30th Anniversary Cruise

30th Anniversary Cruise

Thirty one years ago I met the love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend, my one and only. A year later during a very trying time in my life, we got married. Now here we are, retired enjoying life and each other and thought it was time to celebrate our thirty years of our lives together. We decided to go on another cruise and explore more of our world together. It was a twelve day cruise and this time we went on Celebrity Cruises. This was the first time we have cruised on a line other than Holland America. It was an older ship, the Constellation and it showed a bit. We hear that it will undergo a total upgrade next year. It was still a very nice ship and we enjoyed it. Now I could write a novella about our trip, but I plan on keeping this post as concise as possible. It will just highlight our stops and adventures. The pictures in our photo album will show the true visual log of the trip and can be viewed here!

THE ADVENTURE LIST

Key West – Our first port of call before leaving the US. We had never been here before and it reminded me of my days in Southern California. There were lots of shops, restaurants, bars, and other cool things to do. We walked the main drag of Duvall Street and had drinks near the water at Sunset Pier! It was good that we had a pleasant first stop to make up for the trip from Washington to Florida. We took a red eye flight that arrived on the same day as the cruise departure. We will NEVER make that mistake again. For the both of us it is almost impossible to sleep on a plane. Luckily, the plane was only half full which is a surprise these days. I wandered off to an empty row and tried to catch a few winks. After rolling around and having my face catch the faint aroma of 10,000 assholes, I eventually gave up. As for Debbie, she got not a wink and was an absolute grump when we deboarded. We had a very long wait in the airport in Tampa which did not help matters. I kept my distance. Needless to say, our first night on the ship was a quiet one.

Cartagena, Columbia – We had two days here and we took full advantage of it. Cartagena is a very busy city with lots of traffic. It seemed very chaotic and very large. We signed up for two separate excursions here. One was a sightseeing/food tasting tour. It was quite fun. We saw many interesting locations and tasted different foods and also some very nice Columbian coffee. One of our stops was at the Palace of the Inquisition. It was interesting and spooky at the same time. Very dark time in human history. Leave it to us to always get into some type of trouble. We were told we had roughly half an hour there so we weren’t in any hurry. We had wandered around the palace(museum now) and were on the second floor and happened to be looking out into the square below and saw our tour group all together and leaving!! Oh shit, we hurried down the stairs and headed for the exit just as the museum people were closing and locking the doors!! What a scary thought to be locked in this house of horrors and also to be left behind in Columbia! There was no way we had been there for half an hour! At any rate, we never seem to learn! Another fascinating location was the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. We briefly saw it on our first excursion, but on day two we did a bus “hop on, hop off” excursion so we could just do things on our own and we went back. This time we went on it and climbed to the top, took in views of the city, then went into the many tunnels located within. I’m glad we returned to explore. We went around the old walled city and explored as much as we could before we had to return to the ship! It was fun and amazing!

Panama – On to the country of Panama. Debbie was very excited about visiting here. We had an excursion planned to go on a boat into the canal and through the locks, but luck would have it that it was cancelled. Nothing the cruise people could do about it. We saw others booked on it doing nothing but incessant complaining. It was all about weather, fog, and cargo ship scheduling. We did the next best thing by booking at least a tour of the canal, locks, and then Panama City. The canal was impressive but it would have been much more fun had we gotten to go through it. There were no ships traversing while we were there, so it was kind of boring. I was much more impressed with Panama City and had no idea it was so big! The skyline is huge and modern. It was much cleaner than Cartagena and traffic flowed much better. It was very busy for a Sunday that we were there. We walked around and saw squares, churches, places of interest, and shops. It was truly amazing!

Costa Rica – Another new country and adventure! I think we had the most fun so far! First we took a river boat tour on the Tortuguero Canal. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, funny, and really enjoyed what he did. We went cruising up the canal and saw a variety of wildlife including howler monkeys, sloths, iguanas, caymans, herons, among others. It was a very pretty area and so green, also very hot and humid! We then drove through the countryside and stopped by a small banana plantation and learned a bit of growing, caring, and harvesting bananas and pineapples. Costa Rica is rich in biodiversity and also produces many different fruits, vegetables, and coffee. The country also has a very aggressive green policy in place. They are also extremely environmentally friendly…..mostly….as we soon learned. We finally ended up at the Sloth Sanctuary. I had heard about this place many years from a podcast I used to listen to called The Dawn and Drew Show. They were one of the first podcasters and lived in Costa Rica for awhile. Dawn actually volunteered here and they would talk about it on their podcast. Now, here we are actually visiting the place. Most of the sloths here are rescues. They have either been abandoned by their mothers, lost a limb, or blind. Frequently, sloths will mistake a power line for a branch and grab it. They get electrocuted, and if they are lucky enough to live through it, they usually have to have one or more limbs amputated. Many sloths are showing up blind and there are theories, unproven, that pesticides that are sprayed on banana and pineapple plantations are the cause of it. But the plantations and owners of them are protected by the Costa Rican government, so will not listen to concerns. These poor things will live out their lives at the sanctuary and will be taken very good care of. You can see a video we took of one of them just going about their day by clicking here!

