General

My office chair has been failing for about a year now. The gas tube gave up the fight. The left armrest had cracked. And the entire thing had become one uncomfortable mess.

As somebody who sits in front of his computer for many hours per week, this was unacceptable. Worse, it was painful to sit for more than about an hour. After an hour, the discomfort was making it difficult to program or get other work done.

I bought a new chair. I’ve spent the last couple of hours sitting in it. There are different issues, but mostly it is me getting used to the new chair. It is nice to have my eyes at the correct level for my screens.

Auburn Duck Race

This is an event that Ally has been attending for a few years. She dresses in period garb, does a cooking demo, and sells her cookbooks. Normally I drive her out to the event, drop her and her gear off, head home, and then go and pick her up after the event.

We were both uncomfortable with her being in a crowd after what happened to Charlie, so I went along and stayed. SIG P365, two spare magazines, truck gun briefcase.

Nothing happened; we had fun, plenty of people, some book sales. I got to see one of my clients in person and met his family.

Shit Talk from Leftist

I had mentioned to Ally that the amount of Trump and right bashing on the Reddits had gone down. I spoke too soon. It is still full of hate and evil.

She’s right! Donnie started this!

J6 was the most violent thing in living memory. That’s the problem; MAGA lives in a completely different reality from what is actually going on. They don’t have the mental capacity to apply critical thinking skills, they just ride on hatred and lies.

I think I’m going to have a “speak out” day once a week.

Ally posted about the difficulty in saying no. I read her article and found that it didn’t really hit home with me.

Not because it was written badly. It was well written. But it just didn’t connect. I know I am good at saying no.

In a resource limited situation, hard decisions need to be made. Some of those decisions will be life or death in nature. We need to think about those today. If you can convince yourself that you are capable of saying “no” in those situations, then you are a stronger person than I am.

To help prepare myself, I run different situations to decide what I am willing to do, what I must do, and what I can’t do.

Let’s take a simple one: a couple that knows you but whom you don’t know stops at the red line and places their newborn child there. They yell up to you, “Please save our child!” before turning and walking away, in tears.

They aren’t asking for help for themselves. They know you will say “no.” Instead they have left an innocent at your doorstep.

You have the following choices:

• Do nothing until the baby dies of exposure or is killed by something.
• Take the child into your care, reducing the supplies your people are depending on, adding a drain on your people’s resources.
• You kill the baby outright.

What do you do? Is it an easy choice? It isn’t easy for me to choose. I also have to deal with my family. How will they respond? How will I say “no” to them.

An even simpler example of this is personal. I have been saying “no” to pets since before I got married to my current wife. I have allergies that are not helped by animal fur. So they ask for a dog; I say no. They ask for a cat. I say no. They get a rabbit and have it in the house before I can say “no.”

How do I say “No” now that the animal is in the house? That was 5 rabbits ago. Three of them passed after expensive vet bills. My kid is at college, my wife attempts to care for one of the rabbits, and Ally cares for the other. Regardless, it didn’t matter that I said “no”; they just ignored me.

Will you be able to kill that baby when your spouse is in tears begging you to bring the innocent child into your care?

Here is a different one. You are out on a scavange hunt. You have taken one of your neighbor’s kids with you. You have been working with this family to the joint benefit of both groups.

During the hunt, the kid is badly injured. He is unlikely to survive his injuries. You have limited choices:

• Do you put yourself at risk to drag/carry the kid back to home base, knowing he might die in the process or bring the raiders down upon you?
• Do you leave him there to die?
• Do you leave him there, book it for home base, and hope you get back to him before he dies?
• Do you use your medical gear to make him comfortable, knowing that gear is never going to be replaced?
• Do you kill him to put him out of his misery?

Now compound this with having the neighbor with you. He is begging you to save his kid, to do risky things, to use your resources to save his kid. Can you still say “no”?

How about this one? Your kid is injured. They are dying. There is nothing you can do to save them; the most you can do is extend their life, and in doing so, use irreplaceable supplies, and they will be in pain the entire time.

