May 2005 Archives

I don't do this very often, but there are two things I am looking forward to very much:

The first is Battlestar Galactica. The new season begins here in the US on Sci-Fi on Friday, July 15. Click on the link above for episode sneak peaks on the first five episodes. The Miniseries and season 1 of BSG are numbers 3 and 4 on my list, you'll see 1 and 2 below.

The second is Serenity. The movie derived from the short-lived series Firefly on UPN. I thought it was an excellent series and was sorry to see it go. I am saving up to buy the DVD of the series, so I will have it in a couple of months. I need to buy the 5th season of Babylon 5 first.

Donations are always greatly appreciated. ;)

Today is the day we remember those who have fallen in the service of this country. People who are my battle brothers and sisters, who joined and died. From the Concord Green to the streets of Baghdad, the blood that feeds the tree of Liberty is always necessary and precious.

Places like Bunker Hill. Cold Harbor. Bastogne. Guadalcanal. Chosin Reservoir. Hue City. Tora Bora. Fallujah. Speak these names with reverence and awe.

And when you place a flag on the grave of a fallen soldier, please remember those who died at sea, for that is their grave.

When you give remembrance at a parade or cookout, please remember to salute the flag and thank a veteran for their service.

All gave some. Some gave all. Some are still giving. POW-MIA.

John Ford, one of the power brokers in the Tennessee Legislature, has resigned his seat, but not for the reasons you think. Operation Tennessee Waltz wasn't even the reason, although it was the excuse.

NewsMax has covered the resignation in this story, Tenn. State Senator Resigns After Arrest.

But what was not covered was the ethics investigation that was underway against Senator Ford, and the vote to throw him out of the Senate was as soon as next month. If he were to be thrown out, he would lose his pension and benefits from the Senate. Resignation preserves those benefits.

And that's important because he has a lot of mouths to feed. At least 8 children by at least 3 different women, and he's married to none of them (at the moment). I doubt the income from his funeral home business (where he lists his residence, so he can represent that district) could cover his expenses.

I have no doubt that after he's been convicted and served his time, his (former) constituents will be happy to re-elect him back into the Tennessee Legislature. They did it for Marion Barry in D.C., I have no reason to doubt they will do it here as well.

From Fox News Tongue Tied:

A high school student who painted an image that kinda sorta looks like a stairway to heaven had to change it after some folks complained about the religious imagery, reports the Napa Valley Register.

The student, who carries a Bible and has earned the nickname Pastor K., said he didn't want to offend anyone and immediately changed the image on a painting outside the Napa High School art room.

Stairs previously leading to a castle in the sky now lead to a sunspot in the sky, and the castle is moored to the ground instead of planted in clouds. "I don't want to cause anyone to get upset," said the student, Kyle Trudelle.

Some observant students wonder, however, why no one has complained about a nearby mural depicting the Virgin Mary. It was explained that that painting is about Hispanic heritage, so it's OK.

I think my emphasis pretty much sums it up. things even slightly Christian are banned, but Hispanic symbols are OK, "because it's part of their heritage." Well, Christianity is part of my heritage, so I better start seeing some equal time here.

Here's another Tongue Tied, I'll let you be the judge:

A school district in North Carolina is spending nearly $50,000 a year to have its teachers berated as racists in the name of diversity and anti-racism training, reports the Greensboro News Record.

Officials in Guilford County are requiring some 300 teachers in the district to sit through seminars by Chicago's Crossroads Ministry. Participants, according to the paper, "are taught that history is written from the perspective of whites and that laws and policies benefit whites while putting minorities at an immediate disadvantage."

The paper provided no details about the seminars.

The Crossroads Ministry makes no bones about its belief that "U.S. racial and cultural imperialism abroad are fundamentally based on white supremacy at home, founded on the belief that only White Europeans and White Euro-Americans should set the world's agenda and control and distribute the world's resources."

The ministry also insists that whites are like alcoholics who are unaware of their racism and how they "benefit from and even depend on the sufferings of others for their happiness." Coincidentally — we're sure — one of the Guildford County school board members trying to make sure there is plenty set aside in next year's half-a-million dollar training budget for Crossroads is Deena Hayes, who the paper describes as a trainer in institutional racism for the People's Institute which frequently partners with Crossroads. [emphasis mine]

You want to talk about racist, there you go. So steeped in anger and hatred against whites, they ought to be members of whatever non-white Klan there is out there.

And buried in one of the articles is this:

[Superintendent Terry] Grier agrees more training is needed. The district is more diverse than nine years ago, he said. The school system has gone from 57 percent white and 37 percent low-income students to 45 percent white and 46 percent low-income students.

You mean none of the white students are low-income? Are you sure about that? Are you sure that all of the non-white students are low-income? Isn't that statement racist in itself?

