Beat Up, Bruised, and Battered

At 63 years old, you’d think I would have learned a lesson or two by now, but no I haven’t. I have managed yet again to add another injury to my growing list of them, and did while being alone. I have ridden my bicycle off a cliff and broke my collar bone, tripped on a sidewalk crack while running at a very fast pace and sustained multiple bruised ribs and a chest contusion, fallen down my garage stairs on my ass, etc! The latest solo crash and burn happened a few days ago while loading the truck for our annual camping trip with our friends, the Kellys. I had just started the chore with only one bike being loaded so far. The truck tailgate is a bit high to climb up and down for a fast approaching senior citizen, so I use a stepladder near the end of it to assist myself getting in and out. After getting the bike situated in the front of the truck bed, I prepared to exit by crawling to the tailgate, standing up on the gate, and taking a step down to the stepladder. I either missed it altogether or my foot slipped off the step and I fell from a standing position right onto the stepladder handle taking the hit right to my sternum. Not remembering how, but I ended up over the ladder and onto the driveway pavement with a gash on my ankle, and a scuffed up knee. I immediately jumped to my feet dazed, confused and the breath knocked out of me. As I mentioned before, Debbie was not home and I was too fuzzy to even know where my phone was, so I just stumbled around the driveway trying to catch my breath and realizing I couldn’t even see straight. There for a haunting moment, I thought I had done some serious damage to myself and was on the verge of passing out and became a bit scared for my own mortality. I managed to weave my way across the street to my neighbors house just to establish human contact in case I went down and became unconscious. To my shock and horror there was a note on their door posting they both had COVID…..Lord help me now!!! Their dog started barking and they saw me through the door window. I managed to get them to the door where the called another neighbor, a former nurse, to come over and help me!

The Culprit

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She arrived a few minutes later and escorted me back to my house. After checking my pupils and pulse rate, she suggested I head to the ER to get checked out and would even drive me. I refused thinking I would inevitably able to shake it off, so she demanded I go in and rest awhile. I went in and got a call off to Debbie and told her the story and she started on her way back home. At that moment, she was about an hour and a half away. I did as I intended and was going to just shake it off and possibly continue to load the truck. It did not take long to realize I needed to go to the ER. I called Debbie again and told here I was driving myself to the hospital and stayed on the phone with her until I arrived. Later, much later she also got to the hospital. It was to be nine hours later when we finally left!!! They took X-Rays, EKG, blood work, and a CAT scan. Luckily I walked away only with a severely bruised sternum, miscellaneous cuts and abrasions, my left shoulder was injured but don’t know the extent. Miraculously, no breaks or fractures were sustained. My shoulder has been bothering me for months from lifting in the gym and every time I sustain an injury, it gets exasperated. In the following days other injuries have risen in the aftermath: swollen left pectoral muscle and tricep, pain in my left bicep, and my shoulder is in constant pain. Now it seems it will be a long recovery period and we had no choice but to cancel our camping trip! I am left with being unable to twist, lift anything, unable to sleep flat, do anything strenuous around the house. Right now I am sleeping propped up and have just been able to get in and out of bed myself and put my shirt on. Debbie has been an angel through all this and I am so thankful to have her. I cannot imagine being alone through this injury as I have been in the past. It’s not fun being a careless idiot!!!

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What A Mess!!

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Karma Always Comes And It’s A Real Bitch

Mass Psychosis

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with their illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusion is always their victim. – Gustav Le Bon

It is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. – Carl Jung

It is not for nothing that our age cries out for the redeemer personality for the one who can emancipate himself from the grip of the collective psychosis and save at least his own soul who lights a beacon of hope for others, proclaiming that there is at least one man who has succeeded in extricating himself from the fatal identity with the group psyche. – Carl Jung

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. – Thomas Paine

 

Sorry Pelosi and crew – we aren’t buying your sudden “support” for police officers

The following editorial is written by a retired Chief of Police and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today

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An Open Letter to Democrats:

Sorry, Democrats. You’re wasting your time and police officers are not buying it. We can see through your transparent, politically motivated sudden embrace of police officers. Simply put, we know exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Nice try.

You see, we have had our eyes open for years. We watched and listened when your messiah, Barack Obama jumped on the Cambridge Police Department, saying that they “acted stupidly” in their response to a possible burglary involving a black college professor. Your “beer summit” meant nothing.

We had our eyes open when Michael Brown, a two-bit street thug robbed a convenience store, beat the owner and then attempted to disarm Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson, resulting in getting himself killed.

