused and on my game it makes me wonder how I got there. I’m entering one of those phases now… I’ve been known to suffer from that winter-depression syndrome thing, and even here where we see the sunshine almost every day in the wintertime it still drags me down when the temperatures dip down low and the sun sets early. Summertime is my focus time, for sure.

Anyway, the good news is that I’m back to exercising again, which is awesomely painful and devastatingly rewarding. As I write tonight my leg muscles are doing that burning, throbbing thing that happens after 15 miles on a mountain-bike… I’ve discovered that if I travel any direction from my humble little fur-infested abode I can find a trail or more that’ll get me some good dirt riding, and the tires on my bike are pretty decent for road riding, so I get a good combination of workouts. I am learning confidence on my bike again… when I moved here in 2001 I flipped my bike coming down a huge hill and spent a couple days in the ICU, had road rash all over my left shoulder, my hands and some of my face, and I ripped my left ear in half and almost lost the better part of it. I’m ever-thankful to the plastic surgeon that made me look halfway decent again, and I’ve learned that a helmet to save the noggin is much more important than the machismo of riding without. But the moral to this story is that I’m back in the saddle again, so to speak, and I’m loving it. I forgot how much I love riding.

I’ve been enjoying hockey season, although I wish my ‘Yotes were playing better. They’re playing with guts and determination even after three of their big name players were traded at the deadline, though, and they’re still in range of the playoffs. And anything can happen in the playoffs, as The L.A. Kings proved last year by being a number eight seed and rolling through everyone on their way to a Stanley Cup. And I am so incredibly happy baseball season is back… my Diamondbacks traded Justin Upton even though he will be a perennial MVP candidate, because his presence in the clubhouse was a distraction and he didn’t buy into “Gibby-Ball.” The changes are evident already, even if we’re only three games into the season. If you’re a baseball fan then you know Kirk Gibson was known for his gritty play and intense determination, and his coaching style is similar. He coaches his players to have the mentality that the team is more important than individual statistics, which didn’t work well with Upton. So Upton went to Atlanta and we got Marin Prado in return, and so far so good. Of course it’s a long season.

And of course I was thrilled to see Jimmie Johnson win the Daytona 500… the NASCAR season is getting into the grind, and in large part the ‘usual suspects’ are at the top of the points standings. Dale Jr. fans are thrilled because he is doing well… I don’t care too much one way or another if he does well or not, although I do think living in his father’s shadow has to be overwhelming. It would be good for the sport if he were to win a championship, they say… There was a horrific accident at the Fontana (California) race and Denny Hamlin will be out of his ride for quite a few weeks, but the racing leading up to that moment between he and Joey Logano was incredible, and hopefully a sign of what’s to come through the rest of the year. NASCAR has modified its car and in the process predicted better racing, and so far I’d say they got it right.

I’ve got all kinds of things to say about politics, but I’m not sure why I should bother. I mean after all, President Obama is our President for four more years, and that’s that, so we need to just accept it and let him rule… er.. lead… as he wishes. These days, though, he seems more concerned with getting Nancy Pelosi elected to the Speakership than with actually getting people to the table and solving our nation’s problems… seems he’s on a never-ending campaign, even though he just today said something about how we don’t need never-ending campaigns. We’ve got a Congressional Democrat trying to push gun legislation through even though she doesn’t understand that a magazine can be reloaded… I mean, if you’re going to rail on and on against something shouldn’t you at least know what the heck it is you’re so against? But not to worry; “60 Minutes” is getting ready to put on a special with some of the Newtown parents to tug at our heartstrings again, even though the fact is not one law being proposed would have stopped that tragedy from taking place. In fact, the ideas being put forward that might have helped are being scorned by President Obama and the media… God forbid a teacher in a school voluntarily gets trained in the use of a handgun and be allowed to provide for the protection of our children when there’s a Constitution to destroy. And can ANYONE please tell me where the heck all the .22 long rifle ammunition is? I know DHS says they’re not buying all our ammo, or maybe they are… all I know is that last year every Wal-Mart, Cabella’s and Sportsmen’s Warehouse in America had full shelves and right now there’s none to be found anywhere, including the specialty stores. Even 9mm and .40 caliber seems to be nearly impossible to find, so much so that Phoenix police officers are not being supplied by the city with practice ammo for their required range sessions. Oh, but Phoenix did just elect a radical left-winger (who ran as a moderate, just like our President did) who wants to allow transgendered people to use whatever bathroom they want, regardless of what body parts they have or have not had added or removed, so there’s that…

