Visiting grandkids

The grandkids were here visiting last week.
We had lots for them to do, and here is photographic proof.



Here is the water park here in Sienna plantation. The kids loved it, and Evyn is an otter.


Then we have the Town Center fountain in Sugar Land. Isn't this the cutest picture you ever saw? That's Zoey in the letter O of HOPE.





Here are three of my grandchildren, posing for a night photo with Wm and GA:



And here is a night time photo using existing light. Neat, huh?

4th of July

How do we celebrate the Fourth of July here in Houston?

Or more accurately, how do we celebrate the 4th here in Sienna Plantation, just outside of Houston proper?

The longer I live here, the more I like my new home. I'm not discounting Midland, mind you. I love my friends back in Midland. But this here Sienna living is growing on me.

The people here are so polite and considerate. And cool. Cool in the good sense, not in the fashionable sense. They're friendly, and nice to each other, and considerate of each other's space and dignity.

Yesterday evening, to celebrate the 4th, our HOA hosted a party of sorts on the amphitheater by the Water Park. (That's right - our HOA does more with the money they extract from us than just tell us what we can do with our own property. They use the money to do things that make life more enjoyable for those who live here. It's what taxes are supposed to be used for.) So GA and I brought our comfy little camp chairs, and set them on the hillside facing the band that was playing for our enjoyment:




They call themselves "Crisis," which is not an especially great name for a band, but they're pretty good for a three piece. They play rock, country, disco, rap (very little of that, thank God), and even some reggae. It felt kind of strange, though, to be a part of this. We were surrounded by what they would have called the "beautiful people" back in the 60's, mostly in California. They are all young, in great shape (nobody fat and ugly like me), and with perfect children, laughing and playing and running and being nice to each other. All races: whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and so forth.



You can't really see it in the picture, because the Google people shrink the fool out of these photos we upload - not that I'm complaining, since it's free.

But how do we celebrate the 4th here in Sienna? Like this.

Before we left for the picnic/festival/party/concert/fireworks display, we cooked some hot dogs. We ate them on American buns, with American chili and American mustard, and I added American jalapeños.


And for my beverage? No, I didn't drink American beer, because I hate beer. I had Dr Pepper.

Not communist Dr Pepper with communist high fructose corn syrup. This was the real thing, made with Imperial Cane Sugar, and 10 2 and 4 on the bottle.



And that's the flag in front of our house there, flying proudly above the national soft drink of Texas, in Sienna Plantation, just outside of Houston TX, in the good old US of A.

Take that, radical Muslims. Take that, Democrat and Republican parties. Take that, you LTRB politicians. Blow it out your ears.

And God bless real Dr Pepper and the USA.

Excitement

Wow.
GA just came back from her afternoon walk, and there were five (5) cop cars here in our neighborhood, all to arrest one guy. He lives across the street and about three houses down.
One car was parked at the only entrance to our circle, and nobody was allowed to drive in or out.

They drove off with him in handcuffs on one of the cars.

I don't yet know if this was a dangerous enough guy to warrant five cop cars, or if the county cops just have that little to do. I wonder if they'll have color photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, to be used as evidence against him.

I will report more on this when I find out what was going on. So come back to this blog!

*******

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Here's the deal. He had violated the terms of his probation.
He had failed to complete his community service.
That's right, probation violation. For this they sent in five cop cars, blocked the entrance to the neighborhood, made everybody go inside for their safety, and took the guy away in handcuffs.

There are two ways of looking at this. The cops here go overboard on everything, and I had better make sure my lawn is kept trimmed to specs. Or...
There is so little crime here that when something actually happens, every cop in the county wants to get in on it (a la Alice's Restaurant). I vote for the second option, and if that's the one, I am grateful that we live in a place like this, where the cops actually do something about crime.

Still no word on what his original crime was.

Oh deer

I took this photo yesterday, a short distance from my home, still in my neighborhood:



As much as I may complain about the heat and humidity and the traffic, I have to admit that in my neighborhood, there are some good reasons to live here and l like it.

