Me or ??

Who's got the sweetest disposition?
One guess -- guess who!
Who never never starts an argument?
Who never shows a bit of temperament?
Who's never wrong but always right?
Who'd never dream of starting a fight?
Who gets stuck with all the bad luck?
No one... but ______________________!!

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So I'm back to using my twitter account again. Should you have the extra brain cells and boredom follow @rowdstar and I'll follow you back. Promise. Oh and I promise to post pictures of my lunch, the cat, where I am in the world and some sort of semi whitty rejoinder.

1776 and 1492

I've been to a lot of countries in the world. Generally at the end of my stay while I appreciate what I've seen and experienced I still feel that America is one of the better places to live in the world. Very few of us worry about clean water. The electricity and telephone networks work 24 hours a day. You can get an apartment without being on a waiting list. I've never paid a bribe in the US. My vote gets counted. I can practice a religion without fear. You sure can't say these things about most other places in the world I have been.

Sorry America but where I think you could use some help from you foreign brothers is in how people drive on the highway. Of the first world countries I've driven in the US is by far the worst for people just staying to the left, driving below the limit and not moving over to let someone pass.

Come on US drivers, get it together and stop being left lane bandits!

Trust

I have two more days of background checks to be completed before I know if I get my Trusted Traveler/Global Entry status from DHS. Should I worry? Well....... Things started rough in the interview when I had to explain why my income doesn't match their idea of someone who has traveled as much as I do. I think I overcame that one to the interviewing agent's satisfaction.

Middle of interview was fine. Then we get to the end and final question, "Have you ever been arrested, detained, handcuffed or fingerprinted?" I had to answer yes. Two years ago I was fingerprinted by Harbor Police at the San Diego airport as I had mistakenly left ammunition on my carry on bag and it was detected at screening. Everyone was cool and I boarded the plane on time and just fine.

But it was still an "incident", and the agent said it might prohibit my enrollment in the program and I'd lose my $100 application fee. My interview was the 2nd, so I should know by the 12th.............. if DHS trusts me or not.

Choices

I like to do two things that others sometimes question. Shoot guns and ride motorcycles. Both are things people think of in some way as dangerous or not a necessary activity. Now if I had to choose just one of them to participate in I'd probably choose motorcycles. If I had to only do one for the rest of my life I'd prefer to ride a motorcycle around.

Now if you were talking about the right to do something, I'd go with firearm ownership. I'd rather have my transportation rights restricted than something mentioned in the Constitution.

So it really shouldn't be surprise then that I went for a ride this Labor Day morning. With my GoPro.

I won my division and the overall for the match today. Yeah! Feels good. It was a very long day though!

At the last indoor match I met and Adidas rep and got a deal for half off anything from Adidas. So I'm gonna take big time advantage of this shoe deal! Casual, outdoor, cleats, clothes. And of course for Super D as well.

I shaved my head. My hair is about 1/8th of an inch. At most. I like it. Well what I actually like is not having to do anything to it or think about it. That is what I like!

My interview with DHS went well right up until they asked me if I've ever been fingerprinted, handcuffed, detained and so on. Told them the story and they said they'd have to investigate and since it did happen at an airport I might not be granted my Global Entry/Trusted Traveler/Sentri. And lose the $100 fee. Sigh.....

My buddy DO came back from 5 months of work in Singapore this week and today was the first day I saw him. Felt good to see a friend after a long absence.

Killer moved outta the house. He is in a different state and will hopefully be doing college type stuff there. Fingers crossed.

I have a cut on my right eye lid that is driving me crazy! Painful and irritated. Yuck.

And in the whiney department, one of my motorcycles has a significant leak from the seal around the fuel pump in the gas tank. So that is going to be a bear to fix as it's an aftermarket tank and installing it was not fun and a two person job. It worked great for 6 months but if it happens again I'll go back to the stock tank.

Very excited to see Little S in three weeks and visit Spain again. I should get on my Spanish study again! ssiiigghhh....

For the Labor Day holiday will go for a hike and probably motorcycle ride. Tuesday I'm on house arrest basically as I have to wait all day for UPS to show up, for the third time, so they can get my apparently very valuable signature.

So yeah, that's the recap. Good night dear readers!

Set your goals!

At each big USPSA match I've been to this year my overall placing has improved, but for the National Championships where you have to look at my classification placing to see the trend continue.
Area 2 Desert Classic this March I was 19th overall in Production, shooting 67%. And 4th B.
Golden Bullet this May I was 10th overall in Production, shooting 71%. And 4th A.
Production National Championships this August I was 101st overall, shooting 70%. And 11th A.
Utah State this August as well I was 9th overall, shooting 88%. And 2nd A.

My percentage of the match winner is getting better, my overall is getting better and my class finish is getting better. Onward and upward!

In two weeks I go the the IDPA World Championships. Last year I was division champion for ESP in an Arizona match. At the US IDPA Championships last year I was 16th place in SSP Master. IDPA and USPSA are both pistol shooting competitions but they are decidedly different, so hard to make a direct comparison. None the less I've been improving this year in USPSA so I hope I'm also improving in IDPA.

With that in mind my goal this year is to be in the top 10 at the IDPA Worlds for my division, SSP. I'm already at the top skill class for IDPA, Master, so overall finish is all that really counts. Trending shows I should be able to do it, tough goal it is though.....

I have a challenging IDPA match in Los Angeles this Saturday, and I am going to shoot it aggressively. I will probably not win with this strategy but I want to push myself a little. Find the edge by going over it. Then the following weekend I have one closer in in San Diego and I'm going to shoot it as cleanly as possible. Ratchet things back down and be more precise, so I'll probably win as I can't remember the last Pala IDPA match I didn't win the overall when I competed..... Been at least a year.

Two weeks from now you should see my post on facebook smiling, saying "I did it!"

Art. Deception.

I have a book, now out of print, entitled "The Art of Deception". Initially one would think this book is about how to deceive but rather it is about detecting other's deception and countering it. Primarily in verbal or written communication. (For body language I recommend the book "What Every Body is Saying")

Which in my stream of conscious thought leads me to wanting to post this poster of logical fallacies. Read it and weep when you realize how often you've made these errors tying to prove a point. That is if you are a real Scotsman....