Animals are awesome!!!

I had to put this up.

If any of you have ever been around an English bulldog then you probably know the two most obvious things about them.

1.  They are great, lovable dogs

2.  They create gas to rival a herd of cattle

My wife was just sitting in the recliner with Bodhi, our 8 month old bulldog puppy, and Gizmo, our daughters cat.  Both the dog and the cat were napping.  Bodhi cut an SBD (Silent But Deadly) that threatened to take the paint off the walls.

The cat woke up and looked around.  She looked very concerned about the air quality in the room, but couldn't figure out what was going on.  In a last ditch effort to determine the source of the methane, she lifted her own leg and sniffed her own ass.  After confirming that she was not the originator, she looked at the dog and jumped off the chair.  

We all laughed so hard we woke the poor dog up.  He doesn't know the power he wields.

-P

Ok, this was depressing

I found this on my wife's blog and decided to fill it out. My normal impulse is to stay away from things that cause me to explore myself or give any insite into myself. I should stick to those impulses.

I don't really think I am that deep of a person, so scratching the surface usually just shows the other side. But, in the interest of fairness, I will post my answers. Maybe some armchair psychiatrist out there can get their Phd figuring me out...lol


What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Enjoying the view from the beach in those Corona commercials

What is your greatest fear?
Having anything wrong with my heart. I would rather have cancer then a heart problem.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Galileo

Which living person do you most admire?
The Dalai Lama

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Procrastination

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Intolerance

What is your greatest extravagance?
Flying, it is very expensive to rent a plane and pay for fuel.

What is your favorite journey?
Anything over water

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Virtues are defined by culture. I guess I would have to answer for the Western and/or Christian virtues because of my upbringing. For the Western virtue I would pick Temperance and for the Christian virtue I would choose Faith.

On what occasion do you lie?
To avoid hurting anyone or causing conflict

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
My high forehead

Which living person do you most despise?
Karl Rove

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“You’ll have that”, I don’t like the person I learned it from.

What is your greatest regret?
Not finishing school

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I have to say my wife, (or else this will be my last post…lol)

Which talent would you most like to have?
I would like to be better at math

What is your current state of mind?
Confusion

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
One thing would change nothing, so it is a moot point.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I have one patent approved and a few more on the way

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
This one is very karmic, I don’t know if we get to choose, and I don’t know whether I would move up or down the ladder

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
A sea turtle

What is your most treasured possession?
My sanity (it is also my smallest possession…lol)

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Going to work every day doing something you take no pleasure in or feel no sense of accomplishment from.

Where would you like to live?
The moon or some other celestial body with no atmosphere

What is your favorite occupation?
Physicist or aerospace engineer

What is your most marked characteristic?
My cynicism

What are the qualities you most like in a man?
Intelligence

What are the qualities you most like in a woman?
Intelligence

What do you most value in your friends?
Tolerance

Who are your favorite writers?
Alastair Reynolds, Asimov, Mary Stewart, Marion Zimmer Bradley

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
It is a toss up between Conner Mcleod (Highlander) or Qui-Gon Jinn (Star Wars Ep I)

Who are your heroes in real life?
Neil Armstrong, Ferdinand Magellan, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman

What are your favorite names?
Constance, Sarah, Conner

What is it that you most dislike?
Dishonesty

How would you like to die?
The truth? I would like to be in a spaceship, somewhere between the stars. When I know the time is right, I program the life support systems to slowly lower the temperature to just above freezing. That way I pass into sleep, and I am there for anyone to find in the future.

What is your motto?
I should have made a left turn in Albakerky

Resurrection Spells for Sale

All of the geeks know it. Anyone who ever wanted to slip through a dimension door and live in a permanent Ren–Fest knows it. Last week Gary Gygax went to the great beyond. This death is ripe for the picking. I mean, just look at the title of this post. But along with all of the resurrection jokes and debating over which alignment and gods he followed, there is probably a group of people who a taking some pleasure at his passing.