I do have to point out… there’s been this issue about some conservatives pointing out all the jet-setting and hob-knobbing with celebrities being done by the Obama family in the midst of a national fiscal crisis. Separate vacations, multiple spring break destinations for his daughters… I don’t mind the girls enjoying spring break, but Atlantis and then Idaho, with Secret Service protection being paid by We, The People doesn’t really seem like “shared sacrifice” when tens of millions are on welfare and unemployed… Anyway, I did mention some time ago that President Obama should pass an executive order cutting congressional salaries in half, and I thought he could really set a good example by giving up his entire salary, since he is independently wealthy thanks to the revenue generated by his book sales. Well, I have good news… in an effort to show solidarity with those being affected by sequestration President Obama gave up five percent of his annual salary. That’s five percent, as in 5%, as in $20,000 a year. So I guess he can now say he’s got some “skin in the game” and he’s doing his “fair share.” Meh.

And just to be fair and equal… if you didn’t hear about it, we’ve got some real idiots here in the Republican camp here in Arizona. Like many other states across America, Arizona's State Constitution does have an amendment protecting marriage as between one man and one woman, but we have no laws whatsoever regarding civil unions. So when a little town on the Mexican border called Bisbee decided to legalize civil unions for homosexuals within its city limits, our wonderful Republican legislators at the state level decided to rail on and on about how that city had broken laws and this and that, when actually all they did was create their own little law in their own little city for the sake of whatever reasons they had, and it doesn’t affect the rest of us Arizonans in the least and has no bearing on our state Constitution. But just like guns are the issue that the Democrats must rail against no matter what’s truly right or wrong, it seems anyone that calls themselves a Republican must instantly go into a tizzy if homosexuality is mentioned. And while I respect and tend to agree with those who have deeply held convictions against marriage being legalized for gays, I do believe that people are going to live together and have sex if that’s what they really want to do, and if we are truly a just and fair society they at least ought to be able to visit each other in the hospital and have other basic protections allowed to straight couples. Really, it would be nice if the government got out of the marriage business altogether and left that to churches… that way if a church supports gay couples they can get married in that church, if not then not, but meanwhile government can provide basic protections… kind of like how we really don’t need unions as much as we used to, because government sets standards of protection and all unions do is collect dues so they can funnel that money to the Democrat political machine. But I digress…

So I’ll try not to be away for such a long time, next time… or perhaps by then we will all be gone, because Kim Jong Un really did mean business when he said he was going to nuke Austin, Texas...

It was worth it

I am grateful for the advice my employer gave me. Soon after I bought my Jeep and told him I was starting to go off-road, he told me, “If you’ve never been there, and you’re not sure what is coming beyond what you can see, sometimes it is wise to stop and walk the hill, assessing the situation first before proceeding.” Be Prepared, as my Boy Scout days taught me… at an incredibly intense level where life and valuable property are at stake. So I did… walk the hill… and then I kind of slid back down, because it was so steep there was no walking back down. At the top of this hill was the end of the line… it is a hill that has been carved into a trail simply for the sake of climbing that hill. It is intense.

Just as the trail took a rather sharp bend to the right sat a huge boulder, with a smaller yet no less intimidating smaller boulder and a saguaro on the left. On the way up, rounding that bend took a cautious approach and careful maneuvering so as to not gouge the passenger side of my Grand Cherokee. I also needed to maintain sharp focus on the obstacles on the left; they could take out a lower front fender or worse… the saguaro and small boulder would no longer be there if I went too far, because they would be taken out by my Jeep as I slid or tumbled down the side of the hill. After the bend was the intense degree of incline, like nothing I’ve ever tried. So I carefully proceeded around the bend, engaged 4-Low, and let the power of the 5.2L V8 take control. I honestly was very impressed by the power of the engine… I’ve pushed it a few times on the freeway just to see what kind of power it had, but no road driving could have ever shown me what kind of torque I have at my disposal, should I ever need it.