You need to follow the links in this second story, especially to the Crossroads Ministry. They are a bunch of flaming Liberal apologists who are seeing the world through a very bad set of prescription glasses. They need to be exposed as to that they are so they can be ignored like the rest of the racists in the world instead of being paid to give "seminars."

I had a wonderful time at Nashcon. It is truly a wargaming con. You had ancient era miniatures, Napoleonics, chariot races, aerial dogfights, a battleship card game going on, almost everything you could want in a wargaming con.

But I was there to play Epic:Armageddon. Let's get on to it.

Mike and I started out at 4AM Saturday morning to make sure we were there in time. We arrived at 745 and meandered around waiting for the event to start.

With all pictures, click on them for a full sized view.

Here are my forces, the Ultramarines 3rd Company with support elements. I have six squads of tactical Marines, backed up by terminators from the 1st Company, plus a detachment of Predator tanks and another detachment of Whirlwinds providing fire support. That big ugly white guy behind the Terminators? That's a Titan. He's 1/3rd of my force total all by himself.

The first battle was with Neil, he beat me to a pulp with his Orks during the Ides of March Epic Tournament back in March. This time he played Chaos Space Marines.

Most of his army was dropping in from orbit, so he started with a very light force on the board. He marched all of his forces around the edge of the board, all over to my left flank, keeping out of the range of the Whirlwinds. My forces cautiously advanced, taking up positions around one of his objectives. The other was way across the board and I didn't have the forces to cover it, so it was ignored.

Turn two saw the advancement of his forces into contact with one of my tactical detachments, and we slugged it out, ending in the destruction of that detachment for me. I moved my other tactical detachment over to work on the survivors and was supported by the Titan.

Turn three was when the fresh Chaos troops arrived. They dropped right between my blitzkrieg objective and my forces. We fought and he reduced my Marines to just the Commander and his retinue. He also destroyed my Whirlwinds while trying to attack my titan. The good news is my Terminators teleported in and secured his Blitzkrieg objective. The turn ended in no winner, both of us had two points.

Turn four is where things went wrong for Neil. He threw wave after wave of troops at the titan, trying to dislodge it off the objective it was holding on to, and it failed horribly. I made my best die rolls of the game, and he made his worst rolls. I ended up destroying or driving off most of his forces, leaving him in control of one secondary objective, while I held all three on his side of the board. I won! I received 18 out of a possible 20 points for the win.

Round 2 was against David, playing orks. I faced a literal sea of orks, garrisoned in the middle of the board.

In this game, I could not make a save for anything! I moved my tactical detachments up to cover the objectives, and he kept pounding away at them, killing a stand or two a turn. His fighta-bommaz (the orks misspell everything) killed a Whirlwind, which hurt. I lost my second template to cause even more damage by way of them. I marched my Predator tanks around the flank, and that was how turn 1 ended.

Turn two opened with a bang. I opened fire on his gunwagonz, breaking them. I started to pull back my Tacticals, as I did not want them in close combat with a horde of orks. The titan kept pummeling away at the sea of bodies, causing massive damage to them, but the orks just kept coming.

Turn three saw the tide of battle change. My Terminators teleported into his unprotected backfield and destroyed the broken gunwagonz. My titan also broke his other gunwagonz detachment. He threw everything he had in range of the Terminators at them, but they took it all and kept smiling. Another march of the Predators brought them into range of the last broken gunwagonz, but because they marched, they could not fire.

The fourth turn was the kicker. David started bringing his forces back towards the objectives that I had captured, but he mismeasured and ended up 1.5cm out of range. I finished destroying anything that was in range of the objectives and won the game 2-0, gaining me another 18 victory points. I'm now 2-0 and my toughest fight is in front of me.

Battle three was against Michael and his Eldar. I don't know how it got through the playtesting process, but the Eldar are very overpowered for their points.

There are no pictures for this battle because I was too busy fighting for my life the entire time. He just wiped me out like I wasn't even there. He even killed the Titan without much trouble. At the end of turn 3, my Terminators were in position, but he was able to contest the blitzkrieg objective, and there was nothing I could do to stop him from taking my objectives. He won 18 out of a possible 20. The good news was I was the only player of the day who was able to score points against him at all, albeit only 2 points.

I ended up in Third place overall, behind Michael and Greg, who went 2-0-1 in his battles. Quite a respectable showing, more than I had hoped for. And I got my usual 2-1 record again. This time, the wins were on the winners side of the bracket, usually I lose that first game and end up on the losers side of things.

Mike and I ended up back home at around 12:45 this morning, a good end to a 21 hour day.

I'm up and at 'em again, this time heading to Cool Springs to an Epic:Armageddon tournament as part of Nashcon 05.

I'll be back with pictures and battle reports either Sunday or Monday.

Wish me luck.

It seems that Senator Clinton's move to the center is working. USA Today Poll: Majority Would Vote for President Hillary.

