• You know, when OldNFO mentioned on the Squirrel Report that he knew a couple of people who were astronauts, I wasn’t surprised.
• Every so often I interact with someone whose company is so enjoyable and entertaining that, for a few minutes, all of the anger and ugliness goes away.  Today, to the benefit of everyone else in my life, I interacted with a few of those people.
• My liberal congressman’s email robot invited me to a special event in a couple of weekends.
  • I’d go, but I’d rather spend the weekend drinking beer with my wife’s family than in a holding cell after being arrested for harshing the good congressman’s calm.
• The cherries are just about ready to harvest.
  • Not as much as we’ve had in other years, but enough to make a few treats.
• In related news, Irish Woman is looking for ways to deal with a mockingbird who has laid claim to our crop.
  • Unfortunately, it’s a protected species here, so I’m considering other alternatives.
• I have absolutely no plans between now and when I go to work on Sunday afternoon, and that’s a wonderful feeling.
• Is it a bad thing that I looked at the pictures of a criminal in the town where someone I know lives and felt relief that it wasn’t them?
• Irish Woman and I have been playing the game “Whose Family Drama Was More Insane?”.  At the moment, she’s winning, but only by a broken nose.

Raccoon crap on my porch is a good reminder that I need a suppressor.

• My project management condition level is going from Condition Gumby (Flexible, but not limp) to Condition Slinky (It falls down stairs, alone or in pairs).
  • Next step – Condition Jello (Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle).
• I thought I was going to get Girlie Bear to the drop off for JROTC camp about 15 minutes early.  Instead, we found out that she was 15 minutes late when she was called on her phone halfway to the school.
  • I checked the schedule when I got home.  Yep, I was right.  Nothing like changing plans at the last minute and not making sure that everyone gets the word.
  • Oh well, push ups are good for her, and if this is the worst thing that happens to her in uniform, it’s a good thing.
• Girlie Bear reports that her first day at camp went well.
  • She ran a mile almost three minutes faster at camp than she does at school, so I guess she’s doing OK.
  • Tomorrow is water survival training and a leadership obstacle course.  I can’t wait to hear about that.
• I met Irish Woman and Boo at the zoo tonight for dinner, then I took him for a walk around the zoo while she helped set up for a fundraiser.
  • It’s kind of nice to walk around without the normal daytime and weekend crowds.
  • It was interesting to watch the Sumatran tiger stalk Boo through the fence as Boo was running to look at cardinals  in the bamboo.
• There is nothing like an ice cream cone to brighten up a little boy’s evening.
• Note to self – Never, ever, ever buy a vehicle again without checking to make sure the air conditioning works and works well.
  • Now I know why the truck was such a good deal.  It leaks more fluids and vapors than I do.
• You know, it’s irritating when you’re composing a rant in your head and you have to put it on the back burner so that you can research what you can write and what you can’t write.
  • Stupid non-disclosure agreement and espionage laws!

• The pickets for the long fence are up.  All that’s left now is to build and hang the gate, and then I’m off to build the short fence.
  • We’ll stain the fence this fall.
• I guess summer is here. I have mosquito and chigger bites.
• Girlie Bear and I discussed appropriate behavior with the opposite sex while at JROTC camp yesterday.
  • I explained that she was to always be with her battle buddy, and never to be alone with a boy.
  • She thinks I’m overreacting, since they’re going to be supervised and they’re cadets, not normal boys.
  • I remarked that I remember what it was like to be a teenage soldier and repeated that she is to never be alone with a boy at JROTC camp.
• Knob Creek is adding onto their main building.
  • For those who’ve been there, the addition pretty much extends the building out to the big pole barn.
• You know, there is a stereotype about the people who go to shooting ranges, but today I’m pretty sure that stereotype was blown.
  • There were white men of all ages and backgrounds and women present.  I heard a lot of Kentucky twangs, but also New Jersey/New York, Minnesota, and I think Virginia accents, as well as Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic.  There were experienced shooters and beginners.  There were young ladies there shooting for the first time and retired grandpas just spending an afternoon shooting the breeze and the targets.
  • Yeah, we’re a monolithic white male redneck block of consumers.
• Note to self – Buy  Boresnake for the AR.
• Just when I was finishing up at the range, enjoying the last afternoon of a glorious week of vacation from work,  the window in the driver’s side door of the truck fell off the track and into the bottom of the door, right there in the range parking lot.
  • Of course there were big dark clouds overhead.  Why do you ask?
  • Of course I didn’t have the necessary type of screwdriver in the truck so that I could fix it right then and there.  Why do you ask?
  • Thankfully, it didn’t rain on the way home or during the hour it took for me to ‘fix’ it in our driveway.
  • It actually was pretty easy to fix, or at least fix so that it doesn’t rain in my truck.  I’ll have to look at how much some replacement parts cost and plan accordingly.