Are you willing to kill your child? Are you willing to let them suffer? Are you willing to kill your group in six months for another day with your child?

I know that I don’t want to make that decision. I know that my wife would hate me if I didn’t do everything in my power to save my child, damn the costs.

If you think you can say “no,” then I don’t think you have thought about the hard choices. I agree with you; you are good at saying no. You are likely better prepared to say no than most people. Now stretch yourself and find scenarios where it would be difficult to say no. Scenarios where saying no is the right choice, but you will be hated by your loved ones for making that choice.

Then look me in the eye and say, “I can say “no.”” without having that niggling feeling in the back of your head that maybe there will come a time when you wont.

My father had degrees in engineering, something military, and business. He was also a carpenter, electrician, and cabinet and fine furniture maker.

I learned to look at things from watching him work.

At University, I was a teaching assistant (TA). We graded papers and programs, taught labs, and sometimes presented lectures.

This was a great way to learn, and I loved doing it. I still love teaching.

One of the computer science professors started in the psychology department. Since computers were relatively new, he became interested in them as a psychology problem. To that end, he wrote a textbook about programming. He then requested and was assigned to teaching CPS300 FORTRAN for Engineers.

This was a large lecture hall with around 300 to 400 students in it. Labs were taught by TAs.

His big thing was flow charting. Everybody loved flowcharts at that time. And he had some of the most beautiful flowcharts I’ve ever seen.

Mostly because he was using Nassi-Shneiderman Digrams. These things show program structure clearly, making it trivial to verify the correct functioning of the flowchart.

The problem with them is that they are almost impossible to modify. You didn’t so much modify them as rewrite them.

As engineering students, we were taught piecewise progression. You know where you are, you have an idea of where you want to be, so you take a step in that direction. Verify that the step got you closer; iterate until you are there.

If it becomes impossible to proceed, you backtrack and try again until you reach your goal.

Professor Hans Lee wasn’t an engineer. He was a psychology dude. About a third of the way through the first term working with him, I had a private conversation with him. The gist of the conversation was, “How do you write programs? What do you do when your program doesn’t work?”

His answer was that he visualizes the complete Nassi-Shneiderman, draws it out, and then translates that into code. And if the program doesn’t work, he “throws that design out” and creates a new version.

I had to explain to him that his students were not creating the flowcharts first; they were using the flowcharts to document the code they had already written and proven out. And that as engineers, they were all taught a piecewise problem solving method. His methods might work for the general student body, but for engineers it was a bad fit.

This was the first time I actually vocalized a part of being an engineer actually means.

One of the things I do at The Fort is “fixing” things. Here’s the problem with that: many of the things that exist at the fort don’t have Google pages telling you how to use them. They certainly don’t have IKEA instruction manuals on how to put them together. And many of them are broken, repaired badly, or missing parts.

So I look at things and figure out how they go together and how they work. For me, it just makes sense that tab A goes into slot A. I have been told that most people can’t identify “slot A” or “tab A,” much less that the two go together.

This played out last weekend when I stopped at The Fort; they had a newly donated great wheel plus some parts to go with it. I went over to give it the once-over to determine its condition and what we would need to do to get it back in production.

The answer seems to be replacing two leather axel holders, two leather adjuster holders and putting new drive string on.

The thing that happened, was that as I looked at the wheel and parts, it was obvious to me how the pieces should align. But the kicker in fitting two pieces together was a notch in one of the pieces.

The first rule is that any cut or extra work was done for a reason. The spokes are turned down for a reason: to make the wheel more responsive. The little grooves are for beauty.

Given that rule, why is there a notch cut in that part? What does it do? Some craftsman spent the time to put the notch there. Why are those risers threaded? Making a threaded hole in wood and the matching screw is extra work.

Why is the axle bearing for this part in a separate peg instead of being a part of the riser?

Each of these questions leads to only one answer.