We have seen Brown elevated by your party to the level of a “victim of systemic police racism.,” when the events that led to his death were of his own doing.

Police officers saw a politically ambitious district attorney in Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby prosecute six of our brother and sister officers for the death of Freddy Gray, a clearly politically motivated witch hunt, as evidenced by Mosby’s self-serving press conference announcing the arrests.

Thankfully all six had their cases dismissed.

Over the years, we have seen Democrats demonize police, accusing officers of leaving their husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, mom and dad in the morning with the intention of hunting down black men and killing them.

We saw your vice president, Kamala Harris, who represented the State of California refuse to acknowledge the shooting death of our brother, Cpl. Ronil Singh who was killed by an illegal alien in HER state.

Now, suddenly when it is politically expedient, police are held up as heroes. Why? Because you had YOUR ass saved by police officers on January 6.

It wasn’t a shop owner in Minneapolis, or people dining outside in a restaurant in Pittsburgh, or an innocent 90 year old walking down the streets in New York City who were endangered.

It was YOU.

Now, after months, no years of excoriating the police, you expect us to buy your bullshit? Sorry, not happening.

The most telling example of your abject hypocrisy started on Memorial Day last year in Minneapolis. The images of Off. Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd could have been a seminal moment. I guarantee that 99.9% of police officers who viewed that video were as offended by it as you were.

Yet, what came out of that? When our political leaders could have “lowered the temperature” of people who were rightfully upset by what happened, politicians…primarily Democrats…took gasoline and added it to the fire.

In Minneapolis, millions of dollars of damage was done to property. Numerous people were injured or killed. Hundreds of police officers were injured, some seriously. Yet, what did you, the Democrats do?

People such as our now vice president Kamala Harris encouraged people to donate to the Minneapolis Freedom Fund to bail out those who were arrested, many for committing serious crimes. Members of the Biden for President team also contributed.

As spring turned to summer, violent riots continued across the country. Hundreds if not thousands of police officers were injured, struck with frozen water bottles, shot at with ball bearings and bullets, hit with cinder blocks and bricks, had commercial-grade fireworks shot at them.

Where were the Democrats then, defending the police you now accuse Republicans and Trump supporters of attacking? Nowhere to be found.

Where were Democrats when retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn, who served his city honorably for decades, was brutally gunned down by cowardly thugs? Nowhere to be found. Because it didn’t fit your agenda and besides, all of you were down with the revolution.

Democrats call what happened at the Capitol on January 6 an insurrection…no an “armed” insurrection. Yet only one person was shot, and that was an unarmed woman shot (allegedly) by a US Capitol police officer.

However, when violent protests broke out adjacent to the White House on May 30, such a violent protest that former President Trump and others were removed to the basement bunker for fear the perimeter would be breached, Democrats downplayed the incident, despite the fact that numerous Secret Service agents were injured, some seriously. If ever there was an “insurrection” attempt, this was it.

Where was your concern for law enforcement back then? That’s right, it wasn’t YOU being threatened, it was “only” the President of the United States.

When it was suggested that the National Guard be mobilized to secure the area around the White House, President Trump was accused of wanting to attack American citizens using the military. When it was suggested that he implement the Insurrection Act when Democrats refused to deal with violent riots, Democrats once again brought up impeachment, because of your endless obsession.

You were “mortified” that the president considered using the Act, despite the fact it has been used numerous times by presidents over the years, including by President George H. W. Bush in 1992 to deal with the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. There was absolutely precedent for doing so. Yet you acted like Trump was some crazed madman for tying to protect our country.

Yet, since January 6, Washington DC has taken on the appearance of Mogadishu or Beirut, with checkpoints, fences, and armed National Guard troops. And Democrats have no problem with that. If this had been Trump who turned Washington, DC into an armed camp, the articles of impeachment would already be filed.

In fact, Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the Pentagon for “crew-manned machine guns” in the city, according to the former Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, Ken Cuccinelli. That’s because SHE felt threatened. Read that again. Pelosi wanted machine guns deployed in our capital city. For the purpose of gunning down civilians. That is a chilling abuse of power and it is contemptable.

And what of the contempt that police officers were held in after the George Floyd incident? Pelosi for one referred to police officers as “stormtroopers.”

“The use of stormtroopers under the guise of law and order is a tactic that is not appropriate to our country in any way,” Pelosi said back in July. 

This was in response to federal law enforcement assets being used to protect the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, while also accusing “unidentified” officers of “kidnapping” protesters.

The number three leader in Congress, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) compared federal law enforcement officers to “Nazi Germany Gestapo.”

