Employer-Sponsored vs. Government-Sponsored Insurance

I am not sure if I've said it before, but I support socialized medicine in the US.  My rationale is twofold... first, I believe that we would reduce costs significantly if we removed insurance companies from the equation, (IE, getting rid of the profit motive,) and second, if we socialized medicine, everyone would have access to basic health care, which would realistically reduce costs further, because we could catch problems earlier and mitigate, rather than waiting until it's an emergency.

A while back, Bernie Sanders proposed legislation that would incentivize employers such as Wal-Mart, who have a huge number of employees who make wages low enough to be qualified for medicatd, to increase wages.  The idea behind the legislation is that medicaid acts as a pseudo subsidy for these companies by shifting medical costs from that company to the federal government.  The incentive to raise wages would be that the government would fine the employer for having too many employees that are eligible for Medicaid.  I thought it was a great idea, but this article managed to change my mind.

The premise of the article is that Sanders's idea effectively serves to keep insurance with employers, which has the unintended outcome of reducing the power of labor, which is a perspective I had not previously considered, and one that makes me even further in favor of socialized medicine.  Allow me to illustrate my point.

Let's say that I'm working a job and get laid off.  Under the current system, I essentially lose my insurance when I lose that job.  (Yes, I can keep insurance through COBRA, but the costs are prohibitively expensive, and it's still only for a limited time.  And yes, I can directly purchase private insurance, but again, it's not cost effective.)  As a result, I am significantly more likely to accept the first job offer I get, even if it's at a far lower wage, just so I have insurance.  If the government were to provide for basic needs, such as food assistance and health insurance, I'm in a position to hold out a bit longer until I find a job that pays me what I'm worth.

Those opposed to socialized medicine say that welfare is a disincentive to work.  For years, they've held out the welfare queen as the example.  I will concede these people exist.  However, study after study after study demonstrates this is the rare exception, not the rule.  And realistically, those who would exploit the system will find a way to do so, no matter what system is in place.

Another objection is that the government would create "death panels" to determine who lives and who dies if socialized medicine were to come into play.  In response to that, I say we already have death panels; they're known as insurance companies.  In fact, they're death panels twice over.  The first hurdle you need to jump is getting a job that provides insurance.  No job essentially means no insurance, and no insurance means no healthcare.  Second off, insurance companies are known to deny lifesaving treatment.

I get that not everyone shares my perspective.  I do, however, believe that most people agree our current system is broken.  There have been tons of ideas floated and tested in order to fix our broken system, but nothing seems to work.  Logic would dictate that eventually one would admit it's worth trying something completely different.  It makes even more sense when you see other countries with socialized medicine that provides the same level of healthcare (or better,) to more people, at the same cost (or less.)

I'd really love to know what Sunny has to say on this, since she spent time in a country with socialized medicine.  I'm always open to learning more. 

Sore

Last Thursday I played flag football for my weekly PT session with the Marine Poolees.  It was a fun departure from the usual running and calisthenics, and everyone enjoyed it.  I've got to admit that I'm sore, though.  I used parts of my body that apparently have been long neglected.  My hip flexors and IT band are both quite sore.  What really surprised me most, however, is how sore my feet are.  The day after PT, the tops of my feet hurt as if people had been stepping on them all day.  Since then, the bottoms of my feet have been stiff, like sore muscle stiff, when I first get out of bed.  Those first few steps hurt!

For the record though, I'd absolutely do it again. 

Getting Closer

I see the Department of Justice has reclassified certain marijuana products from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.  In case you're not aware, Schedule 1 means that a given drug has no accepted medical use and has a high potential for abuse.  Schedule 3 drugs are acknowledged to have medicinal value and has fewer regulatory restrictions.

I smoked a LOT of pot in my younger days and absolutely believe this is a step in the right direction, and I may or may not indulge in the occasional edible if I'm in a location where it's legal to do so.  I don't believe that pot is completely harmless, but I am fully convinced that it has medicinal value, and that it's no more harmful than alcohol.  I believe the federal government should decriminalize marijuana and allow states to regulate the sale and consumption.  As I say this, bear in mind that I live in a state that only allows medicinal marijuana, and even that is tightly regulated.  I'd like to see it legalized here, but that's a separate discussion.  Either way, it looks like we may be getting closer. 

Finding a Hidden Treasure

I've been doing some spring cleaning around my house and I ran across an old set of jungle boots I had when I was active duty.  The last time I remember seeing them was over 15 years ago, and they're at least 35 years old.  When I had put them away, I put shoe trees in them, and gave them a spit shine before placing them in the back corner of a closet.  When I found them, the shine was still there, under a thin layer of dust, but the leather has dried considerably, leaving them stiff and cracking in places.  I've decided that I'm going to recondition them and wear them to a PT session.

I've already acquired a bottle of leather conditioner and have been applying the conditioner in thin layers for the last couple of days.  The leather has been soaking up the conditioner like dry, cracked dirt soaks up a gentle summer rain, and I'm happy to report that the leather is regaining its suppleness and flexibility.  Before starting with the leather conditioner, I washed the entire boots with a strong solution of murphy oil soap, which I already had on hand, and was something widely suggested by my internet research.  Following a good rinse to remove the soap,  I left the shoe trees in the boots, and let them dry naturally in the sunlight.

With the leather being so dry, a lot of the polish flaked off, leaving bare leather that was ashen.  The leather conditioner has returned the healthy color tone.  I'm thinking another day or two of conditioning and then it'll be time move to the next step, which will be lightly sanding the leather to get rid of the shallow cracks, and then using a leather repair kit to fill the deeper cracks, followed by another round of sanding to blend in the repair work.

Once that's done, I'm going to apply some gun bluing to the metal eyelets to restore the black color where the bare metal is showing through, and then I will apply several layers of shoe polish and return them to their spit shined original glory.

In the end, this is nothing more than something to occupy my time, and a chance to learn a new skill.  I've never reconditioned leather before.  If I can't fully restore the boots, or if things really go sideways and I ruin them (highly unlikely,) I won't be upset.  But as it stands now, I'm reasonably confident that I can restore them to their former glory.  Wish me luck.

Loving My New Mattress

Last week I purchased a new mattress.  The last mattress my lovely bride and I purchased was a memory foam bed and box spring, which we bought with part of our tax refund roughly fifteen years ago.  The bed was expensive at the time, somewhere between $1500 and $2000, but it absolutely served us well.  My biggest complaint with that mattress was that it was hot.  I had to start wearing wicking pajamas in order to not wake up drenched in sweat every night, and even that didn't fully eliminate the problem.  It was a trade-off though, because that mattress was crazy comfortable.  Until it wasn't.

Over the last few weeks, I started noticing back pain, and it was getting progressively worse.  It was in the very lower back, just above the hip, on the left side.  It took me a while to figure out it was likely the mattress.  I wasn't 100% sure it was the mattress, because I wasn't smart enough to try sleeping somewhere else to see if that fixed things, but regardless wifey was good with my suggestion to buy a new one.

As I started research, my online shopping initially took me to mattress stores, where I quickly, but unsurprisingly discovered that I could expect to fork over well above $2000 for a good quality bed.  Then I remember my friend James telling me that he purchased a mattress in a box for a very reasonable price, and he loved it.  Once I did my independent sleuthing, I discovered that I could get a high quality kind sized mattress for less than $700.  Done!  I bought another memory foam mattress.

The first thing I noticed with the new mattress is that I was no longer sweating at night.  That cooling technology really works!  My back pain was reduced the next day as well, and I was quite hopeful.  A day or two later though, my hopes were put into question, because I woke up with a sore lower back and thought the love affair with the new sleeping hardware might be short-lived.  However, the morning after that, my pain was again reduced and I remembered that I'd been doing a bunch of manual labor around the homestead that was likely the root of the discomfort in my back.

Saturday, I took a road trip to see a friend of mine, and all said and done, I spent about five hours in my car.  It had been a long time since I'd done that, and when I got home, my lower back, neck, and shoulders were all quite stiff.  I fully expected I'd be very uncomfortable the next morning.  That, however, was not the case at all!  I awakened feeling quite refreshed, with only the slightest stiffness in the very lower portion of my spine.  Within an hour, my back was completely pain free.

After about an hour of moving about, all of the pain in my lower back was gone, and THAT was when I realized this was the first time my back hasn't at least been stiff for several months.  The pain and stiffness had been slowly creeping up on me, and I just thought it was a sign of aging.  It's crazy how much difference it made.  I feel more energetic, more mentally alert, and years younger.  I'm loving this new mattress!

Republicans and Religion

 It's been really wild to watch interactions between the Republican party and Christians over the last few months.  Before I talk about the present though, I'd like to talk about the history of politics and religion, at least as I know it.

For those of you who don't know, I was raised as a fire and brimstone Southern Baptist.  My early memories of church had me singing "Jesus Loves Me' in Sunday School, immediately followed by the pastor sharing a sermon that invariably said follow the rules or spend eternity in flames.  Sermons ended with a tearful plea from the pastor to come to the alter and repent, so you can avoid endless suffering.  I remember watching "Late Great Planet Earth" in that church.  I don't remember much about the movie other than skulls, and fire.  Overall, this church filled me exclusively with fear of God, and utterly failed to share any of the love and selflessness.