Coming back down was just as intense… the larger boulder at the bend was now directly in front of me, and I had to maneuver to the right of it to make the bend. If I went too far right I had the smaller boulder and saguaro to contend with, plus the possibility of going over the edge I had to keep in mind. So I shifted into “Granny gear” low, plus kept the 4-Low engaged, and proceeded down… very carefully, with my foot just easing off the brake enough to allow my Jeep to move under its own weight and not much more.




That hill was so awesome… Planting my front wheel up on that rock as a sign of “I did it” felt amazing at the moment, and no picture I took could ever capture the feeling I had as I soaked in the sunshine and reveled in my accomplishment. Unfortunately I didn’t think to stop and set up the camera so I could record the event, but I definitely will go back… after I get my 4x4 linkage fixed.

I was calm enough to recognize my blessings in the heat of the moment. For the maturity and levelheadedness to gather myself in ways I might not have in the past, I am grateful. For the lessons in planning and preparedness to have a lot of water and a handful of Nutri-Grain bars with me, plus a firearm or three to make me feel safer than I might have otherwise, I thank my parents and The Boy Scouts.

I got extremely lucky; I had made it almost back out to the freeway, and within ten minutes I was lucky enough to have an Arizona State Highway Patrol officer notice me waving him down. I was still a bit panicked still when he arrived… yet I had enough composure to remember the first thing I needed to do was advise him I was armed. He thanked me for letting him know, and began to ask me a few questions about my situation. I told him what I really needed was help getting hold of AAA, because although I had cell service and had literally (while I was standing there broken down) just bought a membership (which I should have purchased a few weeks ago or more) I couldn’t find a number to contact them for a tow truck.

The officer not only got his dispatcher to call a tow truck for me, he hooked up a tow strap to my Jeep and pulled me the few hundred feet needed to get me up on the freeway so the tow truck driver could find me. He made sure I had plenty of water, and he was on his way. He validated every bit of “To Protect and Serve,” because in that moment, he provided both protection and service. To him I am grateful, as I am also grateful to the ADOT officer who stopped shortly thereafter to make sure I was okay. I told her I had plenty of water, a few snack bars, and an un-chambered weapon on the dash… from which I had removed the magazine as I saw approach, out of respect for her safety, but I promised her that magazine was going back in place once she pulled away. She nodded in approval and told me she was glad to hear I was so well prepared, and went on her way.

The tow truck driver was a nice enough guy… I suspect he knew how to fix my problem but that’s not his job, and he made a lot more money putting my Jeep on the back of his truck than he would have had he repaired my Jeep and got me back on the road himself. He smoked five cigarettes during the roughly hour-long drive from around Sunflower to my workplace, where I dropped off my Jeep so I could borrow the work truck for the evening. One of the nice things about working for a small private company is the unwritten benefits; in the case of my workplace, the boss owns a Ford Ranger he originally bought for his granddaughter, but she wanted something “more fuel efficient” so the Ranger became the shop truck and she got a brand new Hyundai Elantra. Bonus for us.

So I paid the man the $250 for the tow… yeah, I know, I should have purchased the AAA membership before I broke down, but at least now I have it for next time. But at least they covered the cost of getting my Jeep loaded onto the truck, plus the first five miles... and I was on my way home. Before I hit the road I sent a text to my coworker who knows a lot more than I about fixing cars, and he agreed to meet me Saturday morning.

Within fifteen minutes Saturday morning, I had learned that had I only known what to look for, my issue was something I could have repaired myself. When I pull the handle that takes me from 4-Hi to 4-Low, it moves an upper arm that is connected to a lower arm by a linkage… sometime along the way Friday while I was out having a great time, the bolt that connects the top arm had popped out, because the connection for the bottom arm had become loose and the entire assembly had become weak. The bolt popped when the linkage was in ‘Neutral’ and I had no gear engaged at all. My immediate fix would have been to crawl under my Jeep, determine which way the lower arm needed to be set so I was in 4-Hi, and set it in gear. Once in gear the linkage won’t disengage; I actually can leave it exactly as it is and drive it forever, but if I ever want to use 4-Low I will have to stop, crawl under my Jeep and move the lover arm, and then once I’m done I’d have to re-set it. of course this is not optimal, because there may come a time when I’m halfway up a hill, or stuck in some situation like mud or something, where I won’t want (or be able) to go through that process… so I need to fix the linkage, but it’ll be a relatively inexpensive fix and I’ll be good for another 100K miles or more. It’s one of the risks a person takes when he purchases a used vehicle with 100K miles on it… I’ve had a few repairs to make since I bought my Jeep a year ago, but now that I’ve dealt with the major stuff I should be pretty much in the clear. Over the next year I need to do brakes, and about a year from now I’ll do new tires… hopefully at the same time I’m adding a couple inches of lift, so I can get even more adventurous…