The notch is so that the spindle drive pulley has enough room to run freely. The riser posts are threaded to be able to adjust the tension on the drive string. The separate pegs to hold the axle bearings (holes in the pegs) are so that they rest on top of the risers and the risers can be adjusted.

It all makes perfect sense, once you know what to look for.

Politics And Engineering

When something happens, politicians want to be seen addressing the problem, right now, in very public view. The issue is often that they have no idea what the problem or issue actually is. Instead, they have feelings about what the cause of the issue is.

So they propose a change. What they don’t do is look at what the possible results might be. Instead they focus on what they want the results to be, becoming blind to potential failure or, at best, a waste of taxpayer money.

The problem with most bills is that they are experiments with our freedoms, our livelihood, and our search for happiness. They never seem to have a plan for what to do if their experiment fails. Or if they do, it is mostly “throw more money at it.”

Behind the  “read more” are lots of photos, so if you’re not on a good connection, beware. This is also replacing FBEL for the week, because I don’t have the mental space to write about politics right now. I hope you enjoy.

This past weekend was the first of three at Maine Renaissance Faire. It’s a lot of fun, a TON of work, and you never know what the weather will be. This is my fourth year presenting at MERF (as we call it), and though three weeks is a LOT at a single site, I have been looking forward to it.

When I prepare for a faire, I need to worry about different types of things. First, I need to address my infrastructure. When I’m at MERF, I get to use the kitchen tent of the Brotherhood of the Arrow and Sword, which is my 15th century historical group. They’ve been around for a couple of decades now, and so they’ve acquired the kind of equipment that I can only dream of. They have many amazing looking tents, trestle tables, medieval lamps and tripods and clothing, things I’m still working at achieving and creating. I have better cookware than they do, though. 😀

Their kitchen tent is a massive wedge that opens on one side. In modern parlance we’d call it a Baker’s tent, though it’s much larger than any one I’ve ever seen before. It can be used with the front closed, making it a plain old wedge tent (albeit one large enough to hold six queen sized air beds with room to move around) or you can put the side up (as seen in the pictures below) to use it for vending out of. This is where I sell my cookbooks, and where my cooking demonstrations begin (they end at the fire, of course).

The other tents are the type used by various medieval military. There are some bell wedges (wedges with ends that bump out to give you a bit of extra room), some square and rectangular wall tents, and a round tent (the most usual used by the average knight, at least according to paintings). My own tent is a tiny wedge, just big enough for me and a small cot and my personal gear. It, too, opens on one side (just like its big brother, the kitchen tent), but it’s not tall enough for most people to stand under. I’m tiny (only 5’1″), so it works for me. I have to stoop a bit, but not much, and I can get dressed standing up by shoving my cot on its side. When I’m at an event with my sweetie, though, we need something larger. We’ve been staying in the “modern camping” area for the past few years, in a very modern pop up easy set up tent that accommodates our queen air bed. I wanted to be closer to my Brotherhood, though, and so my sweetie finagled a “long term borrow” of a 9×9 wall tent for our use from his sister. It is just large enough for our queen bed, our personal clothing bags, and one “gear box” each. Luckily that’s all we really need, as other items are either stored in the car (cash box, harp) or in the kitchen tent (cast iron, chairs, tables).

Read More

Today, I sit in a home that keeps the rain off my head, the cold away in winter, and provides me with shelter from the elements.

It is my castle. I, and my bank, own it.

I have a vehicle that will carry me and mine. It is a workhorse that does what I need.

I have a machine , a woodshop and am in the process of creating a space to do hand woodworking.

I have earned these things by marrying correctly and working hard. Note, I married badly, twice, and it cost me wealth.

I have taken part in the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

My country was the first to recognize that these rights are unalienable. That they come from our creator, not from man, not from king, not from government. They are mine by right of being born.

I’m proud of my country. I’m proud that we recognize these rights.

When Jimmy Carter was my president, I was proud to be an American. When Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush were my presidents, I was proud to be an American.

