Books & Boots

 I took the Missus to the hospital for a couple of tests yesterday - she got both ends scoped. Nothing serious turned up but the doctor took a couple of tissue samples to send out. Mostly preventative in nature from what we were told. We should be getting the results back fairly soon but nothing to lose any sleep over.

While waiting I finished Blue Highways. That's what has prompted the nostalgia posts of late. I need to see if I can get a copy of the Roads to Quoz to read. Since it was written much later than Blue Highways, it'll be interesting to see Least Heat Moon's take on the changes that have occurred over the years. 

My new hiking boots arrived right after we got home. Only one pair of the order, unfortunately. The insulated ones were sold out but the other pair are right nice boots, especially at the price. Coach Jen sent me some info on a 20 mile hike in one of the state parks that needs to be completed in 8 hours. She sounds pretty serious about doing it, so these new boots should be just the ticket. They're Sorel brand, so they should hold up. The Missus bought me a new pair of Sorel pacs a few years back, even though my other pair were still serviceable after something like 40 years. I always gave them a coat of mink oil at the start of every winter and I did have to re-sew the stitching in a couple of places but I'm sure I could have gotten another 5 years out of them. I might keep these new hiking boots just for hiking or maybe riding the motorcycle around town and get myself some everyday boots. If I do that, these will probably be a lifetime investment. I still need to get a pair of insulated ones. Imelda Marcos has got nothing on me!

Reflecting

 

I went to the college the other day to get a little advice from the boss and make some copies of the handouts and quiz for my class. The boss man said one of the other instructors was in the shop, so I went down there to see him. He was a student of mine and he's an all around swell guy - I always enjoy talking to him. As usually happens when two "shop" instructors get together, we commiserated a bit on what's going on with the school and with our students, and somehow Primitive Pete came up in the conversation. I remember seeing this when I was in 8th grade shop class. The one above is Part 1, there's a Part 2 and a safety film as I recall. 

This is one of my favorite Beach Boys songs. It came out in '64, about the time I was coming of age. My top three priorities about that time were motorcycles, cars and girls, in that order. As I got a little older, the order got mixed around but it was still those three. After graduation from high school, working, college and money came into the mix, but motorcycles, cars and girls were never too far out of the picture. Now the priorities are staying healthy, family, boxing, with motorcycles and cars still high on the list. 

I went to the boxing gym Saturday morning, walked 3 miles with a group from the gym on Sunday, and went to the health club yesterday. Need to stay hale and hearty in order to take care of the Missus and things around the shack, as well as maybe finishing a few of the projects. Might need to be in good shape for security reasons as well.

Marvin Gaye's masterpiece album from 1971. At that time, I wasn't too worried about the environment but more concerned about getting drafted. I was in the first lottery and came up with number 232. Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but my draft board went down to 190 something, so I was off the hook. I got married in March of that year and have been with the same women ever since. From a priority standpoint, I still like girls but not enough to chase after them and end up giving half of everything I own away. As Cuzzin Ricky tells it, an old man like me chasing after a young girl is like a dog chasing a semi. Even if I caught it, what would I do with it? 

Life's pretty damn good these days, in spite of all the bullshit going on in the country. Just wishing to be left alone to live out the rest of my life with a minimum of problems. Those knuckleheads in charge don't make it easy, though.

Save your money, work on your preps and hold on tight. It's going to get interesting.

 

End of the World

 

It might not be the end of the world as we know it, but things are definitely heating up at the Texas border. I'm certainly not an authority on the Constitution, but it seems to be pretty cut and dried Texas is well within their Constitutional rights to protect their border. My only question is why did it take 6 million people crossing the border before any action was taken? Actually, I've got another question. What comes next? There's probably quite a few Texans that wouldn't mind taking up arms - a well regulated militia and all that. This could get sporty real quick.

I went over to the high school the other day in search of one of my old handouts. Fortunately, he's a lot like me and doesn't throw things out that might be of use some day. Or 12 years later as it happens. The airplanes were made by his students as part of some contest. Next on the agenda is an SR71 Blackbird made out of aluminum. That's going to be a challenge for them.