Once I had learned what the problem was and I had learned my options for permanent repair, I spent the morning getting myself more “trail ready” than I already was. I assembled my new jack, which I had purchased Friday before hitting the trails… I had stopped at Pep Boys and Harbor Freight and picked up a few important things. Road flares, a first-aid kit, a magnesium & flint fire-starting kit, a flashlight with a glass-breaking tip, a variety pack of hose clamps and some duct tape, and a hanging flashlight for under the hood or more… plus the jack and a jump-start box… I also sorted out my tools into a “home” toolbox and “road” toolbox… I am now much more ready for whatever may come my way.

So I have parts on order at the Chrysler dealership, and I hope to fix the linkage over the next few days. If I can’t fix it I’ll take my parts and Jeep to a shop… but if that turns out to be the case I won’t let it slow me down. Unless it rains, I know a few places I can go and I won’t need 4-Low, so I’ll be out there again this weekend or next... I might even carry a cooler and a few blankets, and spend a night under the stars…

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

Remembering Andrew Breitbart, and Preparing for Armageddon

A Rasmussen Reports poll taken during the 2012 Presidential election found that 59% of likely voters believed incumbent President Obama received more favorable coverage, while only 18% believed the media reporting favored his challenger Mitt Romney. A more recent poll by that same organization found that only 56% of the news reported by today’s media is trustworthy. If that were a grade, it would be failing. That same poll found that 42% of likely voters do not trust the news media generally, and 12% believe the news reported by the mainstream news media is not trustworthy, at all.

There was a time in America’s recent past when Bob Woodward was considered a hero in the business of journalism and by those who believe in speaking “Truth to Power.” By resisting the temptation to believe that our elected officials were pure of intent, exploring and exposing that which others considered unimportant, and standing tall in the face of the powerful and the elite, the investigative reporting of Woodward and his coworker Carl Bernstein exposed illegal activity within the Republican Party and Nixon Administration, and ultimately his work led to the downfall of one of America’s most storied and prominent politicians of his time. Richard Nixon had been a political powerhouse for decades, but the arrogance of him and those around him became a weakness that led to one of the most embarrassing moments in American political history.

Again today, Woodward is not allowing the powerful and elite to dictate to him the story he brings to the public, and for that he is being labeled a pariah by many of the same people who learned much of their trade by studying his story. For exposing a bit of arrogance within the Obama administration, Woodward has been called a “liar” and “irrelevant,” and it has even been said about him that, “There are people waiting for Woodward to die so they can dish stuff on him that they’re too afraid to say now.”

One year ago today another media “pariah” left this earth prematurely. Andrew Breitbart was not willing to allow the powerful and elite keep him from exposing the hypocrisy in politics and bias in the media. The “Happy Warrior” of conservatism, Breitbart was one of the few voices willing to speak up and discuss with honesty and clarity all he saw wrong with the Obama campaign of 2008 and subsequent Presidency, and the landslide “Tea Party” victory of the 2010 midterm elections was most certainly influenced by his hard work and dedication to principle.

While sometimes biased toward the Republican side of things to a fault, Breitbart definitely always erred on the side of what I would call “Original Intent.” Breitbart was always one of the staunchest allies of life from inception, and I have no doubt he would have scoffed at this ginned up “reproductive rights” campaign being perpetrated by the leftists and perpetuated by the media. I believe were he here today, Andrew Breitbart would be on the front lines and working hard to expose the fact that “reproductive rights” as defined by the Democrat Party is ultimately nothing more than an advocacy for abortion, and ultimately increases immorality in society by endorsing permissive sexual behavior with little to no consequence.

And as a father of four who believed in The Bill of Rights with great passion, Breitbart would have been one of the clearest voices speaking up for Americans’ right to bear arms while protecting the safety and security of our families.

