Nomads2

It is a sad thing, that I can remember fuel prices even lower then the last time these pumps provided gas for sale.

One of her gifts was this new boot, much lighter than the former ‘Star Wars’ boot. That might have been the best present, at least for her foot.

As all things have been, so they continue to be, with me being a day behind. We left our base station Tuesday morning and headed for one of our favorite camp grounds in New Mexico. Just a little over 400 miles and much diesel fuel later we arrived at the Bar S RV park in Grants. A really nice park with a great price, we have stayed here numerous times and have enjoyed every visit.

Hanging around waiting for my Mom to get back from her trip, this freeloader took up residence in her carport.

I wonder how strong those potatoes are and I’m not sure I would want to consume them. If you look closely, the label on the boxes states ‘Hallmark.’ There were no cards in those containers, just cans of food.

Sometimes you just have to find humor where you can.

The perils of being in charge! Jim thought it was pretty funny. Yes, that is a big smile behind that mask. But for that matter, so did Don. Fun with the power washer. Well, it is all fun and games until someone wets their pants!

On every call out I have been on the Lord has blessed me with great teammates. I could not have picked three better guys to work with. Twenty hours in the truck, dragging a trailer to get here and we are just growing stronger as friends and brothers in Christ. We have been eating, sleeping and working together since Sunday afternoon and we are doing good things for God. We have been assigned to power wash and sanitize homes that are ready for it. So far we have completed two homes and will complete our third in the morning. God is really working in this community!

My room-mate, Boden. As room-mates go, he was okay except for one problem , his side of the room. Boden’s side made my side look really bad. There is nothing like getting shown up by a twelve year old. If he was not such a cool dude, I would have kicked him in the shin!

July 11 2011-01 — The job is now complete.

June 4 2011-01 — Congratulations to my Mom and Dad-in-law. Today is their 56th wedding anniversary!

June 21 2011-3 — July 7th, our daughters birthday. Here she is with my Mom.

“I am really looking forward to the next (at least) eight weeks of wearing this ‘Star Wars’ looking boot and styling on my crutches.” You go, girl!

Welcome to Dell, how can I assist you?

Even now, I sometimes cannot believe that I am a Dad! I can’t understand how God could entrust me with these two gifts, two miracles, a responsibility beyond my imagination. I praise the Lord everyday that He did.

I was blessed to have three great men in my life and now I praise God that I still have one. Happy Father’s Day, Paul.

When the Taylor’s ask you to go to lunch with them, you had better be prepared to huck down some major amounts of food! Eating at Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles no item on the menu was safe from us. Our small table was covered with fried chicken, chicken strips, mac and cheese, collard greens, corn bread, syrup, butter, sweet tea, lemonade, regular tea and of course 4 large waffles. It was rumored that two in our party went into a carb coma and one relaxed at a local pool.

I have a friend that wears a bright red hat that say, "Where's my Senior Discount?" I am now 55 and have asked twice for my senior discount. As I was climbing this tree, only my second try at using spikes, I wondered if other guys my age do this? I hope so, even though it was plenty scary, it was also fun. Thanks to Norm for always asking about my rigging, and Chris for expert instructions, Phyllis and Linda for all their hospitality, Don and Jan, Charlie, Jack and Sandy, and Ryan and Stephan for a great time training and being with God's people.

These shots were taken about 20 minutes west of our kids home. The horrible storms went west and east of us, killing and destroying.

"No Leo, but I can put water in this pickle bucket and it will almost be the same thing."

You know your in Oklahoma when you see the trash cans wired to poles.

A 'nice to see you again' thunderstorm with tornadoes passing just north and south of us.

Some where over the middle of the United States. If Piedmont or U.S. Air were still in business, we would have known where we were. The pilots used to carry a road atlas and every so often let us know what we were looking at.

Leo celebrates a victory with his cousins, from left, Brent, Ryan, Leo, and Zack.