The instructor called me a couple of weeks back about going to Indy for the Shell Mileage Contest, like I did in California a few years back. This time the team will be staying at the track, so I might get the chance to camp in the garage at IMS. I don't have any details yet. When he called he just wanted to know if he could count on me to help out. 

Menards had LED Shop Lights on sale for $5.99 each, so I bought two of them. One for the welding bench and one for over the lathe.

It does a fine job of illuminating the old South Bend. The way the cords hang, they tip the light out in my eyes a bit. I'm going to make a couple of reflectors to fasten to the front of them which will add enough weight to get them tilted towards the wall and reflect some of the light down and back. 3500 lumens of nice, white light.

Surly sent me a photo from a Mecum auction that was passed along to him from a friend of ours - a Ducati Sport similar to mine. It sold for $27K. I showed the Missus and she asked what I would do with $27 large - down payment on the XKE maybe? And not more than two minutes later, I came across this photo. I could hook up my little teardrop and head out on the blue highways in search of cafes with three calendars hanging on the wall. Wouldn't life be grand? 

Prep Time Again

 

If I move to Montana, I'm not going to grow a crop of dental floss, but I am going to learn how to yodel.

Updating my preps a little - three butane lighters for ten bucks. Push the little button on the side part-way down and the cap pops open, then click it and it ignites. Nice powerful flame that's adjustable for intensity which should provide an additional fire-starting source to the box of little waterproof matches I carry in my bug-out bag. While I was at it, I swapped out the protein and granola bars, along with fresh meds. 

The small backpack is pretty much full up now, but I'd like to have a small stove and some additional food. Keeping water in the truck during the winter months is problematic due to the freezing temperatures we get around here. Now that I'm commuting again, I should get in the habit of loading up a couple of bottles of water when I leave and bring them in when I get home. I'd like to have the truck equipped so I could live out of it or be on the move for a week if it ever came to that. I need to take a look at all of my gear and get myself a little better organized. I've probably got most everything I need, I just need to get it where it's more readily accessible and sorted depending on what the situation would call for.

While I was shopping, I bought myself another couple of clamps. I bought one like this a few years ago to try out. I was quite pleased with how it worked so I figured I'd get at least one more next time I was there. However, when I went back they weren't selling them anymore. I came across a promo for these on one of the blogs I read, so I ordered a pair while I was thinking about it and they were available. 

The crazy weather of frigid temps followed by freezing rain, followed by thick fog should be over with soon. The weather man is now calling for above average temps for at least a week, so time to get back out in the shop. Lots to do and it doesn't take long to heat up the shop when the outside temperatures are in the forties.

Keep On Smiling

 

I've been doing fairly well with the smiling, but sometimes it's just not easy. The exhaust fan in the bathroom no longer is functional. I can probably rig something up to make it work but I'd just as soon replace it. However, that would require me to go up in the attic and freeze my ass off. Since warm weather's a ways off, I should probably go ahead and see about patching it up. 

The toilet in that bathroom broke a few days later. The plastic gizmo that the float arm attaches to split. It will still flush but I want to replace it the toilet. I replaced the one in the other bathroom a couple of years back and I'd like to have another one like that one. Two different buttons for flushing. One uses one gallon per flush, the other uses 1.6. Conserves water and it's a few inches taller. 

I went out yesterday to salt down the steps and the driveway aprons leading to the garage. I made it about 10 feet and the bottom of the boot came apart. I've had these for quite a few years but they don't have a lot of miles on them. Nice insulated, waterproof hiking boot. My other day-to-day hikers are about due to be replaced as well. I need to take a trip to someplace that has a decent selection so I can try them on. No one stocks a 12-1/2. It's either a 12 or a 13. Depending on the make of the boot, sometimes I wear a 12, sometimes a 13. Maybe a trip to Bass Pro or a run to Indy to shop at REI and stop in at the Royal Enfield dealer and Trader Joe's. (And keeping with the theme, it took over 24 hours before the photo I sent came in from my camera to the e-mail account. In fact, I sent it three times and as I write this only two of them have come in.)

