Repost – Quietly Passing By

October 17, 2019November 2, 2019

Repost – My First NaNoWriMo Attempt Announcement

Est. Reading Time: 3 minutes

This is a reposting of the announcement of my first NaNoWriMo attempt in 2011, the year I started on the 15th of November and did not manage to pump out 50,000 words. It’s the first post I’ve come across that didn’t involve substantial ranting about the state of politics leading up to the reelection of he-who-will-not-be-named, the 44th president of the United States. I’ll refrain from reposting those, as they display, for all to read, a coarser and very sarcastic side of me that I am not particularly proud of. There was not much else in those posts aside from updates on my NaNoWriMo progress and promises of things that never came to pass, so I will let them slide into the digital dustbin.

Here goes…

Writing, Writing, Writing – originally posted November 21, 2011

I am 10,000 words into my book now… oh, I didn’t mention my book before?

I know, I haven’t mentioned it, sorry, but I had to open this post with something interesting. I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) event about halfway through November, which was kind of silly, since the goal of the event is for people to craft 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Yes, that is 1,667 words a day, a somewhat challenging goal for anyone who is not a professional writer or seasoned veteran of journaling (my spell-check tells me that is not a word, but I know some of you do it).

The idea is not so much to have a “finished” work by month’s end, but to have that pile of 50,000 words to mold and shape into something potentially publishable. The event is in its 13th year if I count correctly and has produced many published novels including Water for Elephants, a best-seller by Sara Gruen that was made into a movie. I am not so egotistical that I think that I will have a best seller (although that would be ultimately cool). I realize that probably 7,500 of those 10,000 words are either passively rendered, misspelled, repeated too often, or just bad prose, but I am plugging on in hopes that I can at least say I tried.

As I am a complete beginner at this and have no real idea what I am doing, the book I am writing is constantly morphing. I see where I am overly descriptive and bog down in details. So I edit and move and cut and modify so that the novel fits my new mental framework for it each day. If I don’t finish the manuscript it will be because I never quit editing or I get so tired of editing that I finally give up the goal of writing a book.

My attention span is not my strongest character attribute, so I hope that this project gives me a challenge and teaches me to stay with a task until it is complete. No sneak previews of my book right now. I will tell you the (working) title is “Opposition” and it is a suspense, thriller, action novel (not sure how much of each will survive the edits) set in present time. Maybe I will post a snippet of one of the chapters in December. That is pretty dangerous to do since it could all change before/if it gets published!

So wish me luck on my book if you don’t mind. I will need it.

October 16, 2019October 16, 2019

Repost – My Inaugural Post on the WordPress Platform

Est. Reading Time: 4 minutes

Here is another gem from the past – my first post after moving from Blogger to the WordPress platform. Like the previous repost, this one is a little raw, and after reading this post and my previous one, you may be done with my site, as my political leanings are spilled out all over everything. I urge you not to leave, but read some other posts, and have a dialogue with me through the comments. I won’t call you names as long as you reciprocate, and even if you do, I still won’t call you names, but I will post your comments in the Hall of Shame (that place where useless ad hominem attacks and silly name-calling go to be seen by everyone who checks out the site).

Inaugural Post Seems Random, But It Is An Allusion – originally posted April 4, 2013

Here I am!

I posted on my other blog over two weeks ago that I had a new blog site and that it would be more personal, close-to-my-heart topic oriented. I am covering a wide variety of topics in this post, but it really is not random, I promise.

First, I want to rant a little about the ongoing, immensely frustrating “ammo shortage”. I enjoy shooting, but now that I have come back around to focus on it, I can’t find ammo to shoot. It is ridiculous to go to my local Wal-Mart and not be able to find ammo of any kind except for my shotgun. I don’t have exotic firearms, just .22s, a .30-30 rifle, and a .45 1911 clone (and my shotgun). I should be able to get that ammo easily, and not pay through the nose for it. The last time I bought .22 ammo from a reputable reseller, I still spent $0.08 a round for it. The last box of .30-30 ammo I saw (at WalMart) worked out to a dollar a round.