Thanks to my Mom, we are now the proud owners of a back country French press called the Java Press. Last year on our annual camping trip, we realized we had no way to make coffee without electricity. So, we purchased some instant and longed for something better. Last summer while wandering around aimlessly in downtown Flagstaff I discovered this low tech coffee machine, but at thirty dollars and on our way home, I thought I could hold off. After arriving home, I put the press on my amazon.com wish list and waited. The price came down and I mentioned it to my Mom. She said we just had to have good cup of joe when in the back country, so we tried it out here in Oklahoma and it tasted great and was fun to make. This year we will again be the envy of the low tech campgrounds.

apr 2 2011-6 — This is number 5 of five goals Leo scored at todays highly entertaining game. All told, he had the five scores, three assists and one defensive stop! Everyone from our side was yelling for him to get the ball and when he did the crowd went wild. From left to right, his proud Grammy cheering from the sidelines, the stunned referee seeing number 5, Coach Tera, and Leo, the Superstar of today.

Just a small part of the 60 second victory dance Leo performed after each of the goals he scored.

One of these days I am going to start a list of the great things about the RV lifestyle. But till than I will just write about them when they come to me. Like eating breakfast outside while sitting on your steps. Looks funny when living in a house, in an RV park, looks normal.

Leo (second from the left) lines up with his team mates to face their first game of the season. The weather was brutal, felt like 20 degrees with the wind blowing 20-30 mph. A small price to pay for such great entertainment! The referee had his hands full, with kids continuing to play and kick the ball well outside of the lines. He had to chase them down and take the ball. It seemed the same little boy from the other team ( he is the one with the blue hat on) sprinted at full speed dribbling the ball and when the ref took the ball, the little blue hat boy would fall on the ground and lay there till his Dad came and picked him up. He did this every time! A large part of the game was taken up with making sure the players knew which goal to kick toward. Once they had this down, it was halftime and the ref and coachs had to go over it all again. Kids were going in all directions, some were crying, some did not want to play. If you are strapped for cash and desperate for entertainment, search out a local field and take in a game, you will not be disappointed. Amid all this chaos, Leo made three assists for scores, playing only three quarters, and during the game, he managed to run to the sidelines twice, once to get a hug from Grammy and once to get a gummy bear. Yes, his team won!

We found this bread recipe on line and have made it twice now and really like it. It is called artisan bread and does not rise high or bake in a pan. The ingredients are real simple and is easy to make. The best thing is no chemicals added.

Every male and every female have had these expressions at least once and probably more than once in their life times. Guys have this look as our grandson Leo has right now when you find out that you all of a sudden have a girlfriend, and of course, you have no idea how that could happen. The next time for sure you look like this is on your wedding day. By obvious contrast, Amanda has the look that says, “We will be getting married soon and have a house, a garden and two and a half kids.” She will have the same look on her wedding day. Just to seal the deal and to make sure Leo knows exactly what is going on, Amanda painted a portrait of the two of them in happy harmony. I’m sure this is true, I think.

mar 18 2011-4 — I every RV park there are the have's and the have's not. Or the smart and the not so smart. Notice the headboard in front of the flowerbed.

Any one who has ever been to Oklahoma City knows that there is always one thing you count on for sure, wind.

Our new parking spot for the next few weeks. The Rockwell RV park just south of I-40 is a complete park. We have wi-fi, cable, 50 amp service, hot tub, pool complete with three large artificial palm trees that are bolted to the floor. If all of these things were not enough, the park has five buffalo's, three females and two males. For s bonus, the owner told Norm that he thinks the one girl buffalo is going to have a baby! Sometime in April, we are hoping to be here to see that.

Truthfully, we just picked this park out of the RV parks book we have. My what a travel park! Restaurant, RV wash, repair service (maybe the first photo was one of their training jobs?) carpet cleaning and storm shelters, a must in West Texas. One of the nice items can be seen in the second picture, a concrete pad, very level. A bit pricey at $28.00, it had everything we needed and more than we would use. The weather was windy, and the low was around 37 degrees.