“That kind of activity is the activity of a police state, and this present and this attorney general seems to be doing everything they possibly can to impose Gestapo activities in local communities…”

Now, let’s get to the move by you Democrats to defund the police. This is actually part of the Biden platform, and is being pushed by the far-left wing of your party, specifically Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Pressley, Omar and Tlaib, among many others. This is also something that is being pushed by Black Lives Matter, the same group responsible for the assault on thousands of police officers you now claim to support.

I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that you won’t be advocating any time soon for defunding the Capitol police. Because once again, you’re fine with jeopardizing everyone else’s safety, as long as you’re protected. Basically “hooray for me and screw you!”

Yet now we are supposed to buy that you support the police, and it is Republicans that do not?

The incident at the Capitol was a very small percentage out of all the patriots who went to Washington, DC that day, to do exactly as President Trump suggested…go to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” to have their voices heard.

The actions of two or three hundred knuckleheads do not represent the estimated 100,000 or more in Washington on Jan. 6. Republicans overwhelmingly support the police. The actions of a few do not represent the whole, as you like to tell us about so-called “peaceful” protests.

Probably the most disgusting act of hypocrisy and opportunism was the way the death of Officer Brian Sicknick was handled. Officer Sicknick, who (according to CNN) died of unknown causes on January 6 was not honored at the Capitol rotunda until days before February 8, the first day of the second impeachment sham.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know exactly why weeks went by before Brian Sicknick was honored at the Capitol. This was clearly done for your political gain and for optics. Nearly every cop in America knows this. And it’s a disgusting sham.

Having members of Congress shedding crocodile tears for Brian Sicknick was obscene, especially when some of these same people eviscerated police officers for months, if not years. This is about the impeachment of Donald Trump. Nothing less.

Perhaps the biggest phony was Kamala Harris, showing up to “pay her respects” when months ago she was helping bail out people who injured and maimed men and women just like Brian Sicknick. Abject hypocrisy.

Democrats in Congress, you may be fooling your base, or the clowns on CNN like Fredo Cuomo and Don Lemon, or the reprobates on MSNBC like Joe and Mika, but those of us in law enforcement, both active and retired are not buying it.

There are two boogeymen for Democrats…police and former President Trump. However, since you are obsessed with President Trump and he lives 24/7 in your heads, police…at least in this case…are a convenient weapon against him due to what happened at the Capitol.

This is about your obsession with Trump, nothing more…nothing less. You’re using the death of Off. Sicknick and the injuries to other officers as a pawn against Trump in your obsessive crusade against him.

If this wasn’t a way to get to him, and if you didn’t believe you were going to somehow get harmed on January 6, you couldn’t care less about the dead and injured officers. You have shown that time and again over the years, when scores of police officers are killed every year, with hundreds more seriously injured and we hear NOTHING from you.

Police officers in this country knows who has our backs and who does not, and clearly the opportunistic, anti-law enforcement numb nuts in the Democratic party are not them.

You can take your pandering and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

Nope, Didn’t Watch

Let me start by saying, I am a diehard football fan. My team of choice is the Green Bay Packers. It is really the only professional sport I follow and wait with rabid anticipation. For decades I have loved the season of Fall, the end of the summer heat, the freshness in the air of falling leaves and morning crispness, and the return of my most loved sport. This last season was different for me, I didn’t watch one game…..not one. It pained me to know that the Packers had made it to the NFC Championship gam, but I stuck to my guns and avoided the TV on those game days.

For me, it is a matter of principle and refusing to be a member of the “woke sheep” stumbling around the country these days. I also come from a law enforcement family and respect the thin blue line. I do not condemn police as a whole for the few bad apples that are in the bunch, but I will not support organizations that preach to us about oppression and unfairness of POC when the majority of their players are those of whom are oppressed while making millions in a country which afforded them the opportunity to do so and then disrespecting the symbols and traditions therein. I also will not support these organizations who in turn support groups promoting violence and making that okay. I don’t need players, coaches, league commissioners telling me how to act and what I should think. You are there to play the sport and nothing else. Keep your politics, opinions, and wokeness off the playing field because we don’t really care what you think. Do it off the field and on your own time and dime. When you can do that, I will return as a spectator, not before and I’m sure that you really do not care either!