When my parents moved us from Kansas to Iowa, my mom never sent us back to Church.  I honestly don't know why, but in retrospect, I am thankful.  As it was, I turned my back on God in my late teens to early twenties.  I did attend some church lock-ins with high school classmates, but nothing clicked.  I remember my mom watching  Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, and "PTL Club" with Jim and Tammy Bakker,  

I remember Graham as genuine.  I remember Tammy Bakker always singing poorly and crying.  I remember taking perverse delight in the Jessica Hahn scandal that brought them down.  I remember being horrified to learn as a young adult that my mom financially supported Swaggart and again taking delight in his scandal and downfall.  I remember the Moral Majority group staunchly supporting the Republican party, and promoting "traditional family values."  I kind of always remember evangelical Christianity walking in lock step with the Republican party platform.

While not raised Catholic, I also seem to recall a friendly relationship between Republicans and Catholics, especially when it comes to abortion and homosexuality.  I believe Donald Trump had strong electoral support from the Hispanic community, which I also think skews Catholic.  This is my impression and I haven't deeply researched, so take it with a grain of salt.

Now, let's fast forward to the present.  Over the last year, Donald Trump has shared memes that show him as the Pope, as Jesus, (though he denies the Jesus one,) and when the public rejected his Trump as Jesus picture, he quickly shared a Trump with Jesus as a follow-up.  And this is where it's been fun to watch, because Trump and Christians have had an almost incestuous relationship.  I've seen Christians support a ton of Trump's $h!+ that they would never tolerate from someone else...

They wanted to throw Clinton from office for adultery, but fully exonerated Trump's affair with a porn star.

Trump bears false witness (lies) as casually as the average person breathes, and his supporters eat it up. 

They supported his practice of stiffing contractors (theft) as "good business," while believing that he supported the little guy and small businessman.

This, of course, only discusses the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament. Let's touch on some of the teachings of Jesus...

 Jesus teaches that we should pray for and love our enemies.  Trump's default behavior is that you serve him, or he punishes you.

Jesus teaches that we should turn the other cheek.

Jesus teaches that we should serve others.

Jesus teaches that we should help those in need.

Jesus teaches that we should be compassionate. 

In short, Trump is not a good man, based on these ideals.  He has broken multiple tenets of Christianity, yet he attracts Christians like moth to a flame.  Only recently, now that he has shared an image of him as Jesus, are these supporters crying foul. Maybe this is because they see a crisis of faith, because that's what the Antichrist is supposed to do, right?

Again, I'm only speculating.  While I have rediscovered my faith and am attending Church, I am not an apocalyptic Christian and haven't spent a lot of energy focusing on Revelation and the end times.  But I can't help but assume that Evangelical Christians, who tend to be highly focused on the end of the world, would see Trump's latest action as ... ummm ... questionable.

... let's expand this to Republican elected officials.  Those guys are in quite the pickle.  They have sworn their fealty to Trump.  Now Republican constituents are up in arms over the Jesus Trump picture, and the elected officials have to somehow calm down their party base while not pissing off their sovereign.

Of course, the media and the liberals are predicting this will be Trump's downfall.  Pardon my skepticism, but I've heard that song before.  We, as a society, have the attention span of gnats.

Good On You, Private Pyle

In previous posts, I shared that I participate in weekly PT (physical training) sessions with kids who are on the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program.  It's something I look forward to every week.

Every now and then, a kid washes out.  The most common occurrence is that a kid will show up once, see how hard it is, and never return.  That happens about once per month, and it's just a blip on my radar.  I've also seen a kid who got dropped from the program a week before he shipped out because he got a DUI after attending a high school graduation party.  Another kid made it to boot camp, but dropped during recruit training.  But I'm here to talk about a certain young man, who I'm going to call Private Pyle.

I started referring to him as Private Pyle with the recruiters because of physical similarities with the character from Full Metal Jacket.  He was overweight, and he had problems with all things exercise related.  He was always last.  Always.  When he showed up, he couldn't do a single pull-up.  It took him 30 minutes to run 1.5 miles, and he couldn't plank for longer than 30 seconds.  While this lad did make a lot of progress, he ended up washing out because after 6+ months, he still couldn't do a single pull-up, and in order to even qualify to go to boot camp, you need to do at least three pull-ups.  He was dropped from the program in February.

At last week's PT session, I was informed that Private Pyle has enlisted in the Army.  I will admit that I was a bit dismissive when I first heard about this.  And in all honesty, I'm not sure he will make the cut in the Army either, because he's really that physically unfit. But the more I think about it, the more I'm proud of the kid for his grit and determination.  Okay, he's not cut out to be a Marine.  But he hasn't given up on his desire to serve in the military.  Instead, he chose to regroup and find an alternate path to his goal.  The Army and Navy kids hold their weekly PT the same day as the Marines do, so this week, I'm going to make a point to find Private Pyle and tell him that I'm proud of his grit and determination.  And I'm going to make a point to tell the Marine kids that they are not to disparage him in my presence.  He's earned my respect for not giving up, and he is worthy of the Marine kids' respect for the same reason.

Good on you, Private Pyle!

Nothing Like I Thought

I've been sitting around the house, which is quiet except for the casual pitter patter of paws as my dog moves from one resting place to another, the occasional car driving by, and my own thoughts.  This bores some people, but I appreciate it.  I find myself far more comfortable in solitude than when I was a young man.

As I ruminated on everything and nothing, I had a thought fly into my little brain from absolutely nowhere.  I have no idea what brought it on, but I ran with it, and it's now become today's topic.  My life is nothing like I thought it would be.

When I was a very young boy, I vaguely recall having ambition to become an astronaut, a firefighter or a cop.  This was during the heyday of NASA, and when law enforcement was still a highly respected (and not polarizing) occupation.

As a young teenager, I saw myself as a doctor or a veterinarian.  Anatomy fascinated me, and I kind of liked the idea of being able to save lives.  Human or animal didn't matter much, hence my flexibility in direction.

In my late teens and very early twenties, I was certain that I'd die before hitting 25.  While I was serving active duty in the military, I did not think I was going to die in combat.  I envisioned myself dying in a car accident while driving slightly too fast, while swimming in the ocean, or some other high octane activity.  While my lifestyle was slightly more adventurous than the average person, I was nowhere the daredevil I imagined myself to be.  I pictured myself a solid 8 on the 1 to 10 scale of derring-do, but I in hindsight, I was a six.

My mid-twenties probably brought me as close to an accurate prediction as I would have about my life.  I realized I was ready to be a dad, but not a husband, though I kind of imagined them as a package deal.  I certainly saw myself as a girl dad.  While I fully expected that I would make a significant contribution tthe working world, and saw myself as a high-earning white collar professional, (though not filthy rich,)  I also knew that I wasn't destined for the history books, but that my purpose in life was to bring a little bit of life, a little bit of happiness, and a little bit of humor to those around me.  My goal was to make sure that I wasn't a drag in any relationship that involved me.  I aspired to be a positive contribution.  My baseline was to make sure that I didn't take more from a relationship than I contributed.

When I was married to wife 1.0, I was certain that I would defy the odds and marry only once in my life.  I understood that relationships require work and commitment from both people, and I was fully ready to fulfill my lifetime commitment.  It never occurred to me that she would quit.

I had no idea how hard life could hit a young adult.  As a child, I imagined that adulthood would be  an absolute breeze.  In reality, I felt like an inexperienced amateur prize fighter going against Mike Tyson in his prime.  I spent a huge portion of my mid-twenties to mid-thirties dazed by blows that I never saw coming.  I had no idea how financially tenuous life could be, and I can't count how many sleepless nights I experienced because of a stupid unexpected expense or life event.  Relationships were equally challenging, because my friends and loved ones were going through the same thing, and like idiots, we tended to turn inward instead of leaning on one another.

In my early thirties, I was still struggling financially, but saw light at the end of the tunnel.  I realized that if I played my cards right, I could retire early as a millionaire.  I forgot that playing my cards right meant that I couldn't have any bad hands.  I saw myself retiring early and traveling the world with 1.0.  When we split up, suddenly I couldn't see anything.

Fortunately the fog lifted, and I met wife 2.2.  She has been the navigator when I needed to pilot, and taken the wheel when I needed to rest.  I didn't see her coming, and I don't see her leaving until one of us dies.

I hoped, but didn't foresee that my kids would lean on me as heavily as they do, nor did I expect how natural it would be to help them.

I didn't foresee that I would essentially fall out with my entire birth family.

I didn't foresee that 1.0 would be such a POS mother.

I didn't expect that life challenges would persist at the same and rate and intensity, with the difference being that my ability to weather the storm would increase with age.  Life is not softer, and I am not harder.  It's more accurate to say that I've seen it before, and each time I experienced it, I made some sort of contingency plan to prepare to re-experience a given adversity.

So yeah, life is nothing like I thought.  But I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Elsewhere: A Book Series by Dough Lohse

I want to take a minute to plug the Elsewhere book series by Doug Lohse.

Without giving away any spoilers, the series follows the story of Duke, a cocky Air Force pilot who is transported from Earth to a fantastical world of magic, in the storybook genre of LitRPG.  If you imagine yourself pulled from your current existence to a world of Dungeons and Dragons, complete with the realization that you're in a Role Playing Game, you have the right idea.

As I read the first book, I found myself kind of under-appreciating the story, because Duke advanced in levels and abilities so quickly that I almost had a hard time suspending disbelief and letting myself just get immersed in the story.  Almost.

Fortunately, I picked up book two, and I experienced a glimpse of the larger story that Lohse had in mind.  Again, I don't want to spoil the story, but over the course of his subsequent books, the author takes Duke from Dungeons and Dragons to Science Fiction, complete with mechs, lasers, and interstellar travel.  The series features a Battle Royale, an evil business empire, and gods who have to follow rules.