In the poll, 29 percent of respondents said they were "very likely" to vote for Clinton, and another 24 percent were "somewhat likely," while 7 percent were "not very likely" and 39 percent were "not at all likely" to vote for the senator from New York.

Methinks this USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll concentrated on Blue areas rather than making it balanced. Either that, or her image as a centrist is working.

If her image as a centrist is working, we are in big trouble. Bill was the centrist, Hillary is the flaming Liberal. Let her get into the Presidency and she will show her true colors.

She is as much of a centrist as I am.

Nuff said.

I 'm sorry I didn't report on this yesterday, but I only watch recorded TV so I can flash through the commercials. I recorded Law & Order: Criminal Intent Wednesday night, then heard the line discussed on Rush Limbaugh. Tom DeLay Irate Over NBC's Judgment.

It seems that when the police were talking about a description of the shooter(s), Eames said, "Maybe we should put out an APB [all-points bulletin] for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."

I also found out that Vincent D'Onofrio is a flaming Liberal, who got apoplectic over the election in 2004 and having to be taken off the set via stretcher more than once. But I digress.

I will have to re-evaluate my watching this show. Not because of Vince, but because of the writing. I don't like character assassination, and that is what Liberals love to do when they have nothing substantial against someone they hate.

If you haven't been following it, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is under investigation about ethics violations concerning who paid for his travel.

The problem is, if the Democrats push for prosecution of Tom DeLay, then the investigation will be widened and many Democrat Representatives will be caught in similar circumstances. So to not be caught with their own hand in the cookie jar, they are going after DeLay with every character assassination tool in their box. Dean says stuff like "Tom DeLay should start serving his sentience" before charges have even been brought, let alone convicted.

I like what Dick Wolf (Creator/Executive Producer of the series) said,

"but I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

Feh.

Well, it seems Mr. Chirac of France isn't listening to the people who put him in office. Turmoil as Chirac plots to disregard 'non' vote. This is about the referendum the people are voting on as far as joining the European Union.

Just to show what he is planning to do, very far down in the article is this:

But one option being discussed in senior diplomatic circles is for candidates in the French presidential election in 2007 to promise to ratify the treaty in parliament rather than by referendum.

So, if it doesn't pass by public referendum, they'll just pass it in Parliament. Who'd a thunk that the French government would ignore the will of the people?

...of the year and I'm trapped driving crazy people around and attending a picnic.

Senators John Ford and Kathryn Bowers of Memphis, former Senator Roscoe Dixon, now an assistant to the County Mayor A.C. Wharton, and several others arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, threatening witnesses (all John Ford on this one, natch) and several others. I wasn't taking notes, considering I was driving around the 240 loop.

If you want the full scoop, check out Mike at Half-Bakered. He's been on top of it all day.

You decide to help out and change your schedule and something like this happens.

Damn, damn, damn.

I have to work at a picnic today, so posting is cut short. See you tonight or tomorrow.

It seems that the central character in the creation of the European Union doesn't want to belong to it. French in disarray as they admit EU treaty vote is lost.

The EU Constitution was a bad idea from the start. Instead of painting broad brush strokes and letting the lawmakers fill in the blanks as is with our Constitution, the EU attempts to lay out every policy and minute decision in the Constitution itself. The US Constitution is a few pages, the EU is a James Mitchner novel.

Such micromanaging of a controlling document is a bad idea, since the process to change it (should be) difficult and complex.

With the French backing out of the EU, it would seem that the EU is in significant trouble, as the French were the major pushers behind the idea.

I can't wait to see what comes next.

Well, it seems that you making efforts to keep your information secure is now considered criminal activity. Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption.

A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.

The case was about a turd who had kiddie porn on his computer, as well as a copy of Pretty Good Privacy. While none of the porn was encrypted, the fact that he had PGP and what it did was introduced as evidence of wrongdoing.

It seems that I should encrypt my personal information, just on principle. I have a Constitutional right to be secure in my papers, and that means KEEP YOUR DAMN FINGERS OFF MY STUFF. My thumb drive came with a secure vault, I think I'll start using it.

I think it's time for something radical to happen. Either a new Conservative Party is formed out of the ashes of the old Republicans, or we start throwing people off the lifeboat.

I don't see any other way. As long as we provide a fractured non-unity to the Democrats, they will win every time. Why? Because of the traitors in our midst. We must get rid of them, one way or another.

It's either toss the Traitorous Seven out of the Party, or everybody else leave for a new party and let them have the Republican moniker.

This "deal" that these seven "moderate" Republicans made, which gives the Democrats everything they wanted while we lose big time, has cost us dearly. I think it's time that we unmasked the sheep in wolf's clothing and toss these seven out of the Party.

