Giving Thanks

I will admit that I do a lot of moaning and groaning about the things that bug me in this world these days. I do wish we could get back to producing the majority of products that we use by having them made in America. I do wish that we could start enforcing our laws concerning illegal aliens entering our country. I do want our leaders to allow our armed services to fight any war we are in by using any resource available to annihilate any adversary as quickly as possible. I do want any politician who abuses his/her office by committing any criminal act to be dealt with as if they were a private citizen. I would like to see all political parties quit fighting and hating each other and use all that energy to work together to solve our country's problems. I want to quit depending on foreign countries for our fuel. I want to see Pete Rose in the baseball Hall of Fame. But I know that most of that will likely never happen. So at least allow me to vent once in a while so my head won't explode.

But with tomorrow being Thanksgiving I'd like to make this post about something besides a complaint. I want to admit that I have so  much to be thankful for and I do not take it for granted. 
First and foremost I have a beautiful wife that I still can't figure out how I got her to marry me. The strength she must have to put up with my faults. You think everything I write and complain about in this blog she hasn't heard a thousand times? Without her I'd be lost. Period. 

I have my health for the most part, except for my blood pressure nearing the exploding point at certain times when I watch the news or I'm driving in traffic. And I throw caution to the wind when it comes to eating all the things that are bad for you.

I have two great kids and four wonderful grandchildren that I want to spend more time with as soon as possible.

I have a brother and sister that I love and all of my nieces and nephews and their children.

I have the best in-laws and extended family members in the world and I love each one of them in their own special way, regardless if they insist I have "favorites". 

I have a lot of people that give me the privilege of calling them friends. Those are hard to come by and when you are lucky enough to find a true friend make sure you let them know how special they are to you.

I have my faith in God and I'd like to think that I have done things on this earth to make Him proud of me. 

And I am thankful for being able to retire from a job that I always loved doing and hopefully I helped a few people along the way that allowed them to change their lives in a positive way, or provided comfort or protection when they needed it most. 

Of course I could go on forever with all of the things I am thankful for but I don't want this to be all about me. I just wanted to use this as my way of saying happy Thanksgiving to everyone and I hope you take a moment to reflect on the things you are thankful for and ask you to express yourself to your loved ones. Oh, and be nice to strangers also, regardless of their political views....

Tsk, Tsk, TSA

I know it's been such a long time since I added a new post to this blog but we were so busy with selling our house and getting moved. It has been a few months of non-stop activity; packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking, working on the new place, etc. Plus, a trip to the cabin to winterize it and then once back home I discovered I had brought back a stow-away.... a cold. Or flu. Or a combo. Not sure but it left me feeling weak and tired. I'm hoping to get back into regularly posting and sharing my frustrations with you about how our America is slipping away, ever so slowly, from what our forefathers could ever imagine. 

I have copied a posting from Redstate.com by Erick Erickson which I think will sum up quite easily how far the government can go to show their stupidity. The TSA is an agency made up by government officials in an attempt to provide checkpoints and security at our airports. A lot of people are saying that it would be better ran by private companies because once you have the government in charge of something it pretty much turns into incompetence and stupidity rather quickly and anything remotely resembling common sense is no longer a part of the picture.
 I won't go into the new body xrays or the physical groping searches in this post, except to say Israel has had way more reason to expect terrorist activity at their airports and their security teams don't use either one of these tactics.

Below is the reposting of a perfect example of how insane our security measures have become. 

Thursday, November 18th at 6:28PM EST

A friend of mine sent me this about his TSA experience. He, unlike most of us, was coming back into the country from Afghanistan on a military charter.

——–

As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.

Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.

First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

There you have it folks, another U.S. airliner made safe by the great security work of the TSA. The plane made it safely to its destination with no one getting  a scratch from a fingernail or even one hangnail. Thank you Uncle Sam.