The night school class is turning out to be a lot more work than I had planned. I started working on the next module and it turns out not only is it a turd, but it caused my computer to lock up - appears to have been hacked. So instead of just being the answer man, I'm now going to be creating the course and delivering it. Fortunately, I still have much of the material I used when teaching at the high school and my previous stint at the college. Since the course is only 8 sessions in length, it will be more a matter of limiting the amount of material I need rather than trying to come up with enough to prepare the normal 16 sessions. If I didn't have a lot of experience preparing lessons and teaching the material, I'd be in a panic. As it is, it just means quite a bit more prep time than I was planning on. 

Like most everyone else, always swinging at curve balls - dealing with the weather, dealing with the house, dealing with the job. Nothing too tough, but time consuming and a PITA but I wouldn't want it any other way. 

I Am Done

The following came from Running 'Cause I Can't Fly 2 blog. This was posted there a while back, but he apparently thought it was worth posting again. I obviously agree or I wouldn't have posted it here. It's a little long but there are a lot of people feeling the same way now. 

"I Am Done"

by OHMama

"I was born at the end of Gen X and the beginning of the Millennial Generation, and grew up in a middle class town. Life was good. Our home was modest but birthdays and Christmas were always generous, we went on yearly vacations, had 2 cars, and there was enough money for me to take dance classes and art lessons and be in Girl Scouts.

My 1940s born Dad raised me to be patriotic and proud, to love the war bird airplanes of his era as much as he does, and to respect our flag and our country as a sacred thing. I grew up thinking that being an American was the greatest gift a person could have. I grew up thinking that our country was as strong, and honest and true as my Dad. I grew up thinking I was free.

As an adult, I have witnessed the world I grew up in fall to ruin. I have watched as our currency and our economy have been shamelessly corrupted beyond redemption. Since we’ve been married, my husband and I TWICE had our meager investment savings gutted by the market that we were told to invest in, now that pensions no longer exist and we working stiffs are on our own. We will be working until we die, because the Social Security we’ve been forced to pay into has also been robbed from under us.

I have watched as our elected officials enter Congress as ordinary folks and leaves as multi millionaires. I have watched my blue collar husband get up at an ungodly hour every day and come home with an aching back that we pray will hold out long enough to get him to old age in one piece. Outside of shoes, socks and underwear, almost everything my family wears was bought used. We’ve been on one vacation in 12 years.

We don’t have cell phones, or cable, or any sort of streaming services, just a landline and internet. We hardly ever eat out. Our house is 1400 square feet, no air conditioning. I cook from scratch and I can and I garden and I raise chickens for eggs and meat and I moonlight selling things on Etsy. Still it is barely enough to pay the bills that go up every year while service quality and the longevity of goods goes down. What I just described is the life you can live on 60K a year without going into debt.

At last calculation, when you consider all of the federal, state and local taxes plus registration and user fees, Medicare and SS payroll taxes, almost a third of what my family earns is stolen by the govt each year. What’s left doesn’t go far, just enough to cover the basics and save a little for when the wolf howls at the door.

I watched as my family’s health insurance was gutted and destroyed. Our private market insurance, which we had to have because my husband’s employer is too small to have a group plan, was made illegal. We were left with the option of either buying an Obamacare plan with unaffordable deductibles and insanely ridiculous out of pocket maxes, or paying the very gov’t that destroyed our healthcare a fine for not buying the gov’t mandated plan that we cannot afford. We now have short term insurance that isn’t really insurance at all, and I live in fear of one of us getting injured or sick with anything I can’t fix from the medicine cabinet.

I have watched as education, which was already sketchy when I was a kid, became an all out joke of wholly unmathematical math, gold stars for all, and self-loathing anti-Americanism. My family has taken an enormous financial hit as I stay home to home school our child. At least she’ll be able to do old-fashioned math well enough to see how much they are screwing her. A silver lining to every cloud, I guess.

