Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Obama. All In One Package.

Mr. Goldstein has an epic post up on the biography of and cast of characters associated with the Coming of The One:


"What we are seeing, as I have at length tried to hammer home here, is the careful mainstreaming of the New Leftist as a viable leader of the free world, radicalism dressed in empty and evasive bromides and wrapped around charisma and cult of personality, made palatable to the masses by way of a project that included, among other things, a slow takeover of the Democratic party (and the label of “liberal” by way of a self-servingly described “progressive” ideology), thus insuring that life-long Democrats remain convinced that they aren’t changing their own principles; a long and carefully planned reworking of the education system through a linguistic takeover: denaturing the ground for meaning plays directly into the motivations of identity politics and sets the “logical” ground for a multiculturalist social engineering plan, in which meaning is relegated to those whose “authenticity” gives them the essential right to define and control their own group narrative; the breakdown of traditional religion, either by mockery or a re-imagining of religion as the realm of “social justice”; a takeover of the press by j-school grads who are taught that facts are secondary to the lessons to be drawn from the narrative of their framing, giving them power to become advocates rather than reporters."

I sure wish trackback worked.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Cheer Up!

You've got more brains than this guy.

Remarks Upon The Failure of Congress To Nationalize The Economy

Good job.

My representative Chris Cannon voted in favor of the bail out, which just reinforced my judgment that he needed to be replaced.

There's nothing easy about what is coming. But I believe that it is better to deal with failure as soon as you recognize it rather than subsidize it for an even more catastrophic failure tomorrow, the next day, or next week.

Nobody reading these words (all none of you) should be surprised by the economy we've found ourselves in.

Good luck.

UPDATE: Interesting after action commentary from Karl Rove on the Gibson radio show here. (found at Johnny Dollar's Place)

Friday, September 26, 2008

Fudd 0, Bambi 1



We spent two days hunting in the environs of the Soapstone Basin but came up dry. Oldest Goddess didn't have a tag but joined me for the walk in the woods anyway.

We met wonderful people at every intersection of trails and every wide spot where folks had pulled off to pitch a tent. Or park their forty eight foot long fifth-wheel; to each his own. I discovered that my GI Intermediate Cold sleeping bag is designed for sleek warrior types, and that I really should make room in the garage for a bag loft so I can store the different bags unrolled. I would have been just right had I thought to toss in a poncho liner or even a fleece throw, but it's not really a hunting trip if you don't leave something back to home.

The weather was clear, calm, and mild, with almost no moon. It was nice to see the milky way brushed across the sky. You can't get that look from inside a city. Also, the light winds made the hunting an even more cerebral a task than it always is.


The final tally of seen ungulates came out to eight doe in three sightings. First night out we spied a group of three doe and another deer partially hidden in the bushes; maybe, we thought, we had a chance. It was joyous stalking the edge of the lower Provo river, blowing on a grunt call or having the Goddess flip her can call off to the side. We were never able to put antlers on that fourth deer but what a fine way to spend a misty sunset under the pines. (Deer photo below taken on board some subdivision property - no hunting there!)

I was able to take the Goddess up to the place I helped build, for the first and probably only time. This is the primary survey control point for the golf course subdivision community for which I became the project surveyor. My mornings began here
for almost three straight years. I'm glad I was able to show the Goddess what I had a part of building. And to apologize again for not being there during her high school experience as much as I wanted to be. It took us more than an hour just to drive the roads, and we weren't lolly gagging. This was probably the last time I will ever go out there. I hope my old outfit, and this client, survive the coming financial storms.

Just two days and a night of roughing it were enough to convince me that old age has indeed crept up on me. Snuck up and given me a healthy kick or two, as well as a thorough, if objective, beating. My daughter asked "are you sure you want to go up/down there?" a bit more often than I remember her ever having done before, but probably maybe not as often as she thought she should have.

Well, we're back from the forest and the hills. Oldest Goddess is heading out to look for a day job to supplement her weekend waitressing now that she's done with school until the winter semester. I'm off to Pocatello, Idaho for the One True Love's last race of the season. I have feelers out with a couple of retail outfits but won't know anything about them until the middle of next week.