• Took Boo fishing for the first time this morning.
  • He was so excited to get his Spiderman fishing pole into use he couldn’t sit still.
  • He was absolutely entranced by the process of baiting the hook.  Not a squeamish bone in that boy’s body.
  • No luck, but we did get some nibbles.  He’s already asking when we can go back.
  • Maybe someday I’ll be able to bring my own pole.
  • Some of the ponds we fished have trout stocked in them.  I’ll have to get that extra tag on my license.
• Even though the rain hit us hard this afternoon, I got some work done.
  • Sitting under the awning of the garage, prepping fence pickets, and drinking beer are good activities to do during a driving rain storm.
• Note to self – Next time the wood pile starts to tumble down onto you, your wife, and your tools, just get the wife out of the way.
  • I am, however, proud, that neither Irish Woman nor I were hurt in any fashion.  Heck, I even saved the beer I was drinking while I was holding stuff back from smashing it and my radio.
• Irish Woman processed and froze 10 quarts of fresh strawberries tonight.
  • She estimates that that’s enough to make 64 pints of jam.
  • I think I’m going to make a few quarts of strawberry-rhubarb jam once our rhubarb ripens.
  • The strawberry patch is still packed, but they should be done in the next couple of weeks at most.
  • Irish Woman did ask if it would be possible to mix fresh strawberries, fresh lime, and grain alcohol to make our own infused moonshine.  I knew I loved her for some good reason.
• Irish Woman surprised me with a Thai sweet chili plant that she found at the store today.
  • I think I’m going to go from three to five chilis in each jar of pickles this year.
• Girlie Bear came home today absolutely giddy because she aced her computers final.
  • This brings her grade up a bit in that class, and keeps me off her butt.
  • Can’t fault her for effort, though.  She’s put in at least a couple of hours a night studying for this class.  It just didn’t click with her.
  • I must admit, being asked to explain what ‘standard deviation’ and ‘statistical mean’ meant so that she could do  them in Excel was a challenge.  This class seriously needed a couple of pre-reqs instead of being a freshman computer class.

Nothing says “I love you” like singing “I Want To Be Loved By You” to your darling wife while she eats her breakfast and having her simulate dry heaves.

• I’m officially done building on the garden for the summer.
  • Just did a few tweaks this weekend, but it’s time to start processing
• The strawberries are coming in.  So far we’ve gotten about four pints, but the plants are all loaded.
  • I should have said “So far Boo’s eaten  about four pints” because there isn’t a single strawberry in the house.
• The rails are up on the fence, so now I start with pickets.
• Boo started asking about Shadow this weekend, so we’re acquainting him with the concept of death.
  • He’s sad, but he is accepting that Shadow is somewhere else and we can’t bring him back.
• We went to the retirement ceremony for one of Girlie Bear’s JROTC instructors.  He’s been teaching for 33 years, and did 20+ years in the Army before that.
• Dinner tonight consisted of the following, all cooked on the grill:
  • Chicken thighs marinated overnight in soy sauce, bourbon and garlic
  • Roasted potatoes with onions and garlic, with bacon grease used as the culinary lubricant
  • Hamburgers and cheeseburgers
  • Hot dogs
  • Bratwurst
  • Country sausage
  • Side dishes were corn, pickles, and fruit.
  • Pie with ice cream for dessert.
  • My goal is to not have to cook for a couple of days.
• I taught Girlie Bear how to place a flag on a grave and how to read a veteran’s headstone today.
  • Someday she’s going to do it for me, so I need to make sure she knows how to do it for someone else.

Since we declared our independence in 1776, Americans have shed blood in the defense of their country.  According to this, 1,321,612 people have died in our military, and an additional 1,531,036 have been wounded.  In addition, 38,159 have gone missing and have not been returned to their families.   Our most costly war was the Civil War, followed by the World Wars.  In my lifetime, over 10,000 men and women have given their lives to safeguard our country and the freedoms we all cherish.

It sounds like a lot, and it is.  The lives of our young men and women are precious to us all, and while we must recognize that the price of peace and freedom is not only vigilance, we must also that sometimes the bill is paid in blood.  The thing that we must all demand from those we appoint to leadership is that they be judicious in how they utilize our military, that they be respectful of the lives they are dealing with, and that they honor those that are lost.  Our youth are too important to us to waste them on wars of opportunity or choice, and we all fail when we do not force our servants to justify sending them into harm’s way.

To all of my brothers and sisters who have paid the ultimate price so that my children can sleep safe at night, thank you.  I will miss you until I join you, and my children and their children will know you and honor you.  No matter what else we forget, you will not be forgotten.