A more mature survey

This survey tries to go beyond the usual Pepsi or Coke questions you see on MySpace. Give it a try.

1) What is your favorite volunteer activity? And how did you first get involved in it?
That would be community theatre. I have always liked the idea of acting, and one day a friend (the pizza-eating Jew, by her own description) asked me to help with a murder mystery dinner that a restaurant was planning in Wichita Falls - Backstage Restaurant, it was. It mostly involved memorizing a list of points and clues that had to be presented, in addition to some lines that formed the core of the plot. I played the captain of a cruise ship, and I had fun and met some people that did shows at Backdoor Theatre. This led to an audition for I Hate Hamlet, and I didn't get the role because the director was understandably afraid to give a major role to a complete unknown with zero theatre background. Later, I tried out for Shadowlands, which had several minor roles, and I got in that, and proved that I could be relied on to show up and learn my lines and not ruin the play. After that I got major roles to play. I'm still acting, and I can't imagine giving that up. I am also still the webmaster for Backdoor.

2) Think about the people in your life that you care about the most. What attracted you to them? Good looks? Personality? Character?
I think all three contribute in any case that I can think about. A lack of the last two would probably keep me from really caring about them, but in the reverse order of the question. Lack of character will diminish someone's value in my eyes very quickly. Lack of personality will do the same. Good looks are not really a deal-breaker, but they help. On the other hand, if you're strong in character and personality, I don't care how you look. And in fact, if you look too good, that will count against you. Sorry, it's just the way it is. I can't help it.

3) How old are you by chronological age... and how "old" are you inside?
My driver's license says I'm 57. Inside, though, I'm probably about thirty, maybe 33 and a third. Sometimes, I'm 12.

4) What do you consider to be your own physical flaws?
I'm a little overweight, my eyesight is still less than perfect (even after LASIK), my hearing is less than ideal (though not too bad for 57), and I get tired sooner than I used to. I'm old. My hair is gray.

5) What do you consider to be your own character flaws? (Skip this if it's too personal).
Mmmmm. Tough one. But here goes:

• I'm far too concerned about being accepted. I have rejection issues. Even though they may not be entirely my fault, that's still a character flaw. I try to tell the truth when asked, but I think maybe I put too much effort into making it gentle.
• Sometimes I don't tell people to blow it out their ears when I should. But that's the same flaw.
• I don't like confrontation. Yep, same flaw.
• I keep lusting after Laura San Giacomo. Hey, a different flaw!

6) Name an experience that would be worth risking your life to have. Discuss if appropriate.
Walking on the moon, or a planet other than the Earth. I think I would accept even odds for that one, that is, a 50/50 chance of making it back alive.
I suppose I have risked my life to a degree while caving, but I have always insisted on good odds before taking the risk.

7) Break your life into chapters, if you can.

• Childhood.
• High School.
• College and those wild hippie days.
• My first marriage.
• The brief time after that, as a divorced father.
• My second marriage, in Wichita Falls.
• My time in Midland.
• My time in Houston (still going on).

8) When you stand before God on Judgment Day, what do you think he will say?
I'm not sure he'll say "Well done, my good and faithful servant." More likely he'll say, "Well... I guess that will have to do. You can have a small place with a cave on the property. Maybe a small garden. Just try not to track the place up with cave mud." I suppose he could say, "What were you thinking???" I hope not.

That's probably enough. Copy the questions and use them for a blog entry... then reward yourself with your favorite snack.
OK, a Reese's will do nicely.

Fort Bend County update

At our local Target, in Missouri City, a pickup owned by a family in Arcola was parked in the fire lane. So far, not so good. You should never park in a fire lane.

Now, a Missouri City man drives up behind the truck, yells at the woman in it to move the truck and then starts ramming the rear of the woman's truck with his own car. So far, even worse, because now we're apparently fighting over who gets to park in the fire lane.

Now, the woman gets out and asks him what he's doing, so he curses at her and makes a finger gesture. Use your imagination, this is a PG rated blog, here.

