THE FIRST MAN

TO BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER WAS AN AMERICAN

CHUCK YEAGER

TO FLY NON-STOP ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN; NY TO PARIS

WAS AN AMERICAN

CHARLES LINDBERG

THE FIRST MAN TO WALK ON THE MOON

WAS AN AMERICAN

NEIL ARMSTRONG

Maybe a "global initiative" instructs the world to recognize accomplishments,  like the first man on the moon, without reference to national pride. Not in my America.  

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AND...

THE FIRST WOMAN TO RIDE AS A PASSENGER AND THEN FIRST WOMAN TO SOLO PILOT AN AIRPLANE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.....ONE MORE TIME

WAS AN AMERICAN

AMELIA EARHART

This is a great country and we are a great people. To hell with those who sell us short on everything and anything. Do not buy into the narrative!!

THE FIRST MAN to land on the moon was an AMERICAN. Say it with me!!!

The First Man (the movie) failed "bigly" in my opinion. 

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ADVICE FROM MY MOTHER AND FATHER

I cannot remember my mother and father ever sitting me down in a formal manner and then off loading life advice. It all came from everyday conversations and everyday living. Many weekends at my grandparents farm also helped in molding me. I speak of it often here. 

Mom and dad said this enough times that it took; to this day. "Learn all that you can learn. They can never take that away from you!"

My grandparents migrated here from the old country; Russia. My grandparents on my father's side migrated from Norway. I do not know why my grandparents on my father's side left Norway for America. On my mother's side though it was an oppressive, and very dangerous government. A government that "can take everything away from you."

America was good to my grandparents. My grandparents were good for/to America. 

Oh how I wish today, that in my earlier years,  I had sat with my grandfather and grandmother and asked them of their early years; their youth. I also failed to ask my father the same questions. He was 8 years old when he came to America. There was youth and early years for him too and I never bothered to ask. I never saw all of this till it was too late.

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"TARGET AMERICA...."

is a film documentary about physical attacks to our homeland by the Japanese during WWII. One such incident happened on June 21st, 1942. 

A Japanese submarine surfaced in the dark of night and started shelling Ft. Stevens in Oregon State with their deck gun. The commander of Ft. Stevens did not let his gun crew return fire so not as to better mark their location in the dark of night. The Japanese shells did not cause any damage or loss of life. But the threat was real and proved that our homeland could be attacked by our enemy at will.

That gun emplacement, at Fort Stevens, was in place to protect the mouth of the Columbia river entrance dividing Oregon and Washington State.

The documentary also covers other attacks to our homeland by the Japanese. 

The part of this documentary that jumped out at me was video footage of local  citizens lined up training with rifles and automatic weapons in the cause of protecting their home land in case of a landing Japanese invasion. Men and women were lined up the length of a football field practicing and learning how to shoot rifles and automatic rifles. Wooden targets were shown being hit by bullets from the students. American citizens were standing their ground and training to fight against an armed invading force. 

I cannot find this documentary for purchase nor viewing on the net.  

The documentary was produced for The Military Channel by Lou Reda Productions and shown on NewsMaxTV 10/21/18 @ 5 pm EST.

The migrant caravan currently heading towards the United States is not an armed force. No one is suggesting armed stance against them. But a national stance will be needed to prevent this kind of instant massive influx of foreigners, outside of our nations legal immigration laws. Time will soon tell as to how all of this will play out.  

FEELING HINKY 

Not a new feeling in the blogs here but heightened as we near elections. National to local, the stars are not aligned. I preach heads up, full tanks of gas and bags in your cars/trucks if you are caught away from home. Also the ability to take care of yourself and your family should you get caught in the ugly. And crowds. No crowds!!

Talk with friends, make pacts for communications for helping and getting help. Do not be caught completely unprepared. Have at least a month's supply of everything from band aids to food to protection and warmth. Winter is also coming. 