Certain religious groups have been staunchly against the game of D&D and AD&D since they came on the market. Just like using Ouiji boards, it has been said that anyone who dares to roll the dice is actually opening the door and inviting Satan in. There is even a passage in the Bible, (don’t ask me where, but I have read it myself) that says you are not supposed to cast spells. So I guess that playing this “game” is about as close as you can come to breaking Gods laws.

Now, believe it or not, I have actually played this game. It’s true, I know you probably don’t believe me, but I used to enjoy weekly games of D&D with my friends. It started when I was in the Marines back in the 80s. After the money runs out and you can’t afford to go drinking on liberty anymore, a rip roaring game of D&D is just what the doctor ordered.

We would sit in the barracks on Okinawa and see what kind of trouble we could get into. The first character I ever rolled was a fighter of Nordic origin named Eric Broadaxe. (How’s that for creative?) This was before the Unearthed Arcana rules came out, so I rolled 3 6-sided dice 6 times to get my numbers. This guy came out with an 18/88 strength and an 18 intelligence. Unbelievable!!!

Sorry if I am losing any of the uninitiated.

Eric was quite the dude. Everyone wanted him to run in their dungeons. Twice the gods bestowed extra strength on him, so that his total became a 20. In my arrogance I began playing him with no armor. He could literally kill with a single strike of his 2 handed sword.

But alas, the good times always come to an end. He was punished for an act of murder and could no longer harm humans. No matter how hard he struck someone, they would feel nothing. (Dragons, you were still in grave danger)

Now…back to real life. I have never killed anyone. If I did, I would suffer a worse fate then not being able to harm another human being, (I am getting to old to be doing all of that bending over). And all of the dice I rolled, and all of the evil little critters I killed (on paper) never altered anyone’s life in any way, shape or form. So, am I evil? Have I been corrupted? Should I be held up as an example of what can go wrong if you start down this dark and dangerous path?

There was another group of Marines who did not join us for our weekend games. They would disappear from the barracks on Friday afternoon and show back up at formation on Monday morning. Married and single, they all had one thing in common. They all had a woman in town that they were seeing. Some even lived with these women on the weekends. It was kind of a rotational thing I believe. As one unit rotated out and another one rotated in, the women would hook up with new guy. The men got company and the women had someone to help pay bills and buy food.

The world is a strange place. We keep quiet about the doings of people in their private lives, and we raise hell about people playing a game that might match you against a demon. So what if you have to roll a few dice and caste a fireball spell to defeat your foe.

I never got laid playing D&D.

And that might be the biggest joke of all…lol

RIP Gary. And thanks.

-P

This is Red 5, I'm going in...

Ok, so I wasn’t here for a few days. But I have a great excuse.

You see, for the past 5 years, (that’s right…5 years) I have been taking flying lessons. Now this might seems a little excessive considering the fact that you are required a minimum of 40 hours of flight time to obtain a pilots license. But I am nothing if not patient.

Before I say anything else let me tell you that I am not a terrible pilot or a slow learner. I don’t have 1000 hours in my book with no solo endorsement, and I have no accidents or any mishaps. I have just been…side tracked.

I started off fine. I would go out a couple of times a week and take my lessons. I attended ground school and took my FAA written test before I ever flew. And, I even soloed at 18 hours, which isn’t to bad from what I hear. But life happens.

My son went off to an expensive college…for one semester. That put a dent in the wallet. And I kind of got off track after that. If was over a year before I started flying again. And it was actually my wife who put me back in a plane.

She took me out for breakfast for my birthday last year. We went to the little diner at the airport. It’s one of those $100 hamburger places that you hear about. If you’ve never had a $100 hamburger, come and see me for a plane ride. After breakfast she opens the trunk of the car, and all of my flight gear is in there. She says, “you’re flying today, Happy Birthday!”.

So I started flying again.