I give humble thanks to God for giving me these last two days of grace on top of a life so filled with wonderful people and blessings beyond count. I hope your day is filled with light, better than yesterday and just a stepping off point for a great tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Vulcan Mating Rituals? Not Even Close.

The general muzzle loader mule deer hunt opens tomorrow at first light.

I will be in the forest north and east of Kamas for the next few days, with my trusty little Hawken sidelock.

I have been told repeatedly over the last few weeks that I'm an anachronism for shooting a patched round ball.

I already knew that. About being an anachronism. Ball or sabot doesn't begin to address the subject.

Good luck to you. Don't run on the bank while I'm gone; if the insurance isn't any good, then your cash isn't, either.

Back on the weekend, unless I fill my tag early.

UPDATE: Heading for the Soapstone Basin. See ya.

UPDATE the second, later, same evening: Oldest Goddess is a High School Grad! Decided to have dinner here, celebrate at Baskin Robins. Was the right thing to do since all the Good Old Boys heading up the canyon were so busy grimly clinging to their guns that enough of them booted securing their trailers or loads to the point that the road was a morass. We leave tomorrow, and will make our way - nay, we will mosey - on up Provo Canyon and head into the wilds of the Northern Region Utah Muzzle Loader General Buck Mule Deer Hunt.

G'night, now.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Honor, High Standards And Principles

Oh.... sorry, none of that stuff to be found in the events and actions revealed here:

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.


The excerpt is from some darn fine work by Dr. Rusty Shackleford and friends over at the Jawa Report.

The Jawa folks usually deal with creeping Islamic evil. It looks like they took a break to shine a little light on some domestic political dirty tricks here.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Whoops

Between being laid off, stocking up for TEOTWAWKI, and doing chores, I completely skied that the Northern Region Muzzle Loader Mule Deer Hunt starts the 24Th!

Whoops, indeed. The world will have to fall apart without my constant surveillance. I am going to be busy getting my stuff in one bag and figuring out where I am going to go.

No hunt partner. And there's not a tag available for my daughter; she may or may not come along for the walk.

Have a fine one.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Say Hello To The Wizard

Well, our economy might not be worth a bucket of runny excrement in trade right at the moment, but at least the House is laboring mightily to redress our awful domestic energy resource recovery policy.

Or not:

Pelosi's goal in crafting this legislation was three fold. First, an by far the most important, Pelosi wanted to make absolutely certain that no legislation would actually pass. None. No type of energy bill. She wants nothing to help America. The bill had to be designed so that the only outcome would be failure.

Second, the bill had to provide cover for her freshman Red State Democrats. It had to have the illusion of a comprehensive energy plan, including additional oil exploration. The Red Stater's had to be able to go home and say, "I voted for more oil. I voted for lower gas prices. I voted for alternative energy research, I voted for a comprehensive energy plan. See. I'm a good guy."

Lastly, she wanted total failure of the bill to allow her to have an additional Election Issue. She needs to be able to say "See, we Democrats compromised and passed an oil drilling bill. Drill, Baby, Drill. But those mean old Republicans stopped it."


Watching Nancy Pelosi shooting for crafty is like watching Rosie O'Donnell trying to be likable.

Please go visit, and read the whole thing.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

TTBO

Well, it's Wednesday, so that must mean the Federal Government is bailing out another financial giant. The following was posted here:

You know, we could toss out Congress six weeks from now. I thought that we might see a sea change in 2010... but we don't have that luxury any more. Social Security? Socialized medicine and confiscatory taxation/predatory regulation, should Obama win? Medicare/Medicaid - how much closer is their insolvency today than it was BEFORE the collapse of the financial sector?

Bueller? BUELLER??

Who here is comfortable facing more future with the Reid and Pelosi show still in town, after having had the chance to do something about it?

I feel like I'm in a science fiction movie.

"It's the only way to be sure."

What other action is open to us? The meltdown is the result of bipartisan trough wallowing extending back decades. Replacing congressmen as they achieve their financial goals and not before is, as we see so clearly this morning, suicidal for the nation.

