All Things Rowdy

My country tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died! Land of the Pilgrim's pride! From every mountain side, Let freedom ring! My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love. I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture fills Like that above. Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees Sweet freedom's song. Let mortal tongues awake; Let all that breathe partake; Let rocks their silence break, The sound prolong. Our father's God to, Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King! I've been a lot of places in the world but I truly believe that the United States of America is a special place and if we adhere to the true tenets of  the nation's founding we can be the greatest nation in the world. Reading or better yet singing the lyrics to, My Country Ti...

Man, the water was super cloudy while trying to snorkel yesterday..... This is about all I could get. Should have surfed instead. Oh well......

Anything that has to be filmed from a helicopter has to be pretty bad a$$. Crosswords are for people who need word searches with hints. I'm like Donald Duck, I hate to wear pants. If you go fast enough, speed bumps become speed jumps. No flashing lights? No flat tires? No problem with that move then. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Wanna know the easiest way to do something? Ask the laziest person how to do it. Aint nothing to it, but to do it. I don't just want candy, I need candy! (Carl voice from ATHF)

This past Friday through Sunday I spent up north of LA shooting in the West Coast Steel Championships. There are 8 standard stages that you shoot 5 times with your worst time thrown out. Each stage has 5 targets set up in different ways. It is a very simple, elemental test of shooting skill. At speed. Three stages I shot averagely. Two stages I shot great. Three stages I shot poorly. I was category hunting at this match, shooting a gun I rarely shoot and in a type of match I'd never shot before. Not excuses, but just clarifying. It was my plan to shoot a category with few entrants in the hope of placing better overall in my division. Scores will be posted in a week, seemingly by passenger pigeon, so I'll let you know how I've done then. So I didn't win my division. That I do know. But I learned I need to control some of my match jitters better when doing something new. I need to stick with what I am good at, not change the game plan. (meaning I shouldn't have sh...

One of the things I've learned I like to do is downhill mountain bike. This is the "extreme" form of mountain biking. This isn't about being skinny and going a long distance off road. It's about jumps, stunts, gnarly terrain, speed and so on. I am not 18. I'm not 20 or 25 or even gasp 30. I've ridden various two wheeled things my whole life but I never raced bmx as a kid or had a motocross bike when younger. So big jumps are kinda new to me and mentally intimidating. When there is a 10 foot gap you got to clear on a pedal or gravity powered bicycle let's just say that still gets in my head. I've done steeps, loose stuff, big table tops, wooden stunts but for some reason doing doubles or gap jumps just got in my head and I rode around them. Until today. There is a saying I believe, it comes in various forms but it basically goes like this, "Things don't get easier to do, you just get better at doing them." It's not that the n...

As a basic theory it is my opinion the confidence comes from mental and physical preparation. Do what you physically can and do what you mentally can and you should thus feel confident. By nature and nurture I am a competitive person. Thus, I do not enjoy losing. OK, I can understand losing but I most vehemently don't like it when I beat myself. I can understand, but not tolerate, that someone was better than me at something on any given day. They probably did more work than me, thus they won. But when I beat myself? Intolerable. Confidence goes a long way towards winning. However you want to define either of them, confidence or winning. With that theme in mind I'd like to share some of what I've learned to have confidence, a winning mindset. -Have a plan for your practice and document your progress. Things need to be directed and measured to track improvement. If you don't write it down, it didn't happen. -Rest. Very few people over train. In reality what y...

Two books have came onto my radar that I'd like to read. Maybe I should just order them when I get my Hebrew textbook $36... The first is "The Watchers" by Shane Harris, subtitled 'The Rise of the American Surveillance State'. I like his writing in a magazine I subscribe to and I think the timing is good based on the recent stuff about the NSA. $28 from B&N. Secondly is "The Skies Belong to Us" by Brendan Koerner, subtitles 'Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking' that was released today. It is staggering to realize just how many planes were hijacked in the 60s and 70s and by extremely diverse individuals. Again, something that works as interesting reading in today's climate and a little covered topic. $20. Finally "The Son" by Phillip Meyer. A sweeping book covering 4 generations of Texans from 1840's onward. If you loved Michener then you'll dig this as well. $15 So roughly $80 dollars for four books I...

Today I was working out at Balboa Park and I got stung by a bee in the grass while doing push ups. Having been bitten by a fish recently in such a Jaws like way I thought I'd catalog all the different creatures who've "bitten" me in some way. -bee -parrot fish -garter and water snake -ferret -dog -cat -rat -parrot, lark, goose, duck -stingray -mosquito, sand fleas, tick, spider -crab If another new type of animal bites me in the next week I don't know what I am going to do. I've already been "bitten" by like 9 different types of creatures, which I bet is far above the average. I doubt going vegan would save me from this peril as you notice I've never been bitten by a cow, chicken, turkey, shrimp or salmon. Great, now listing all these animals I'm hungry!!

LK-LK is my biological father. His genetics make me half Norwegian. Short with red hair. And possibly the reason why I have Crohns disease as he has Ulcerative Colitis. I don't know the whole, true story of how it all broke down but I know he got my mom pregnant in high school and then wasn't around after the fact. I reached out to him a few years ago and we've met in person and still talk occasionally. I'd say we are friends. But what has been most interesting to me is to see how he and his family have had to deal with the revelation of my existence. How something from soooo long ago and still effect you now. Everything happens for a reason. We all make mistakes. You've heard all those things before. All I know now is he seems to have tried the rest of his life to be a good dad to the kids he did raise and genuinely seems contrite over what I'm sure was truly a tough situation when he was a teenager. I of course hold no judgment against him and hope he forg...