Yes, I know they will be instantly absorbed into the Democrats, giving them control of the Senate, but I think this will be a good thing. This move will get rid of Bill Frist as Majority Leader. He has proven to be ineffective in a leadership position. Better now than if he got elected to the Presidency. It will lock up the entire process with the Senate firmly in Democrat hands, and show the entire country just how bad of obstructionists they are.

The obstructionism will continue until the Mid-term cycle in 06 and we will hopefully regain control of the Senate, this time with true Conservative Republicans.

Why don't these people just go away? Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo.

Amnesty International whines about us because we are the only ones who listen at least some of the time. Other places, like Pakistan, the old Iraq, Mexico and a host of other places, all routinely use torture to extract information. And we are talking a lot more than just making the subject stand in uncomfortable positions. But we are supposed to be civilized and not use these barbaric methods at all. Well, we aren't. Not by real standards anyway. We don't physically harm the prisoners, but we do cause mild amounts of pain. It's the only way to get these people to talk.

AA is a bunch of do-gooder Liberals trying to look effective by bullying us around because we don't treat our prisoners like royalty. They can go straight to hell, because I understand that things like this is necessary when dealing with bad people. AA does not understand the amount of restraint we exert upon ourselves not to actually torture these people.

There is a fine line and we are doing our best to stay on the right side of it.

I don't normally delete feedback. In fact I haven't at all up until now. I usually like to leave it there and comment on it to make fun of those who made the comments.

Well, yesterday I received a comment from "The Klu Klux Klan, LLC." I skimmed through it and then deleted it. I don't put up with race hatred or race "purity." Considering I've got a Hawai'ian wife and a son by her, I don't think they would let me in the local chapter.

If I had grown up in Mississippi instead of Ohio, I am pretty sure my dad would have been a Klucker instead of a Mason. He just held those views. Thankfully, I don't.

The Klucker responded today and said, "No wonder you don't get many comments." I don't get many comments because I don't get many hits, not because I delete views that disagree with me.

I have learned in my travels to judge the person by their actions, not their skin color. I intend to keep it that way.

Well, it seems that the nuclear option has been avoided. Republicans have once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They bowed to media pressure and fell for the "minority rights" bullshit. Some of President Bush's strict constructionist nominees will get their vote, but Democrats have retained their "right" to filibuster other "extreme" (read: Conservative) nominees.

And of course we all know that if the tables were turned, when the tables are turned, "minority rights" won't amount to a hill of beans. If Republicans ever decide to filibuster, then the nuclear option will be the first resort to the Democrats.

This makes me sick.

Well, it seems that Senator Kerry has finally signed his form 180. It also seems that he will filter those same pages through his campaign, releasing only what is not damaging to him. It still raises questions about one of his Purple Hearts, his Silver Star and the manner of his discharge. Remember, he has inconsistencies like three different versions of his Silver Star, each version "sexed-up" and signed by higher authority from the prior. The matter of his discharge is up for debate as well. His Honorable Discharge is dated years after his departure from service and it seems that a board was involved. Sounds like an upgrade from Less Than Honorable to me.

And so it goes. We'll see how things play out. He may have signed the form, but he still has to send it in....

Today I bought something I wanted, a 1 gig thumb drive. As I downloaded my personal files into it, I marveled at how the price of things have dropped. I remember to this day my first hard drive, a 20mb, 70ms seek time, for my Fat Mac, way back in 1985. This was at a time when you could fit the DOS and GUI, plus Word on one 800k disk, and use a 2nd drive to hold your files. 20mb was just monstrous back then. Today I have 700 mb files, and some of my folders take up more space than that "little" 20mb drive. I paid the princely sum of $2,000, plus tax, for a grand total of about $100 a megabyte. That thumb drive, 500 times the size of that initial drive, cost me about $70, just a touch under 7 cents a megabyte. Such is technology.

Soon, when my paranoid dreams have come true, you will be able to have one of these chips implanted under your skin, and accessible via wireless technology, so your files are always with you, no matter what.

What a country!

Well, well, well! Jack Bauer walks off into the sunrise, heading toward Mexico with a new identity. They've already said that Jack will be back in January of 2006 with an even bigger adventure. Hmm. After saving the world, I wonder how it could get any bigger? I look forward to January.

Fox News had an interesting video piece on their website this morning, about Arizona schools having a voluntary program to teach gun safety and marksmanship as a creditable part of the school curriculum.

I think this is a wonderful idea. This goes beyond the Eddie Eagle program that is taught by the NRA, this teaches how to shoot and how to do it safely.

Shooting is one of the few sports where boys and girls are in the same league, instead of having a boys team and a girls team.

Shooting instills a certain level of responsibility in the students, simply by the fact that if you aren't safe in shooting, you don't get to shoot. And shooting is fun. It gives you discipline by the fact that you have to be able to control yourself to hit the target consistently.