I don’t think so.

I’ll just use my .22 rifle, which is a single-shot bolt-action, and shoot what I have very S-L-O-W-L-Y.

It is not that there is a shortage in actual supply, just that “entrepreneurs”are capitalizing on the fear that some gun owners have that they may not be able to buy ammo in the not so distant future. They snatch up large quantities of ammo and sell them on sites like GunBrokers.com for ridiculously inflated prices. As long as others continue to pay these prices, there will continue to be a “shortage”. Stop buying over-priced ammo!

Follow the advice offered in this YouTube video by “beelikestowatch” (Caution: In his passion he does use some coarse language)

Cool your heels and let the vultures eat their investments. Speaking of vultures…

While there are still highly flawed gun control bills floating around, both at the state level and the federal level, it looks as if we may scrape by this frenzy and return to some semblance of status quo – at least at the federal level. Some areas will be impacted by state legislation. Some states, namely Colorado,Connecticut, and New York along with others, have passed some nonsensical bills to limit magazine capacities, “strengthen” background checks (another illusion – more on that shortly), and introduce other mostly useless measures to improve gun control. Someone should tell them that “gun control” can only be improved at the range…

The next illusion I want to clear up is the so-called “generally supported” measure of improving background checks, now cloaked in the innocuous term “universal background checks”. These bill must be stopped. Think about it. The goal of these bills at the federal level is to make sure that criminal and “unfit” persons are not able to purchase guns, even in private transactions, much like it is in California now.

How is this accomplished?

In short, the government must first know about every gun currently owned. That means a database of guns, with all of the owner information included in those records. What happens after that? I can’t explain this any better than YouTube personality “nutnfancy”. Watch this video of his for an excellent description of the “universal background check” insanity.

Speaking of insane… would you believe that Our Dear Leader (POTUS), who has never had a budget to constrain him his entire presidency (good thing, too, as he would break it every time) and who has spent recklessly (to put it mildly) his entire tenure, has declared April “National Financial Capability Month”, with the stated goal of helping Americans learn how to live within a budget and make wise financial decisions.

You can’t make this stuff up!!!

Free political humor!!! You can read all about it here.

Enough said about that…

Finally, I want to end on a happy note (literally) by mentioning that if you are into smooth, well-mixed, ambient music, you should head over to Ambient Nights. While the site is in a bit of a transition, once you find the music (free forum registration is required) the journey through the site’s twists and turns is all worth it. Alex (the mixing genius behind Ambient Nights) works magic with the music there. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

(Sadly, it looks like the forum site is no longer accessible, but you can listen to this great music at MixCloud and as a bonus, it is easier to navigate than the forum site).

By the way, if you want more information from sources more “in the know” than me, check out “hickok45”, along with “nutnfancy” on YouTube and others that pop up in the recommendations after you watch one of their excellent videos. Get involved at the local level, contact your representatives and let them know what you believe, talk with other gun owners and keep pushing back against infringement on the Second Amendment.

Until I write again, stay safe, live life joyously, and always move forward (but not in that weird liberal “forward” way).

October 16, 2019October 16, 2019

Repost – A Prescient Political Rant From Way Back When

Est. Reading Time: 4 minutes

The following is a now seemingly VERY prescient political rant from way back in the second Obama administration (and when I was blogging on the Blogger platform). The biggest difference between what was happening then and what is happening now is that our current crop of 2020 presidential candidates are now at least being honest about their intentions. The post is a bit raw, as I was really still developing my “voice”, but I wanted to show it “as-is”, if for no other reason than to show how little things change. Have a read, then rejoin me for a brief comment on current events at the bottom.