We are off on our first RV trip of the year. Departing ground zero in Congress Arizona, elevation 2800 feet around 0830 hours. We climbed steadily for four hours topping out 7100 feet before pointing the nose of the truck east bound. Little wind and warm temperatures were a welcome relief from the snow showers encountered in 2010. Fuel mileage was nothing to brag about, fueling in Winslow ( no we did not stand on the corner, but it is on the ‘To do’ list) showed 10 mpg. We like the truck for a lot of reasons, gas mileage is not among them. As we drove we debated about where to stop and finally decided on a favorite from the past, the Bar S, exit 81 on I-40. This is our fourth or fifth stay and they are always friendly, low price of $21.00 got us a nice spot, 50 amp service, wi-fi and cable TV. We feasted on grilled cheese and soup. The down side was that night, we paid for our warm day time weather with a cold 30 degrees the next morning. Burr!

Neighbor.

We could not believe, we got an award.

Believe it or not, these fellas are some of the hardest workers we have.

The TRIBE'al leader...

The TRIBE ladies…

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Photo’s by Norm…

My father-in-law and I watch this station which is just outside of Wickenburg with some humor. Always, it seems, when the weekend approaches, the price of fuel goes up and after Monday the price slides down. I don’t think I have ever seen a business deviate in price so much. It is a great location to make a legal (extra) buck (I guess it is legal), I think if you are not local to the area it would be the first place in a while and people just buy there. This establishment has been there for more than a few years, and I have only been in once, I bought a bag of ice. And , if I remember right, the ice was a little pricey.

Thugs, Mobs And Education

by babatim

The news this week has been dominated by the Lara Logan story. Ms. Logan was the subject of the most popular post in FRI history which can be found here. Reactions to the news that Lara was subjected to “a brutal and sustained assault and beating” have cost at least one knucklehead his job when he tweeted dismissively about what exactly those seven words mean. We don’t know what happened to Ms. Logan that day and it will be up to Lara Logan to set the record straight which is what some in the media are calling on her to do. You can read another account of a woman from the international media covering the same story on the same day at the same time here. As she points out she was lucky, and she was scared, and I doubt she will ever place herself in a similar position. Ms. Logan has my heart felt sympathy as does every human victim of mob violence. The specifics of the assault don’t interest me because there is nothing for me to learn from them. I won’t mix in a large crowd celebrating the overthrow of a repressive government under any circumstance and I’m not easily intimidated.

What gets my blood boiling was the news this morning that CBS had sat on that story for five days and only released it when other news outlets were about to do the same. The main reason I keep this poorly edited (but at times interesting) blog going is to be part of the movement which is stripping away the ability of main stream media to dictate news cycle narratives. I have no idea why CBS sat on that story but I suspect it has more to do with the report that the crowd was yelling “Jew Jew Jew” then any concerns for Ms. Logan’s privacy. CBS has an agenda and when confronted with facts running counter to that agenda it reacts like every rich, powerful, arrogant, liberal douche-bag organization in the world; it ignores the story or spins the details.

Navy Commander Martin Sepulveda with Zarmina and her sister Sharifa. Zarmina who is 12 or 13 years old is the local school teacher

Which brings us to the protests by the Wisconsin state teachers union. If you want to read some professional liberal spin on the topic here it from CBS news. If you want the truth you need to hit the blogs; Wisconsin native Ann Althouse is a good place to start and you can find her blog here. The people of Wisconsin after years of democratic fiscal insanity decided to bring the adults back to power. The new Governor, Scott Walker, has made the obvious first move introducing a bill that will dismantle the 50 year old collective bargaining for public employee unions. It is not like he has any alternatives; every majority democratic state in the union and most of the European Union has the identical problem; gold plated obligations to state employees and no money to pay for them.

I find the reaction from the teachers unions, public employee unions, and state democratic representatives to be repugnant. The crowds descending on Madison behaved like a bunch of thugs which is in stark contrast to the Tea Party movement. I’ll leave the political commentary to others but I have to point something out about the American educational system. The vast majority of state teachers union members should be fired on the spot for one reason and one reason only; they suck. Not as in “suck up billions of dollars while giving almost zero return on investment”; they just suck. I’ll let the eloquence of Mark Styen make the point becasue I can’t get past the “they suck” thing:

I think if you had to name one institution, which is probably the biggest structural defect in Western societies right now, and the one that places the biggest question mark over the future of Western civilization, if there was one institution you needed to take apart, it would be the education system.