It is the myths perpetuated by TV and movies that contribute to the gun violence we see today. Too many people try to solve their problems with guns and teach that brutal force is okay. This must stop.

Teaching our children the joys and responsibility of gun ownership is a wonderful thing. I wish the schools taught it here.

Well, I got to watch a slow motion train wreck yesterday morning on Meet The Press. Howard Dean, former Presidential candidate and presently head of the Democrat National Committee, was ripped a new one by Tim Russert. Tim Russert Rips Howard Dean Apart.

In subject after subject, Tim Russert let Dean state or clarify a position, then hit him with a contradiction out of his own mouth and then sat back and watched the gears grind to a halt while Dean tried to mealy-mouth his way out of such lies and contradictions.

Dean is part of the radical left, and his calling the Republicans "Evil" doesn't help. He doesn't make any friends saying that Tom DeLay should start serving a prison sentience without being even accused of a crime, let alone convicted of one. Of course, Dean has already convicted DeLay, but that's only in his own mind. Thankfully there is no correlation between reality and Dean's mind.

This is what we face. People consumed by irrational hatred. People who claim to celebrate diversity, but reserve their tokens for the front office and subways. People who claim to respect the rights and opinions of others, but only when it agrees with them. If you have a different opinion, you are shouted down, spit on and trampled.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

I like reading Fox News' Tongue Tied. It shows how far of a society we have progressed, insulating people from being offended by their own prejudices.

This entire column, License to Pray, Yanked Yearbook, is about individual people seeing something they don't like and insisting that it be removed, solely on the fact that it offends them, never mind the rights of the person displaying it, or that the majority of people want it.

I think it's time this garbage stops. There is always something that pisses me off, from people who park in my parking spot to just general idiots whining to get their way. If you don't like smoking, then don't go to places where people smoke. If you don't want religious symbols present at your childs graduation, then yank the kid out of it and leave the rest of those people who do want those symbols there alone.

I think it's time that the majority stand up and speak out, and the whiners sit down and shut up. Within limits, we live under a majority rule government, and that majority ought to learn how to rule. Stop this bull scat about "minority rights" right now. The minority has very little to say about what goes on, simply because they are the minority.

Our First Amendment does NOT preclude all religious displays anywhere but inside a church (and sometimes even in there), but from the formation of a Church of America, and you go even if you don't want to go. The founders of this great country said our Constitution was only for a moral and just people. You can't get the morality they are talking about without some kind of religious anchor. I don't care if you are Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Wiccan or whatever. Morals mean you have a clear view of what is right and wrong, and there is very little grey between that black and white.

Todays Liberals see the world not in black and white, but in a multitude of shades of grey. There is no wrong or right in there eyes, there is only what the individual sees. We are not a nation of individuals, we are a team, and when that team works together there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

I am not telling you your views are stupid. I am not telling you your views are worthless. I am telling you that if you are not the majority, get used to not having your way. If you want to see your views become mainstream, then you need to work to change the view of the people, not impose your views on the majority by judicial fiat.

'Nuff said.

And it ain't where you think it is. I am looking forward to watching 24 tonight, the two hour season finale. It has been promised to be a cliffhanger right up to the last moment.

Of course, the question always is, "Will Kiefer Sutherland do another season?" That's a good question, one that I don't know the answer to.

Watch it anyway, it promises to be good.

MoveOn.org, the group that told us to "move on" during President Clinton's impeachment, has embarrassed themselves with their latest TV commercial: Senate Wars: Revenge of the Frist.

You can see this totally distorted commercial here, but don't say I didn't warn you.

The fact that the Republicans won't force a filibuster to get these judges to a vote shows that they are not ready to lead, and that saddens me greatly. The fact that we won't force the "nuclear option" shows that Frist is a spineless idiot. I am ashamed he is from Tennessee. He doesn't have the will to run the Senate, and he's considering a run for the White House? I honestly don't know if I could vote for him, even holding my nose.

Yes, the republicans are badgered by the Liberal press, yes the Democrats in the Senate are a bunch of whiny children who are threating to hold their breath. Yes, even after 13 years, the Republicans are not in the mindset that they are the majority and should be running things. Once the Democrats are back in power and the Republicans threaten filibuster, the Dems will hit that "nuclear option" button so fast it will break. And the press won't mind at all.

It's time that the Republicans stand up for what is right and press forward, politics and press be damned.

Bill Whittle, online essayist extroadinaire at Eject! Eject! Eject!, has finally divulged his latest missive, Sanctuary.

Read it. You will be the better for it. Then if you haven't read his prior works, go through his archives.

There is a vast difference between Christians and Muslims in how they respect other ideas. This is an interesting article about this: Saudis Shred Bibles, Rights Campaigners Claim.

