I require the solace of the shadows and the dark of the night. Sunshine is my destroyer. — Legend

I like to blend in with the background.  If you’ve met me in a large gathering, I’m usually in a corner, talking with one or two people.  I will be friendly and affable, but I try to not to be in the center of activity.  I’m not a complete introvert, but meeting a bunch of new people at once exhausts me.  I’m much more comfortable meeting new people in a one-on-one or small group gathering.  For some reason, the anxiety isn’t there.

Bubba was my best good friend. And even I know that ain’t something you can find just around the corner. Bubba was going to be a shrimping boat captain, but instead, he died right there by that river in Vietnam. — Forrest Gump

Losing someone close is one of the hardest things we can do as human beings.  Our closest friends and family keep us going, inspire us to do better, and prop us up when the world kicks our knees out from under us.  Their dreams are our dreams, their loves are our loves.  The best memorial we can give them is to try, as much as we can, to continue their good works and brings their dreams to reality.

Get out of my way son, you’re usin’ my oxygen. — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The more I am forced to get to know people, the larger percentage of the people I know don’t contribute enough to the rest of us to justify the oxygen they consume.  Not everyone is a hard charger all the time, and nobody has all the answers, but you’d expect that most of the people would have a few of the answers and be able to meander in the general direction of a goal.

Then again, I’m a starry-eyed optimist.

I gave you life so that you could live it. — My Big Fat Greek Wedding

I did not raise my children to look at pictures of trees on a screen.  Neither did I raise them to tour the world on the Internet.  I want them to go for walks, play in the yard, and travel the world.  I want them to jump into cold water, walk across hot deserts, and hear a soprano sing so beautifully it brings tears to their eyes.

Life is too precious to spend it indoors, cut off from the world.  Of all the lessons I want my kids to learn, I think that is one of the most important.

Yeah well… sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand. — Cool Hand Luke

Like the song says, nothing’s freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.  Anti-rights groups were on top of the world after they had painted us into a corner in the 1990’s.  Pro-gun groups had played nice for seven decades, trying to find that one line the other side wouldn’t cross.

Finally, something clicked.  They’d been painted into a corner, and realized that the next compromise would be a surrender.  Having not much left to lose gave them a freedom to gamble, to fight back, and to find a way to win.

The new, more aggressive approach to defending our rights and clawing back territory already lost has been working for a more than a decade.  Beginning with the advent of  shall-issue concealed carry in many states, through the lapse of the Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, through today, where even the bastions of Chicago and Washington, D.C. are being forced to confront a populace that is not only screaming about gun rights, but also economic freedom, free speech, and government security overreach.

Having nothing in our hand played out pretty well for us so far.  Hopefully we can keep the momentum and don’t overplay it.

Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man. – A Clockwork Orange

We make choices every day, all day.  Do I take proper care of my children or do I ignore them?  Do I provide for me and mine, or do I live off the labor of others?  Do I follow the law and my own moral code, or do I violate both?

Who you are and how you are perceived depends, to a large extent, on the choices you make in life.  Everyone will make mistakes.  Everyone will be kicked in the gut on occasion.  The difference between a good person and a villain is in recognizing when we have chosen poorly and trying to do better the next time.

What is this mess? An empty desk is an efficient desk. — Brazil

Boy, am I the opposite of this.  If you can see the surface of my desk, just wait a moment, and I’ll find something to cover it.  I’m not disorganized.  I know exactly where just about everything is on my desk, and what I can’t find by memory, I know by association.  There is a pattern to the clutter, with each pile of documentation, each system diagram, and each project plan touching something to which it’s related.  What looks like a hand grenade in a hen house to you is actually a well-synchronized symphony of paper.

My style of organization is organic, customized to my needs, and totally inappropriate for teaching to others.  Anyone I try to explain it to gets a glazed expression on their face, and eventually walks away. Oh, well, I guess they’ll have to come up with their own system.

You mistake my choice not to feel as a reflection of my not caring, while I assure you the truth is precisely the opposite. — Star Trek Into Darkness

I will not answer emotional argument with emotion.  I try to not answer insult with insult.  If I am offended, but see nothing to gain from continued conflict, I shut that conflict off and walk away if I can.  Silence from me does not mean acquiescence, it means I am too angry to respond.  If I have not told you I give up, I haven’t.  Don’t assume that I’m not going to resist because I’ve stopped arguing.  I’ve just gotten to the point where continued engagement is useless, so I’m going to go over to diplomacy by other means.

On the flip side, if I’m still arguing with you or trading good-natured barbs, it means I still think you’re worth talking to.  Take that for what it’s worth.

Well, time flies when you’re being annoyed. — In The Line of Fire

Tonight, against my better judgement, I made a trip to the big shopping enterprise down the road.  Going when I’m a little stressed and a lot tired was probably not a good judgement call on my part.  What I saw there made me doubt my belief in humanity and also made me consider moving out of state so that my gene pool won’t be adulterated with these goobers.

There was the 10 or 12 year old girl who stamped her feet and cursed at her mother over a school folder.  She was quickly eclipsed by the teenage boy who was loudly whining at his mom that he wanted the chocolate chip cookie cereal for breakfast.  Not to be outdone, his mother told him that she wasn’t going to buy that, because she needed the money to buy cigarettes.

That was all as I roamed the store to get the three or four things that I needed.  Checkout was even worse.

Have you all ever seen someone who’s gauged their ears?  That’s when successively bigger implements are put into a piercing until you can put a D cell Maglight through it.  Well, the guy in the checkout lane next to mine had golf tees firmly implanted in his piercings.  His girlfriend, as big as a house and about to foal at any moment, was wearing a tank top that read, and may I be struck by lightning if I’m not telling the truth, “I have the vagina, that’s why!”*.

Of course, the experience of checking out was enhanced by that stereotype of shopping at big box stores – having three checkout lanes open when there are a couple hundred people in the store.  Seriously, I was in line reading the covers of trash magazines so long that I am now able to tell you who the British Royal Family is in bed with, what Bigfoot has been up to, who seems to have the steamiest soap opera plots, and which country and western star is leaving her husband of 25 years for Bigfoot.

All through this experience, I could feel my irritation level rising.  I don’t think I got red in the face, but the young lady who checked me out asked if I’d had a bad day.  I replied that I was fine, I just needed to get home.

Getting back to the car, I glanced at the clock, and to my surprise, I had only been in there for an hour.  Time didn’t exactly fly, but I seemed to have been caught in some kind of temporal anomaly as I descended into the madness that is a rural department store on a Wednesday night.

* I cleaned that up a tad.  I try to keep the site PG-13, and the phrasing on that shirt would have made my grandmother blush.

We’re going to fight fire with marshmallows. — Toys

The best kind of victory is one where your opponent provides you with the way you win.  If you can lampoon them, show them how ridiculous they act and sound, then you make it that much easier.