Computer going off. Taking my sidelock, pouch, and horn across the lake and hunting jack rabbits the rest of the day.

Have a fine one.

THROW THE BUMS OUT!


More on the meltdown here, and here.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

This Day

(0riginally published here 11 September, 2005)


Fall is here. We no longer sleep with all the windows open at night. It is still and cool outside, with the bright light falling on leaves that have just begun to dry and fade. Last night my daughter got home from her first Homecoming dance after midnight, so the Team slept in this morning. Mom and Dad didn't really wait up, of course; we just happened to have good books to read.

She was beautiful in her midnight blue satin dress. She wore a silver filigree band over the crown of her head, and strand of fine silver beads were woven through her jet black hair. I'm sure there's a fashion term for the effect, but it wasn't a tiara and I'm certainly no Mr. Blackwell to pull the right word out of the bag. Her date was one of the neighbor kids - one of my former scouts even, from back in the day when our LDS ward drafted me for assistant scoutmaster duties with the twelve year olds.

Talk about "in my wildest dreams"...

She's making pancakes now. It's Sunday and that's what she always does. Last night was a rite of passage, and she said as much this morning while thanking us for the dress and recounting the experiences of pictures and dancing and the silly or embarrassing things that happened to her or around her.

But now it's time for pancakes. Because that is what we do on a Sunday.

Four years ago today was also a brilliantly clear and cool morning. On that Tuesday we were involved in last minute packing for a cross country trip to say a final goodbye to my wife's mother. Services were to be held Thursday in the family church in Burlington, Vermont, and then we'd all go up to the most beautiful hillside in that most beautiful northeastern state and lay her ashes to rest among the plots containing her neighbors and ancestors going back almost three hundred years.

The kids and mom were in the living room putting the last items in their carry-on bags. The TV at the end of the coffee table was probably tuned to Nick or Disney; I don't know.

I was on our bed contemplating a cat nap when my wife literally dragged me to my feet. I was coming out of my doze quickly but still spinning up when I began to understand what she was asking me.

"What kind of bomb did that? What happened?"

I came through the kitchen into the living room. The TV sat on the entertainment center, framed between the still heads of my daughters. The Twin Towers filled the screen - the one on the right scarred by a smoking hole near the top third of the building.

I'm a surveyor. I've staked out a dozen or so commercial buildings, plus bridges, dams, and highways. Nothing on the scale of a genuine skyscraper of course, but I knew just enough about the design of the WTC to confuse the hell out of myself in those first few seconds. The WTC was built with the mass of the structural support in the walls of the building - soaring vertical steel columns spaced narrowly and then tied to floor pans for rigidity. The gaping wound in that building traversed four or five floors - which meant that whatever kind of bomb had been used must have been massive to have punched through so many floors. I wondered why there were any windows left on the floor where the bomb had to have been. The spaces inside the floors were huge and open; what office walls did exist were aesthetic, not structural. The majority of the spaces in there had to be cube farms. Were there multiple bombs? Maybe smuggled in as copiers or computers or office supplies? Blast follows least resistance... so why one big hole and intact windows on each side? The noise from the TV was just that - noise. The commentators were reporting an explosion and ad libbing while they tried to catch up.

"What kind of bomb? What kind of bomb?" My daughters hadn't moved since I came into the room.

Then the second 767 flashed into view, in a skidding bank to port, and disappeared behind the other tower. A blink of awful silent stillness and then the eruption of smoke, flame, and glass filled the screen.

I told my wife "We are at war". And then I cried with my family.

There were other awful moments in that awful day. My girls figured out where the airplanes had come from in less than an hour - and that some had been hijacked from Boston, which was to have been one of our connections. The urge to fight back - to reject the terrorists' goals - drove both my wife and I to head into work shortly after noon. I was on the way to a construction site in my work truck when the President's second statement was broadcast.

The thought struck me that had things gone differently, I could just have well been listening to Al Gore.

I pulled over and threw up.

I've always known that I live in an embarrassment of riches. Random chance placing me here in America has been the greatest blessing a person could ever hope for. Those that feel differently are free to do so. "Free" as in so shielded from the potential of their convictions that they can embrace agendas tantamount to suicide if they should ever be fulfilled.

