Family

An ambulance picked up my mother-in-law this morning after she had trouble breathing.

Here we are, on vacation with a bunch of my in-laws and some of their families.  As if there's a good time for a family emergency.

But what I saw humbled me in new and profound ways today:  My father-in-law and his two sons and two daughters (including my wife) are with my mother-in-law in a hospital an hour away.  Tomorrow evening, when I get home from this vacation, they will be over four hours away.  They won't be coming back to the resort tomorrow, when we were slated to go home.  Instead, they will stay with their mother as doctors work to stabilize her.  So my mother-in-law's siblings, their families, and my wife's siblings' spouses all pitched in to clean the resort room and pack the father-in-law's car.  My father-in-law and his children returned from the local hospital just long enough to say their goodbyes, bring us up to speed, and make their way to the hospital an hour away.

Later, as I sat by the pool and helped my in-laws' spouses watch their kids, I realized something:  I was part of this family.  What I had in common with the other would-be strangers around the pool was that we had become part of this family.  We have married into it.  In my fellow strangers' case, we had added children to it.  Taking the kids to miniature golf, ordering pizza for them.  Despite my railing against the notion of collectivization, what occurred today was just that.  Nobody simply took care of his or her self.  We pitched in and got it done together.  As the only collective that ever comes close to truly working:  a family.

This evening, the clanging bells of the ice cream truck summoned children from around the resort like moths to a flame.  I took a picture and texted it to my wife.  Her reply?  It was just the pick-me-up she and her siblings needed.

So tonight I close with a prayer for my mother-in-law:  That she may recover quickly and enjoy many more years with her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, and grand-nephews.

Key moments

Every life has those key moments.  Some are happy, some are sad. 

All of them shape who you are.

Today, I'm thankful for each of those moments, even the sad ones, because they've taught me a powerful lesson in life:  That our time upon this planet is short, and seizing the moment, enjoying life to the fullest, is one of the gifts our Creator has bestowed upon us.

Those moments helped me get over my reluctance to move out of my comfort zone, where I had a home, a portion of my life that extended over twelve years.  But I drove south and made a new home in Iowa.

Those moments helped me ask a beautiful woman out on a date.  In my solitary existence, I had the companionship of pets, and a schedule that was all mine, to eat, sleep, and exercise when I wished.  I stepped outside that comfort zone to know love and companionship.

Those moments helped me speak with another man about how I loved his daughter and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and ask for his blessing.

Those moments helped me take that beautiful woman on an unusual date involving a helicopter ride, at the conclusion of which, I got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife.

Those moments led me to today, when she will become my wife, and I her husband, in front of family and friends.

Thank you, God, for all those moments.

From http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/8759

This past weekend, a small group of perhaps a dozen protesters gathered outside Dayton's Hara Arena to protest the sale of modern sporting rifles at Bill Goodman's Gun and Knife Show.
From the article:

"We know that guns are being sold on the floor inside Hara Arena illegally" said Jerome McCorry. "No background checks no identification of any kind."
McCorry said "AK-47s and M16s are not gonna be used for hunting, they're not going to be used to protect anybody. These are the weapons that are coming back and being used in mass murders and mass killings."

After reading the article, a Buckeye Firearms Association supporter decided to contact McCorry, the apparent protest organizer, to inform him about the inaccuracies in his statements about firearms (it isn't illegal for private individuals to sell a gun at the show without a background check, people aren't selling M16s or fully-automatic AK-47s at Hara Arena, modern sporting rifles are used for hunting, gun shows are rarely used by criminals as a source for guns, rifles [of any type] are used in murders far less than fists or baseball bats, etc.).
The supporter quickly found more than he bargained for. A simple Google search for Jerome McCorry reveals that the man trying to tell the public what weapons they should be allowed to own is a convicted felon.

 A convicted rapist, no less.  Hmm, guess he's not hot on a woman having to "explain how her attacker how he ended up with two bullet holes in him", as Ann Coulter once said.

What part of "Shall Not Be Infringed" don't you understand?

The beauty of Constitutional rights is that I don't have to justify or explain my need to exercise that right to anyone, least of all a Briton by the name of Piers Morgan.

A long year

It's been a long year.