A report about us flushing a Koran sparks riots, but in deference towards Christianity, they routinely destroy Christian symbols. When Muslims took control of the Church of the Nativity where Christ was born, they defile it by deface it with Muslim graffiti, shitting in the church and wiping themselves with pages of the Bible.

And yet we have to pay the utmost respect to the Muslim religion. An unsubstantiated report leads to riots and deaths, but they routinely defile my religion.

Islam is neither a religion of peace or tolerance. Not when it is applied like this. The radical arm of Islam must be dealt with, and soon.

Here you go. The Bush administration wishes to directly violate the Constitution by granting the FBI power to make "administrative" warrants. GOP Aides Say New Patriot Act Obliges Bush.

This must not be allowed to pass into law. I admit we need to be aggressive in pursuing terrorists, but we can do that without opening this door. Because once doors like this open, all that happens is they open wider instead of closing.

The Patriot Act is nothing but bad news. It sounds good, but it's not good and sound.

No, this post isn't about rockets. I'm not sure what state I'm in, either flying around manic or crashing into depression. It could literally be both, with my fast-cycling bipolar. All I know is there is stuff out there that I want to comment on, but can't muster up the proper motivations in order to make a coherent comment on these complex issues.

No, thankfully, I don't have any impulses to hurt myself. For the longest time I had an mental image that I couldn't get rid of. The image was sticking a gun to my ear and pulling the trigger. I wasn't suicidal by any means, I did not want to carry this urge out, but I had to force it down constantly. Since my current cocktail was developed, that image has slowly gone away. I can't remember the last time I had that urge.

Keep hanging on with me folks. I know I can make it. It just takes me a little longer and a little more effort than most people.

Wow. No news today, as I am still manic, coming down off the excitement of this weekend. If you want a hobby that boils your adrenalin, high powered rocketry is it. The excitement of seeing your creation roar off the pad and take to the heavens out of your control is a terrifying mix of elation and dread, because if everything doesn't go right, it's a long walk back with a broken rocket.

With the bigger rockets you can pour hundreds of hours into it, only to see it crash because you forgot something minor, or due to circumstances out of your control. While Southern Thunder had a lot of exciting launches, we had our share of "oops" launches as well. The kind that blow up on the pad, or disintegrate in the sky, or all of the recovery devices fail and you get a ballistic (think V-2) recovery. It also gets quite terrifying when rocket parts land in the midst of people. Luckily, no one got hurt, but your heart jumps into your throat when you hear the words "HEADS UP!" I had a motor casing from a broken rocket land about 30 feet away, and a rocket safely landed about 20 feet away, right in front of the Range Safety Officers tent.

It's a rush, let me tell you.

I'm sorry that I didn't keep you appraised throughout the day, but the connection wouldn't connect and I was very busy doing the rocket thing.

I flew on a sod farm, where it is nothing but several hundred, if not thousand, acres of flat land with nothing more than grass growing. We were all lined up on one side of the farm, with vehicles not being allowed on the grass.

We got there at 8.40am, after driving 4.5 hours. We (my son and I) quickly set up camp, and I started work on the Garth R.

After registering and notifying the officials of my Level 2 attempt, I started work in earnest on the rocket. I did it in two stages, I put the rocket together to make sure it wouldn't drag separate (come apart after motor burnout), then had it checked out by the Range Safety Officer.

I then returned to my table and hooked up power to the electronics and the ejection charges. It was ready to go.

I then commenced the final steps to mount the rocket on the rail, insert the igniter and arm the electronics.

Here we are, ready to go. Let's hope everything works right!

Lift-off was a little behind schedule due to the confusion and tracking down the right people. We finally took off at 1.25pm instead of the Noon liftoff that was scheduled. If NASA can launch late, I guess it's okay for me to do so as well.

I don't have a picture of the liftoff, the camera malfunctioned. Sorry.

But I went and got the backup camera and we got one last picture of me getting the successfully flown rocket:

Post flight analysis reveled a small amount of damage to the bottom of the electronics bay where it landed due to I didn't tighten the nuts holding the bay together enough, and the two electronic apogee charges didn't go off (neither was detected by the electronics, but I was told it would work anyway). Good news this time, the motor backup did work perfectly and the rocket worked as designed. I would have been a little happier if the streamer came out, but the rocket separated and I am happy with that.

Now all I have to do is pass the Level 2 test, and that is not a problem. I just have to remember little stuff like how far away you need to be from a K motor and such.

Proper procedures, preparation and a little dose of good luck all contributed to the success of this flight. And I wish to thank all of you who were supportive of me and comforted me when my doubts grew too much for me to handle them alone.

Thank You all.

By the way, if you didn't notice the shirt change, been there, done that, got the golf shirt. =)

And so the day begins, with nary a wink of sleep, both my son and I are so anxious to start our adventure. Gotta go and load the van so we can get out of here.

TTYL.