I was introduced to the series by James Cheatham, a personal friend of mine who does a fantastic job of narrating the story.  When James shared the initial audiobook with me, I found myself hooked by the tale, and I can't wait to see how the next part unfolds.

The overarching story does a great job of injecting pop culture humor, through the use of current euphemisms that the otherworlders couldn't possibly understand, and by subtlely tapping the fourth wall with allusions to popular fantasy and sci-fi movies that will leave readers smiling and thinking I see what you did there.

If you're looking for a fun read, or an engaging audiobook series, I encourage you to check this one out!  Additionally, you are supporting an independent author, and a small business voice actor.

POSX

Here's another one from the "My ex is a piece of $h!+" vault...

Older daughter called me a couple of days ago to vent.  A week or so back, my ex talked to my grandson and promised to come see him play lacrosse.  My ex lives about two hours away from older daughter and grandson, and to my knowledge, this would be the first visit since ex moved out of older daughter's house a couple of months back.  Two hours away isn't exactly a vacation trip, but it's a bit more than a daily commute.

Grandson was excited over the prospect of ex seeing him play.  Older daughter wisely recommended that grandson curb his enthusiasm, because ex has a habit of not following through with her promises and commitments...

Fast forward to a couple of days ago... ex called older daughter on Easter.  During the Easter call, ex told older daughter that she had to bail on the visit... so she could work. As older daughter relayed it to me, the lure of double time pay was more important than the commitment to see grandson play lacrosse.  Adding insult to injury, ex asked older daughter to deliver the news to grandson and quickly bailed out of the phone call shortly thereafter, meaning that once again, ex took a shit in older daughter's nest and left older daughter to clean up the mess.

This is nothing new.  The ex has a well-established pattern of making promises and not following through.  She did it to me.  She did it to older daughter.  She did it to younger daughter.  Now she's doing it to first grandson.  She can't pull that crap with me anymore.  The kids have kind of grown immune to it and now treat virtually anything ex says with a grain of salt.  First grandson hasn't yet learned his lesson though.  I know that daughters will work diligently to protect grandsons, but damn...

Scratching the Acting Itch

I was in a play last Thursday.  I played James the Greater in a Living Last Supper play at church.  It was the first time I had acted in about forty years and it was a very different experience from my last performance.  When I did my high school plays, I learned each line word for word, and I had to hit specific places on stage at exact times.  It was enjoyable, but it was more rote memorization and more stressful.

This time around, I learned the lines but didn't necessarily recite them verbatim.  There were no marks to hit, and no major rehearsals, because everyone who participated essentially did a soliloquy monologue to the audience.  It was a small audience, consisting overwhelmingly of members from my church, so I never got nervous.

I'll admit that I was a tad concerned for others, who were struggling with their lines even the day before.  However, after the dress rehearsal, I reminded everyone who didn't know their lines that they were the ONLY ones who knew exactly what they were supposed to say, so if they flubbed a word or two, nobody would know unless they gave a visual or verbal indication.  I reminded them that pauses in their lines were okay, because there are natural pauses in human speaking, and pausing for effect is a real thing in acting.  I also invited them to put themselves in the shoes of the Apostles at the last supper.  Jesus dropped a bombshell on them when he said that someone would betray him.  It would absolutely make sense that the thoughts and words of the apostles might be a little discombobulated after hearing the news, and I invited them to remember and lean into this if they got nervous or forgot their lines.  It seems to have helped, because only one guy had problems with his lines.

After we finished, I felt like we did a reasonably good job overall.  I asked my lovely bride for a critique, and she said two things that stuck out: 1) We all did a good job.  2) "You can act!"  She sounded a little surprised at that one.

I guess overall I did okay, because I had a church member come up to me at church Sunday and again tell me that I did a good job.  I had fun, and if I were asked to perform in another play, whether church, community, or whatever, I'd most likely do it.

Trump Fires Pam Bondi

It was announced yesterday that Donald Trump has fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.

In related news, confidential sources have reported that when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth heard about this, he did his best Veruca Salt impression, screaming "Daddy, I want to fire somebody too!"

In fairness to President Trump, he tried his best to say no, but quickly caved when Hegseth broke into a rendition of I Want it Now, complete with a flash mob band that somehow magically appeared out of thin air.  The report goes on to quote Trump as saying "When Little Petey breaks into song like that, I'm just powerless.  Of course I had to let him fire someone," which led to the immediate dismissal of Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George.

An Open Letter from Iran to Americans

 I saw this article today and believe it's worth sharing.  I am taking at face value that the letter legitimately comes from the Iranian government to the American people.  I am sharing this because I believe it is important to receive information that originates from outside of our self-selected echo chambers, and I am refraining from comment because I believe it's important to let you, the reader, draw your own conclusion without any input from me.

Generated Outrage

 I read a couple of articles yesterday that really made me think "Who Cares?!?"  One article talked about Senator Lindsey Graham being spotted at Disney World, and the other discussed an Army helicopter doing a flyby at Kid Rock's house.  I believe these are both instances of the media trying to create the next big story.

Let's start with the Army helicopter story.  To my understanding, a couple of Army Apache helicopters did a flyby at Kid Rock's house, stopping long enough to hover and give Kid Rock a photo op.  I'll concede this was out of the ordinary, but it's not the first time that military members have done something like this.  I'm not a huge fan of Kid Rock, but I can see the allure of making a quick detour to see something noteworthy if the opportunity arose.  If I put my younger self in the shoes of these soldiers, I could absolutely see myself doing it.  I support that the Army looked into it, and I'm okay with Hegseth saying "Let it go."  Geez folks, we're bombing Iran, and we're getting our collective panties in a bunch about this?!?  What does that say about our priorities?

I have the same general feeling (see what I did there?) about Lindsay Graham at Disney World.  Yeah, we're in the midst of a partial government shutdown, and I believe that our elected officials should be locked in a room, without pay, and served bread and water until they get their $h!+ together and hash things out like big boys and girls.  That's not gonna happen though.  Furthermore, there is little to no indication that the Senate was actively negotiating a solution at the time, and I am skeptical that Graham's physical location would have made any difference in the budget impasse.

It seems that we as a society have forgotten how to prioritize what's really important, and I would like you to consider that the media's need for constant emergencies and attention is a major driver of this problem.  Those who got all wrapped around the axles over these stories need to recognize that anger for what it is... generated outrage. 

Mixed Thoughts

I read an article this morning that quoted comedic actor Rob Schneider as saying the US should bring back the military draft.  I have mixed thoughts.

My first thought is that Rob Schneider has no place making this statement because he has not served in the military.  I don't have much respect for people who expect others to do something they would not do themselves.  Now with that said...

Forcing everyone to serve would be expensive.  Do we really want that additional tax burden?

The quality of our military would decline, because the overwhelming majority of people would have no desire to be there.

On the other hand, it would get our youth into better physical and mental shape.

I also suspect that our leaders would be less likely to use military force if their own kids' lives were on the line.  But then again, we know these same leaders would find a way to get their own kids out of the draft... or at least get them into non-combat roles.

What are your thoughts on bringing back the draft? 

Proposed Change to VA Benefits

I read an article this morning about a petition sent to Congress that could change how veterans qualify for VA (Veterans Affairs) benefits.  The idea behind the petition is a change in the definition of wartime service, which is a distinction that determines eligibility for a lot of VA benefits.

This could make a big difference for a lot of veterans, because as it stands today, only veterans who served during officially designated "periods of war" are able to receive certain benefits.  This is important because of how the government classifies periods of war.  For example, a veteran who actively participated in Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada) could be classified as a peacetime veteran, rendering that person ineligible for certain VA benefits, even if he was in active combat, yet another veteran could have served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, without going overseas, and still be called a wartime veteran.

From my perspective, HOW you served is far more important than WHEN you served, and the current system is kind of backwards.  Furthermore, I believe the burden of proof is absolutely bass ackwards.  With a few exceptions, it's up to the veteran to prove eligibility.  For example, I know a Marine who has cancer, and was exposed to the water at Camp LeJeune but denied benefits because he was there for maneuvers, whereas the rules say that you need to be exposed for a minimum of 30 days.  He had a hard time proving he was there.  He fought for years before finally being approved for assistance and compensation.

Let me rephrasse this in terms the average person will understand.  Only six percent of the current population has served in the military.  If you break this down by age, over 40% of those 75 and older are veterans, but only 3% of those under 35 have served.  The average young adult is ineligible or unwilling to pursue military service.

To take this further, a currently-serving Marine recruiter told me that 75% of people in the age bracket of 17 to 28 are ineligible to serve in the military.  Only 1% of those eligible to serve go on to do so.  (He continues to say that only 1% of those eligible go on to become Marines, but that's outside of the scope of the discussion... just a fun fact.)  Mathematically, this means that .25% of eligible young people enter military service.  We, as a country, need to ensure that it's worthwhile for them to serve.  If we fail to take care of today's all-volunteer military, we won't have an all-voluntary military tomorrow.

Another indisputable point is that today's military professional is pressed harder than those of past generations.  Even reservists and National Guard soldiers can absolutely expect to be called to action.  This was effectively unheard of between Vietnam and the second Gulf War.  Active duty personnel can absolutely expect multiple conflict deployments.  This is hard not only on the person wearing the uniform, but the family as well.

As a capitalist society, we have a mindset of paying the minimum possible in exchange for goods and services.  Translation:  Employers will pay the minimum required.  I ask you to consider the reality that most of our lower ranked enlisted personnel (with families) qualify for food stamps and housing assistance, but we require them to place themselves in harm's way, and to be separated from their families for extended periods of time.  These young men and women experience shit the average person can't imagine.  Yet we thank them by giving them shit wages, and if they come back broken, we don't seem to care.