I do not think it means what you think it means… (originally posted April 17, 2013)

The relentless dialog from the Obama administration about gun control (and yes, I am shamefully gleeful that the POTUS is upset about the background check amendment failing) has consistently used two words that I feel are improperly applied.

Their use reminds me of a line from the movie “The Princess Bride”, based on the book of the same name by William Goldman, where one of the characters keeps interjecting the word “inconceivable” and, after several instances of this misapplication of the word, another character takes him to task with “You keep using that word – I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The words the Obama administration keeps using is “common sense”. While to me, a member of this administration using those words is “inconceivable”, especially the president, whose lack of common sense has devastated morale in this country, not to mention the economy. The application of “common sense” as in “we need to pass these common sense laws to protect Americans from gun violence” is just another tactic used by this waste of an administration to marginalize those who actually do have common sense about gun control.

If they label their legislation as “common sense” then what happens to the person who opposes it? They are instantly labeled as not having common sense by the sheep of this country who believe everything Obama says. Because the president of the United States and his lackeys all parrot the same words “common sense, common sense” those of us who actually have it are left to fight the label instead of having a logical conversation about what really is “common sense”.

Is it common sense to think that the police will be at your house in time to protect you from home invaders? Is it common sense to think that police are available in an instant to keep someone from robbing and murdering you in the street?

I submit, it is not.

While I have the utmost respect for the police officers I know and for the police in general, I know they are only human and not superheroes. They cannot be everywhere at all times, leaving the average citizen to protect themselves from those that would do them harm. To only allow criminals and law enforcement officers to have guns is most definitely NOT common sense.

My idea of common sense is in tune with the sign I saw on the door of a sporting goods store the other day. It stated that anyone entering the store should realize that all staff were armed and, instead of threatening violence against those who might cause trouble, it simply said after that, “be smart”. Common sense dictates that the store I entered had an extremely low probability of being robbed, even though the merchandise within was extremely valuable. Common sense dictates that those entering the store be mindful that every staff member had the proper tool to stop any attempt to pilfer.

But what really bothers me is what this administration is hiding behind those two words they are misusing. The expanded background checks they want are the first step to gun registration and confiscation. As much as they argue that the law explicitly prohibits this, logic and “common sense” still lead to this conclusion. To enforce these expanded background checks, particularly the ones aimed at private sales, the enforcing agency must first know what affected property is in circulation.

How is that done? Registration.

The argument that the majority of sales at gun shows do not involve a background check is pure fiction. The vast majority of sales at gun shows are between private citizens and dealers – who run a background check on anyone buying a firearm. A small percentage of private sales occur at these shows, but this is not where criminals buy their guns. These transactions are overwhelmingly between law-abiding citizens who happen to meet at the venue.

So please ignore the shallow, misused words “common sense” when the latest diatribe by the POTUS or his mouthpieces is broadcast by the liberal media. The proposals being offered are so much the opposite.

What to think? We still hear about passing “common sense” gun laws from every 2020 Democrat candidate, but some double down with even more nonsense. Francis “Beto” O’Rourke has made it known that he is after your “assault rifles” because there’s no use for them away from the battlefield. But don’t worry, the government isn’t confiscating them, they are “buying them back”, not that they ever owned them to be able to “buy them back”.

The only silver lining on this particular cloud is that “buy-back Beto” is polling a few decimal places south of one percent.

Writing, writing, writing

Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

This was originally posted November 21st, 2011, the first year I attempted to write 50,000 words during National Novel Writing Month. It is here mainly for historical purposes. I started late and didn’t get 50,000 words done that year, but have every year I’ve tried since then.

I am 10,000 words into my book now, oh… I didn’t mention my book before? I know, I haven’t mentioned it, sorry, but I had to open this post with something interesting. I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) event about halfway through November, which was kind of silly, since the goal of the event is for people to craft 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Yes, that is 1,667 words a day, a somewhat challenging goal for anyone who is not a professional writer or seasoned veteran of journaling (my spell-check tells me that is not a word, but I know some of you do it). The idea is not so much to have a “finished” work by month’s end, but to have that pile of 50,000 words to mold and shape into something potentially publishable. The event is in its 13th year if I count correctly and has produced many published novels including Water for Elephants, a best-seller.

