Of Pens and Swords

Built into the new suit will be a voice activated system that can access email and cell phone services, a built in HUD so that computer or gaming consoles can be accessed from the suit, and a brand new system that takes noise filtering to an all new level, by being able to program in certain voices, such as a parent, teacher, or any authority figure, and cancelling out their voices. This way, the child may experience life to the fullest w/o having to worry about anything external slowing them down……

This is what I see coming. Some of the things that we did as kids are now being punished to what seems to be extremes. Things that our parents did for us, like take us on a back road or out somewhere remote to let us drive the car under very close supervision is now landing parents in jail for YEARS for child endangerment. Its now being seen as abuse to even reprimand a child for not listening, and blatantly disobeying rules that are set forth. Children [edit] now have the authority to call the police on their parents because the parent is not letting them do something, even if the child doesn’t deserve it (like being grounded). Parents are considered abusive if they try and push a child academically, so that they won’t have a future in flipping burgers or working as a fuel pumping specialist their adult lives. On top of that, the education system is now focusing on pure education, taking out activities like PE or recess, since they don’t overall benefit the child…for children, especially boys, that have the excess energy that they would normally expel on the playground are now being medicated because they don’t know whats wrong with the kid…he’s entirely too energetic.

The benefits of being a child that gets out and plays with other kids, get the energy out through physical activities, and generally just doing things that kids worldwide do, is now being seen as ‘The Devil’. I don’t understand how shielding a child from everything from bumps and bruises to other kids is ever going to get them to develop in a natural way. And as a parent, how is it going to be that I don’t even have the authority to teach my kid, but instead just leave it up to someone else.

It’s a sad day to realize that one day, I’ll probably be sitting in jail, with the rest of my life in ruins, because I took my kids out to play or took them out to teach them something, and even though nobody will get hurt in any way, I’ll be seen as someone who threatened the child’s life. I will take my kid out to climb a wall or show them the proper way in handling a weapon, and I’ll be lumped in with the same parents that lock their kids in the basement and starve them or the ones that drive drunk with the kids not buckled in the backseat.

I just don’t get how we’re expected to be parents, but being told not to be parents. It doesn’t matter. In the famous words of Chuck Murphy, ‘RAGE!’ . I’m not scared to do the right thing, even if I’m punished for it.

While doing my busy work and not really in the mood to make any serious Friday accomplishments happen, I usually glance through the news headlines, watch the market either fall or climb. Today, however, was my blog perusing day. I just keep hitting the Next Blog button, see what comes up. Mostly, it’s nothing, or it’s some advertisement site (still nothing), or it’s a teenager writing like they’re texting. Occasionally, there is a blog that you can come across that has a topic, a linear conversation, so forth. It’s one of these I came across today. It’s from a serious Right-Winger, which I don’t totally agree with, but it has politics in there, and the usual diatribe of liberal vs. conservative bashing…it passes the time.

This particular posting goes along the same lines as what I’ve been saying for years. Though I don’t agree with the religious aspects of the conversation, I do believe that men here in America have been long undergoing the feminization process, through media and government. What I mean by that is that girls and women are being brought up to believe that a guy acting like a guy is a bad thing, or the government starts things like the whole Political Correctness movement (they didn’t actually start it, but they sure did adopt it quickly), which directly targets men. 30 years of this feminizing America has lead to women expecting men to act like women but also act like men, and men being confused as to whether do this and maybe get laid occasionally, but also be bashed by the woman for not acting enough like a man; or disagreeing with, and blatantly opposing, the feminization process and be called all sorts of names and being treated like a barbarian, but knowing he’s going to be living a life swimming upstream and most likely won’t find someone that’s compatible.

I’ve posted along this subject line before a couple of times, mostly because it’s something that I strongly believe in. What’s happening to men here in this country is leading to what women go through in the middle east. Sure, a lot of women are going to think that that’s just fine by them, and completely fair…but it’s not. Not many people ever feel good for wronging somebody that wronged them. Most people usually feel bad afterwards because of it, then try to rationalize their actions. Right now, we’re in the middle of the act of wronging a whole gender…and the bad part is that it’s an act of vengeance going back thousands of years by our ancestors. It’s not in retaliation to what we’ve done individually. In many ways, it reminds me of how the black population wants to be compensated because their ancestors were sold by their ancestors to white slave traders…it’s hardly our fault that bad decisions were made 500 years ago, but we’re expected to pay for it now…

I digress. I got lucky and found someone that I can talk to and have a lot of fun with, and I don’t have to neither compromise who I am nor act like someone I’m not. I’m stressing that I got lucky. I can count the women I’ve known in my life on one hand that both wants a man to act like one, and doesn’t expect him to be her girlfriend as well. It’s a rare attribute.