I’ve sat by and held my tongue as I was called deplorable and a bitter clinger and told that I didn’t build that. I’ve been called a racist and a xenophobe and a chump and even an “ugly folk.” I’ve been told that I have privilege, and that I have inherent bias because of my skin color, and that my beloved husband and father are part of a horrible patriarchy. Not one goddamn bit of that is true, but if I dare say anything about it, it will be used as evidence of my racism and white fragility.

Raised to be a Republican, I held my nose and voted for Bush, the Texas-talking blue blood from Connecticut who lied us into 2 wars and gave us the unpatriotic Patriot Act. I voted for McCain, the sociopathic neocon songbird “hero” that torpedoed the attempt to kill the Obamacare that’s killing my family financially. I held it again and voted for Romney, the vulture capitalist skunk that masquerades as a Republican while slithering over to the Democrat camp as often as they’ll tolerate his oily, loathsome presence.

And I voted for Trump, who, if he did nothing else, at least gave a resounding Bronx cheer to the richly deserving smug hypocrites of DC. Thank you for that Mr. President, on behalf of all of us nobodies. God bless you for it.

And now I have watched as people who hate me and mine and call for our destruction blatantly and openly stole the election and then gaslighted us and told us that it was honest and fair. I am watching as the GOP does NOTHING about it. They’re probably relieved that upstart Trump is gone so they can get back to their real jobs of lining their pockets and running interference for their corporate masters. I am watching as the media, in a manner that would make Stalin blush, is silencing anyone who dares question the legitimacy of this farce they call democracy. I know, it’s a republic, but I am so tired of explaining that to people I might as well give in and join them in ignorance.

I will not vote again; they’ve made it abundantly clear that my voice doesn’t matter. Whatever irrational, suicidal lunacy the nanny states thinks is best is what I’ll get. What it decided I need is a geriatric pedophile who shouldn’t be charged with anything more rigorous than choosing between tapioca and rice pudding at the old folks home, and a casting couch skank who rails against racism while being a descendant of slave owners.

I’m free to dismember a baby in my womb and kill it because “my body my choice”, but God help me if I won’t cover my face with a germ laden Linus-worthy security blanket or refuse let them inject genetically altering chemicals into my body or my child’s. I can be doxed, fired, shunned and destroyed for daring to venture that there are only 2 genders as proven by DNA, but a disease with a 99+% survival rate for most humans is a deadly pandemic worth murdering an economy over. Because science. Idiocracy is real, and we are living it. Dr. Lexus would be an improvement over Fauci.

I am done. Don’t ask me to pledge to the flag, or salute the troops, or shoot fireworks on the 4th. It’s a sick, twisted, heartbreaking joke, this bloated, unrecognizable corpse of a republic that once was ours.

I am not alone. Not sure how things continue to function when millions of citizens no longer feel any loyalty to or from the society they live in.


I was raised to be a lady, and ladies don’t curse, but f**k these motherf**kers to hell and back for what they’ve done to me, and mine, and my country. All we Joe Blow Americans ever wanted was a little patch of land to raise a family, a job to pay the bills, and at least some illusion of freedom, and even that was too much for these human parasites. They want it all, mind, body and soul. Damn them. Damn them all."
                                                - https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Night School

My return to the classroom went rather well last evening. There were a couple of no-shows, and one guy who gave off a serious vibe as a slug, and one guy who's deaf and came in with an interpreter - who's a real crackerjack by the way. I covered all the intro stuff, then got down to the business at hand. I covered a lot of material quickly and then gave them time to pull the first module up on the computer. Some stayed, some left, but they all should be able to deal with the assignments on the computer at home now. 

I met the instructor for the class the grandson is taking. Seems like a nice guy, but I would expect nothing less. The weld shop has an excellent faculty, without exception. I hope the grandson flowers in the program. Like many of the students I had when teaching high school, he and school didn't get along all that well. But also like a lot of my high school students, they take to the trades like a duck to water. He likes welding, so he should be successful. 