I told myself I was going to keep it short today… I took the day off so I could enjoy some of the amazing weather we’re experiencing here in The Valley of The Sun. Forecast calls for clear skies and a high of 79° today, and there’s a lot of desert out there for me to go four-wheeling in. I think I’m gonna do some shooting while I’m out… last month I went to the gun show and bought myself a Remington 702 ‘Plinkster’ and a Taurus Millennium PT745, which is a short-barreled .45 caliber handgun with 6-round magazine. I picked them up as Birthday gifts to myself… I passed a background check and everything! While I was there, I picked up a couple of 25-round magazines for my rifle, and I plan to get a couple more the next time the gun show comes to town. Gotta get ‘em while we still can…

I wanted to add to my collection, which until then consisted only of an Arminius revolver with a 6” barrel. now I can say I truly support diversity… heh, heh…

And while I’m quite sure I can handle both these new weapons properly, practice makes perfect… plus I need to teach my new firearms not to go off killing people while I’m not around, since we all know guns kill people. That and I need to prepare for Armageddon, since President Obama is running around telling everyone that the world is going to end and it’s all the Republican Party’s fault.

So as we prepare for sequester, do not fret; although Congresswoman Maxine Waters claims sequester will cause us to lose 170 million jobs (someone needs to tell Maxine there are only about 150 million jobs held in America today), Nancy Pelosi has a plan:





But remember, it’s all the Republican Party’s fault.

Another one of my "Open Letters" to President Obama... And a Little Rant

Dear President Obama,

I have an idea to help you with the “sequester cuts” you’re hanging over the Republicans’ heads like a political piñata just waiting to explode all over the place. Mr. President, why don’t you pass an Executive Order that reduces the salaries of all Congressional representatives by fifty percent? That one act alone would provide the government with approximately $47 million (assuming all 535 of them make $175K annually), which should cover a fair portion of the money needed to secure the jobs of the first responders and other political pawns you’ve been trotting out as sacrificial lambs in your efforts to deride the opposition for your own expediency.

In fact, Mr. President, I believe you should publically ask each Congress-critter if they would be willing to sacrifice their entire salary for the duration of the current congress as a show of good faith. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Nancy Pelosi squirm when you put her under the spotlight and asked her to do the right thing for the good of the nation? Or would such a display take away her “dignity?”

I mean, I would understand it if a few of the Freshman members of The House didn’t want to give up their salary; you politicians live large there in Washington D.C., and it would be tough for a newbie to “keep up” with the rest of you and your gaudy lifestyle. And if there’s one thing we do know, it’s that it is very important to come to town and fit in… keep a low profile and act like everyone else. Just ask Texas Senator Ted Cruz what happens if you’re new in town and you don’t keep a low profile…

And while we’re at it, Mr. President, why don’t you, sir, give up your salary for the next four years? I mean I know you are the man of the people and you can relate to us all so well, with that multi-million dollar income you have from all those book sales and all, and how you lived in a $200K condo while you and Mrs. Obama went to Ivy League schools and all... but Mr. President, leadership means setting an example, true? And wasn’t it you who once (or more than once, I can’t remember) told us we are all going to have to sacrifice a little… have some “skin in the game…” or something….

By the way, sir… how was that weekend golfing? Did you hear, Mr. President, that your lovely wife’s separate but equally expensive vacation tied up airspace over the Aspen, Colorado area? and I hear your vacation only cost us just short of one million dollars this time, sir.

You know the last time I went on a million dollar vacation and golfed with a professional golfer on a private course, Mr. President? Yeah, try never.

I’m so sick of the crap coming out of Washington, D.C. these days. It’s not just President Obama, although we did elect him to lead, not to go around the country bashing the political opposition (in between golf outings and trips to Hawaii) in an effort to secure his party’s continued success for decades to come. House Majority Leader John Boehner made a statement today that hits the nail on the head, and it’s what most of us have known and have been saying for a long time; America doesn’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. If we’re going to cut out the loopholes in the tax code – as we should, that extra revenue should go to debt reduction, not to growing more government. We’ve already given liberals their “revenues” at the turn of the year, which didn’t affect most of us as much as it did the most wealthy, but I know my paycheck got about $50 lighter every two weeks, but the national debt continues to rise…