When Obama and Biden were my presidents, I was still proud to be an American. I am still proud to be an American with Trump in office.

My country is worth being proud of. The only other country that has done as much for this world is the British Empire.

Unfortunately, the British Empire no longer exists.

When Carter bent over to the Communist “students” that had invaded our country in Iran, he said, “Please use some lube,” and not much else.

I was embarrassed by his response. I was disgusted by his actions. I was angry that he chose to let Iran do that to my countrymen. I was still proud to be an American.

When the party controlling my country are shitbags, worthy of nothing but derision and ridicule, they still represent my country. We, The People, are still good people. We still step up when there is need.

In most major disasters, American citizens give more than most countries. Then our country gives even more.

We are, by far, the most generous people in the world. It is one of the reasons that we are such suckers for emotional blackmail. We care.

If you want to say, “Not my president,” then give up your citizenship and emigrate to a different country. Accept their leadership, their politics, and their largesse. Until then, he is your president.

It is my country, right or wrong.

When it is wrong, I will step up to be heard. I will use the ballot box, I will use the jury box, and I hope and pray that I never have to use the cartridge box.

Right or wrong, Conservative or leftest, it is my country, I love her, I will defend her, I am proud of her.

How do we know that either Hell is one single temperature or there are no engineers in Hell? If there was a temperature differential and an engineer, they would have made a heat pump and be enjoying mild temperatures.

When you have a device that can both heat and cool the inside of a building, we call it a “heat pump”. An Air Conditioner is a heat pump that is optimized to pump heat out of a building.

A heat pump is a practical application of the Ideal Gas Law. The gist of the Ideal Gas Law, in this context, is that as the pressure decreases, heat also decreases.

You can feel this when using a spray can. If you allow the gas to escape, the pressure inside decreases and the can gets colder.

So a heat pump works by having a compress turn a gas into a liquid. This causes the temperature of the liquid to go up, lots. That hot liquid is then moved through a radiator. A fan blows air through that radiator, transferring heat from the liquid to the air.

This causes the air to be warmer leaving the heat pump than when it entered.

That compressed liquid is now cooler. It is then moved to an orifice where it is allowed to expand rapidly. Following the Ideal Gas Law, this causes the temperature to drop.

This cold gas is then pushed through a different radiator. This radiator takes heat from the air being blown across it and transfers that heat to the gas.

The gas then ends up back at the compressor, ready to start its trip again.

Heat pumps can be efficient if there is enough temperature differential on the waste side. In other words, they don’t work well in the north country where you are attempting to pull heat from sub freezing air. The cooling side still works in hot places because it is easier to add heat to already hot air than to pull heat from cold air.

The real problem is that compressor. That compressor does real work. Real work always has waste heat. So that compressor is turning expensive electricity into heat and then trying to get rid of the heat.

For a heat pump to work, you need an appropriate gas, a compressor, two heat exchangers, and at least two fans.

The Swamp Cooler

These things are old technology. They have been around for thousands of years. The basic method they use is to move air across water. The air moving across the water causes the water to evaporate. As the water evaporates, it sucks heat out of the air.

We will start with some numbers.

To raise one gram of water (also known as a ml) requires one calorie.

There are 252 calories in a BTU.

To raise one ml of water from 24°C to 100° requires 76 Calories.

To cause water to change state from a liquid to a gas requires 540 Calories.

That means that causing one ml of water to evaporate will take two BTUs of heat.

A swamp cooler does just this. It transfers heat into water vapor. You place the swamp cooler where there is a cross breeze. A fan blows air across a water impregnated membrane of some sort, think a porous towel or a piece of cheese cloth.

As the air moves across the water, the water evaporates, pulling heat from the air.

The cooler air now flows into the room with a little more moisture in it.

Depending on the amount of moisture in the air, a swamp cooler can drop the temperature, in the local area, by up to 30°F.

That’s not bad.

