I'm a Hoarder...Damn

Yes, I've watched the stupid reality show about hoarders....No, I really didn't think that I have anything in common with them.

BUT I do!

My dining room table is seldom used for eating....not because I don't want to but because it's cluttered with papers, bills, and this, that and the other thing.  Truly I clean it off.  Truly I like it clean and orderly but it seems to always gravitate back to clutter.  Hmmm.

If it was just my table it would be fine but it's not; my house is always cluttered. 

As I sit in my recliner, in front of me is my book shelf with is jam-packed with books...too many.  My television is on a stand that has at least six books on it-in front of the TV!  It's that way in every room. 

I never really realized it until recently when I was trying to get rid of stuff and truly it's difficult to part with anything.  Oh My God! I am a hoarder! 

Funny because when I moved from Texas to the Tri Cities, I brought just a car full of stuff.  Virtually nothing.  Maybe that was hard on me; maybe that altered my psyche somewhat and now I am afraid to let go of anything.

My mom and dad were hoarders in that they grew up in a time when you didn't throw away anything as they didn't have the money to replace it.  That was a different generation.

As I get older, I find myself more and more like my mom and dad.  I "hoard" aluminum cans like my dad did.  I collect silver like my dad and mom did.  I have a hell of a time selling one Morgan Silver Dollar even when I need money even though I have lots. 

Same goes with my books.  I can't get rid of even the ones I NEVER READ!  I have a bunch of old Masonic Ritual books that are probably worth a fortune but the idea of selling them is revolting even though I'll never read them nor am I a Mason.  Hmmmmmm.

Okay, I write this to rationalize my idiosynchronsies(dang I can't recall how to spell that word!), but as I think about my parents and their parents maybe hoarding is more "normal than we like to admit.

I've tried to "live simple" but with each year I age, my desire NOT to throw away a pickle jar or a coffee can becomes stronger.

Hmmmm

The Fate of a Bullett IS DONE!

My goal was to finish the first write of "The Fate of a Bullett" before November and I DID IT!!!  I finished it about a week ago and now have been doing a once over edit. 

I have to admit I am proud.  This is a truly great story with twists and turns that even I didn't expect.  Set in Los Angeles, it is the story of a man getting thrown into career of an FBI agent.  He's a loner, trying to prove himself by infiltrating an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang....

Bob is a relationship killing, self doubting man who is lucky enough to have fate guiding his life.  He has a layed back old-timer for a partner named Jimmie who takes a liking to him which is a good thing for Bob's superiors are not so pleasant and don't like the idea of a man being thrown into their agency without their consent. 

Romance, intrigue, OMGs, Devil Worshippers and more highlight this fast paced story. 

I gave a copy to Megan who is very young, about the same age as my sons, and asked her to read it.  I figured that she would do the usual which is to say that she started it but couldn't get into it...but today I spoke with her and she EXCITEDLY told me that she really likes the story....Hmmmmmm. 

I never expected that and it is a nice feeling to receive a compliment from someone who I really don't know and has no reason to give it to me! 

Have We REALLY Gone to the Moon?

Yes, I know, that this title will set me off as a kook right off the bat.  But truly there are some things that bother me about the moon, traveling to the moon and the exploration of the moon.  They don't make any sense in my head so I will write them down to see if you can help me make sense.

Why Haven't We Gone Back?

Seriously, compared to the 1960s even small countries have technology far exceeding what the U.S. had then.  Just the computer side of it-my laptop has more power than a truck-sized computer did back then.  I've asked this question numerous times to many people and most say, 'there's nothing else to see up there'.  I halfway accepted that answer until recently when numerous scientists began talking excitedly about returning to the moon...maybe in another decade or so. 

Why Haven't We Sent an Unmanned Vehicle to the Moon?

We don't have the technology? Nope.  We don't have the ambition? Nope.  We don't have the budget? Maybe but we just sent another vehicle to Mars.....I would believe that the moon is much closer and easier to land on than Mars.  So why haven't we sent an unmanned vehicle to the moon?  Seriously, why?

Why Haven't Other Countries Sent Exploratory Vehicles to the Moon?

Don't even say it's because they don't have the technology.  Russia built the Space Station.  China is sending up satellites-hell even little countries are doing that.  So why hasn't some other country-India, China, Russia-sent a rocket to the moon?  Makes me wonder on that one too.  I understand maybe we don't have the budget for it but there are many countries that are spending large sums of money going into space now...

Why do Moon Rocks Create Such a Stir that Armed Men are sent to Retrieve Them?