T-minus 16 hours, 45 minutes and 57 seconds. Everything is packed and ready to be loaded into the van. I'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. There are so many things that can go wrong, and I am worried about each and every one.

Tomorrow is looking to be a 20 hour day, starting at 3AM and not ending until 10pm. But if I can pull it off, it will be worth it. Lots of pictures and posts forthcoming throughout the day.

I have weighed the rocket on my trusty postal scale and determined its dry weight (no fuel) to be 125 ounces. According to my copy of Rocksim, this means a apogee of 2,797 feet.

This is about 1,100 feet lower than my initial estimates, but considering that I am testing electronics, I am happy to let the lower altitude stand. I am also considering deploying the parachute at apogee just to make sure that I recover it. I won't have 100% faith in my electronics until after the flight. I will have a total of three apogee charges going off, one from the motor and one from each of the electronics packages. I hope.

Keep your fingers crossed folks. Team Havener will do it's best to bring the rocket home alive.

PETA, a radical animal rights group, is learning to push it's agenda in our public schools. PETA Gets to Your Kids.

I have written before about PETA, though it's been a while. I avoided the search engines on it by spelling it P E T A, but I decided to let them find me.

Anyway, this article tells the story about PETA and how they are trying to equate eating meat or even drinking milk as animal cruelty and will make the child into a serial killer. This is the stuff they teach in our schools.

Which leads directly to this story, Class Dissection Of Live Dog Outrages Parents, Students. This "teacher" is engaging in animal cruelty in the first degree. This will get the kids curious about how Fluffy works and try to repeat it. We dissect animals very low on the totem pole because we don't have emotional attachments to the animals. This is an animal to whom we can bond to and the animal bonds back.

This example here is one of the very few times I am on PETA's side.

Our government, acting in response to the Minutemen, have done something only a governmental agency could do: Work less. Border Patrol told to stand down in Arizona.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.

What a crock. They are not doing their job in the first place, then when some amateurs find more in a month than they do, the governments response is to downplay the effectiveness of the civilian effort by arresting less illegal immigrants.

It makes sense, somehow, just not to me.

Well, I'm ready as I'll never be. All I have to do now pick up the camcorder battery, booster section, motor and igniter, and I'll be ready. Make some bologna sandwiches for the trip and we'll be off around 6am Sunday morning, and home before 8pm.

T-minus 3:4:18:45

I found this opinion article on Fox, and I believe they have a point. No Federalism on the Right.

Republicans have lost their way and are trying to centralize power in Washington, just like Democrats have done for years. They have become addicted to the heady power of a centralized government, looking down on the citizens instead of the states.

The Constitution was empowered as a limitation on the Federal government, but people on both sides, drunk with power, have ignored the limitations of this document. Just as one example, the Clinton administration discarded the ex post facto part of the Constitution and passed the Domestic Violence law, where it restricted your gun rights after you committed a misdemeanor domestic assault. It made this law retroactive, causing many people who committed minor crimes like this 20 years ago to lose their gun rights.

And it was a Republican Congress that passed that law.

For decades, liberals scoffed at federalist arguments that the people of Wisconsin or Wyoming understood their own needs better than a distant Congress. They brought more and more power to Washington, over-riding state legislatures and imposing mandates on every nook and cranny of governance.

Now those chickens have come home to roost. Republicans run Washington, and they're using the federal power that liberals built in ways that liberals never envisioned.

This is supposed to be 50 individual communities, with a Federal government regulating trade between the states and other countries, plus providing national security by way of the armed forces. Now both sides are looking to micromanage citizens lives from Washington.

Too bad the Republicans have lost their way.

Well, I swallowed my stress and finished the electronics bay, and found a problem with the ejection charges. I'm waiting on an email to determine my next course of action.

I also got my final hardware purchase out of the way, purchasing the batteries and quicklinks to hold everything together. I also gave the booster section to Signs Now to have my dad's name put on it. I hope to have the booster section back tomorrow, and the battery for my camcorder is arriving via FedEx.

Now all I have to do is have my car checked out, pick up the motor and igniter and cooler with ice. Then it's clean out the van, pull out the back seat, pack it and go.

Many pictures and comments from the road on Sunday, so keep on line and keep visiting. Time is T-Minus 3 Days, 22 Hours, 59 Minutes and 06 Seconds.

No matter how bad I want a real job, one that can support my family, I can't do it. Here I am with a deadline and a relatively simple project in my hands, and it is wrecking me emotionally. The project in front of me is neither hard nor complex, and it is driving me crazy. Let's put that in other words, shall we? The stress involved is immense to me, and in order for me to be a IT Manager/Chief Information Officer, I would have to have about 8-10 times this stress level and deadlines every day. I can't do it.