Above is a homemade version of a swamp cooler. It works by blowing air on water that then evaporates and cooler air comes out the side vents.

I purchased a Chinese made version. It is about 2.5 ft tall, about a foot square. It holds 4 liters of water, a little more than a gallon.

It has a fiber honeycomb to hold the water. There is a small fish tank type pump in the reservoir to pump water up to a holding tank. From there, water flows at a fixed rate into the honeycomb.

There is one major fan to move air across the honeycomb. There is a second, small motor to move vanes to redirect the air.

That’s it.

This thing pulls less power than one of our normal window fans. That’s because we aren’t running the fan at full speed. Instead, we are running the fan at medium while the pump and oscillator run.

And bluntly, the only reason I know the oscillator has its own motor is because there are electronic controls to turn it off and on.

One nice thing is the remote. There have been a couple of times when the room has gotten too cold for sleeping comfortably. The remote has an easy to find “off” button. Which is what I use.

Total cost for this? $99 from Amazon.

If you are running fans for cooling, it is worth while looking into a modern swamp cooler.

A person I like to call my friend, Miggy, recently put his life at risk in a situation where it is not obvious what the risks are.

His article, Proper Tooling Makes Things Easier, shows how easy it is to do things that look safe, but are not.

His problem was that he needed to get under his riding mower to work on the blades. Not a huge issue until you start to look at the requirements for that lift.

The first thing we notice is that he has done an accurate assessment of the load. “Less than 2000 pounds, or 1 ton.”

A one ton chain host will give him the lifting ability he needs.

The next question is, where to attach the chain hoist. This is our first sketch issue, he attached it to a ceiling joist in his garage. These are normally 2×8 but can be as small as 2×6, if they do not carry a load. They are normally in tension to keep the walls from spreading.

A better option would have been to run a beam across multiple joists and then attach the hoist to that. This is an opinion, I would need to verify before doing. There are other issues at play. Using multiple joists will spread the load and make for a safer lift.

Having gotten the chain host in place, he now had to attach the mower to the hoist. He used ratchet straps.

These use flat webbing with a reasonable rating. Unfortunately, these can lose much of their rated strength just by tieing a knot in them. I seem to remember that it is as much as 50%. I, personally, would never use a ratchet strap for a lift that had safety implications, like laying under the lift.

The basket hitch he used is close to a 30° lift. This does not derate the line.

My small lifting straps are 24 ply by 2 inches. The vertical lift is 11,000 pounds. In a 30° basket hitch, it is still 11,000 pounds.

The next issue is his safety. He stated that he had car jack stands under there. This is the scary part for me.

His image showed the jack stand almost completely extended. This means that any lateral movement might cause the jack stand to shift or tip over. This is a scary, scary place to be when the heavy thing above you starts to come down.

My armchair, back seat, Monday night quarterbacking suggests that it would have been safer to transfer the weight to jack stands, as low as possible. Then do the work. It might even have been possible to use cribbing under the unit.

Regardless, I’m happy he was able to safely perform his repairs.

The stories

When I was 18, I was helping my brother pull the engine from a VW. This is a simple procedure.

Disconnect the throttle cable, disconnect and plug the gas line. Remove the rear bumper and deck. Deal with the electrical connections to the engine.

Once that is done, you have to remove four 17 mm nuts. These nuts go on four studs with a half moon to keep them from spinning.

I was the guy under the car. I could do the two bottom nuts myself. Then I would have to reach up, blindly, over the transmission bell housing, find the studs. My brother would then reach behind the fan housing, get a socket on the nut and remove it.

Reaching the studs and nuts was done blind. You can’t see them from there.

Once those nuts are loose, the engine is hanging on its crankshaft. So before you get there, you put a jack under the engine to support it.

When everything is ready, I hold the engine from below, my brother grabs the tail pipes, and then we gently pull the engine out.

Being health young men. Bro was working at an iron works, making parts for bridges. I was riding my bike many miles a day and doing Kendo and Judo. We were in reasonable shape.