If we're going to have a society with a separate warrior class, which is how we function today, we need to make sure that the warrior class is overcompensated, not under-compensated.  This is especially important in a capitalistic society.  We have under-served our warrior class for far too long, and I fully support doing anything we can to right that wrong.

Full disclosure:  I am a wartime veteran.  I am in the VA program.  I will not benefit if these changes are implemented, because I'm already qualified.  This is not about me.  This is about my brothers and sisters in arms.  Also, please do not thank me for my service after reading this article.  Again, this is not about me.  It's about the others who also answered the call to arms, but are being denied help by the very system that sent them into harm's way. 

Music Therapy

Not sure if I mentioned it or not, but I dabble in music.  Full Disclaimer:  I am a rudimentary musician.  I can sing, both lead and harmony. (Not at the same time, of course.)  That's what I do best.  I can play some basic guitar chords and can play a couple of simple songs.  I play rudimentary bass guitar.  That's what I enjoy most, because basic bass is instant gratification.  No practice required.

I picked up a new bass last year so I can play in my church band.  When I got it, my younger daughter, who is a high school art teacher, asked to decorate the pick guard.  The instruments sit in my living room as a reminder to not completely neglect them between performances.  I'm sharing this picture to highlight my little girl's art work.  I love that I play in church and the pick guard prominently features a serpent.

 

Wind Therapy

I've been an avid rider for about 20 years.  Most of my riding is in the countryside not too far from home, but I've taken a few longer trips.  I went to Sturgis during bike week.  I rode to Nevada to see my daughter several years ago, and I rode to Nashville a couple of years back for a reunion with my Marine buddies, taking a detour to ride Tail of the Dragon.  Wind therapy makes me happy.

Spring is finally arriving in my neck of the woods.  Last weekend brought record-breaking high temperatures, and I took full advantage of it.  I hopped on the Harley and rode for about two hours on Friday, and five hours on Saturday.  I even got a light sunburn because it was too warm for the jacket.  It was great to get out, and I'm looking to a full summer of riding.  In fact, I hope to go back to Tail of the Dragon this summer.

Bonus entry: Here's a picture of my current bike, which I picked up in October of 2024. The photo was taken shortly after I purchased it.

 

Driving Backwards is Illegal?!?

Today's post is courtesy of a "Florida Man" story...

Once upon a time, a hypothetical situation may or may not have occurred.  For the purpose of the narrative, I will share this hypothetical situation as if it actually happened.

Back in the very early aughts, wife 1.0 and I both worked downtown.  Our respective offices were on the same block, and just a few miles from home.  One particular day, she called me up and asked me to help her out with a car problem.

To make the story significantly shorter, I learned that her Dodge Grand Caravan was having transmission problems.  Reverse worked okay, but the transmission slipped horribly going forward.  Being the problem solver that I am, I sent her home in my car and drove the van home in reverse.

I plotted a course that would get me home with as many back roads as possible, with as few turns as possible, and then waited for the worst of rush hour to pass.  Driving backwards through downtown was pretty amusing.  While I didn't see the facial expressions of commuters and pedestrians for the most part, it was kind of comical when I came to a stop light.  This was before the days of back-up cameras, so I had to drive with my arm over the passenger seat and my neck craned so I could look out the back window.  Stop lights gave me a moment of reprieve, where I could release from that pose and look forward.  But in this instance, looking forward meant that I was directly facing the car immediately behind... er... in front of... me... er... I mean my windshield.  It was always a bit awkward looking directly into the windshield of the next vehicle.  They were inevitably quite confused.  Using the rear view mirror, I'd keep an eye on traffic, and when it was my turn to go, I'd prop my arm back over the passenger seat, turn my head to the back window of the vehicle and proceed on my journey.

Fun fact: cars don't like to go backwards at road speeds for extended periods of time.  I learned this the hard way.  The biggest problem is keeping the engine cool.  The cooling system relies on air freely flowing through the radiator, which, of course, is immediately in front of the engine.  The cooling process is severely undermined when traveling in reverse.  My office at the time was three miles from my house.  The van overheated at mile 1 and I had to pull over and turn the car off to let the engine cool down.

After shutting off the engine, I could clearly hear the coolant boiling.  It sounded a lot like water rapidly boiling in a pan on the stove, only amplified.  The boiling sound subsided in about five minutes, and I waited another ten minutes or so... long enough for the engine to cool significantly, but not enough to cool completely.

I continued driving in reverse for another half mile, at which point the rest of the drive was hilly, but primarily downhill.  I backed into a driveway with a steep uphill incline, waited for traffic to clear, tromped on the gas and continued my journey home, no longer driving backwards.  While the transmission was slipping horribly going forward, it did catch ever so slightly.  Between the slight transmission engagement and the steep slope of that driveway to the street, I got up to speed enough to get home.  It was very much a practical application of gravity.  I picked up speed going down hills, and quickly lost speed on the inclines.  There were about four hills between that driveway and my house.

All said and done, it took me about 30 minutes to drive that 3 miles home.  But I was proud of my ingenuity in getting the car home, and it gave me a story that I still tell, 20+ years later.

Again though, just in case the man is reading this blog post, this is a hypothetical story that may or may not have occurred.

Misplaced Priorities

Over the weekend, our illustrious Commander in Chief signed an executive order blocking college football games from competing with the annual Army-Navy game.

So... we've got our military bombing Iran, the Epstein file scandal, and persistent inflation, (exacerbated by the aforementioned Iran attack,) but our fearless leader is spending his time and energy telling colleges, "You'd better not schedule games that compete with the Army-Navy game, because that would make me very angry." (Imagine the that would make me very angry part in Marvin the Martian's voice.)

As we go into this, bear in mind that I'm not a huge sports fan, but the Army-Navy game is one that I've been known to watch from time to time.  I also think that the idea of having this game not compete with others isn't horrible.  It is, however, completely unnecessary, and is certainly yet another example of the current administration micromanaging stupid $h!+, just because POTUS thinks he can.  Sigh... Talk about misplaced priorities.

Poorly Written Headlines

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a smart-@$$.  I have a knack for twisted wordsmithing, such tweaking song lyrics like Weird Al (though definitely not as good) or news headlines, like SNL.

Today, I saw an ad on the internet titled How to cut your nighttime bathroom trips in half.  I thought, "Well hell, since I average about one trip per night, that means I'd be doing 1/2 trip per night.  The only way to accomplish that is to only make it halfway before doing the deed.  Sounds messy.  Oh, I get it!  I'm supposed to put a bucket at the halfway mark."

Why Aren't You Helping? (A Parable)

During our current president's administrations, he has quite consistently behaved in an America First manner.  In practice, "America First" has meant tariffs, browbeating, berating, and bullying of countries we've considered allies for decades.  We managed to piss off Canada!  CANADA!!  Do you know how f*ck3d your behavior has to be to piss off a Canadian!?!  It'd be easier to get the Dali Lama to lose his temper.  We've been behaving like the bratty rich kid who threw a temper tantrum when he got a Ferrari instead of a Bugatti for his birthday.  Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, where we teamed up with Israel to bomb Iran back to the stone age.

Let me share a parable:  Once upon a time, the high school bully decided to take on the crazy kid because the bully's toady said the crazy kid was going to jump the bully after class.  The bully was wildly confident that crazy kid would drop in one punch.  Instead, the crazy kid started throwing haymakers, with the occasional punch landing on kids standing in the circle watching the fight.

The crazy kid hadn't landed any real punches on the bully, but the bully was really surprised that his precision punches hadn't rendered the crazy kid unconscious.  On the contrary.  The crazy kid wiped his bloody nose on the back of his hand, licked the blood, and smiled at the bully.  From there, the crazy kid said "Oh dude.  I'm not gonna quit.  I'm gonna keep fighting.  And for those of you watching, I'm gonna keep delivering haymakers, so you might get punched."

The bully was taken aback.  Oh $h!+, he thought. This isn't what I expected.  He turned to the people in the circle watching the fight and said "Dudes, you need to help!  Can't you see he's punching you too? Why aren't you helping?!?"  All the while, he failed to realize that the people watching the fight hated him as much as they hated the crazy kid.  They didn't start the fight, and it was the crazy kid vs. the bully!  Why would they help?  After all, 1t's a lot more fun to stand by and watch the show, even if you receive the occasional wild punch.

Here ends the parable.

The Fact That I Don't Resist in Your Exact Manner Does Not Mean I'm Not Resting

My kids have turned into conspiracy theorists.  They've been poring over the Epstein files, which has taken them to corners of the internet that are full of debunked ideas.  Both of them spoke to me last week, separately and at length, asking why I won't read the Epstein files.  I said that I don't need to know the specific abuse that occurred to acknowledge that bad Sh!+ happened there.  I don't need to know who did what, because I am not the one who chooses to prosecute.  What I do know at this point is that all I can realistically do is vote, and I've been voting against incumbents since long before the Epstein files came out.  I can't recall the last time my candidate was actually elected.

In return, they think I'm burying my head in the sand, and that I support the status quo.  I had to vocally remind them that I have put my name on the line by running for elected office, and that I put my life on the line as a combat veteran.  Meanwhile, neither of them can be bothered to vote.