First, I will be writing a biographical post for Father's Day soon, so if you want some Rowdy history be sure to tune back in for it. But this post is about tenderness. For the past week I have had multiple, daily influences that have softened my heart. Made me feel an empathetic tenderness. Which is something new for me. And no, I am not "on meds" or anything else. Goodness, can't a guy have feelings? But first a list of recent events in the world that just saddened me. (source: ForeignPolicy.com) -Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has begun deploying street-level workers to address everyday problems like bread distribution. People are still waiting in line for bread in this world. In a country that used to hold in physical from a majority of then known knowledge in the library at Alexandria. -Mexican authorities rescued 51 migrants, mostly from Guatemala, who were allegedly kidnapped and held in Nogales, near the border with Arizona. 51! The effort, planning and...

And now I'm getting another chance to show what I can do........................... I was selected to compete in the IDPA National Championships this September in Oklahoma! I made the cut, now I got to put in some more work! My goal is top 10 in my classification, Expert. Rowdystyle.

I had my first Hebrew class last night and you never would have picked my teacher out of a crowd and said, "Oh yeah, he is definitely a Hebrew teacher. -60 years old -from Detroit -Christian -Black -never been to Israel But I enjoy the class, the language and so on. And if I get to go to graduate school in Israel this will pay off so greatly. I dream of a lot of things, but when I think of actually accomplishing something of worth that year of graduate school, abroad and in an area of study I enjoy it keeps me moving forward.

Back in the 80s the Army ran a recruitment commercial with the tagline "we do more before 6am than most people do all day". Hardly an enticement if you ask me. But I do get in more shooting practice and bike jumps in before noon than most people do all day.

Off topic, I shaved my beard off today. So back to smooth face, but still buzzed on top. Deal with it mom. =) I must have awesome hat style sense, because on three different vacations in 3 different countries seemingly normal locals have asked for my hat. To buy, barter or beg. In Malaysia I traded a security guard at the MotoGP race a Fox Racing hat for his race security hat. Which I don't think I have anymore, to my chagrin. In Chile I gave away a black fleece Neff hat with ears like a bear. One of the guides I went trekking and rock climbing with really wanted it and always commented on how awesome he thought it was. I actually gave him the hat and some other REI gear I had as well. He needed it. I also seem to have this idea, possibly from literature about nomadic tribes that if someone compliments you on a possession you should give it to them. Like giving shelter to someone in a storm no matter what. That kind of thing. So in Mexico last week when the guy who was le...

While in Mexico snorkeling last week I got bit by I think a parrot fish. Whatever the species it hurt and I now probably have fish rabies. Here is a picture of the bloody wound. Video of the snorkeling trip will be coming soon. I've been reading a lot of science books lately and really have had my concept of "time" altered. I now fully believe that time is just a measured change of state. Time is fluid, variable and changing. It is not something to do with clocks or seconds. Time is really just a change in state. When I fly anywhere outside of the US I fly first class. If you are not sure it is worth the extra money, I say it totally is. To be honest I normally sit there somewhat smugly or with an air of aloofness. This last trip I decided to change up my attitude about it after receiving an internal impression I should. I now have to go to page 21 of my passport to find an empty page, and that is the only empty page. I told myself I would look each person in the ey...

-I took lots of pictures of what I thought were silly warning signs. Seems people actually do die from falling into a geyser or getting gored by a bison. I got within 3 yards of a bison, nothing happened. I walked off trail and up to a geyser. Nothing happened. I jumped over a retaining wall to a cliff edge to take pictures. Nothing happened. I still did my thing, but man, the thought of being boiled alive in a sulpherous geyser gives me the willies. -My parents were hippies. Now they are pretty conservative. But still, who else but the child of hippies would hear, "what did you do to your hair?!?! Don't come back again until you have longer hair!!" and I don't think she was but 1/4 joking. Nothing about looking more healthy or fit. Nothing about having grown a beard. Just that I had short hair. -Utards. So there I was bemoaning the idiocy of the average Utah driver when one of Hurricane City's finest pulls me over for 62mph in a 45mph. When asked if I knew wh...

So part 1 was Bryce, Zion and Cedar Break parks. Part two was Jackson, Grand Teton and Yellowstone. Then it is off to Cozumel Mexico for the "vacation from vacation". Part one was sunny and mostly warm in southern Utah. Part two was rainy and cold in Wyoming. It was at one time 28F and snowy and at most 53F and overcast. Ate trout, venison and elk. As for live animals I saw elk, bison, osprey and so on. Sadly I didn't ever see a bear or wolves. Hopefully part three will be warm and calm on a Mexican beach. With lots of fun fish to see snorkeling. And of course here are some pictures. I've been using my new camera, lenses and such from my birthday gift. I'm a little disappointed in my photos but I am entirely self taught and using my camera all on manual definitely makes things trickier. Shooting with a bright sky, shadows and with water just makes balancing my exposures soooo tough. Nonetheless, here ya go readers!