On the count, bro pulls, and I guide and apply pressure to move the engine. The engine comes out a good six inches, knocking the jack over.

So there we are, Bro holding up his half of the engine by the tail pipes, me under the engine doing a bench press with no ability to extend, and the engine about 5 inches above my nose.

At this moment, dad, who had been watching from the garage steps, pipes up to give advice.

I have never been prouder of my father than at that instance. I said, “Dad, be quiet. Bro and I have this.”

Dad stuttered, got up and walked into the house.

“Bro, on three we are going to put the engine back. I’ll lift, you push, it should just slide back in. One, Two, Push”

And that engine was back in place.

We reset and pulled the engine with no issues. But it was hairy there, for a minute.

Second Story

My friend was visiting a mutual friend. In their finished basement, they had some furniture hanging from the ceiling.

These were smart people. They understood that threaded eye screws could pull out or unscrew. Instead, they drilled through the joist and put a thorough bolt in place.

All the math was mathing so they didn’t think anything about it. My friend asked them if they had considered dynamic loads. They went “oh shit”

An hour later, all the hanging furniture had been removed. It turns out that the fixtures they were using were not rated to support the dynamic loads of people just plopping into the hanging furniture.

Have you ever found yourself in the position of wanting to tell a friend about the Vine of Liberty, but you didn’t have anything to write on? Well, we’ve designed some business cards!

These are standard sized business cards, vertical rather than horizontal. The cards are matte, with a very soft finish that allows the plain white back to be used for jotting down phone numbers or notes for your friends. The front includes the URL for the blog, plus a QR code that brings them right to us.

I do not know what the S&H will be just yet, and it will probably change depending on where the cards are going, but if you’d like to order cards, drop me a line at m.allyson.szabo@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to send you some. Payment can be made via credit card (I can issue an invoice), or you can use Paypal or otherwise arrange things with Chris.

And thank you to ALL of you, for making this blog a place that I love to read and to write for. I hope you’re all having an awesome summer!

There are people who blame their actions on “The ’tism’.

I had not heard this term until recently. My oldest son is “on the spectrum.” He barely functions, not from emotional out bursts, but because he just isn’t mature enough.

My youngest son is also “on the spectrum”, he is high function, going to collage, doing well. His issues tend to be socal in nature. In other words, he has not had much success in finding new friends.

My youngest is also on the spectrum. She is very high functioning. You would not suspect she is autistic when interacting with her. She is social and she makes friends.

I was born before the great “autism” hunt. I do not have an official diagnosis of autism. There are many indicators that I am autistic.

A side effect of this was I was able to teach some of my coping methods to my children, to help them.

What does this have to do with making friends?

It means it is hard. It takes an effort.

What you might consider to be a friend is unlikely to be a friend in my eyes.

Just because we are co-workers, and we are friendly with each other, does not mean we are friends.

Most people would have no difficulty in ticking off a dozen friends. Maybe even a dozen close friends.

I’ve had 4 true friends in my lifetime. Two of them were good friends. I say “were” because one is dead, and I am out of contact with the other.

Of the other two, one I have not seen since I left high school. The other is in prison because he is a kiddy diddler.

One I thought was a friend decided that anybody who supported the Supreme Court’s Dobbs’ opinion was no longer a friend to her. And later went as far as to say that anybody who voted for Trump was not a friend and could just fuck off.

Ally tells me that there are people attempting to be friends. I can almost see it, but I don’t feel it.

In 2008, Obama was running for office. It is the moment when I felt my country start to fracture. Friends were starting to turn on each other in ways I had not seen before.

I went to speak to a black co-worker. “Who are you voting for?” “Obama”, “Why?” “Because he’s black.”

Anybody who expressed any hesitation or discomfort about voting for a one—term senator from Illinois, who’s most common vote was “Present” was a “racist”.

It was that bad. Since I was working in a deep blue state at the time, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t care who they were voting for. I wish they had better reasons than “He’s black.” It was their choice.

