Game On...

Our volleyball team has managed to make it into the play offs. Alright, to be fair, all the teams made it. As bad as we are, we were not in last place. Next to.

Yesterday was our first play off game. We won. Yes I said that right. We won. Fine, the other team had to forfeit because only two of them showed up. Still a win. The momentum is ours now.

Tomorrow night we play game two. Here I am at practice calling the shots.


Oops, my bad. We don't practice. Different game. Not me. Although I do look good in a speedo.

The God Given Right To Kill...

Growing up in western Montana I was taught to hunt. I learned to shoot guns at the age of 6. At 10 I was given my Grandfathers 30-30 rifle. At 11 I was out hunting with my father and killed my first deer that year. Over the next several years I was given many more weapons and purchased several more. At 13 I discovered archery. A bow was my weapon of choice. I stopped hunting with guns that year. We hunted for food, and every part of the animals were used. Nothing went to waste. We respected the prey.

I was a hunter until I was 20 and had become very good at tracking and killing. Then I had an experience in the woods that I see as clearly today, as I saw it 20 years ago. I never went hunting again. I kept all of my weapons until I was 34 when I gave them back to my father for safe keeping.

The NRA, National Rifle Association, was never my favorite group. I always thought they were just a bit on the radical side. Today I read an article that has confirmed that for me. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17307316/

The NRA is one scary bunch of people. They can see no farther than their own selfishness and they hide behind a 250 year old "amendment" to our constitution. Amendments can and have been changed. They are not set in stone. Remember prohibition?

Mr Jumbo was a life long member of the NRA and one comment about hunting with assault rifles has ended his career. Instantly. The organization he gave more than 40 years to, turned on him without mercy. Has the NRA bothered to read the rest of the constitution, say the part about freedom of speech? It looks like that right has no place in the NRA.

I have come to believe that in a truly "civilized society" there is no place for firearms. The main purpose of firearms is to kill, and make killing easier. The NRA says that we have the right to hunt, shoot for fun and keep guns for protection. How does any of this make this country or world a better place? To me these are the weakest of arguments. If your life is incomplete because you can't go shoot things you might think about getting some professional help. If you are a true hunter and not just someone who likes to kill, you can use a bow. If it's about target shooting, you can use a BB gun, a cross bow or bow, or a sling shot. If it's about protection. Statistics say that most gun owners have their own weapons used against them in cases of home break-ins.

If you ask me, and this comes from experience, guns are for nothing more than trying to inflict fear and killing.

I send my support out to Mr. Zumbo. I think he got screwed. I hope he spends the rest of his life fighting the NRA. They need to be stopped. Let's take these pin-heads bowling.

As my son grows, I will teach him the skills I learned growing up. How to survive in the wild. How to track animals. How to live in harmony with the world. How to respect nature. I will teach him how to shoot a bow. I will teach him how guns work and how to use them so he can be safe if he is ever around them. Ignorance kills. I won't let him have a gun of his own while he lives under our roof. I won't teach him how to kill.

Never mind...

In the amount of time it took me to write the last post, it clouded over and is now raining and hailing.

Puke!

Painting...

I have spent the last five days working on this. "Chadette No 45, Victoria". She is 12 x 36 inches, oil on canvas. I was pleased with her. She has more of the quality I am trying to achieve. She still needs a little more work to be finished. A better photo will help also.

Today is the first day it hasn't rained in almost two weeks. The sun was even out. I have been in some kind of strange funk for...well...the last four months. Would it be too soon for another vacation? I thought not. I need Marseille.

Rainy Day...

I had lived in the Pacific Northwest before. I have lived in many places that had winters. Cold and foul weather. I never imagined that coming back to the northwest, after close to ten years in places of constant summer, would be so hard. It has been 10 months now. It's not just the northwest. It's small town northwest. I am pretty sure it's the small town part of this equation that I am still having trouble with. Even though I grew up in small towns, I have clearly been away from them for too long. I don't understand many things. I have become a snob. My expectations of others are unrealistic. Do I make things better by lowering my expectations or am I giving up? Is it fair for me to expect so much?

I have been told that I need to be more realistic. That I tend to spend too much time dreaming and worse, following those dreams. Is that a bad thing? What am I if I don't follow my dreams?

I know I have written about this same thing many times. That's what these sites are for right? Working these things out. Some days I'm at a total loss.

*****

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary:
It rains, and the wind is never weary:
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary:
It rains, and the wind is never weary:
My thought still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining:
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining:
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

*****


Yes, it's been raining for the last two weeks. Do you think it's getting to me?