The era of big government never really ended… it just hid for a while, sort of. But let’s be honest – from the days of Woodrow Wilson creating the Federal Reserve and “progressive” tax code, to FDR expanding government exponentially because America was in the midst of the crisis of the Great Depression (and we know how progressives feel about a good crisis), to LBJ blowing up the budget by promising retirees health care funded by a Ponzi scheme called Medicare, and a more massive “safety net” called Medicaid that has now become a primary source of income for many, to George W. Bush expanding that Medicare promise to retirees with a drug program larger than even the original Medicare itself… and let’s not forget what we have to go through just to get on an airplane these days and all the scandalous stories surrounding DHS… oh, and now we have “free” healthcare on the way for everyone, or so it seems… free healthcare! Woohoo!

In large part today, we don’t have leadership in Washington; we have politicians. Specifically, we have one politician, and we have a lap-dog media that does his bidding at every turn. After griping this past weekend about the lack of access to the Commander-in-Chief as he golfed with Tiger Woods at a private club in Florida, when The President finally appeared, the first question asked was “Who won?”

It used to be that in America, holding political office at the national level was an act of service. Clearly, the fundamental transformation of America is working out exactly as planned.

Media Agenda Check

On a Mountain...

I’ve not been here for a while, I know. I’m sure you’ve probably been wondering where I have been, and why I haven’t had anything to say lately. After all, it’s not for lack of good material…

We learned a couple of weeks ago that in the eyes of Hillary Clinton, it didn’t make any difference that the Obama administration sent UN Ambassador Susan Rice out on five Sunday shows with a campaign of misinformation and that an amateur filmmaker was arrested and perpwalked as if he were the reason for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 21012. In having this reported to us, we learned from the mainstream media that Hillary is apparently some sort of superhero, because rather than report on the failings of her leadership as Secretary of State, they chose to document her illnesses, her visits to 112 nations, and discuss all the trials and tribulations she has been through since her entrance into the American political scene in the early 1990’s. oh, and we learned that she is considered the most powerful and popular woman in the world. How special for her, really.

This week I learned I have a “boss,” but he’s certainly not the one who offered me my gainful employment a number of years back. I also learned... and this came as quite a shock… that I have a new set of parents. Little did I know that the President and First Lady are “the Mom and Dad of the country,” and that when they speak, we should listen. And I must say… I am very proud of Chris Rock for this new understanding of American politics… after all, it couldn’t be about skin color that he said the things he said about George W. Bush, yet now has this greater respect for The Presidency… could it?

We learned that it is perfectly okay for some woman to go on CNN and discuss the idea that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is overweight, so much so that he might have a heart attack or a stroke, or even die in office. Yet at the same time, we learned from a writer at The Washington Post that anyone who dare mention the size of Michelle Obama’s certainly must be, well…. Raaaaacist.

But I digress…

And we’ve learned that while only three individuals were ever water boarded during the Bush administration, and we know that such activity definitely led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, Bush and waterboarding were evil. Yet is seems there’s no limit to the number of individuals being killed by the Obama administration’s drone program, and he actually is now pushing to be able to kill Americans who are “believed by top level administration officials” to be part of terrorist organizations. And in case we’ve all forgotten… as head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano would be considered a “top level administration official.” This is same Janet Napolitano and DHS who once had to apologize for labeling veterans returning from combat as vulnerable to recruitment by “right-wing extremists.”

So I guess the reason I haven’t had much to say about politics lately isn’t because not much is happening. I’d be more inclined to say that my personal life at a number of levels has taken precedence to my interest in politics. I mean, when there are reports out that as many as 7 million currently employed and insured individuals may lose their health insurance, that insurance and medical costs are skyrocketing, knowing that many of my friends and I predicted such things would happen… well, I for one am led to wonder why I even care what is going on in politics and what difference my voice makes anyway? Oh, and has anyone noticed the price of gasoline miraculously decreased in the weeks leading up to the election, yet now we’re right back up to all-time high prices, yet there’s no specific reason for the fall or the rise of these costs?