Cozumel, Mexico – Cozumel was our final stop on the cruise. We have been to other parts of Mexico, but this was our first time here. We didn’t really see much, but it seemed way more commercial than what we had seen in all previous stops. We had one destination planned and were very excited about it. We went to the Dolphinaris to play with the dolphins! Debbie was like a little girl she was so excited!! It was an absolute blast. We were fed, had drinks, and then got to play, get kissed, hold fins, and get a belly ride with them. They are so cute and playful and seem to be treated very good. They each have their own personalities and some times get in trouble or act up when they don’t get their way! That ended our ports of call for the cruise and it was very exciting.

Sea Days – I will end the post with just some final thoughts of our voyage. We had numerous sea days where we just had fun on the ship. We hit the gym a few times, had drinks by the pools, enjoyed some of the entertainment, and ate most dinners in our favorite restaurant onboard called Blu! But the best thing to happen on this cruise was meeting an enchanting couple from England, Bob and Jane! We had so much fun with them! Most of the time you’ll meet some very cool people on a cruise and bump into them from time to time. We actually hung out together almost every evening and usually ended up in the Martini Bar. They are so much fun and we are going to try and maintain a friendship with them from now on! As of me writing this, Debbie is off to England with her sisters to visit family. She will be planning on getting together with them for dinner while she is there. hopefully, we will be cruising together again in the future. That’s it for now…. Bon Voyage!

VISIT THE PICTURE ALBUM HERE!

CHECK OUT OUR NEW RUMBLE VIDEO PAGE HERE!

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We Did A Little Painting

Debbie twisted and twisted my arm until I finally gave in and we had some interior painting done! We hired it out due to the height of the ceilings in our living room which were around 20 feet or so. If you have read my previous posts, my tendency to fall off things and injure myself made this a no-go proposition. They also did the dining room and kitchen as well. Debbie had previously painted the downstairs bath closet in the darker paint you see in the following pictures. We also updated the lighting while we were at it. We changed the wall color from a yellow to a creamy off white and the accents from gold to a dark urban bronze. Have a look below. We think it turned out quite awesome!!

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BEFORE

AFTER

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!!

Friends And Founders 2022

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One day while sitting in the office at the estate, I was going through my emails and noticed one from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. I get a lot of emails from them, but this one was different and it stood out from the others! I opened it and it was an invitation to the Friends and Founders Event for 2022! We had been talking about going back to the sanctuary for awhile and decided this would be a great thing to attend and also volunteer if possible. We chose the April 28-29th session and started prepping for the trip! We had tried to remember when was the last time we had gone down there, but knew it had been awhile. While packing, I decided to pack a couple of shirts I had bought on the last trip and there it was……the date…..2015!!! Wow, seven years ago, too long!!! The excitement began for our spiritual reset which is one of the things that happen to you when you make the visit. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you drive into Kanab!! Kanab has grown quite a bit since we last visited. It once was a pretty quiet and sleepy town, but things have changed. There are a bunch of new restaurants and hotels that have sprung up since. One of the new hotels, and the one we stayed at, was the Roadhouse and Mercantile. It is owned and operated by the sanctuary so your room fees are helping support it! Not only is it pet friendly, but bringing dogs and cats from the sanctuary for sleepovers are highly encouraged. There is also a store there where you can purchase shirts, pants, pet accessories, and other items with the Best Friends logo. It was a pleasant hotel, and btw, you can do your laundry for free! When not at the sanctuary we drove around town looking at houses, RV parks, and enjoying the sites of the surrounding area. We ate at some new restaurants and also visited some of our old haunts that still remain! These are all great eateries:

