Tag: Me Myself I

Personal stuff

Picking My Spot

Entertainment

As promised yesterday, here’s my choice of WitSec relocation:

Traverse City, MI

  • Close to a large body of water
  • Small town but not a small-town mentality
  • Interesting downtown with lots of eclectic stores and restaurants
  • Quite a cosmopolitan population, for a small Midwest town
  •  Four proper seasons — warm summers, cold-but-not-frigid winters with lots of snow, and glorious spring / fall weather
  • Decent gun laws, and more importantly, local county sheriffs who have the right ideas about the Second Amendment
  • Nice airport, with short hops to Chicago (for dinners, shows etc.)
  • Short drive over to Canada, where I can buy cheap prescription drugs / drink coffee at Tim Horton’s

All that said, I was last there several years ago, so if any of you are locals / near-locals, feel free to educate me if the place is going / has gone down the shitter.

Alternative

Travels

As I get older and older, and the promise threat of assisted living gets to be ever-more imminent, I think this guy may be onto something:

A Texas man says he has no intention of checking into a nursing home during his golden years and is planning on moving into a Holiday Inn instead.  Terry Robison, 64, who is listed as a producer/director at Scarlet Tye Films, shared his novel thought about retirement in a now viral Facebook post.  “No nursing home for us. We’ll be checking into a Holiday Inn!” he begins, a referring to himself and wife Renee Wilson Robison, both of Spring, Texas.

I’ve often wondered about that option, myself.

My only prerequisites are a decent neighborhood (i.e. close to a decent pub and/or restaurant), proximity to a shooting range, and protected parking.  Oh, and a fast fiber-optic hookup.

Your thoughts in Comments?

Travel Plans

Mocking Furriners, Travels

As my own offspring have proved to be utterly shit in the Grandchild Production Process, I have had to resort to marrying someone whose kids (or one of them, anyway), has a clue.

Yes, Angie’s Elder Son has just given us a grandchild.

Sadly, however, he is not local to these climes;  in fact, he married an Oz-chick* a while ago, and… moved to Oz!

[pause to let gasps of horror die away]

You know what this means, right?  Yes… I have to go to Australia in April to wet the baby’s head.  And as any fule kno, this means being exposed to the various (and toxic) forms of Oz wildlife, such as the Brown Snake (and its buddies):

…the Funnel-Web Spider (and its buddies):

We all know about the Sand Tiger Sharks (and their buddies):

…and let’s not even talk about the other species of dangerous Australian fauna:

Thankfully, the last two species (sharks ‘n sluts) pose little danger to me as a.) I never swim in the sea, and b.) I’m taking my own woman with me.

So off I go, to wander ‘midst furriners again… [sigh]

Gah.

*Some people may wonder why I got involved with a family which is happy to consort with Australians, but hey:  my own Son&Heir has a Canucki-Girlfriend, so we try to be inclusive.  It’s all about Diversity!, isn’t it?

Sounds Familiar

Deep Thoughts

It appears that the Royal Ginger is into meditation (through the efforts of his Hollywood strumpet consort, of course).

So am I, and always have been.

However, I don’t do it by way of yoga or Buddhism or any of that mystical bullshit.  I just call it “thought and reflection”, and I do it when I wake up — in that delicious period of time when my mind can wander freely — or else when I’m otherwise alone (e.g. in the car or on a long flight).  During that wonderful break, I think about life, my life, my priorities in life and my goals and ambitions.  I also reflect on my problems, my faults, and the hindrances which prevent me from living properly.

See, I always thought that everybody  did this stuff.  But apparently not.  Maybe it’s because everyone is too caught up in the here-and-now, or is being enslaved by technology, or is entangled in the machinations of others.

And in today’s world, it’s so difficult to cut oneself off, even for just a half an hour;  and even if one does, there’s a real need to empty the mind of the clutter before turning inwards for those Deep Thoughts.

Myself, I think a little range time is the perfect way to clear the mind — there’s no time to think about life’s minutiae  when you’re trying to slow your heartbeat, concentrate on the sight picture and drop each round into the X-ring.  And in that wonderful aftermath of a range session when the adrenaline levels drop and you reach that calm state we all know so well, you’ll find that this  is a good time for quiet contemplation and reflection.

So there you have it:  shooting  helps with meditation, not that airy-fairy yoga bullshit.

Catching Up, So To Speak

Friends and Family

Sorry for the late post, but I was recovering.

Fact is, I got married yesterday to my first-ever girlfriend Angie, after over forty-odd years apart.  Here we are as teenage sweethearts:

Yes, that’s my genuine boys’-boarding-school haircut on display.

This was a much-older Kim & Angie, after dinner at III Forks in Dallas, last night:

How we got back together again is a long and rather boring tale, and I may share it with y’all some time in the future.

We were married by the Reverend-Doctor Combat Controller at Doc Russia’s house, surrounded by my family and that of Bobby K (Tech Support II), and by the miracle of Teh Intarwebz, with Angie’s family in Johannesburg, London and Melbourne as well.

So there was a woman out there willing to put up with all my nonsense, after all.  I just had to go back to South Africa to find her.