Deep Freeze

 

That'll be me right there tonight in front of all the little scholars. We'll be talking line types, dimensioning, orthographic projection, welding symbols, and all the rest. Last I heard there are only 11 people in the class, so it should be relatively easy to make sure they all get a good understanding of the material. The class meets for only eight, three hour sessions, so can't dive too deep into print reading, but they should know enough to interpret simple prints by the time class is over.

Might not be a class tonight, however. The forecast is still looking below zero cold, so I'll find out in a bit if they close the school. The cold weather presented the perfect opportunity to defrost the freezer. I loaded everything into the back of my truck and parked in the garage - colder in there than it would be in the freezer. I'll load it all back in today after tossing some things out. 

Winter

 

And that's pretty much the size of it. Friday we had snow early, rain later. Wind gusts to go with it. Saturday morning things were iced up and the temperature started dropping. Forecast calling for single digits the next few days. 

I went out to put the tractor on the battery charger, just to keep it ready to go if need be. In order to do that I need to string an extension cord from the shop out to the barn. The driving rain and freezing temperatures managed to freeze up the deadbolt on the shop door. My key only went in the lock about 3/16", but I've got some de-icer stuff I sprayed in the lock and it did the job. However, even though the deadbolt was freed up, the doorknob was frozen as well. And when I tried to get back in the house, the knob on the storm door was froze up also. Ain't winter fun.

I spent about an hour at the boxing gym yesterday morning and split a little more wood later in the day. The temperature had dropped to 15 degrees at 4:00 o'clock and I had a nice accumulation of ice in the whiskers after being outside for an hour. Other than checking on the chickens, I'm not planning on leaving the house until Tuesday afternoon. That's when I'm back to the college for my first class. However, as of now, there's a real good chance school will be cancelled due to the extreme cold. Regardless, I'm not too concerned about it. At least there's no snow in the forecast. 

A Hard Rain's A Going To Fall

 

Looking for some rain, snow and single digit temperatures the next few days. According to the weatherman last I heard, I'm located on the boundary between snow and rain today and tomorrow, and then the bottom falls out of the temperature with the night-time temps in negative numbers at least until Tuesday. The snow and rain shouldn't be too severe, but I'm not a fan of the dangerously cold temperatures.

Nice afternoon yesterday so I split a couple of wheelbarrow loads of firewood in preparation for the sub-zero temperatures. It might be just a little on the green side yet. I cut the section of the oak that broke off into short lengths 7-8 months ago and the ends of the rounds showed shrinkage cracks. The rack where I keep the wood in the house has a fin tube behind it which should help dry it out a little more now that it's split into small pieces.

The splitting process made my shoulder and wrist ache last night. The frozen shoulder has got most of the range of motion back but it hasn't been put to the test before. The wrist was badly broken years ago. It normally doesn't give me any trouble but lumberjackin' is asking a lot. As the old saying goes, "If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself when I was young."

I went to the college the other day to get my line-up on the class I'll be teaching. The class was designed as an online class but it wasn't very successful. It looks like my job will be more of a facilitator than an instructor. The boss man said he's planning on sitting in, so if I run into trouble I'll have someone to bail my ass out. While there, he asked me if I'd be interested in being a "room monitor" two days a week for the high schoolers. I'm not, especially when I asked about the pay rate. Not only no, but hell no. I might end up teaching another class in the fall. Again, eight week class but two days a week rather than the one day a week for the one starting next week. As long as that one goes OK, I'll probably be willing to teach the next one.

Travelogue

 

I'm currently reading Blue Highways, I think for the third time. I read it shortly after it came out, probably 1983, and then about 10 years later, I'm guessing. It's rare I ever read a book more than once, but lately I've been thinking about finding an old-style diner. In the book the author rates diners and cafes by the number of calendars on the wall. I remember the big bank calendars that you used to see hanging on the walls in businesses. You don't see the calendars or "real" diners much anymore either. A lot of the small restaurants closed during covid, others driven out of business by the fast-food joints. I'm looking for the small-town place with a counter with stools and eggs any way you want them. My town has a couple of fast-food joints and a couple of restaurants, One of which is close to what I'm looking for, but it lacks the charm of the type of place I'm looking for. Meaning more like a truck stop.