Everyone that always said there was nothing else to find on the moon could never explain this.  Why is it that when a piece of a moon rock that was given to the president of Panama and gets somehow into the hands of a collector cause such a stir and that rock is immediately seized by an equivalent to a swat team?   This makes no sense.

So now that I have written down some of my thoughts to hopefully help quell my own questions-well to say the least I am even more confused and I hate to say that I don't believe we went there because I really believe we did but these questions make me wonder what's up there and why we refuse to go back...

Israel Must Attack Iran Before the U.S. Elections

Much of the news that we don't like to think about is coming closer to reality with each passing day. Iran is still belligerent in their efforts to become a nuclear power and at the same time consistent in their diatribes about destroying Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli govenment along with the residents of Israel are warranted in their fears of the near future. The possibility that Iran will attack them once they are in the possession of a nuclear bomb is real. Israel cannot take that chance.

Sadly the fate of Israel rests in the coming U.S. political election. Israel's demotion from a 'favorite son' status in the eyes of Obama's administration to one equivalent but not markedly better than most other nations has been apparent for the last three years. Although our government hasn't snubbed Israel and we still state we are their ally, their status is truly demoted as compared with previous administrations.

Netanyahu and the leaders of Israel know that this election will certainly determine their fate. If Obama is reelected, his administration potentially could ostracize Israel through propaganda blitz and virtually ignore Iran's intentions to become a nuclear power. President Obama will no longer be influenced by a coming election and without much penalty can reverse any prior commitments made to Israel.

Netanyahu is obviously cognizant of this potential. What he and the other leaders believe is unknown to us but by the various comments he has made infer that he is not confident in President Obama helping to protect the State of Israel.

Netanyahu and the other leaders must be involved in frenzied meetings behind closed doors on what avenue to take. The probability of striking Iran eventually is almost guaranteed and now Israel's leaders must determine when the best time would be.

Israel cannot afford to wait until after the election and hope that either the re-elected Obama administration will back them or that Romney actually wins the election. Both of those outcomes are truly up in the air.

But should Israel launch its attack immediately, some weeks before the general election, the Obama Administration will be forced into backing the attack rather than losing the election.

The actual skirmish will not be bloodless for Israel or the United States but is necessary for Israel's survival and although the U.S. is weary of wars, we have little choice but to back up our ally.

My friend Pete

I listen and read from both liberal and conservative sources.  I try to be rational but I know that's not quite objective!

On facebook, which I became a member of a couple of years ago, I have a "facebook friend", the mayor of a small town in Washington, Pete, who is very vocally liberal.  Sometimes I agree with what he says but mostly I am shocked at his, but mainly his "friends", vigorous defamation of all that is conservative. 

I believe, like many others, that candidate Romney is somewhat liberal in his views.  I am disappointed with this choice as I thought he wasn't the best of the choices but that's neither here nor there.

Recently, Mayor Pete had a diatribe on facebook about how evil Romney was and how could he do what he was doing in criticizing President Obama over the recent attacks in the middle east resulting in the death of our Libyan Ambassador and three others. 

I have to agree with Mayor Pete on this because I doubt that Romney would do much different. 

But then Mayor Pete made this comment and I quote, "A man that has experienced poverty has empathy for others the way a man who has never experienced hardship never could. A Community Organizer vs a Venture Capitalists. One sees people's needs and value and the other sees people as either Assets or Liabilities. I really don't see any similarity. One is a Pragmatic Centrist and the other is an Opportunist doing exactly what he is told."

So I being the sarcastic individual that I can be replied that I agreed with his last sentence, in that Romney is a Pragmatic Centrist while Obama is doing exactly what he is told....

I knew that wasn't what Mayor Pete meant but it isn't that far off from being true, at least in my mind! 

The problem I have with Mayor Pete and his ilk is that they don't have any wiggle room for their man to be wrong.  I disliked President Bush's policy on illegal aliens and thought that he and President Obama were close on at least that ideal.  Mayor Pete and his real life secretary and facebook friend, Diane, along with their friends cannot admit to one thing being wrong with their man....why is that?

Why is it that I can truly not be happy with Candidate Romney and find many faults with him yet they cannot find ONE fault with their own candidate?  I found lots wrong with the latter President Bush and aired them openly.  Why is it impossible for them to find one fault with their own party? 

To me this completely rigid look at the world is scary to say the least.  No matter what Obama does, they will love it.  If he goes to war with Iran tomorrow they will love it.  Yet, I find myself(and there are many like me including the liberals most hated foe, Rush Limbaugh, who started this ruckus on facebook) more like a yo-yo and going back and forth on stuff the more conservative candidates do.  How can the liberals be so blind that everything their candidate does is right?