The woman's husband comes out of the store with his children, and he asks the Missouri City man how come he hit the truck. Seems reasonable to me. I would be curious in that situation.

More yelling, and the Missouri City man -the one that rammed the pickup from behind - gets out of his car and rushes the Arcola man, who pushes the Missouri City man back into his own vehicle. Again, reasonable.

The Missouri City man comes at him again, waving his fists. The Arcola man punches him in the face. So far, this could be any story back in Midland, but probably not Wichita Falls.

The Missouri City man then takes his shoes off, puts them on his hands and attempts to hit the illegally parked Arcola man with the shoes! OK, now it could be happening in Wichita Falls.

The Arcola man punches the Missouri City man in the face again, then puts his children in the truck and drives off "to get the kids out of harm's way," according to the police.


Note to self: never park in a fire lane in this area. Apparently, them are prime parkin' spaces here.

Leaks in the Constitution

I'm watching an argument in a forum where I participate, and I'm generally staying out of it this time. The argument has to do with how we should treat "enemy combatants," also known as either POW's or accused criminals. And that's the problem. Which are they?

They aren't POW's, because they don't belong to an official army of an official nation state. So they don't come under the Geneva Convention.

But they aren't US citizens, so do they get a right to a criminal trial here? Or do they come under the laws of the nation they're citizens of, and thus get shipped there for trials?

It's a mess. But it's not a new mess. It's the result of decades of flex-think.

Back when we were at war with north Viet Nam, we weren't actually at war with them. Technically, it was a "police action." It was technically legal to shoot at the Viet Cong because we were there at the invitation of a legitimate government (South Viet Nam) which was resisting being taken down by their enemies. We never declared war against North Viet Nam, because that would have been inconvenient for our Congress, among other reasons. I felt at the time that we had no business sending in an army, firing weapons, killing people and breaking things, if we hadn't declared a war, but nobody listened to me or the other few thousand people who opposed this police action. I guess we had done the same thing in Korea, so there was already precedent, but the problem still remained: it wasn't a Constitutional action. And it was flex-think: it's a war but it's not really a war.

So here we are in Iraq. Once again, we're fighting a war that isn't really a war because it was never declared. But there's a difference this time. We were not invited by a legitimate government that needed defending. We invaded Iraq, sent in armies and bombs, deposed the existing government, and all without being attacked by them first, and without being invited by its government. The fact that Saddam Hussein was a sorry, merciless bastard is irrelevant to this point. If you're going to invade a country without an invitation, you have to declare a war. Don't you? But by then we were used to, and accepted, the policy of having a war (wink, wink) without ever declaring it.

And now we have our dilemma. Are our enemies soldiers and entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention? Or are they criminals? But if they're criminals, are they subject to our laws, since they aren't even in the USA when they shoot at us? What is their status? Do they get trials by our laws if we're shooting at them for violating our laws?

It's a mess.

For decades, we've been flex-thinking the Constitution, passing election laws that clearly violate the First Amendment, passing ballot access laws that clearly violate every principle of free elections, and passing hundreds of laws that violate the 9th and 10th amendments (by stretching the commerce clause beyond anything in its original intent). It's so well-established that when Ron Paul suggested obeying the Constitution, the most common criticism directed at him was that he had "crazy ideas." Yes, folks, the Constitution is now a "crazy idea."

The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is intended more than anything else to keep government within some boundaries. And like a dammed river, every time we punch a hole in the dam, the entire dam is further compromised. If we can't freely criticize our elected leaders, they can get by with more mischief. If they can jail us with a simple accusation, they can stop us from criticizing them. If they can confiscate our property for criticizing them without a permit (think FEC)... if they can rig the elections so that only the two parties can get on the ballot... if they can read our email and listen to our phone conversations because we "might" have terrorist connections... you get the picture. Each new hole in the dam makes it harder to repair the dam before it breaks altogether.

For the love of God, for the love of country...

...stop voting for these two corrupt parties before it's too late.

It may already be.