They both want "revolution."  They both kind of asked why I'm not starting one, and I said because I'm not the guy to do that. I don't have the charisma, the resources, or the contacts to overthrow the government, and quite frankly, I believe in our republic, I've just lost faith in those currently in power, at the state and federal level.  There's a difference between not believing in the system vs. not having faith in those running the system.  I also don't believe they truly want revolution, but rather an overhaul.

They have this mistaken belief that my choice to not read the Epstein files is complacence. In return, I say "The fact that I don't resist in your exact manner, does not mean I'm not resisting."

I'm Not A Conspiracy Theorist, But...

I've had this thought running around my little pea brain since we started our attack on Iran.  Back in January, which seems a lifetime ago based on the media news cycle, we invaded Venezuela and captured/deposed Nicolas Maduro.  The stated reason for this action was working to reduce/eliminate the flow of cocaine from Venezuela to the US.

However, once we had Maduro in custody, we started claiming their oil.  Within a couple of months, we attacked Iran, a major oil producer, and one of two countries connected to the Straits of Hormuz.  Shortly after these attacks, we publicly admitted that we had been planning and coordinating this attack with Israel "for months."

Strategically speaking, Iran's blockade of the Straits of Hormuz should have been an obvious consideration.  Realistically speaking, it's not something that could be prevented, so the next option is to mitigate the fallout.  The best way to mitigate is to ensure another oil source, which takes me back to our overthrowing of the Venezuelan head of state.

One other thing... I have to admit that I find the timing of this a little bit more than coincidental.  I can't help but wonder if Trump would have been so eager to go to Iran if the Epstein scandal had gone away.  To restate an internet meme... "The missing Epstein files aren't in Iran."

Like I said, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but... 

Whack-A-Mole

Today's post is a brief critique of President Trump's decision to lift US Sanctions on Russian oil.

Let's start with a little back story:  A couple of weeks ago, the US and Israel started a bombing campaign in Iran.  The rationale is beyond the scope of today's post, but that's primarily because the message has been so inconsistent, other than to say we're "winning," that determining the real reason is an unrealistic expectation.

Part of Iran's response to the attack has been to blockade the Straits of Hormuz.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Straits, it's a very narrow body of water that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.  Roughly 25% of the world's crude oil passes through this waterway, meaning that Iran's blockade carries a serious, immediate and widespread impact to the rest of the world.

The economic impact has been ... noticeable.  Gas prices in the US have increased by about 20% in the two weeks since Trump took us on this little escapade.  In my neck of the woods, the price of gas has increased by roughly 75 cents per gallon.  In response to this crisis, POTUS has announced that the US will 'temporarily lift sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea' in order to stabilize energy prices.  In my opinion, this is a game of whack-a-mole.  Let me explain...

The original reason we imposed sanctions on Russia is because Russia invaded Ukraine, and we couldn't let this aggression go unanswered.  Oil is one of Russia's major national resources.  If nobody buys Russian oil, it's harder for them to fund their war efforts against Ukraine.

Fast forward to now... we attacked Iran, and they stopped the flow of oil from the Middle East.  As a result, approximately 35% of the world's oil is unavailable at the moment.  (Russia can produce about 10% of the world's oil.  Combine that with the 25% that flows through the Straits of Hormuz, and you see how I reached that 35%.)  Prices skyrocketed, Americans screamed, and Trump responded by allowing the world to purchase Russian oil.

Now, let me wrap this in a nice pretty bow so everyone can see how this is a giant game of strategic Whack-A-Mole.  Russia invades Ukraine. (Whack!) America doesn't like that, so we impose sanctions on Russian oil. (Whack!) We attack Iran. (Whack!) Iran blocks the Straits of Hormuz, cutting oil supplies further. (Whack!)  We lift the Russian oil sanctions. (Whack!) {Introduce my next prediction for the next whack.  Russia now has money to press their attack on Ukraine.}

This is definitely the behavior of a stable genius.

Kicking Tobacco

Today's post is inspired by Sunny. 

I started smoking when I was 17.  I loved it and was up to a pack a day within a week.  We were not allowed to smoke in boot camp, but someone from my platoon got their hands on a pack and shared with me.  I hated how congested I was for the next couple of days, but loved the nicotine.  The habit stuck with me for over 35 years.

I did quit for a couple of years in my thirties, but {wife} 1.0 and I split up and I started smoking again, despite the fact that it was a horrible financial decision.  I couldn't make my mortgage payment without a roommate, but I somehow {afforded} smoking.

Over the years I've quit multiple times.  I tried cold turkey, Zyban, nicotine patches, gum, and hypnosis, but nothing stuck.  I followed the Uncle Buck program.  I went from cigarettes to dip to cigars.  The last several years I smoked Swisher Sweets.  And when I say I smoked them, I mean I inhaled.  It wasn't that deep inhale of a cigarette, but the smoke definitely hit my lungs.

To me, a nicotine fit felt like my lungs were hungry, and a cigarette always made me full.  I suspect that's part of why cigars worked.  Inhaling cigar smoke was like a punch in the lungs, and at the end, it was similar to eating a steak dinner, because I was satisfied for hours.  That allowed me to break the ritual of going out every hour or so for a smoke break.

I finally kicked the habit a couple of years ago.  I'm thinking it's been three or four years, but I don't recall exactly when I quit.  I know it was in May sometime.  I could look it up, but it's not that important to me.  Besides, I'm tobacco free, but I'm not nicotine free.  I still get my nicotine fix with lozenges.

Lozenges work for me because they mimic some of the sensory input a cigarette provides.  Smokers can no doubt relate to that slightly spicy, peppery not-quite-burning sensation in the palate, or that slightly pasty feeling that's not quite dry mouth that comes with and immediately after a smoke.  Lozenges leave a mouth feel that's similar to a cigarette, without the inconvenient shortness of breath and other health consequences.

What finally got me to quit?  I hit a fitness plateau.  I was one of those idiots who would go to the gym, and then fire up a cancer stick on the drive home.  One random day, I was dissatisfied with my run time, and understood that while it was partially due to the ravages of time, tobacco was the biggest blocker to my fitness goals.  I'd love to say that I spontaneously threw my pack out the window and never looked back, but that's not exactly what happened.  I looked into nicotine replacement therapy and decided to try the lozenges because that's one thing I hadn't tried.  I bought a box and switched when I killed the last cigar.

As I said earlier, I still do lozenges years later, even though it's designed to be a temporary solution.  From my perspective, it's a reasonable compromise.  I'd say I'm still semi-addicted to nicotine.  I occasionally go a couple of days without a lozenge and it doesn't impact my lifestyle.  I don't get nicotine fits.  However, I made a promise to myself that I will not use tobacco again, and I will not inhale my nicotine.

One other thing I'd like to note.  Every single time I {quit} smoking cigarettes, I would hack up phlegm for a solid week or two.  When I'd quit cigars, the coughing would only last a couple of days.  I'm not an expert, but I suspect this is because cigarettes have more chemicals, which to my understanding are specifically designed to deliver the nicotine to your system faster, and I believe these chemicals are missing from cigars.  I also suspect that I didn't inhale the cigar smoke as deeply, because it was so dense.  I'm not advocating that anyone switch from cigarettes to cigars, I'm just making an observation.  By the same token, I'm not standing on my soap box and telling anyone to quit.  I'm just telling a story.

{Note: Edited to fix a couple of typos I missed the first time around.}

I'm Back (in Shape) Baby!

I believe I shared in an earlier post that after my car accident in early November, I had lost a lot of strength.  For a frame of reference, I ran a physical fitness test in October and was able to crank out 10 pull-ups, plank for 3:45, and run 1.5 miles in 13:00, or run 3 miles in about 29:00.  By contrast, around this time last month, I was plateaued at 7 pull-ups and a 2:00 plank time.  My run time was back to normal.

I'm happy to share that I did a fitness test last week and I'm back up to speed.  In fact, I was just shy of hitting that ever-elusive 11th pull-up.  (My eyes were over the bar, but I couldn't quite get my chin there.)  I held my plank for the full 3:45, and I hit a personal best of 1.5 miles in 12:50.

I'm going to give some of the credit to creatine.  People have been telling me for years that it's worth looking into, but I may or may not have a bit of a stubborn streak.  I've gone my entire life without using fitness supplements, but I finally caved.  From my perspective, it came down to the (possibly false) choice of acknowledging that I might not be able to rebuild my strength after the accident, or agreeing to try a performance enhancer that's clinically proven safe and effective.

Creatine is everything the pundits claim.  Physically, I have more energy and stamina, and I seem to recover more quickly.  At the gym, I usually do three sets of a given exercise, and I find that I occasionally have the energy to do a fourth set.  I can usually crank out an extra rep or two in each set, and I'm ready to go more quickly between sets.  I've also noticed that I'm more mentally alert.  I take my creatine in the morning, and it provides about the same pep as a cup of coffee.

This time last month, I was resigning myself to the possibility that I'd never get back to pre-accident fitness.  Now I'm looking forward to achieving some of the fitness goals that have eluded me for years.  My stretch goals are to do 12 pull-ups, to run 1.5 miles in 12:30, and to run 3 miles in 28 minutes or less.

In Support of Ozempic Face

We are a superficial, critical society, and we spend far too much time worrying about how people look.  This one's too fat.  That one's too skinny.  Oh, look at the splotchy skin on this one!

I'd like to clarify that I'm not immune to this.  I'm not a fan of the collagen lip injection trend.  In fact, I'm not a big fan of cosmetic surgery in general.  But I'm not going to take to social media and shame people for their appearance.  Hence today's post.