What a country, eh?

I will continue to do those things that a citizen must do to support and defend our nation, and hope that enough of my fellow citizens do the same. Lincoln was right when he predicted that if we ever fell it would be a failure from within and not the result of some foreign attack.

Jihadis can only kill us. Should we ever lose our liberty, it will be by our own hand and no other's.

It's time for pancakes. Y'all have a fine day.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Good Neighbors, GREAT Neighborhood

Here's how a community is supposed to work.

No accident here. It takes work to be a village - if you don't do the work, it's just another bunch of people preying on each other.

Via The Geek With A .45.

He Never Felt It Land

Did you ever watch a fight end a minute before the last punch was thrown? You saw a flurry of jabs and feints and in the crush one or maybe two of the punches land. It doesn't look so bad right at the moment of contact. Both fighters continue to dance and weave... but one is now a half step behind. He's on his feet, but not in the fight except as target practice. Moments later a good ref will have jumped between the fighters.

There is no referee here, just a crowd at the ropes baying for blood. I don't believe there is precedent for a party nominee to withdraw at this late date. Obama is hurt so bad now he's just punching wind, and missing. It's obvious that what little esteem may have existed between Obama and Biden has evaporated, as well. No message discipline, no strategy. They are just showing up for their scheduled appearances and "making it up as they go along".

Initiative. It's all McCain/Palin for the time being. And Media is running, as near as I can tell, almost five days behind the LeftBlogs, and thus is hurting Obama almost more than his own gaffes. The hate and *vitriol leaking from the Leftosphere has become narrative basis for MSM...

Make no mistake about it: no man would put the words "fish" and "stink" in a statement or comment that could possibly be a reference to a woman unless that man is dumber than a doorknob or too clever by half. If you are male, you know this to be true.

I go with the latter in Mr. Obama's case. He doesn't dissemble half as effectively as a Clinton; trouble is, he thinks he does. That just pisses people off.


*HOLY SHIT:

I am listening to Limbaugh as I write this, and a caller (self identified as "Independant") has just made a case for "fish/stink" to be wholly appropriate and applicable toward the Ms. Palin. Sounds like a twenty - something drop out from barrista school. Limbaugh invited him to repeat the entire charge, including the website the caller slipped in, so the whole country gets a good listen. Caller declined - "They already heard" - and Limbaugh ended the call.

I will update later (here's the link) with the appropriate transcript links from the Rush site, if it's on the public side.

UPDATE: More here, via Protein Wisdom.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

SHTF. I Hope This Is A Drill

Pursuant to this, today we spent over four hundred dollars on canned food and staples.

Tomorrow I pick up three month's worth of the various prescriptions my family has accumulated over the last twenty years. By the time I get home, the water barrels will be done sanitizing and I can refill them and push them into the back of the garage.

I think I may be too late to get the currency I intended to, tomorrow. I was expecting the nationalization of Freddie and Fannie concurrent only with news of some successful government response to some minor disaster somewhere else. However, Gustav flamed out and Bernanke is obviously no longer able to keep the bears cowed.

The financial liability the Federal government just assumed instantly dwarfs the combined values of all the underfunded benefits programs currently administered by them, plus the total existing government debt, by several orders of magnitude.

I have heard the number "5.8 trillion dollars" in more than one place, but the number is actually meaningless next to the fact that beginning at the opening bell tomorrow morning, every financial trader on the planet will act on the knowledge that the future of the U.S. economy is subject to the direct control of the U.S. Congress, prop. N. Pelosi and H. Reid.

I'd be scared if I hadn't seen it coming. Now I'm just sad, and hoping that I'm wrong about what I've prepared for for the past few months.

Good luck.

I Know It's Early

But here is the blog comment of the week, by commenter Spies, Brigands, and Pirates, on a Protein Wisdom Pub thread to a post by Dan Collins:

"Don’t worry, ‘feets. When O! makes Ayers Secretary of Education you’ll be able to see a live one on TV all the time."


It's a punch line. Make sure to read the whole thing at the PW Pub.

Say Congratulations to Maj. John!