In the book the author travels the blue highways, those colored blue on the old road maps, in a Ford van. Surly and I did some similar traveling in my old Ford van. And we checked the calendars hanging on the walls wherever we ate. We stopped at a gas station in Mississippi years ago at lunch time and asked the attendant for a place to eat. He told us about the local McDonalds but I told him we were looking for a plate lunch and then he recommended a local church. The church ladies set a good table. One of the best meals ever - including cobbler and sweet tea, of course. That's why you get off the interstate.  

In addition to Blue Highways, I've read River-Horse and PrairyEryth by the same author. All three are interesting travelogues. He has another one out, Roads to Quoz. I've got library cards from two counties, but neither system has the book. The county to the west of me has a copy but I don't have a card for there. I can get it from an interlibrary loan or buy a copy from Amazon for $5.00, however, it's 592 pages and I normally never read a book longer than 500 pages. Might make an exception for this one.

I'm having breakfast with Cuzzins Ric and TVI. The restaurant doesn't have any calendars on the wall, but there is a photo of Mother Teresa.

Dead Guys

 The motorsports world lost several big names recently: Gil de Ferran, Cale Yarborough, and Roland Leong. 

Gil de Feran was an accomplished Indy car racer and was only 56 when he passed. The cause of death was either a heart attack or a stroke. 

Cale Yarborough was a very successful NASCAR driver, who also made four Indy 500 starts as well as a run at Le Mans.

He's probably best known for his 1979 race at Daytona and the last lap dust-up with Donnie Allison. I remember watching that race on TV. He had a good run making it to 86. 

Roland Leong was the name primarily associated with the Hawaiian Top Fuel and Funny Cars. If you've been interested in drag racing at all, you knew Leong's cars were always going to be in the hunt.

RIP gentlemen. I got a lot of enjoyment watching your performance on the race tracks over the years.

And I'll close out with a little something from the King since it was his birthday yesterday. I've lived 30 years longer than he did - pretty proud of that fact. Hoping for at least 10 more. I'd still be a few short of Yarbrough, but if I watch the diet and continue to exercise I might make 86. However, God only knows.

Bike Boots

 

I went to a birthday party Friday night for one of Surly's friends who was also a neighbor of ours back when. Nice party with most of the people I knew there being motorcyclists. That being the case, the conversation naturally turned to cycling. Surly mentioned we should start getting together on a regular basis to get the BSA we inherited from my brother road worthy. Since my brother's vision for the bike was a cafe racer, I mentioned I'd like to have a pair of custom-made boots to go along with it.

I posted these Gasolina boots in 2011 and the price was $189.00. Current price is $399.00 - I should have bought them then, it would seem. I normally wear a pair of steel toe work boots when I ride. They're Thorogood boots that take a shine that I wore at the high school. Just fine for riding the Himalayan and the Sportster when I get it out on the road, but a cafe style BSA should have some cafe style boots. I normally don't give much thought to my appearance as far as my wardrobe is concerned. Safety and comfort are my primary concerns, but I wouldn't mind looking like one of the ton-up boys on the way to the Ace Cafe while astride the BSA sporting a pair of the Gasolinas. 

A sentimental alternative would be these jump boots from Thorogood. They're 2" taller than my Thorogood work boots and they're dressier. I used to buy combat boots from the Army/Navy Surplus store because they were a reasonable price and they looked nice for a shop teacher. I shined them at least once a week and with the steel toes, they were a good option working around high school kids who were always dropping steel plates. The Army/Navy store eventually stopped carrying them and sold the jungle boots as a replacement. Not the best for working in a welding shop.

I should probably spend more time working on the bikes than shopping for shoes like I'm Imelda Marcos, but I need to spend my Social Security raise on something.

Nothing Much Going On

I've been puttering around the last couple of days at the pro level. No point going into it any deeper because what I've been doing is just like the definition above - no one notices anyway.