Imagine being overweight your entire life.  You try diligently to lose weight, but can't keep it off.  Then a drug comes along that could help you lose weight and make you healthier.  You take the drug and start to feel better.  Next thing you know, people are saying you look too skinny.  It's almost like they prefer you fat and unhealthy.

Sorry, I'd like to opt out of this game.  Yes, I do have my own preferences when it comes to personal appearance and healthy choices.  Heck, I just did a post about healthy eating.  But you know what?  It's not my place to share my unsolicited opinion on someone else's appearances or lifestyle choices.  Do you want to try the new wonder drug and lose a lot of weight?  Great!  Don't trust the science yet?  Awesome!  Collagen injections?  Like I said, it's not my thing, you do you!

Noem is Out!

I read an article reporting that Trump has fired Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.  I support this decision.

Trump also said that she's going to become "Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas," whatever that is.  It sounds like a made-up position, but if it keeps her out of any real position of power I can live with it.

Markwayne Mullin has been selected to take her place.  I don't know anything about the guy, so I don't have any real thoughts on the choice, other than to say it's interesting that Trump would pull anyone from the House or Senate, considering how small their majority is at the moment.  (Mullin is a Republican Senator from Oklahoma.)

Taking Their Ball and Going Home

I'm a life member of a couple of Veteran Service Organizations.  I'm active in one.  Veteran Service Organizations in general are suffering from declining membership.  The old guard is dying off, and the younger generation isn't interested in joining up.

My group has a younger local head honcho who is trying diligently to attract younger people.  The thing is, the old guard doesn't like it.  We had our elections a couple of days ago, to determine who would run things for the next year, and it sucked.  During my time with this group,  we've never had actual elections, because we struggle to get one person to serve in these elected jobs.  This year, the old guard got together and put up a second candidate in an attempt to get the current honcho voted out.  They failed.  Things got heated, and I think a lot of the old guys are going to quit.

I'm disheartened and disappointed.  While I don't see eye to eye with their perspectives, I respected them up to last night.  These guys are my brothers in arms.  If their guy would have won, I would have been disappointed, but I would have respected the outcome of the election.  Unfortunately, it looks like they're taking their ball and going home.  One of the old guys actually asked me to go outside and fight him.  I was dumbfounded!  I hope I never get that old and set in my ways.

Not Quite What I Expected

 When I made the conscious decision to take up my blog again, I said early on that I planned to focus on political stuff.  I was looking for a place where I could share my perspective on the issue of the day without the partisan bickering of Facebook.  This is my little corner of the interwebs, so I can generally say what I want.  Nobody can comment on this blog without my consent, meaning that I don't need to worry about the trolls.  And with a readership of almost zero, that's not an issue anyway.

You may also notice in the earlier post that I expressed the hope I would one day return to mundane blather.  Oddly enough, I'm already sick of the politics and have indeed returned to sharing my thoughts on uneventful occurrences.  I expected this would turn into a virtual version of me screaming, ranting and raging in an empty room.  Instead, it's a virtual version of me spewing a relatively disjointed and unfocused stream of consciousness in an empty room.  I'm good with this, it's just not quite what I expected.

That's My Girl!!

I need to brag on my younger daughter for a bit.

Her hubby's car crapped out yesterday.  It would start, but wouldn't run for Sh!+.  She called me to ask for my engine diagnostic reader, and pulled the codes.

The codes indicated a misfire in cylinder 1.  Research said the most likely culprits were a bad spark plug, a bad ignition coil, a bad fuel injector, or a vacuum leak.  She did the troubleshooting, she did the research, and then she consulted me.  We put our heads together and decided the easiest, cheapest course of action was to replace the spark plug.  After swapping out the plug, she reported that the engine was running a bit better, but was still not quite right.

Before continuing, I need to divert a bit... In my day, there was a single ignition coil.  While consulting with her and doing parallel troubleshooting from my house, I found out that modern engines have a separate coil for each cylinder, and the coil is directly connected to the spark plug.  Having learned this, I then researched how to test an ignition coil.  She beat me to the punch... she swapped out two coils and discovered that the trouble code moved to the next cylinder, showing that the ignition coil was defective.  That's right, my girl troubleshot and addressed the problem all on her own.

There's an itty bitty piece of me that wants to give her husband crap for not being mechanically inclined, but I'm not going to do that.  What he lacks in mechanical knowledge and desire to learn he makes up for by being an active, hands-on father, and by being involved in the day-to-day running of the household.  He shares in cooking, cleaning and childcare.  He's a good man who showers my daughter and my grandson with love and devotion.

But that's beside the point.  The gist of today's post is to brag on my little girl for her willingness and ability to identify and fix a moderately complex mechanical issue with virtually no external assistance, which is a rapidly vanishing skill in today's society.  That's my girl!!

Suicide Drone?

I saw an article yesterday that referred to "suicide drones."  The definition of suicide is the taking of one's own life.  This means, by definition, there is no such thing as a suicide drone for the following reasons:

-The drone is not alive, therefore, there is no life to take.

-The drone is not self-aware, so it did not choose to take its own life.

-The drone is controlled remotely by a human, so the drone did not take its own life.  In fact, if the drone were alive and self-aware, this so-called suicide drone would technically been murdered by the pilot.

U.S. and Israel Attack Iran

I woke up this morning to news that we have attacked Iran.  This is the second country we've invaded in two months.  If you include our oil blockade against Cuba, we are actively working to destabilize a third sovereign entity.

I'd like to remind people that the POTUS who did this is also the same guy who promised to get the U.S. out of "forever wars" ... the same guy who said that he could end the conflict in Ukraine ... the same guy who believes himself worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize... the same guy who promised no new wars.

The article I read said that Israel joined us in our strike, and that we have been planning this strike "for months," meaning the course of action was premeditated, not reactionary.  If any country deserves to be invaded, it's certainly Iran.  But I'm not convinced this is the right course of action at the right time.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  It's hubris on our part to believe that everyone in the world wants our specific brand of freedom, and it's stupid for us to try to force it on the unwilling.

Run!

I got fired a couple of years ago from my previous job.  I was not fired for cause, though they tried unsuccessfully to dig up dirt on me.

The job started off great.  I was a high performer and was rewarded with a promotion after about a year.  Unfortunately, the CEO retired, and the new guy was radically different than his predecessor.  The old CEO came up through the ranks, personally knew the founder of the company, and fostered a culture that valued the employees.  The new guy was (and still is) the exact opposite.  He's laser focused on maximizing profit at all costs, and has zero tolerance for dissent in the ranks.  He's a know-it-all bully.  I made it about nine months into his tenure before I got the boot.

During that time, he cut staff by about 1/3, and he cut with a hatchet, not a scalpel.  Many of the best and brightest were dismissed, and there was a strong correlation with age and salary.  Those left behind were overworked, underpaid, and inexperienced.  As you can imagine, the environment radically shifted from being a place where people were happy to a culture of fear.

When I left, I was offered an insultingly low severance, which I declined.  A condition of that severance was a non-disparagement clause, meaning that I'd be unable to tell my story.  When they canned me, it was shortly after one of my employees committed suicide.  These bastards used his death to launch an investigation into me, alleging that I engaged in bullying behavior.  I was suspended for two weeks (with pay) while they conducted their "investigation."  When they "interviewed" me, they took something I said completely out of context and tried to say that I was behaving in an inappropriate manner.  Furthermore, this "incident" occurred completely outside of work.  It was an impromptu gathering of my team to celebrate the life of our deceased co-worker.  It was not company-sanctioned in any way, shape or form.

Since investigation did not yield anything that could get me fired for cause, they at-will fired me.  I know they fired me because I was highly compensated, because I stood up for my team, and because I did not quake in fear over C-Suite executives.  From my perspective, part of my job is to speak up if I see something wrong as opposed to cowering in the corner, keeping my head down and my mouth shut.

While I hate what the company has become, and have nothing but contempt for the leadership, I do keep in touch with former co-workers.  I also see a lot of activity on LinkedIn from these people, and from the company.  This evil empire still touts itself as a great place to work, and it's a total lie.  I constantly see people sharing LinkedIn posts saying "I'm happy to announce that I've landed a job at [company]" but to my knowledge, headcount has not grown at all.  This, of course, would indicate high turnover and a culture that remains $h!++y.

When I see these LinkedIn posts -- and I see them weekly -- I feel like I'm watching a horror flick.  I want to scream "run!" but I know they wouldn't listen any more than the characters in the slasher film.

Part of me wants to post my story on LinkedIn or Glassdoor, but I'm going to refrain.  That's a good way to get myself blacklisted, meaning I'd screw myself if I were to go job hunting in the future.  Employers tend to avoid potential employees who would dare speak truth to power.  

Let's Watch Rome Burn

It's been reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi has said (and I'm paraphrasing) if we were to prosecute everyone involved in the Epstein files, the whole system could collapse.  Let me start by saying that I haven't seen a concrete verification of this statement, but if she did say it, I would counter by saying that's not a reason to NOT do it... it's a reason TO do it.

We are supposed to live in a system that provides equal justice for all.  We ostensibly live in a society that protects the innocent.  By choosing to not enforce the core tenets of civilized society because doing so "could cause collapse," that system has already ceased to exist.  We're not supposed to do what's comfortable or convenient; we need to do what's right.

I'd like to clarify that I'm not talking about sex.  Heck, I've done the sex thing once or twice and I'm a big fan.  If you're an adult and you want to go to an island to to let your freak flag fly, then by all means knock yourself out.  The only conditions are that everyone involved in that snake ball must be a willing participant, and old enough to give informed consent.  To clarify further, I don't care if some or all of the participants are prostitutes, as long as they are willing, and of legal age.  In the grand scheme of things, that's a pretty low bar of acceptability.