Hie thee hence to the humble blog of Maj. John, and contribute to the merry making you will find there.

He's going to be a Lieutenant Colonel, just as soon as the Feds and his state figure out where his records are.

How long until he retires? Hmmmm...

Equine Feces

"And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honorable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue."

Mr. Obama... may I call you Barry? Seeing as how were were just that close to being comrades-in-arms? Maybe even in the same service?

Dare I say it... maybe even... bunkies?

My heart trembles... right up until I recall that of all the data in the public eye about your formative years (whether the incidents or events are fact or just something you fancied would look nice on your resume), there is no reference to the military. Not whether or not you might serve, or what you thought about the branches, but no mention at all.

So if you are just mentioning it now, I guess it's because you focus grouped a few ideas and crafting a legend as a mulatto moose hunter on Hilo or maybe an imagined stint hanging high steel over Chicago flew even worse than the military bullshit. But you don't have any options, so golly, the New Thing automatically becomes "I almost joined the service".

Pathetic. You already locked up the oxygen - deprived -as- children vote, bud.
Just how much are you paying all those advisors, anyway? I bet you can't find ONE who served active duty ANYTIME. This latest move gaffe will probably remove a solid, even if statistically insignificant, number of votes you might otherwise have gotten from Democrat-leaning service members.

Once you wear a uniform for awhile, even if you retain some wackaloonish political fantasies, your tolerance for disrespect just about vanishes. I can say without the least reservation that the average IQ of any platoon I ever served in demonstrably exceeds that of your cadre of advisors. Most guys I ever served with would recognize your dishonest pandering for exactly what it is, and find the time to write or call home to talk to the family, or their friends, about what kind of cheap stunt you were trying to pull.

Hey - you'll always have Chicago. That's all you will ever rate.

UPDATE: Mr. Van Der Leun weighs in here:
"Translation: 'At this point, I'm just making this shit up as I go along.'"

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Coffee Break

There is a convenience store exactly halfway to my friend's house. I was heading there to help demolish his old garage and remembered to stop. They sell the good stuff, and nothing starts a day of saw, sledgehammer, and shovel work better than the true Colombian. Coffee, that is.

I pulled in at eight, walked in, and waited for my turn at the coffee urns. The lady in front of me was filling two cups. I heard laughing, and glanced over to see a couple of small boys dart around the corner. Eight a.m. on a warm fall morning, on a Saturday, is a good time to hear laughter. I smiled.

Dad corralled the older boy - maybe six years old, but wiry and tall already, like his dad - had him help bring what had to be picnic supplies up to the register. Mom was still dumping creamers, stirring in sugar. She noticed me and scooted to the side enough for me to grab a carafe and fill my travel cup. Then I added raw sugar and my last remaining vice, french vanilla creamer, to my drink.

"Ya'll going picnicking today?" I ask.

"Yes. Maybe the boys will play enough to sleep tonight." And she says this at eight in the morning?

I hear a giggle and look across the store. There is a row of upside down soft drink cups on a bare counter at the back of the store, just visible over the stock shelves. While I watch, I see another cup tacked up onto the end of the line, two little dark hands carefully placing it just so, then disappearing. I walk over to the end aisle to get a better look.

The youngest kid is maybe four. I watch him pull a medium sized cup out of the dispenser magazine and carry it over to the row already set up on the counter. He sees me and flashes me such a grin that I almost laugh out loud. But he is intense, and a picture of concentration as he stands the cup next in line. Then he heads back down the line, counting each cup. He gets to the end and stops. He looks over his shoulder at me, still smiling, and whispers "fifteen!" and pulls another cup.

I stepped back to the coffee service and said -

"Having a good time, though, right?"

"Yes, of course. It's a beautiful day."

"Your youngest is counting cups. I'll help you put them back. He's being careful."

She chuckles and shakes her head.

"It's okay, ma'am. Boys are ... just boys."

The family is just finishing up at the register when I step into the line. They are heading to the door when a crap blue Ford F-150 screeches to a stop at the curb directly in front of the entrance. The front tires actually bounce off the curb face. There's a dealer temporary plate taped onto the window behind the driver's head. He and his partner tumble out of their doors. They are both tattooed, pierced, guaged, possibly stoned and certainly unwashed. There is a two foot square transparent poster of Che Guevara taped onto the window behind the passenger's seat.