• January:  After fighting with MediaCom cable for two months, my cable TV service was restored.  Never is a long time, so I'll just say I'm extremely reluctant to give them my business again.  So far, Qwest/Centurylink hasn't pissed me off.
• February:  Short month.  Nothing memorable besides Valentine's with the girlfriend.
• March:  This is when my job situation started to change.  One co-worker was fired, and my boss announced his move to a different department.  In early March, I was contacted through Facebook by neighbors of my aunt, whom had been discovered by police in her home after having passed away some ten days prior.
• April:  All alone at work, as my colleague returned to India as his year's tenure in the States expired.  I was excited to see the 1940 U.S. Census.  And I took my girlfriend on her second and my first cruise.  To the Bahamas.
• May:  RIP Morgan.
• June:  RIP Bailey.  Dori has a health scare.  801 Grand.  Okoboji.  John Deere turns 175.  One year since I met my girlfriend.
• July:  God-awful heat.  Cooler in Florida!  Telltale signs of the drought:  Waist-deep water at the buoys at Storm Lake.
• August:  Dori develops tooth problems.  And I suffer from a month-long affliction of high body temperature and general lousy feeling.  But I don't let it deter me from educating myself on diamonds and doing a little shopping.
• September:  My first helicopter ride.  And I ask her:  "Will you marry me?"
• October:  My folks visit.  The two set of parents meet.
• November:  Thanksgiving in Kansas City.
• December:  Blizzards, icy roads, dead batteries, and a Boxing Day cold.  My last Christmas as a single man.

Modern marvels

Posting this from 30000+ ft

Gun-grabbers

It happens every time.

A tragedy like the massacre of 27 adults and children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, is cause to mourn for most rational people.  For the left-wing gun grabbers, it's a time to act, before strong emotions give way to logic and reason.

Soledad O'Brien goes on about how "a rational person could say that having access to a high-powered semiautomatic rifle is inappropriate. That there's no reason to go deer hunting with that, there's no reason to have access to that. And that is the connection that these killers have access to those weapons."

Ms. O'Brien, do you know what a semi-automatic rifle is?  It fires a single bullet every time the trigger is pulled.

So does a revolver.

But the word "semi-automatic" gets gun-control advocates in a tizzy.  I think they picture a hail of bullets spewing from the barrel and tearing through the flesh of innocents.  Yes, the bullets come out a rate defined by how fast the shooter can squeeze the trigger and for the gun to load the next bullet from the magazine.

What galls me is this attitude of "We know what's best for you."  It's not just limited to guns.  Drive an SUV?  These nosy, ruthless bastards will stop at nothing to force you drive a hybrid or electric vehicle with the relative safety of a gas tank inside a cardboard box.  But you're getting great gas mileage, they'll tell you.  You're saving the planet!

But I can't haul lumber for my home addition, or river rock for my landscaping project.

Well, you don't need that much space to live in, anyway.  And your desire to not live in a cramped shitty apartment in a dense, high-tax, crime-ridden urban center contributes to urban sprawl, and prevents us from controlling all aspects of your life!

But that's the point!

The gun-grabbers then try to tell you that the point of the Second Amendment is for a militia.  Even if that interpretation was accurate (and the learned folks in the black robes in the highest court of the land do not think it is), the militia was made of citizenry who often brought their own weapons to the field of battle.  That's what distinguishes a militia from an army.  As Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia observed, if the Second Amendment is meant to apply to collective rights, it is unique amongst the other rights all reserved to individuals in the Constitution.

Then there's the inconvenient facts in this particular case:

• Adam Lanza, with his history of mental illness, did not legally obtain the firearms used in the shooting.  They were registered to his mother.
• Indications are that Lanza attempted to purchase a "long gun" about a week before the shooting, but was denied because he didn't want to subject to the required background check and 14-day waiting period.  Sounds like someone who either was impatient or knew he would be rejected.  At this time, it's unclear whether Lanza had been diagnosed with mental illness.  If he had, the federal authorities would know, and he could forget about the gun.  By refusing to submit to a background check and thus in effect withdrawing his application for the gun, Lanza may well have avoided showing up on the feds' radar.
• The Bushmaster .223 rifle, reportedly used in the shooting, is a semi-automatic rifle, but it is not an assault rifle.  An assault rifle is a select-fire weapon, capable of burst or automatic fire.

But lets not confuse ourselves with facts.  Our minds are made up!