One day I made a comment on one of Mayor Pete's rants that President Clinton was pretty embarrassing when it came to women and Pete actually responded that at least President Clinton was trying, at the time of Monica, to be faithful and fix his marriage.  I truly almost fell out of my chair on that comment....truly is he and his followers that blinded?

My Newest Novel: The Fate of a Bullet

For a few months now I have been working on converting a short story idea into a full length novel.  Just a couple of weeks ago, I finally came up with a name: BullettBob: The Fate of a Bullet.  Everyone says you can't put two "bullets" in the title so that may have to change.

The story just passed over 52,000 words yesterday and I am still very happy with it. 

This story is truly captivating.  It's an introspective action/adventure starring none other than ME!!! My personality and experiences(enhanced greatly!).  Yes, I have other people read it so that I do get a more objective view of how the story is going.

It's the story of a Border Patrol Agent who is thrown into a new career as an FBI Agent.  Bob is a social misfit yet has the perserverance to not give up.  He is assigned to the Los Angeles office in his third year.  Bob is trying to shine so on his own time, and barely approved, he is working on getting associated with an outlaw motorcycle gang. Mainly by hanging out at a bar often frequented by members of the OMG. 

The story turns exciting quickly with twists and turns that I DON'T even expect.  AS I am writing this story, it just seems to jump out onto the paper.  Someone asked if I use an outline and honestly I seldom do.  I will mull over the story while I am not working on it and then it will hit me how the next scene will play out.  It's truly, truly, truly exciting even for me to watch the characters develop; to watch the action occur and to watch the romance develop!!

I love this story and hope that I can finish it by fall....

Bob

Looks can be deceiving.

There are generally two types of people when it comes to encouragement: those who are encouraged and told they can do anything if they set their mind to it and those who are told that they can't do this or that or even the other thing.

Genetics and ingrained laziness caused me to be fairly small-framed and truly not what most of us think of as an imposing figure.  I remember being in high school and just hoping that someday I would get up to 150 pounds.  I also remember that I was fairly intelligent and had a stubbornness that wouldn't give up-usually.

Sometime in my first year of college I met Steve Evans, a Sunnyside Police Officer.  He became my role model.  I remember stopping in at the Washington State Patrol office in Sunnyside with my new found desire to become a law enforcement officer and met a very nice sergeant who told me that I shouldn't put my eggs all in one basket when I told him I wanted to go into his line of work.  Hmmm.

This wouldn't be the last time I heard this...It seemed that my not-so-imposing figure of a man immediately made people conclude that maybe I should be a librarian or maybe a writer or maybe a scientist or...

So, I ignored the general consensus and joined the Pullman Police Department Reserves where I did fine in shooting etc but was a complete failure on the street.  Hmmm.

Then, a year out of college, I joined the United States Border Patrol.  Why?  Because it had a mystique about it, an unknown quality and I would show everyone and I did. 

On April 29, 1984 I stepped into the Del Rio, Texas headquarters of the US Border Patrol as a trainee.  I remember the chief of the Del Rio Sector, Black Jack Richardson, a true legend in the BP, looking at us and saying that one in three of us wouldn't make it through the academy.  He looked at me specifically when he said this. 

Chief Richardson was right and wrong in the same sentence.  Out of 50 of us in the 162 session of the BP at FLETC, Glynco, Georgia, only 35 graduated.  I was one of those 35 that survived! 

I was also the best shooter by leaps and bounds.  I remember the real cops in our class just saying that my shooting was a fluke; that it was just a one time aberration.  But I continued to shoot very good and no matter how they justified in their mind that my shooting didn't count or wasn't the same as theirs or whatever, it was me that received the top awards from both FLETC and the US Border Patrol for achieving perfect scores.

Along with these naysayers were a couple of back patters that were my instructors.  Paul Conover, another legend in the Border Patrol was my firearms instructor and he liked me for whatever reason and one time told the other instructors that he "would ride the river with me anytime".  That was a great complement coming from a legend.

There was also another legend in the Border Patrol, Mr. Luis Barker who would eventually become a chief patrol agent that for some reason took a liking to me and because of these two individuals I succeeded with honors.

I remember the day of our final run and I ran the mile in 5:33 which is good enough; a classmate who had been with me for the whole time looked at me curiously after the run and said "good job.  I never expected that out of you."

Hmmm.