They barge into the door, pushing the doubles almost into Mom, who drops her bag, which causes Dad to straighten up to his full six foot four or five height. It's not so much the height but the fact his shoulders pretty well fill the aisle he stands in... and he's suddenly very still... that cause Laurel and Hardy to finally take notice of their environment. A waft of that old Mary Jane reek rolls over me at the register.

It is very quiet in the store. The ice cream freezer behind the cashier's island needs some work - the whuckawhuckawhucka of the compressor is the only sound in the shop.

"I'm sorry." mumbles the driver.

"Okay." says dad, and picks up his wife's bag. He follows his family out through the door held by the passenger. I hadn't noticed, but both sons had faded all the way to the back of the store, directly behind their dad. That's a family that understands each other.

"Hey, mister, you didn't pay money for that poster, I hope?", I ask.

"Whut?"

"That one doesn't have the mickey mouse ears. How can you tell if he was a real communist hero if he doesn't have the ears? A joke is a joke, you know."

The cashier says, "Sir, your coffee is on the house."

And we even went shooting later. What a fine day this was.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Sighting

As of seven o'clock this evening, there is a 1943 Tula manufacture model 91/30 Mosin Nagant rifle on the rack at the Spanish Fork Big 5 sporting goods store.

This is a retired PU rifle in a laminated stock. Clean, sharp stamps, to include the "CH" on the top center of the barrel above the receiver. Matching numbers on all parts. I didn't see an arsenal stamp on the bolt. I believe the weapon was renumbered during rearsenal process. The crown appears to be the factory original; it has not been counter bored. Distinct rifling. The bore is cleaner than the average Big 5 offering. The toe has a typical repair. Star cartouche on right side of buttstock.

The prices they want for these have gone up recently. I haven't bought a Mosin in months, and it looks like the laminate stock models are going for about twenty dollars more than the straight birch models. This one is currently $209.00; cheaper than ordering one, but even better to wait until it is on sale.

I own two retired PU's. Love them both. If this goes on sale and it drops by fifty, I may try to sell Wife of Utah on the deal....

In other news, there is a 1939 Tula manufacture 91/30 in American Fork. Very clean, not counterbored, and they want $179.00 off sale.

Have a fine weekend.

Decorum

No matter how convivial the host, or how genteel the house, there comes a time in every adult community when somebody needs to be laid out and put out with the empties. If they prove they can learn a lesson and return to contribute, good for them.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Oooh

Drudge has some advance blurbs on Governor Palin's speech, to be given later this evening:
"I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer', except that you have actual responsibilities."


The other snips are great, too.

Popcorn! With butter!

I am half convinced that the Left may have some action planned to attempt to distract from the speech. But... I am a cynic that way.

But it's not like they could offer good faith arguments on issues, is it? They've invested in "America sucks" and now it is coming home to bite them.

That's some serious roosting they've got to deal with. Love it. Just love it.

A Shred of Conscience Remains.

We had dreamed of a world where our 17 years old daughters wouldn't be striped naked and raped on the front page of the New York Times, above the fold.

Here.

Read it all. Frankly, I am deeply troubled by the fact I see no bottom to the depravity currently on display by the enemy.

And "enemy" is exactly the right term... which is further tragedy.

(Hat tip to Pablo, at the PW Pub.)

UPDATE:

More here.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Choices (Updated & Bumped)

He chose... poorly.

One of the TV ladies calls this an accident. Not so much, I'm thinking.

Update follows:

Progress report from 21 August here:
Kevin Kearney's kite-surfing crash made him an overnight sensation. But two days later, the thrill-seeker laid up with a broken back swears it's a case of mistaken identity.

Then finally this , which contains the happy news that he's been discharged from the hospital and will continue his recovery at home:

"As far as tropical storms and 60 mile an hour wind gusts, next time I'll be putting my helmet on," he said.

A happy ending. Good luck, Mr. Kearney.

M.O.T.

Oh yes we CAN.