I’d be inclined to take the American media seriously, if only they’d send their trucks equipped with broadcast equipment to the South Side of Chicago and report on the tragedy of the deadly violence happening there on a daily basis… but that would open up a Pandora's Box of truths the media and liberals don’t want to deal with. We’d suddenly have to be honest about the breakdown of the family in America, specifically in the inner city and in Black neighborhoods. If we had to address that issue, then we might have to start looking at the institutionalization of government dependency that has been and continues to be rampant in these neighborhoods. Then we might have to address how it is now a viable option for women to have children out of wedlock, because they can receive more benefits by having more children, yet those children are brought into a life of dependence that teaches them no work ethic and no family values. And we might, if we delved deeply enough, learn how in some cases it is actually advantageous for individuals to avoid employment and use government programs as a means for sustenance.

But instead, the media sent all their trucks to beautiful suburban New Town, Connecticut, and worked up all the tear-jerking sob stories they could find in an effort to break our hearts… and in large part, it worked. There is no story more tragic than the death of so many innocent children, and to have it happen all at one time in such a horrific way is heart-wrenching. But being honest, what we had in New Town was a case of one mentally instable individual who gained illegal access to an otherwise perfectly legal firearm. He then went on an emotionally charged tirade with that and other weapons in hand, and to be sure the result was tragic. Yet the number of individuals killed by gang violence and other types of crime fueled by the desperation of those whose lives are being devastated by dependence on government far outweighs the numbers of those killed in mass murders by shooters with high capacity rifles, and… crickets.

So we’ve got a Republican coming into the position of Secretary of Defense who, by his own admission, doesn’t even understand American domestic policy, so that’s good… and the wealthiest member of our government is now Secretary of State… oh, those one-percenters…



In the meantime, and much more important… I got myself out of my apartment and took a hike yesterday, and it did me a world of good.

I spent about five hours climbing up and down the three peaks that make up the Lookout Mountain Preserve in north-central Phoenix, which is actually just a few minutes’ drive from my home. (The picture to the left is actually Estrella Mountain, to the southwest about 20 miles from where I was hiking).

I’ve lived here about four years now and I’ve never taken advantage of the fact that I have this wonderful sanctuary so close to home. I’ve hiked other local mountains, mind you… but I can’t count the number of times I’ve said to myself “I need to go climb those mountains,” and yesterday I finally did. It was invigorating, and took my mind and heart directly back to the last time I wrote.

I needed to take a baby step, and I did. Next I’ll take a little larger step… I’m thinking about maybe heading west to the White Tank Mountains, or down to South Mountain next weekend. I’ve done some hiking in The Superstitions, but there’s always more… plus there’s the Estrella Mountains, the San Tan Mountains, Thompson Peak and the McDowell Mountain range… and that’s all just here in The Valley of The Sun.

Anyway, as I was hiking yesterday I did as I always do when I get out into nature a little bit… I stopped a few times and just enjoyed the quiet. Even in the middle of the massive city, I found a few spots that were sheltered from the sight of houses and industry, and where I couldn’t hear anything but the wind blowing and the birds chirping. It was awesome.

And as I walked across the south face of the mountains I crossed paths with a woman… we were in the same vicinity only for a moment, but my encounter with her defined my day. We said hello, agreed that it was a beautiful day… and she said to me, “This is where God is.” I thought that was interesting, because while I know we can find Him in many different aspects of our lives, I have found the one specific place I can always go and have a good conversation with our Heavenly Father is on the top of a mountain.

And so I climbed. I got to the top… well, almost to the top… I didn’t quite feel comfortable with the last short stretch, but that’s just because I didn’t want to become one of those people we hear about on the local news that broke a leg and needed to be rescued from the side of the mountain. But I climbed to the top of the highest peak in the Lookout Mountain range... Then I made my way down, around the side and then up again, and across the preserve and back towards where I had parked my Jeep.

It’s interesting… I found out while I was hiking that there is an actual parking lot for the area, but I chose to park in a residential area at a point where there is access to the same area. The spot I parked is to the west of the mountains, so as I made my way back to the Jeep I saw the sun setting in the western sky. I don’t see too many sunsets, at least not from places that have such a wide open view as I had last night. I spent a good hour watching the sun descend behind the southern end of the White Tank Mountains…





About the same time I was getting ready to leave a young couple came walking up the path I was near, and the guy asked me, “aren’t you cold?” Indeed I was… it’s been rather chilly here – relatively, of course… but as the sun set and I had on just my shorts and a t-shirt, my hands were trembling a bit as I took my last few pictures. But it was well worth it…