• • • • Escobars

      • Rocking V

      • Houstons Trail’s End

      • Wild Thyme

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Our first day there was a free day, the only one we would have. We decided to drive up to Zion National Park. It was a return trip for us, but it had been many years. We got on the park shuttle and headed into the park and picked one of the trails to hike. We hiked all the emerald pools, there are three. It was a gorgeous day and the temp was just right. We got back down and Debbie wanted to hike the angel’s landing trail until we got tired and then we would turn back. Of course that didn’t happen until we got to the top where the chain begins. I was gassed and had a painful blister on my toe. Luckily she had a band aid in the pack and I made a quick repair so I could make it back down. I wasn’t thrilled and you can see all the pictures in the photo album! Not a young buck anymore!!! The rest of the week was all involved with dog outings, an afternoon in Cat World, and attending the Friends and Founders events. We took two dogs on outings, Riff Raff and Satchel. Debbie loved Satchel and had I been ready for another dog, we would have taken him back with us like we did with Cordell. I’m just not ready for a pet just yet. One day we spent at cat World just hanging with some shy kitties and taking a couple on a stroll.

Riff Raff

Satchel

Playing With Cats

Kitty Stroll

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Our last two days were involved in the events. We hiked up to the Labyrinth and Gratitude Gardens, enjoyed a brunch with many of the founders of Best Friends, listened to their Roadmap to No Kill 2025, visited our pig and goat friends, went to the Blessing of the Animals in Angel’s Rest(Kleenex needed), toured Dogtown, watched a training session of a wild horse at Horse Haven, did a tour of the new Horse Haven and their clinic, toured the Best Friends Clinic, and went to the farewell reception. It was so fascinating and fun. We still learned a whole lot more about the sanctuary even though we have been there many times over the years. There was a lot of upgraded areas and to see the clinics and the new horse haven made it all the more special. We feel so confident when making our donations that our money is being used so wisely in the care of the animals. You can do a tour of the sanctuary right from your device by clicking here. Better yet, plan a vacation and visit for yourself and especially your kids. It is a magical place!!! We will be back real soon!

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Go here to visit the full photo album of our trip!!!

Karma Always Comes And It’s A Real Bitch

Stop World Control

“This brilliant documentary reveals how a small group of superrich criminals have been buying virtually everything on earth, until they own it all. From media, health care, technology, travel, food industry, governments… That allows them to control the whole world. Because of this they are now trying to impose the New World Order.” It will be the best hour you will ever spend and it is a must see! Once you have, share it with everyone you know. Our future depends on it!!!

 

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!!!

Enough Is Enough

So…. when will enough be enough? Here’s a list of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen.

-deodorant is canceled ??

-Systematic racism is to blame for climate change

– Madonna is oppressed by the patriarchy. Btw she’s worth $550 million according to Forbes. (I wish I was oppressed like her)

-Kendal Jenner is (culturally appropriating) because she started her own tequila brand.

-Miley Cyrus is transphobic because she said TITS are prettier than BALLS. (She’s right though)

-student loan debt is white supremacy

-breast milk is now called (Human milk or chest milk)

-the Coca-Cola company teaches their employees how to be (less white)

-dr. Seuss was canceled by the same people who praised his books just a few short years ago (It wasn’t racist then but it is now)

– actress Gina Carano was canceled from the show Mandalorian for having different views and opinions than Disney.

-calling someone an animal is an insult to animals

-yoga is now white supremacy

-The Mediterranean diet is now racist

-the word Women is now (WomXn ) according to twitch

-we can no longer call our female colleagues smart or brilliant at their job because it’s sexist-standardized testing is systematic racism

-air conditioning is sexist

-Reparations for slavery could have reduced the transmission of covid-19 according to Harvard university

-gender reveal parties are transphobic

-trans people exist according to Oreo cookie (thanks captain obvious) we are aware

-neck ties are a (symbolic Noose) and racist

-being concerned for a child’s mental health or suicide risk is white privilege according to a Washington state teachers union president

Everything is racist these days. The word racism has lost all meaning and credibility. Instead, they change the dictionary to reflect their (opinions) on what racism means to them. It’s lost it’s Potency and Effectiveness. It was a word that was used to describe real human atrocities and injustices. Now it’s used to describe anything someone gets offended by or doesn’t like. It’s like the boy who cried wolf. If You say it enough times for the wrong reasons people will just ignore it. When something truly racist happens people will ignore it. To me, The Great Reset is a gargantuan asteroid hits Earth and takes us all out. Real Facts don’t care about your feelings. OUR COUNTRY NEEDS A SENSE OF COMMUNITY AGAIN, not more, division over silly opinions.

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!

Goodbye Snoqualmie…….

…..and Seattle, King County, and Puget Sound!