Pay attention to everything happening prior to these mid-term elections. If we make it through without major issue, know that 2020 will be worse. We can plan as needed looking back at 2018 mid terms.

Lets end here. Listen to Jackson Dean. Fast Forward to 0:50 seconds. Listen to how the crowd quiets. Sounds like our National Anthem is coming from deep inside the heart of this great country. I hope  you like his rendition. 

Yep, appreciate you stopping by again this week. 

COUNTRY MICE

My wife recently mentioned that we are the Country Mice. I have long forgotten the fable, but took to her comment on the differences of living in the country and living in a big city. Neither a good nor a bad reference, rather more of a reminder to us that the coming of winter in the northeast brings with it some mandatory activities to get ready. Sooner rather than later when the ground is covered in snow. 

With newly found time on our hands, as we no long have pets to care for other than the barn cat, we hopped a couple 737's to Texas to visit family. We left our little town of three thousand to visit a city of 7.4 million. 

These kinds of trips are looked forward to but I find I move slower and the simplicity of getting through airport security is gone. Much has changed. 

The TSA agent told me to put my hands up over my head for the body scan machine but my shoulders only allowed me to get to the "hands up, don't shoot" position. All that had to get done quickly as the body scan expects a 3 second window. Of course, my pockets were not empty nor was my belt off. But the agent was nice and realized he had someone without a clue to deal with. I gave out many thank yous. On our trip home this past weekend, I even had other passengers bringing me stuff I had forgotten on the moving scanning belt. My poor wife!!

Brother-in-law and his wife treated us to the best fish n chips, BBQ, country fried steak and fried chicken Texas had to offer. The pastry and coffee shops were icing on the cake. These were not fancy or lavish eateries. These were the out of the way places locals know about and travel the Belt Line to enjoy. 

They also took us on two sightseeing day trips to eastern Texas for rolling hills and unique small Texas towns. They know the back roads and by-ways of Texas like we know the few miles of back country roads here.

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Then they arranged a guided tour through the South West Airlines Training and Operations Building. 

The walls and hallways are adorned with miles of aviation wall art. Any pilot, or just plain visitor, will be in awe of the history of that company and aviation that covers the cafeteria, hallway and classroom walls. I could have spent hours just gawking at the aviation art.  

The large photo above of a crew walking out to the airplane is made up from SW pilot photos. 

Large wall photographs, like the one above, are common through out the facility. 

The flight simulators are state of the art and look like AI walking robots any sci-fi fan would drool over. Watching them "dance" in simulated flight from the observation deck makes the very best AI movie experience pale in comparison.

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Another of my wife's other brothers invited us to visit with them at the Dallas-based campus of his community church. 

I stood in awe walking in the massive open space of the campus. My wife, her brother and his wife walked aways ahead of me as we entered. Within a few feet of entering the building, I was lost in the grandeur but felt at ease in the palpable warmth of people gathering in nooks and crannies of the multi-level facility. I could feel the human touch and I was most comfortable alone as the family moved ahead of me. I felt a presence of peace and became easily lost in that. 

We collected a cup of coffee and sat down to visit. This was the first time I had met this side of the family and we were immediately deep in conversation and smiles. 

Quite often, numbers are set into writing to move to a point of an article.  Numbers might be in order to help further explain the grandeur of this facility. 

The population of the small town community we live in would fit inside the chapel with room to spare and this past Easter, the Dallas campus services were attended by as many folks as live in our capital city.

We have been back home a few days now and getting back to normal routines of eating, sleeping and winter preparing. As much fun it is to get up and go on a vacation, I always find that coming home is equally as rewarding. 

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I will end this weeks blog with a photo of Jesse .


Although a hard fan of Golden Retrievers, my brother-in-law's lab Jesse is one of the most beautiful dogs I have ever gotten to know. She is spot on and displays much of what she has been taught daily. She shines brightest though when taken outside to run, play and fetch. Art in motion. 