If we're not prosecuting people because the system could collapse, then I say let's watch Rome burn.  I'll bring the fiddle... and the marshmallows.

Eliminate the State of the Union Address

Here's a fun fact... a lot of people mistakenly believe that the annual State of the Union (SOTU) address is required. It's not. While the Constitution mandates that the President periodically give Congress information on the State of the Union, there is no requirement that it be delivered in person, that it's annual, or that it's broadcast to the public.  I believe it's time to get rid of the dog and pony show that SOTU has become.  The longstanding "opposition response" should demonstrate how SOTU has devolved from a constitutional duty to partisan showmanship, which in my opinion undermines the original idea.

I need to share that this is not my original idea.  I read or heard the idea, thought about it for a bit, and realized that the idea has some merit.  Let's quit giving these @$$ clowns so much attention, so they can get back to their actual jobs, which is running the country.  And to clarify, I'm talking about all of the elected clowns in the car, not just the executive branch, and not just a single party.

While there is no concrete proof or consensus, there's a general agreement that elected officials tend to have a higher rate of narcissism than the population at large.  It's also established that narcissists thrive on attention.  The most effective method of reshaping that attention-seeking behavior is to ignore it.  We need to stop paying attention to negative and manipulative behavior.  By eliminating the State of the Union address (in its current form) we are removing one of the stages our elected officials use to seek and gain attention.

Do Atheists Believe in Soul Mates?

I find the concept of soul mates a little far-fetched.  After all, there are over 8 billion people in the world right now.  If there is one perfect fit for each person, the odds of finding that specific individual is infinitesimal, because geographically speaking that person could be anywhere.  It's also statistically likely that any two given soul mates can't speak the same language.

If soul mates exist, the most likely demographic to find their one and only would be citizens of India.  Their population is about 1.5 billion, meaning at least they have just under a 20% chance of their perfect match living in the same country.  By way of comparison, citizens of Monaco, a country with a population of about 40,000, stand less than a hundred thousandth of a percent chance of living in the same country as that special someone.  Specifically they have a 0.000005 percent chance of living in the same country as their soul mate.

Mathematically speaking, this means that if soul mates exist, either you're almost guaranteed to never find your soul mate, or some external factor would need to exist that guides one to the right individual, at the proper time, in the correct place. Anecdotally speaking, this external factor would need to possess some form of awareness, otherwise it would be unable to identify the correct pair before bringing them together.

This, of course, brings me back to my basic question.  Do atheists believe in soul mates?

The Food Cylinder

I grew up with the food pyramid.  While I'm a bit older than the food pyramid of the 80's, it's certainly all I specifically recall about nutrition.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, the base of the pyramid was the bread and cereal group.  the next level up was the fruit and vegetable group, and the top level was the meat group.

The new food pyramid, implemented under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., current Secretery of Health and Human Services, has not quite flipped that on its head by recommending a base of fruits and vegetables, with meat in the middle, and grains at the top of the pyramid.

Before I go any further, I need to state for the record that I believe RFK Jr. is a conspiracy theorist nutjob, and as such, I'm generally disinclined to give credence to anything he says.  In this specific case though, there may be something to what he's saying.  (Hey, I'm more interested in truth than I am in discrediting people with whom I disagree; truth is more important than pride.)

And while I also hold a disdain for Fox "News," I will credit them for getting me to re-examine my original skepticism regarding the new food pyramid.  The gist of what got me to reconsider my preconceived bias was an article that pointed out how obesity really exploded around the time that the old food pyramid came out.  This also corresponds with when the medical community started encouraging low fat diets.

Now I'm going to pull in my history, because it's important to this story.  I grew up as a Midwest kid, meaning I was raised on meat and potatoes... and the potatoes were usually smothered in butter.  There were certainly fruits and vegetables served with each meal, much to our youthful disgust.  Breakfasts consisted of unsweetened cereal, but I always corrected that travesty with heaping teaspoons of granulated sugar on my Cheerios.  My point here is that my childhood diet didn't exactly follow the dietary guidelines of the day.

I'm going to gloss over the diet of my late teens and early 20's for a couple of reasons: 1) At a macro level, most young adults tend to have a $h!++y diet.  I feel this is partly because young adults a) tend to go wild and eat the things they were denied as children, b) tend to lack the skills and materials to cook for themselves, or c) lack the financial resources required for a well-rounded diet.  2) In my specific case, I was in the military, so my nutritional needs were generally met at the chow hall.

After the military, wife 1.0 did most of the cooking, but I did have a reasonable amount of influence over our diet.  After we split, I became master of my dietary destiny, though wife 2.2 did manage to sway some of my culinary tastes and practices.  With my dietary history out of the way, let's talk about my personal experience.

I should start by sharing a bit about my physical condition.  I'm sharing this because in this specific case, my physique directly impacts my credibility.  I have no formal education or training in this area, so I can only share my experience.  And with that in mind, I'd have zero credibility if I were shaped like a marshmallow.  Conversely, if I had the build of a bodybuilder, I'd have outsized credibility.  So, let's say this...

I'm 57 years old 

I'm about 5'10"

I have never weighed more than 165 lbs. in my life.

I currently weigh about 155 lbs, and have for 20+ years.

I am physically active. I can run 3 miles in about 30 minutes.  I can do about 7 pull-ups.  When I do a toe touch, my knees are locked, and my middle knuckle can touch the floor.  I can swim a mile in about 45 minutes.

In other words, I'm going on 60 and am in better physical condition than the vast majority of young adults.

Okay, getting back to the nutrition discussion... as a kid, I was taught a low fat diet based on the food pyramid.  The reality was close, but it was more of a food cylinder.  I ate way more meat than suggested.  I consumed far less grain than recommended.  I probably ate about the right amount of fruits and vegetables.

I carried this personal preference into my adulthood.  I formally realized my dietary preferences and practices somewhere in my mid 30's.  That's about the time I started calling my diet the food cylinder.  Here's a general overview of what my diet looks like:

As implied by my "food cylinder" comment, I tend to eat meat, dairy, grain and fruits/vegetables in about the same amount.  My meat is primarily poultry.  Red meat is a medium-distant second, and fish falls waaay behind red meat.  My dairy intake is almost exclusively cheese, but I eat a lot of it.  I don't do much milk, yogurt, etc.  My fruit and vegetable intake weighs very heavily toward vegetables.  My grain intake is generally bread, tortillas and tortilla chips, all of which lean toward whole grain.

I consume very little fried food.  While I grew up sauteing in butter, I changed to olive oil.  I rarely eat dessert.  When I do eat sweets, it's usually one or two kid-sized snickers or reese's, a little ice cream, or a slice of cheesecake.

I tend to eat a small brunch and a larger dinner.

I generally drink water, and occasionally treat myself with 100% fruit juice.

My dietary indulgences are salt and beer. 

After I pondered all of this, I grudgingly realized that RFK jr. may be onto something.  If you take a look, the two common items that are most glaringly absent from my diet are highly processed carbohydrates, sugar, and highly processed meat.  That's what really got my attention from RFK's new food pyramid... it's about highly-processed food.  Anecdotally speaking, grain-based food is most susceptible to excessive refinement.  Think about it... at a fundamental level, chips and cookies are about the easiest foods on the planet to over-process.  Furthermore, grain-based food is the cheapest to produce and consume, because they have a crazy long shelf life.

Now that I've said this, I MUST remind you, dear reader, that correlation is not causation. Furthermore, if you take my word as authoritative, you are likely falling to the hasty generalization fallacy.  I am not trying to present myself as an authority in this area.  All I'm doing is sharing my experience, and acknowledging that I've been given food for thought.  (No pun intended.)  As is usually the case, I encourage you to do your own independent research, specifically focusing on viewpoints that challenge your own preconceived notions.

Gonna Sound Cold

This is going to sound cold and uncaring, but I'm of the opinion that the media is spending too much time talking about Nancy Guthrie.  For those of you who are unaware, Nancy Guthrie is the mother of journalist Savannah Guthrie, and she disappeared a couple of weeks ago under mysterious circumstances.

Before you go branding me heartless and unfeeling, hear me out.  People go missing every single day.  If we were to give this kind of press to everyone who went missing, we'd have entire television station channels and newspapers that did nothing but discuss the missing.  From my perspective, the attention that Nancy Guthrie's disappearance is receiving is just another example of the rich and famous receiving preferential treatment.

I'd also like to clarify that if I were in Savannah Guthrie's shoes, I'd do the same thing.  I'd absolutely leverage my connections to ensure the safe return of my missing loved one.  In that respect, I freely admit that I'm a bit hypocritical.

I'd also like to note that I'm not exactly decrying the indisputable fact that life is unfair.  I get it, and I accept it.  It's just that every now and then, such as here, and with the Epstein files, it's frustrating and discouraging to be constantly reminded how far the scales of justice and fairness are tipped toward the social elite.

He'll Never Know

At a previous job, I served as an IT manager, and I was pretty good at it.  After only a year, I received a promotion that doubled the size of my team.  With the expanded team, I inherited a problematic employee.  He was good at his job, but he had poor people skills, he wasn't really interested in expanding his skill set, and he groused about working outside of his scheduled shift.  (That last item is problematic in the IT field.)  One of my tasks was getting this guy to improve as an employee or move on.  From a manager's perspective, the guy was chaos incarnate.  He had an endless series of emergencies that required people to carry his load.  I gave him opportunities to shine and he consistently shot himself in the foot.

