Ok, I know that you all sit with baited breath waiting for me to review TV shows and movies, so here are my latest opinions. Being a life long Star Trek fan who also happens to be quarantined during a world wide pandemic, I signed up for the free 30 day trial of CBS All Access just so I could binge watch the new Star Trek series "Picard" and "Star Trek Discovery."  While dipping into darkness here and there, I think that "Picard" remained relatively true to Star Trek. The story is good, the acting is outstanding, and the characters are real and believable. I'd give it a 7 or maybe 8 ou ..read more

So yeah, when the entire United States decided to shut down for the Apocalypse, my happy ass was on the way to a customer in Indiana. I've done quite a lot in my life and seen quite a few unique things. I served 12 years active duty Army. I've spent the last 25 years traveling for a living, and between my civilian and military careers, I have seen much of the world and thought I'd seen just about everything. I was wrong. This last week was the most bizarre experience I think I've ever had Normally the shuttle buses for the parking areas all cue up in a designated area to drop you off at the a ..read more

The photo sort of says it all, doesn't it? I received a email message from Delta airlines about my upcoming flight. They tell me to avoid placing my cell phone and wallet in the TSA bins. I just can't wait to tell the TSA inspector "Nope, I aint putting my stuff in your stupid bin!" They follow that wonderful tidbit with the advice to allow a few extra feet between you and the next schmuck during the boarding process because "A little distance goes a long way". So they want us to keep our distance during the boarding process where we are then going to be placed into seats so tightly pack ..read more

Emptied the 5 year old water out of our 50 gallon barrel in the back yard, washed the barrel out and filled it with clean water from the hose. It then rained all night long, so mother nature would have filled that barrel for free but who am I to quibble? My 10 year old son was curious as to why I was filling a barrel with water and so I explained all of the ways that having no water at all available would affect his life. You should have seen the look on his face when I explained that every single flush of a toilet used 3 to 5 gallons of water and then asked him how nasty he thought it woul ..read more

Day Three of Quarantine with the kids home from school, and my wife and I both working from home. Just had the "use the toilet paper, fold it in half to cover the used part, and then use it again!" class with the kids. Oh my God you should have seen the look of disgust on their faces. Lord help them if they ever have to use an actual outhouse. . . The wife and I aren't glaring at each other over the laptops any more, but we ARE both eye balling our dwindling supply of toilet paper and I'd swear I hear the "Good, Bad, and the Ugly" theme song in the back of my head. Pretty sure she is hoarding ..read more

Day two of quarantine with my wife and I both working from home. Starting to question the wisdom of having bought AMMO for both handguns yesterday as we are glaring at each other over our respective laptops ..read more

As many of you have noticed, I’ve all but stopped writing my blog these days. I guess I really ought to get around to formally saying “I’m done with it”, but it keeps calling me back from time to time. In some ways it’s kind of cathartic I guess, and is something like a diary for me. Sometimes it makes me feel better to write it, and sometimes it condenses and distills my feelings and makes me feel worse. You just never know until you start writing. One thing for certain though, I’ve always tried to be honest and up front here, so I’m not gonna pull any punches with this one either. Honestl ..read more

   I’ve found lately that I have had to change the way that I see myself these days. For all of my talk and writing of bravery in being out and about, up until relatively recently, I’ve often enjoyed the privilege of passing: being perceived as female by those that I interact with. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never passed perfectly, but I used to pass well enough that half of the people I interacted with never noticed me, and most of the remaining half wasn’t sure enough one way or the other to say anything. Not true anymore. These days, the vast majority of those that I deal with are ..read more

So many of my blogs start this way these days, and I am sorry about that. I dislike being repetitive, but I am truly unsure where to start on this one since so much has happened since I last wrote.  A lot of this happened almost a year ago and so will be shared in only the vaguest way here, and again, I’m sorry about that as some of this deserves more than a cursory mention. The last few years have been a bit rough on my family, with so many loved and cherished family members dying with little or no advanced warning. God help us, but my generation is now the oldest remaining in my famil ..read more

There was an elderly woman that sat next to me in the gate area of the Knoxville flight to Atlanta. She was probably in her early 70s and had the most brilliant blue eyes that I have ever seen. We traded a few pleasantries and then she put her nose in her book, and I put my nose in mine. After making the flight from Knoxville to Atlanta and having a two hour layover, we were both kind of amused as she once again took a seat next to me, this time in the gate area for Austin. Anyway, we struck up an actual conversation this time, but it was interrupted as she took a phone call, presumably from ..read more