Jesse is well-trained to fetch birds from the hunt. Brother-in-law says she is a one of a kind and can fetch with the best of them. Only problem though is that when other hunters make a shot and a bird falls, Jesse is gone like a rocket. Back with the bird in a few minutes, tail wagging as the accomplishment she is so trained for. Brother in law says she needs to be out in the hunt more often and needs a little TLC to gather the correct bird. As for me, I would have to give her a pat and an "atta girl" while laughing inside. 

What really got to me about this dog was the way she would put her paw on my lap and look me straight in the eye. I could see straight through to her heart!

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Surprisingly in the ten days we were gone, we neither met nor encountered one crazy person. Not one. Every person we encountered was nice, polite, engaging and helpful. 

Television has been off since we have been home; the Dallas trip and distant family still plays. 

I DID NOT PUBLISH

MUMS FULL BLOOM

Given the inside of our garage and a good portion of the inside of the house is currently a mess with clean out, these mums are a nice distraction this week. 

Best laid plans to take a truck and trailer full of years old storage stuff to a local flea market were put on hold due to my back going out. X-rays show things ok, but must have been irritation and swelling. Better now, but what to do with all of the stuff out and about that we have sworn not to put back any of it on shelves or flat spots. 

An upside of all of this clean out is finding things we have always wondered what happened to them, or in my case finding two older weapons grade camera cases that contain filters, lens doubler and an assortment of other photography items. Since I have only changed the Canon camera body all of these sill fit and work. 

(A couple) Old winter jackets and shirts, long ago put away and forgotten, are now in the wash for this winter.  Other than this, cleaning out old home stored boxes of stuff is not fun. Especially boxes and boxes that have piled up over a decade. 

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I did not publish...

...last week and failed to keep my weekly blog up date. Trying to come up with anything relevant or fun felt contrived and work. I had nothing and went with that. 

I longed for a warm pastry treat with cinnamon, frosting and warm melted butter last night. It was too late to bake something, but putting that in today's day loop, was in order. 

Now before me are two slices of Banana Bread, with melting butter and a cup of lukewarm coffee. All is just fine.




AND THEN THIS JUST IN:

SQUIRRELS COOKING...

Three to be exact. A good friend sent this photo to my wife via FB and she sent it to me to share here. The wife makes funny puckery faces about this photo. 

So I called my friend and he says he has been doing this all of this life. He plinked a couple big ones out back and his neighbor brought an extra one over for the BBQ. He says they make squirrel subs, cook in bbq sauce, add a lot of liquid garlic and so forth. Apparently squirrels taste like the dark meat on duck. A little chewy he said, not a fat chewy, more a lean chewy. Chewy is not a word that I use in describing foods of choice. Other long time New Englanders also talk of cooking squirrels. I have never paid close attention as squirrel does not sound good. 

But this photo and recent conversation is a great fit for a blog about "the after." Our friend has a nonchalant skill of hunting and cooking squirrels. I could do it if I had to. Yes, I could. I have done chickens w/o issue so plinking squirrels with a .22, gutting and cooking is doable. The wife though will have to be on her dietary death bed before she would partake. She says a pallet of peanut butter cups ought to take care of her protein needs for a few years. 

Just between you and me, the squirrels and are safe living here for the foreseeable future. 

But weeks of hunger would welcome the pan above set on the table. 

But not today!

A .22 rifle with a good scope and plenty of ammo is one of the very best guns to have nestled in a home safe place. Deadeye skill sets out to 50 yards a must. (After the peanut butter cups run out) or plans A,B and C have failed. 

A Few DJI Mavic Pro Pics

Southern Tip Lake Sunapee

Looking North Lake Sunapee Early Fall

Rolling Hills and Freeway Early Fall

This is How to Spend a Fall Sunday Afternoon in New England!

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This has been an historical and epoch week in the news. One would think that there only exists hate upon hate amongst the peoples. Not so.

"Winter is Coming" again. Last few weeks to shore up the moats. 

Thanks for the visit.