Settling Into Retirement

It has been over a year since Debbie retired and just over three months for me! We moved to our home and have settled into the luxury of not having to wonder what day it is or time. With COVID still hanging in the shadows our travel options are limited right now. We are perfectly situated to hop over into Victoria, BC but can’t because the borders are closed and the ferry is mothballed right now. We have made a few trips back to the old stomping grounds of Snoqualmie and Bellevue, but with the current lawlessness going on in Seattle, that destination will not be on our radar anytime soon. Luckily, restaurants have opened up in a limited way, we have hit some golf balls with friends, taken drives to surrounding areas to explore, taken many walks and bike rides, worked in the massive yard that needs attending, and as you can see below, done a bit of upgrading to the house. What was once an upstairs deck was enclosed and turned into a sunroom. We decided to repaint the ceiling and walls, add some furniture and blinds and turned it into a TV room. We think it turned out pretty good!

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  It Begins

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  Testing Colors

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  Wall is Done

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  New Blinds

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Debbie’s CrossFit attendance had also become a COVID casualty when the state went on lock down and gyms had to close. She was able to borrow and began purchasing some equipment and started working out in the garage and in the parking lot of the gym with others, maintaining a safe distance of course. Once we moved, she began buying even more equipment until finally one hell of a gym was built in our garage. Now she can do a WOD right at home. My gym has finally opened up and I go back and forth depending on what I want to do that day. Debbie, being the social little person that she is, still wants to join a gym to workout with others at least three days a week. Soon she will be flexing her muscles at Storm King Athletic Club on a tryout basis. We do have a two week vacation coming, so she will fully join once we return from that!

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Second Room Done

We now have an office!!!! After getting some new bedroom furniture for the master bedroom, we next set our sights on a secondary bedroom to upgrade. We wanted an office but still be able to have a sleeping area for guests. In the condo we are currently renting, we have that kind of set up and took the design and embellished it for our house! It turned out great and we used Wall Beds Northwest to build it and install it! We are very happy with the finished product and now all we need to do is finally move here and get to use it full time! That day is coming soon!!

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We went from this……yellow walls!

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To this….walls painted grey!

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And finally…….the completed office/bedroom!!! Yippee!!!

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First Of Many Upgrades

THIS MORNING

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THIS AFTERNOON

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The process of moving here and living here full time has begun. Up until now, our retirement home has been basically a weekend get away once or twice a month. We have moved furniture from our old Crestview home up here to make it livable and comfortable, but never really made it our own! Today marks the beginning of just that! We had our new bedroom set delivered and built! The pictures don’t really do it justice, but believe me, it looks beautiful. Of course there is more decorating to be done, but the bones are done! Soon another room will be done! Stay tuned!

Retirement Phase II Completed

It is now final, phase II is in the books! What started in October, has now come to fruition and it hasn’t been easy. We received our keys to our Sequim house just days before Christmas and the long process of moving into two separate residences began New Year’s Eve weekend hauling our trailer and the first load up to the house. The trailer was to be used as a place to sleep since we didn’t have any furniture up there yet! While we were there, we experienced a nice winter storm that dropped a nice deep blanket of snow that (a)caused us to have to leave the trailer there(we needed to bring it back for a repair), and (b)got our truck stuck in it coming up the driveway. You can watch a video I took of it as it began here. It was much deeper in the morning. We eventually dug the truck out. We made the best out of what we had in the trailer, borrowing plates, cups, pots and pans, camping chairs we set up in the living room, New Year’s Eve dinner on a card table and folding chairs, etc. It was an adventure to say the least! Thus began a six month ordeal that was exhausting and weekend consuming…..sorry friends and family.

The next pieces of the puzzle was to get our Snoqualmie house listed and find a place to call a temporary home while the both of us still have to work. Now we have been up here on Snoqualmie Ridge in the same house for 13 years. We thought about where we wanted to hang for the next few years until we can go up to the house full-time, knew we had to rent, realized that the rents here are crazy high, but since we had everything we were familiar with right here, we decided to stay. The hunt was on for a rental and with amazing luck, we stumbled onto a condominium that was just around the corner, and was roomy and the perfect fit for us. More good fortune was added when we discovered Debbie knew the owners. She just so happens to work out with both of them at her Crossfit gym. The deal was done, leased signed, and they allowed us early access to the place and we began the weekly slog of slowly emptying the Crestview house. The hardest part was deciphering was to be done with the 13 year accumulation of material goods. Some would go to the condo, some would go to Sequim, some would be sold/given away, but in the mean time we still had to live in and keep the Crestview house staged for sale. It was an arduous task and seemed to last forever.