Oh, it wasn’t just the black co-workers, it was all the lefties.

How did I spot a lefty? Those were the ones openly talking politics, expressing their opinion about anyone who wasn’t voting for Obama.

From that moment on, I have been called racist, for my beliefs, constantly.

Look at Rep. Hunt. Now there is a black man. I like him. Why? Because he echos my beliefs. He stands up for America.

Now compare him to the half white Obama.

Obama’s mother was white, his father was black, he’s brown.

He ran as a black man. So what?

If every single person of color had voted for him and every single white voted against him, he would not have become the President of the United States. A majority of the people of the United States decided that he was a better man to be president than McCain.

For the next 8 years, I wasn’t allowed to say a negative thing about my President. To do so was to “prove I was racist.”

When Hillary ran for President, I suddenly became misogynistic. No change of my positions, just a different candidate by the Democrats.

And every lefty screamed at me that I was a bad person if I didn’t support every belief they held.

There was a TikTok sketch Ally showed to me. A woman says to her Republican friend that she is leaving the GOP.

Her friend responds with, “I’m sorry you feel you need to leave. We’ve been friends all our lives. You will continue to be my friend and are welcome here, anytime.”

The sketch then changes to a woman leaving the Democrat party. “I’m leaving the party. They just don’t match my core beliefs. You’ve been my friend all my life. You will still be my friend.”

The remaining Democrat woman turns to the first and, with a sneer on her face, “I’m not friends with Nazis”

That is what my life felt like during the Obama era. It was worse under Biden.

Our friendships became defined by our beliefs.

Going out in public, I would hear leftists yapping about how anybody who wasn’t like them was horrible, evil people. Nasty labels were everywhere.

I’ve seen “DemocRAT” from time to time. I’m “MAGAot”, a “fascist”, a “racist”, a “white supremest”, and every other nasty label you can think of.

Those people won’t speak with me. They can’t handle being asked for examples. They can’t handle being called on bullshit. They can’t be bothered to verify any of the narrative they spout with no evidence to back them.

I’m sorry for Ally.

She is a good person. We are good people. If you are in need, we will do our best to help you. When a “co-worker” had an emergency, she didn’t ask, “What are your politics? I only help good people.” No, she opened her pantry to them. She did it with no expectation of anything.

When they tried to repay her, she said, “Pay it forward.”

Well, they did pay it forward. Until they had to treat people by what they do instead of what they were told they do.

Make sure you keep your friends close. Make sure they know you are friends.

Stay strapped. Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t be in stupid places at stupid times.

Israel is in the process of turning Iran into an ashtray, like Jimmy Carter, may he burn forever in hell, should have in 1979.

Unfortunately for Israel, they have to do it with conventional weapons.

The normal blood vultures are out in force, screaming about Israel is killing babies.

Unfortunately for us, this raises the possibility that Iran will activate terrorist cells in the United States (and other countries) to attempt to harm us. Keep your head on a swivel.

Here, in my sleepy little rural town, the mostly peaceful protesters are planning to riotprotest this morning and afternoon. I’m hoping they stay on the peaceful side of things.

We are not in the town center, but we are on one of the main roads leaving downtown. Yes, we call the two traffic lights, “downtown”. The rifles will be loaded and ready. The LBV will be out and ready.

Just because you live in a small town that is patriotic doesn’t mean that you won’t see protests. At issue is the high probability of outside agitators being bussed in.

Keep your head on a swivel.

If your particular state requires a permission slip to exercise your rights, attempt to get one. And make a decision, which is worse, to be carried by six or judged by twelve.

Final note. Before you put that firearm on your hip, decide if you are willing to take a life. If you are willing, in what circumstances? I re-evaluated my principals after I watched the George Floyd video. My initial response, when watching the video, was “I’m glad I wasn’t there, I don’t know if I would have killed the cop or not.” Today I know that the cop was in the right.