I keep an exercise record on a calendar at the house. Before tossing out the calendar for 2023, I added up my totals. 385 miles on the bicycle, 56 miles walking/hiking, and 6-5K events. I don't keep track of my days at the gym, but they would have been down, as were the other events due to the frozen shoulder and infected toe. I thought I would have more than 56 miles of walking and hiking. Most all of those were with a group. If I had actually trained for the 5K events, there would have been a lot more mileage. I just showed up for all of those and my performance reflected that.

Coach Jen sent me info about a 20 mile hike in 8 hours at a state park in Indiana. I camped at that park way back when and it's a nice place but it's down by Cincinnati. With the hour time difference (thanks Mitch), we'd have to leave at 3:00 AM or maybe a little earlier to get there or get a hotel room the night before the event. I don't think Jen would be willing to camp and I'm sure my wife wouldn't want us to share a room. Might have to let that one go.

I do want to do some more hiking and if I'm going to do anymore 5K events, I need to train for them. My times now are about 45 minutes, they used to be more like 33 minutes. I don't need to try to get down to that pace again, but 40 minutes would be do-able. I really don't need to be competitive at anything anymore, I just need to stay fit.  

Poetic Verse

"Prelude"

"In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind

And shared the rugged lot

Of fellows rude and unrefined,

Frustrated and forgot;

And now alas! it is too late

My sorry ways to mend,

So sadly I accept my fate,

A Roughneck to the end.

Profanity is in my voice

And slag is in my rhyme,

For I have mucked with men who curse

And grovel in the grime;

My fingers were not formed, I fear,

To frame a pretty pen,

So please forgive me if I veer

From Virtue now and then.

For I would be the living voice,

Though raucous is its tone,

Of men who rarely may rejoice,

Yet barely ever moan:

The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands,

The lads of lowly worth,

The scallywags with scaley hands

Who weld the ends of earth."

- Robert Service

I saw this at Coyote Prime/Running 'Cause I Can't Fly, one of my daily reads. Link's in the sidebar. I'm thinking this poem would be a good one to read at my funeral.

I had to take the old girl to the doctor's yesterday - appointment at 11:00, we did lunch, and I went to the boxing club later. Pretty much shot the day in the ass but nothing new there. I'll hit the health club today or tomorrow and the boxing club on Saturday again. If I stay with it, I should be in pretty good shape come springtime.

One Down, 365 to Go

 

I watched the NHL Winter Classic yesterday, like I have done ever since they started having it. I haven't been watching any sports on TV unless the Missus has something on and I catch a bit of it while walking by. I'd never heard of the Seattle Kraken before, but it was them against the Vegas Golden Knights. It wasn't a bad hockey game. I spent most of the second period in the kitchen making dinner.

Traditional New Years day meal, Hoppin John and corn bread. I don't know if it really does bring good luck, but I'm a fan regardless. We were out of Jiffy corn bread mix, so I had to make a batch the old fashion way. Pretty tasty meal and done in time to watch the third period of the game.

Coach Jen and I talked boxing on the way home from the game Saturday night. It's time for us to get started on the training program to get a couple of guys ready for the Gloves. I met a guy at the boxing club Saturday morning who wants to fight in a master division tourney this summer. He's an old motorcycle guy like myself, so I'm going to help get him ready for that. The gym's been pretty busy, so I can give him some individual attention he wouldn't normally get. He's never fought before, so he's going to need some help and I'm planning on hitting the gym pretty hard until spring anyway. 

Felice Anno Nuovo 2024

 

Kennedy's Inaugural Address where he implores us to ask what we can do for our country. 

I've been asking myself that question as of late. My country definitely needs some help, but what can one man do that will make much of a difference at this late stage of the game. Vote? I've voted in every election since I came of age and yet, here we are just the same. 33 trillion in debt, involved in a couple of foreign wars, sending money we don't have all over the world, one in five children food insecure, people living paycheck to paycheck, and we are being invaded by thousands of military age men from all over the world on a daily basis. I wish I was more optimistic about the new year, but my paranoia still has a pretty firm grip on me.  

Regardless of what the future brings, keep your powder dry and best of luck to all of you in 2024.