Bye Bye Crestview House

The house got listed, weekend showings were done, we continued dragging stuff to the condo every weekend. A couple of times we would load up the back of the truck and head to Sequim with a load for the house there and enjoy a weekend of continued “glamping”. Finally an offer was made and accepted, appraisals and inspections done, and the real gutting began. It started bringing a feeling of melancholy along with the excitement as our beautiful home of thirteen years began looking like a shell. I always loved this house. It was our home of many memories and surrounded by great neighbors and would soon be empty of us. Two separate moves in as many of days were done with a great local mover to handle the heavy stuff and it was well worth the money! They did an excellent job and we had no damage to anything whatsoever! The only hitch was when we unloaded in Sequim and it was discovered my beloved desk for my office would not fit through any of the doors to the rooms I wanted it in. It sits in the garage there for sale….another story! We would also say what a pleasure it was working with our realtor, Bob Mathias, who is a good friend and Crestview neighbor. He did an excellent job and if you are looking to buy or sell on the eastside, he’s your man!

So after six long hard months of planning, strategizing, packing and carrying, we are done. Our plan worked flawlessly. We are mortgage free, our retirement location secured, and we have a great place to call a temporary home just blocks from our old house. All that is left for the final phase is to put in a few more years working for the man and stay healthy. Although we will miss our former home, we have a great new house and new adventure and also a great view from our rental. I say we had a lot of good luck in this, but we also acknowledge that we are truly blessed. Maybe it’s time to go back to church!

Condo View

Retirement Location Solidifies………

…….and our heads are spinning! It all began with another exploratory vacation. Recent vacations have been either camping with our friends in cool National Parks or going to locations that are on our radar for retirement while also having fun. We have looked at Flagstaff(Deb didn’t like), Sedona(beautiful but pricey real estate), Prescott(stumbled upon and really liked), but in the end we decided that we didn’t want to be that far from the guys! We also liked Jackson, WY and the cheap living in the state for retirees, then we started looking at what was for sale and lost our minds with the high prices! Cody, WY was an interesting town but has some very harsh weather. Recently added to the radar was Sand Point, ID which we drove through and liked the area. Plans were to be made in the future to have a closer look around. We have always loved Leavenworth and even looked around at properties which we found reasonable, but what turned the tide was the yearly summer fire season that could or could not happen. Closer to home, we started looking at Cle Elum, Ronald, and Roslyn. The area was beautiful, just over the pass, and prices were just what we were looking for, a great place to continue to explore!

Then in October we hooked up the trailer and headed up to the Port Angeles and Sequim area on the Olympic Peninsula nestled between the Olympic Mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Port Angeles is an old working port/lumber town that is a bit gritty but with fantastic future potential. Sequim has become a magnet town for retirees with its more sunny disposition, being protected by the Olympic Mountain rain shadow. Something started clicking with the area the more we started looking around. We looked all over the area even taking a drive over to Port Townsend. We have always loved that place with its Victorian character, but as we started scoping homes, we were shocked at the prices. It seems the place has been “discovered” unfortunately!

As we continued to explore the surrounding area and looking at homes, we started narrowing the target to the hills between the two towns. Then we stumbled upon the house pictured below and a warm fuzzy feeling happened between the two of us. The first time we saw the place, we were driving around with a Zillow ap open on one phone and Trulia on the other. We like to explore on our own. We drove the cul-de-sac, took some photos, parked in the drive and since it was empty, looked around. One of the neighbors across the street noticed us perusing the property and came over cheerfully asking if we had any questions, she would help! Before long, another couple drove up and joined the conversation. Wow, we had just met two neighbors and liked them both!! Things were looking good. We contacted the listing agent and got an inside look and realized, THIS WAS IT!!!!!! After multiple offers and counters back and forth, the house was ours, well at least was in the works to be ours and now our search is over.

What happens next? Well……..lots! As of this writing, the loan is being closed and we are awaiting one final step, the appraisal. If all goes as planned, we should receive our keys to our retirement home just before Christmas! We will list our Snoqualmie home after the holidays in mid January. This will give us time to get the purchase closed, get ready for selling and also enjoy the holidays. Are we moving from Snoqualmie??? The answer is no! There still lies the ugly fact that both of us have to continue to work. Debbie is on a path to retire in just over two years. At that time we will just have to crunch numbers and see what happens with me, more in another upcoming post! It shall be an interesting time ahead!!!

Front of House

Front of House

Walkway To Front

Street View

Back Yard

Olympics Behind

Backyard

Backyard

Backyard

Outside Covered Patio

Front Foyer

Living Room Fireplace

Kitchen

Kitchen

Laundry

Laundry

Master Fireplace

Master Bedroom

Walk In Master Closet

Hot Tub Out Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Master Shower

Stairs

Sunroom Upstairs

Sunroom Upstairs