It still wasn’t easy. Work has been a pain this past couple of years. The weather has been iffy at best. I have gone back to school and have been struggling with calculus. So I have been flying on the weekends, maybe once every 4 – 6 weeks if things are bad time wise. But I am getting there.

I have 60 hours of flight time now. I was at the airport this morning taking my stage 2 check. I am ready for my cross-country solo flights now. Next up, stage 3, which is just a review of everything, and then my FAA check ride. I should be done in the next month. (Famous last words)

I am truly looking forward to finishing this process. We are talking about flying down to the Outer Banks of NC in May. It would be great to look down and see all the traffic we could be stuck in while we cut the travel time in half.

Of course I will probably start in on my instrument rating after this. I just hope that doesn’t take another 5 years.

-P

Mr P... congratulations, it's a girl

I am a father.  

This isn't anything new mind you.  My daughter was born 24 years ago, and my son was born 20 years ago.  So I actually have a history as far as parenting goes.  But, from time to time, your children have a way of reminding you that you have donated DNA and added to the population. And this is not always a good thing.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my kids.  When I am gone, they will cry over me, put me in a box, slide me into a fire, and throw my ashes into the air like confetti.  Well, if they have been listening to me all these years they will.  And if they ever have children, they will tell those kids how crazy I was, and how I used to retell the same stories from the Marines, and how everyone mistook me for their brother instead of their father.

But...and this but could be the one where my kids have a tendency to cause the most pain, there are times when I would like to forget that I am a father for a while.  It seems that no matter their age, they seem to want to bring their problems to you and share them.  And not just share them, but give them to you like a gift.

My aunt and uncle had a dog that would go out and catch rabbits and bring them home as gifts. I remember seeing one of them with it's leg bone hanging out.  The dog was so happy, tail wagging, tongue hanging out with a hound grin on his face.  My kids bring me a rabbit every now and then.  And they expect me to skin it and cook it.

It doesn't help the rabbit any.  And I don't mind skinning and cooking a rabbit.  But if you keep bringing me rabbits, I am going to get tired of rabbit after a time.  And you won't like me very much when I a tired of rabbit.

So, if I could say anything to the young people out there, and my kids in particular, please, learn to clean your own rabbit.  It might taste better if you clean it yourself, and it might give you a feeling of accomplishment if you do.

By the way, I like rabbit.  We used to have it every week in Okinowa and I looked forward to those days.  I stood guard in an ammo dump in NC for a few months.  We carried shotguns, and there were always rabbits about.  Damn if it wasn't tempting to load up and take a shot.  But I had a job to do, and I was dedicated to the mission...LOL.  Sorry, couldn't hold that in.

Take care all...P

Where's the penguin?

Hello,

I was really expecting to see the penguin picture that they place on the different blog pages that we have to choose from here. He was a sturdy looking fellow, and named John Doe none the less. Perhaps his name should have been John Doe Penguin, giving a nod to Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I find it amazing that most if not all animals share the same last name. And that name usually has something to do with the type of animal they are. If that practice extended to people then we would have names like Mary Human, or Howard Homosapien. Thank goodness we aren’t animals.

Ummmm…never mind

As you may have noticed, this is my blog. I am going to blog here. If you are inclined to read blogs, you might want to visit here from time to time and read my blogs.

There are many blogs to choose from, and we at the “Who—but who isn’t” Blog appreciate you choosing our blog for your blog reading needs.

Nothing special to report. Since this is kind of new to me it may take me a bit to become accustomed to doing this. I have attempted to keep a journal, but my attempt has turned out to be quite feeble.

Writing can be very good for you, or so I am told. So, I will try and make this a bit more of a priority. If it turns out that people are reading, I may become obsessively active at blogging. If not, then you may be treated to bouts of sobbing and self degrading tantrums. We shall see.

If you want to know anything about it, it shall be posted in my profile soon. If you have any questions or comments, don’t be shy, hit the button. Later…

-P