There is no education system in Afghanistan but there are millions of kids who dream of becoming literate. So let me tell you a remarkable story about a little girl with an aptitude for languages and a desire to better herself and her community through education.

Cpl Jessica Costilla, Zarmina, Sgt Barbra Rangel, and Sharifa

The Marines have built a school in Naw Zad but there are no female teachers in the area. The local people want their daughters to receive an education so a brave little girl has stepped in to fill the gap. Every evening at 1900 hours (7:00 pm) Zarmina’s father brings her and her sister to the Marine combat outpost and drops her off with the Female Engagement Team (FET). They spend an hour or so going over a reading, writing or a math lesson and the next day Zarmina teaches that lesson to the girls in the Naw Zad school.

I asked Zarmina’s father if it was OK to put her picture and story in the blog and he was proud to grant permission. Zarmina and her family are all in. The Marines came here; drove the Taliban out and told the people they will protect them for as long as it takes to bring lasting peace. If we pull out early the fate which awaits Zarmina and those like her from the Taliban is to horrible to contemplate. It will make whatever the mob in Egypt inflicted on Lara Logan seem tame in comparison. Zarmina and her sister Afghans who are trying to obtain a modest education are risking their lives. They have bet everything on the Americans seeing this through to the bitter end. The Marines are game – they won’t quit but they don’t have a vote in how this turns out. It is politicians like those in Wisconsin who abandoned their posts to thwart the will of the people who will decide if we stay or go. Recent history regarding peoples in war torn lands who have bet their lives on us sustaining our commitment to them is not exactly positive.

If you are fond of prayer you need to send a few extra ones topside for Zarmina and the children of Afghanistan. With friends like Pelosi, Reed and Barack Obama those kids are going need all the help they can get.

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1 Live each day with courage 2 Take pride in your work 3 Always finish what you start 4 Do what has to be done 5 Be tough, but fair 6 When you make a promise, keep it 7 Ride for the brand 8 Talk less and say more 9 Remember that some things aren’t for sale 10 Know where to draw the line

Lots of Corvettes.

Who would have thought that they would have two huge horned bulls?

Some of these dogs are real.

A small amount of the awards that my Mom has won over the past three decades.

This is an outstanding 1974 Yamaha 250 vintage racer with many custom and trick parts, some of which cannot be seen from this photo. In the first shot, all the expert racers are staging for the money race, 14 riders in all. Bruce captured 3rd place and a good chunk of the purse. Easily winning his two moto’s for the overall win in his class, it was a really fun day for us all. Thanks Bruce!

Before we go racing, I had to show case one of our great sunsets.

feb 6 2011-05 — Our friend Bruce Sass from Colorado brought two of his many motorcycles to Surprise Arizona to race vintage motocross at Speed World raceway. Bruce is surrounded by a fog of two stroke exhaust as he waits his turn to practice.

Bruce carefully selected his gate position, which paid off with a first place in moto # 1.

Bruce at speed. In both his moto’s he was never challenged having the most horsepower and riding skills, no other rider could hang with Bruce. It also seemed that every racer from Colorado was riding a bike that Bruce built, many from a box of parts. He is a master mechanic (every one looks for the ‘Power by Sass’ sticker), a legend in Colorado motorsports, and a great brother in Christ.

Norm is so talented in so many ways, I am very blessed to have her as my wife. She made this light for her beautician’s son, an Oregon Duck fan.

We purchased this video to try out different routines for our kettlebell workouts. We had been using programs that I could find on the web and decided to take a leap and invest in a new video. The “Kettlebell Boomer” dvd is our fourth instructional video from Dragon Door.com. If you are new to KB’s and need detailed instruction on the exercises, this video is for you. So far we have only managed 2 weeks of consistent training, three days a week. I think we will use the program till we hit the road in March. Just as a side note, it is hard to think of ourselves as boomer’s.