My task for today is simple, cut 6 wires to length, strip and solder them to the right places. I am shaking and almost in tears over this. Stuff like this I could have completed in an hour before my sickness now has taken me almost 4 years. My last Level 2 shot was in August of 2001. I could have done this a lot sooner, but I was not stable (medications and environment) until within the past 2 years. Even then I looked at this rocket many times and wanted to work on it, but never started. It has taken me a hard and close deadline to force myself into this project, and it is wrecking me. I could have started this project two months ago when I first decided to go to this launch. But nooooo, I have to procrastinate to the week before and totally stress myself out. I'm definitely not in Covey's Quadrant Two.

I apologize if I sound whiny, but I have to get my head on straight soon so I can complete this task and blogging helps do that.

Thanks for listening.

Well, the countdown continues. The lift-off is scheduled for Noon on Sunday, and things are progressing. The electronics bay is almost complete. I just need to run some wires and solder them together. I can't get in touch with my airbrush guy, so it looks like I'm going to have to use a waterslide decal to name the rocket, now all I have to do is find an 8.5 x 11" waterslide decal and fixing spray.

I still have to get the car checked out, pick up the motor and some miscellaneous parts, and do a test fit of everything. I also have to write my procedures for putting the rocket together so I don't forget something. I don't want any surprises on the launch field.

This is pushing me manic, because of all of the stress involved. Everything has to go right, perfectly or disaster will result. I have to keep the manic under control so I can be excited about it, but not so excited that I lose control and start making mistakes.

I will be bringing my laptop and cell phone to the launch with me, so I will be posting extensively Sunday on what is going on. Check with me throughout the day and help share my joy or sorrow.

Well it looks like New Jersey, where the weak are killed and eaten, has come up with a new idea.

In a land where hollow point bullets are against the law and every firearm is severely licensed, these dimbulbs are going to start doing the drug confiscation thing with firearms.

If you have an illegal (read: unregistered) firearm on your property, you lose your home, your vehicle, anything that NJ can get its' grubby little fingers on. It doesn't matter if the firearm is yours or not, you lose your stuff.

This is one of those ideas that sound good, but is not a good, sound idea. It isn't hard to get an illegal gun, plant it on somebodies car or house and then drop a dime on them.

This violates your Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, a trifecta!

I know this point has been brought up and hashed out already, but I still wanted to comment on the eco-nuts (lack of) logic.

Recently it was reported that the air is cleaner than it has been in years. This is a good thing, right? Wrong.

The eco-nuts are proclaiming that the increased levels of sunlight is heating the earth, which is advancing the rate of global warming.

I don't get it. We pollute, we get global warming because of the greenhouse gasses. We clean up the greenhouse gases, and we still get global warming because of the increased sunlight.

It seems to me that no matter what we do, these people are going to proclaim global warming. Could it be that the Earth will heat and cool according to its' own cycles and Man has no input on the matter? Nah. It couldn't be that simple.

I just wish that these people would either tell us how to prevent global warming and/or (preferably) just shut up. But then again these are the people who told us in the 70's that we would run out of petroleum in 30 years. Not only have we not run out, we have more reserves now than we did then. Shows you how wrong they are.

I wish I could comment this morning, but the stress has me wound up tight like a two-dollar toy.

I am planning on attending Southern Thunder 2005 this Sunday, for getting my Level 2 certification in High Power Rocketry. This will allow me (if I certify) to fly J, K, and L motors. Remember, each letter doubles the power of the one before it. An L motor has over 2,000 times the power of a basic A motor. And those aren't the biggest motors that fly either. Some experimental rocketeers have flown up to a P motor, and I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a Q motor being built somewhere right now.

I'm naming the rocket "Garth R." after my dad. I had planned to have a "Homer Hickam Moment" with my dad. If you've ever watched October Sky, the emotional capstone of the movie was where Homers dad shows up at a launch and pushes the button to launch the last rocket, showing that the dad understands something about the son and what drove him to launch rockets. Well, my original plan was to build and fly this rocket in Ohio, and let my dad hit the button. Unfortunately, circumstances intervened. My dad died in 2001 while I was in the hospital and I never had that moment with him. I also plan on launching part of both of my parents ashes with the rocket.

You can find the article I wrote about it, complete with countdown timer, here.

Anyway, I've got 5 days to finish the electronics bay, have the booster airbrushed, get the car checked out, find a battery and charger for the camcorder, and about a dozen other things on top of that.

Wish me luck. I don't have the money to build another rocket and go for another attempt after this one.

Well, I recently reinstalled the TTLB (The Truth Laid Bear) eco system. I just noticed this morning that I moved up from a Flappy Bird to Adorable Little Rodent.

I just wanted to thank all of you who visit my blog to give me the hits and let me "move up in the world."

Thank You!

I spent some time this morning before work looking at Monster.com. I found a nice job, right up my alley for a starting salary of 60K a year. Now that I'm at work, I'm starting to b