Leaving So Cal in 1990!

Back in 1973 or 74 I moved from my home state of New Mexico and we headed to the big city of Seattle, Washington. I had no idea what I was heading into because at that time in my life, I had hardly ventured out of my home state! Growing up in the dry desert heat, it was a wondrous sight to come over the Cascades into the sea of green trees, cool clouds, and mist! I fell in love with the area immediately and settled into an area of south of Seattle. My stay there only lasted two years and then was off to various locations for the next 15 years but vowed to one day return.

My life journey finally landed me in Southern California in 1978. There I would be for most of my 20’s and early 30’s. I had a career in sales, had tons of friends, and made decent money. It was a great place to be when one was in their youth, but the longer I stayed there, the more I wanted to leave. The constant brown everywhere, sky, mountains, landscape was depressing. I hated “smelling” the air on a daily basis and the damn weather never changed! Each time I left for a vacation or to visit family out of town, I hated coming back. My yearning to return to the Pacific Northwest was growing like a long forgotten seed planted now starting to sprout. Finally, in 1989, while visiting family in New Mexico and Oklahoma for the holidays I made the proclamation that I was going to move back to Seattle by the end of the following year! That was met with disbelief, laughter, and “yeah we’ve heard it before”. My mind was made up and I would soon be working on my plan to get there.

I started subscribing to the Seattle Sunday Times by mail to read up on what was happening up there. Even back in the late 80’s Washingtonians were crying about the onslaught of Californians moving up there and things haven’t changed much today. Californians are leaving their state in droves to here, Idaho, Texas, Oregon, and even Montana! Ruinous bastards…….okay…..okay I was one too, BUT I can say I “returned” to Washington. I started to put the pieces of my relocation plan into effect. I reached out to my manager of my desire to transfer to the Seattle branch and he thought I was nuts. I assured him I wasn’t and after much persuasion trying to get me to stay, he gave in and contacted the Seattle manager of Kraft Foodservice and let him know there was a potential new sales person from the LA ranks that wanted to join forces in Seattle. So in July I took a vacation to the Emerald City, stayed with a former coworker who just happened to have moved there, met with the sales manager, and sealed a relocation deal. On September 1, 1990 I rolled into Seattle and my dream had finally come into fruition!

As luck would have it, my former coworker had decided to go back to Alaska for another fishing boat gig and I sublet his place in the cool and funky neighborhood of Wallingford. From my bedroom window I could look out over Lake Union right at downtown Seattle! I was in absolute heaven and happy as an Ivar’s clam! Unfortunately, not everything was as rosy as it could have been. Once October came, I discovered never ending gray, torrential sideways rain, and a career that began to stumble. During the beginning, bouts of depression came over me and I really started questioning the decision I had made. I always had an open door to return to LA and go back to work down there, but knew that was not an option for me. Once I realized what it all was for, my head cleared and no matter what happened to my career, I was back in Seattle where I had longed to be and was home! I worked hard and gave it all I could, but a year later parted ways with my career in sales and would be moving on in a totally new direction in life, and boy was it ever! 

In those subsequent years I met the love of my life and married her, became a stepfather in the process, did a brief stint in real estate appraisal, bought my first home, ended up in a new career driving public transit for King County Metro, and settling down in a small burb near the foothills of the Cascade Mountains called Snoqualmie. In the beginning it was an idyllic life. The small community was growing thanks to a new development “up on the hill”. We loved it even though there were hardly any services and you had to drive a few miles to get anything done, but for us, it was no problem. We bought a beautiful house which I loved, started making a few friends, and were enjoying life as “empty nesters”.

Our Snoqualmie Home!

So here we are, 17 years down the road, and it’s time to move along. The once small peaceful town has burgeoned into a bedroom community way bigger than we had expected or hoped for. It’s now full of yupsters, soccer moms, and helicopter parents. We find ourselves surrounded by people of totally different thinking and values than ours. We have a very tight small group of friends that would have our back at anytime, but for the most part, many others would just stab it. Until the COVID pandemic, traffic around the area had slowed to an intolerable crawl even during the off rush hours. Property taxes have surged beyond affordable. The once beautiful city of Seattle, has turned into a sewer being lead by idiotic progressive liberal leadership. We have had enough!!! Debbie retired last year, and I have finally driven my last bus trip, going a bit early. We have packed up and moved to our paradise on the Olympic Peninsula. While we will return to Snoqualmie from time to time, we are glad we are leaving and starting the “retirement chapter” of our lives. Seattle and the rest of King County can pound sand!