I am not so egotistical that I think that I will have a best seller (although that would be ultimately cool). I realize that probably 7,500 of those 10,000 words are either passively rendered, misspelled, repeated too often, or just bad prose, but I am plugging on in hopes that I can at least say I tried.

So, I am 10,000 words into my book/novel/whatever. I have pieces of several chapters, but no completed chapters. My goal for the end of the month, since there is no way I can achieve the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo is to have at least once chapter completed with all scenes in place. As I am a complete beginner at this and have no real idea what I am doing, the book I am writing is constantly morphing. I see where I am overly descriptive and bog down in details. So I edit and move and cut and modify so that the novel fits my new mental framework for it each day. If I don’t finish the manuscript it will be because I never quit editing or I get so tired of editing that I finally give up the goal of writing a book. My attention span is not my strongest character attribute, so I hope that this project gives me a challenge and teaches me to stay with a task until it is complete.

No sneak previews of my book right now. I will tell you the (working) title is “Opposition” and it is a suspense, thriller, action novel (not sure how much of each will survive the edits) set in present time. Maybe I will post a snippet of one of the chapters in December. That is pretty dangerous to do since it could all change before/if it gets published!

So wish me luck on my book if you don’t mind. I will need it.

February 11, 2019October 16, 2019

A Vacation (from vacation), please!

Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

This was originally posted on May 26th, 2012. I actually changed the title (adding an “A” at the beginning), but nothing else. I repost it only to place it back onto the Internet…there’s no lesson to learn, soapbox to get on, or hidden meaning. Just a touch of humor.

Well, I am a fan of the saying that “you need a vacation from your vacation”. My family and I had a great week at the beach in Florida, but the drive home was enough to tip my sanity scale towards “totally insane”.

Checkout time was 1PM, and we actually left the campsite, everything packed and camper in tow around 12:45PM. As we were approaching the gate of the state park where we had camped, our son reminded us that we had not purchased any souvenirs of our trip, so we turned around to go back to the gift shop at the other end of the park. Driving from the gate of the park to the gift shop takes about fifteen minutes, slowly winding down a road canopied by overhanging trees just dripping with Spanish moss. Beautiful, but seemingly endless.

After we purchased souvenirs we realized had been at the beach for a week and not eaten at a seafood restaurant, so we decided to try and find one of the many we had seen. We apparently imagined one of them, because we drove several miles in “the wrong direction” to find it, but could not. As we were attempting to possibly try another one that did exist, we got stuck in the sand and it took the combined efforts of several kind and VERY helpful people to get us out.

Once out, we decided that we were done with sand for a while and found a fast food restaurant that was completely surrounded with pavement at which to enjoy lunch. We had left the campground at 12:45; it was now sometime between 3PM and 4PM. So we headed north this time to try to make it home. Around 6PM, we had to stop to replace a tire on the camper that had completely failed on only its second trip. The other tire was within minutes of failing also so we stopped at a Wal-Mart to buy a replacement. Once we had done that it was after 7PM, and we had over five hours of driving left.

We finally pulled into our driveway just before 1AM and I was tempted to kiss the nasty blacktop of the driveway, but instead I simply thanked my Lord that he had gotten us and our stuff home safely. We grabbed essential items from the van, went in to take a shower and then fell into bed. I had driven for twelve hours, minus the hour or more getting unstuck from the sand, and the hour and a half spent replacing and buying new tires for the camper.

There were many memorable and exciting times during our trip, but right now the fog of insanity caused by the drive home obscures them. Once I remember them I will write them up here – complete with pictures.

For now, I need a vacation (from my vacation)!!!