I was kind of desperate to help him succeed, so I sent him to help set up a new office.  The job was incredibly simple.  All he had to do was set up and test all of the new computers and phones.  A high school kid could do it.  He still failed.  During the setup, he got into an argument with another employee, who was tasked with physically setting up the cubes.  The argument was over the phone, and my guy got hostile with the other dude and hung up on him.  The other guy reported him to his supervisor, who reported it to me.

Furthermore, he failed to set up all of the workstations.  The reason he failed the setup is because there was a shortage of monitors.  However, he was scheduled to be there long enough that if he'd have simply counted what was needed vs. what was on hand on day one, I could have ordered what was missing and had it there before the office was opened.  Instead, he just let it go, and I didn't find out until the new office manager told me that we had an incomplete setup.  I had to fly to that office personally to fix the technical issues and politically smooth things over.  As you can imagine, I was ready to write the guy up.  A day or two after I returned, but before I wrote him up, he called me, saying he needed a few days off because he was being evicted from his house.

Later that day, I had a meeting with my boss, and told her about his failures, and she instructed me to fire him.  I refused and told her that he'd just been evicted from his home.  She stood firm.  While I acknowledged that his behavior and work (or lack thereof) were worthy of termination, I'm a human being before I'm a manager.  I told my boss that regardless of performance, firing someone immediately after being evicted was inhumane, and that I wouldn't be a part of it.  She agreed to "settle" for me writing him up, with the stipulation that I expressly state that any further infractions would result in termination.  When I wrote him up, I never told him that I saved his job.  I didn't want to throw my boss under the boss, and I didn't want to be seen as his savior.

At the end of the year, when it was time for annual reviews and raises, I rated him as a marginal employee and recommended a minimal raise.  I was again overridden and told that he would receive zero raise.  The thing is, I used all of my goodwill leverage saving this guy's job.  However, since I had no choice in the matter, I did not feel obligated to shield my boss, so I did inform him that I requested a raise and was overridden.  (It was actually my boss's boss who made the no raise decision, and I shared that.)  I said that I fought the good fight, and that I believed he would likely not progress past his current position at this company. 

He got the hint and within a month or two, he had landed a new job.  We're connected on LinkedIn, and he seems to be doing well at his new job.  I'm happy for him, and I wish him nothing but success.  But to this day, he doesn't know that I traded all of the political clout I'd built up just to save his job... meaning that I allowed him to leave on his timeline instead of getting fired when his life was already in a shambles.  I didn't do this because he was a great employee.  He wasn't.  I did it because he's human, and like I said earlier, to fire him right after losing his house would have been inhumane.

New Dictionary Word

I had a phone call with my mother a couple of days ago, and as usual, it was VERY one-sided, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.  The event prompted me to create a new word.

Momologue: (noun)  A conversation with your mother, where she does all of the talking. 

Spoiled Little Princess

I mentioned last month that I had to put down my faithful canine companion, Gilmour.  What I did not discuss in that post was my concern how his "sister" Lainie would adjust.

I adopted Lainie from the Humane Society about nine years ago.  She's my fourth dog as an adult, and they were all pound puppies.  Lainie was a little different though.  The first three dogs all came to me as puppies, and Lainie was about two years old when she chose me.

When I brought her home, she was very timid.  I didn't hear her bark for the first couple of months.  She was also very protective of her food.  Shortly after bringing her home, I gave Gilmour and Lainie each a rawhide dog bone.  Somewhere along the line, she started to walk away from the rawhide, so Gilmour moved in and tried to take it.  She went after him as if she was rabid.  Fortunately, because she was still new to the house, I had been keeping a close eye on her and I was able to quickly break up the fight.  Fun fact:  Neither dog has touched a rawhide since that day.

The next morning, wifey was worried that the dogs would get into a fight and asked me to separate the dogs while were at work, so I put her in the guest bedroom.  (Lainie, not my wife.)  While we were at work, she got a case of isolation anxiety and destroyed the bedroom, shredding carpet, pulling down curtains, chewing window frames, and eventually busting through the hollow-core bedroom door.  (Again, Lainie, not my wife.)  When I got home, she and Gilmour were contentedly laying on the couch together as if they were litter mates.  From that time, until I put Gilmour down, Lainie had never been alone for more than a few minutes at a time.  She and Gilmour were attached at the hip (much to Gilmour's occasional annoyance.)

Lainie has always been deferential to Gilmour.  She let him eat first.  She let him exit and enter the house first when it was time to go outside.  She always walked a couple of paces behind him.  She adored him and followed him everywhere.  With this in mind, I made sure she was present when we put him down.  I firmly believe that dogs know when someone in their pack dies if they can sniff the body.  When he breathed his last, she laid down across from him and put her front paws on his, and sniffed his face.  It was almost like she was holding his hands as he passed away.  It chokes me up thinking about it.

I work from home, so I was not incredibly worried about her being by herself all day, but my wife and I do lead reasonably active lifestyles.  This means that Lainie would be left alone for an hour or two at a time.  I was a bit nervous about that the first time, but my fear proved unfounded.  When I returned, she was calmly laying by the door, wagging her tail as I walked in.  The dog hair on my bed revealed that she was laying on the bed while I was gone.  She's not allowed on the bed, but that's not the hill I'm gonna die on.  If that keeps her calm when she's alone, I'm okay with it.

My nerves kicked in again when wifey and I had to drop everything and go to see my older daughter.  My son-in-law came by to check on her a couple of times daily, making sure to stay and play, but for the most part, she was alone for about four days, and this was within a couple of weeks of putting Gilmour down.  Lainie was a trooper though, and she's proven all of my concerns unfounded.

Now that I'm back home, Lainie and I have essentially been constant companions.  She's incredibly mellow without Gilmour around.  She constantly lays at my feet when I'm seated, and dutifully follows me around when I get up.  She consistently lays on my side of the bed, and she lights up when I take a quick break from whatever I'm doing to give her a bit of attention.  She's incredibly well-behaved when we go on our walks.  For the most part, she walks next to me off leash. I only put on the leash when people or other dogs approach, and even that's primarily because it's socially expected.  She's become the spoiled little princess that I always knew she could be. 

Kids These Days

I believe I've mentioned more than once that I'm a Marine Corps veteran.  (Doesn't every Marine do that?)  I only served six years, but that period of my life has an outsized impact on who I am, even now.  I'm not here to brag about my service though.  I'm here to talk about how I'm fortunate to serve the Marine Corps today.

It all started with the 2024 Marine Corps Ball.  After years of trying, we finally convinced a local recruiter to attend the local Ball that my Marine Corps League detachment hosts each year.  During the event, I thanked the recruiter for attending, and told him how we'd been trying for years to forge a relationship with the office, with no success.  I asked how we can help with his mission, suggesting that my detachment Marines could come in and share some of their war stories and experiences.

As a result of that conversation, I now engage in weekly PT sessions with Marine Corps Poolees.  (PT is the acronym for "physical training," AKA weekly workouts.  Poolees are people on delayed entry, meaning they have signed the enlistment paperwork, but have not yet gone to boot camp.)  When I say "engage," this means that I'm serving in a hybrid role.

At the beginning, I was kind of a glorified poolee, meaning that I would go through the workouts as if I were a poolee myself.  Over time, I earned the trust and respect of the recruiters, and my role has evolved.  I am now more of an advocate, ambassador, and role model.  While I do still work out with these kids, I have been granted the freedom to correct poolees when they do something wrong, such as incorrectly standing at the position of attention.  Instead of just participating in the PT, I sort of lead it, with a focus on providing more one-on-one guidance and encouragement to poolees who are struggling with physical fitness.  I run the monthly physical fitness test right alongside of them.

These kids consistently fill me with a unique combination of dismay and pride.  It's crazy how many can't do a single pull-up when they walk in the door.  Well over 50% of the time, I can do more pull-ups, plank longer AND run faster than a new poolee.  There have been many cases where I could outperform these kids in at least one of these events up to the day they shipped off to boot camp.  With a handful of exceptions, I am triple the age of these future Marines.  Imagine how humbling it must be for them to be beaten by someone old enough to be their grandfather!

The recruiters use this to their advantage, of course. They tell the poolees that I am the minimum standard for physical performance.  It gives the kids something concrete to strive for, and it's awesome to see their sense of accomplishment when they can outperform me in any area.  At the same time, they motivate me to continually give them my best as well.

I would like to clarify that I am in this role at the pleasure of the local recruiters.They are always present (or at least nearby.)  I do not interact with the poolees outside of the recruiting office.  My official reason for being there is to serve as an ambassador for the Marine Corps League.  I'm planting the seed now, with the hope that it grows into future membership when the leave the Marine Corps.  In reality though, that's only a small piece.  I consider the recruiters my friends, and I want them to succeed.  I am invested in the well-being of these future Marines.  It brings me a great deal of joy to see them after they've graduated boot camp.  It also saddens me to see the occasional washout, such as the young man who got booted from the pool because he got a DUI after attending a high school graduation party.

I suspect the phrase "kids these days" is as old as society itself.  It's a dismissive quip that allows old farts like me to summarily dismiss and deride aspects of youth culture that I don't understand or don't respect, just like my parents and grandparents did when I was a kid.  Yes, it's true that kids today are soft, entitled and addicted to their technology.  But they're more than that.  They're still idealistic, eager to learn, and willing to serve.  They just need a bit of guidance and a solid opportunity to do so.  I'm fortunate to be in a position that allows me to provide some of that guidance and help them maximize the opportunity they're seizing.  It's a unique privilege, and I am grateful for the opportunity to participate.