What I’ve realized from this relationship is that it is so much more relaxing, and easier, to be able to treat her as an equal, and also know that that’s what she wants. I don’t come home being pissed off because I know that once I walk through the door, I am not going to be allowed to be me anymore. I don’t have to get ulcers because I’m so stressed out and confused by having to repress myself and have to put up with being treated like a punk bitch. I know that a lot of guys go through just that too. No longer is compromise a function of the group, but in many cases, the only compromise falls on the man solely. That, my dear reader(s), is not compromise…that is defeat.

What I don’t understand is why so many people buy into this. What causes women to feel like the only way to be happy is to defeat men (thus causing them to not be happy, but that’s another posting) and men being defeated because for some reason they think that’s how it’s supposed to be (thus becoming unhappy because they’re not having anything fulfilled and becoming confused as to what a man really is).

To end this long-ass-posting, I’ll end with this. I was always brought up to believe that if you have a complaint about something, before airing it, have a solution, or at least a proposal. Here’s my solution….
Men, stop believing that it’s your duty to be stepped on. But don’t go the other route and think a woman is property.
Women, stop believing that it’s your duty to control every aspect of a man’s life, because he also is not property. Stop believing that a man is also supposed to be your girlfriend. That’s why you have girlfriends.
Both Men and Women, realize that a zen circle is composed of both yin and yang…and that creates harmony…having utter control over the other person destabilizes the harmony for a time being, and getting that harmony back is going to be a painful and emotionally brutal process. Basically, get over yourself.

We get there Monday to set up the camp at a local lake here. Mainly, it was setting up a lot of tents, the large tents that the Army likes to use. Being a light-fighter, a tent for me is usually a poncho bungee’d to my ruck and to a tree, or to a buddies ruck, 18″ or closer to the ground, and camouflaged. The ones here are big, heavy, and half of them I think saw service in the jungles of Vietnam…they’re old hehe. Then I came home after that.
Tuesday is when the kids arrived. All 140 or so of them. I have tent Blue 4, along with a deputy that works at the county jail named Denny. We got 8 kids altogether, from all over town. We had the few inner city kids, a couple mommas boys, and a couple that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was interesting to see a wide variety of personalities, and how they worked together. It also showed me that for the most part, the kids wanted to both fit in to their group, and to do their best. It seems to be inherent.
Some of the kids seemed to be starved for attention, and giving them that little attention brought out the best in them. One kid was the typical ‘I Can’t’ kid…everything that was more challenging than standing up, he always said that he couldn’t do it. We did push ups, and he said he couldn’t, so I had him drop to his knee’s and do them that way…he wouldn’t climb the wall, says that he couldn’t…I made him suit up anyways, reassured him that absolutely nothing was going to happen to him….the tug-of-war, he said he couldn’t, he wasn’t strong enough. By the end of the second day, he was up to 20 regular push ups, pretty much because he saw that he was the only one doing them on his knees…I let him know that the day before, he said he couldn’t do 1…the tug-of-war, I made him the anchor, and I let him know that he was a big part in our team winning against a much older and much bigger group, and the climbing wall, although he didn’t get to the top, he did get about 10 ft up, or about 1/3 up…something else he said he couldn’t do. I didn’t even say he had to do any of them, but I did want him to participate. Another kid, came there being a loudmouth and not listening, but by the end of it, he was seriously starting to take charge of the group. Instead of being the instigator in some of the problems, he was trying to solve them.
We had a couple kids who didn’t participate much…one, he started out strong, but the last day and a half, he just seemed to give up. I’m not sure why…he didn’t participate in any of the activities really, he refused to listen to both his peers and to the counselors…he wanted things his way or no way…Another kid, I sort of felt a little bad for him. I talked to his mom and his mom’s friend, and it just seems that he was completely sheltered from everything. It didn’t help that he was the smallest of the group, and it also didn’t help that he was on ADHT medication for the school year, and cut off right before he got out there…but after getting him the opportunity to shine in front of the other kids, and a little positive re enforcement, he finished strong.

We took the kids fishing for a little bit. It was in a couple little stock ponds, so it’s a guarantee that you’ll catch something, but I don’t think any of my kids had ever been fishing before. They all caught at least a couple of fish, and man you could see both the excitement of the catch and the fear of what to do next :) Even the couple of kids who initially didn’t want to fish were out there catching a few. It was a good time.

Overall, I noticed that the kids who had friends already made friends easily, but the kids who didn’t have any, and spent the majority of their time inside playing on the computer or PlayStation, they are the ones who had the most difficult time in adjusting. I also noticed the difference in the kids who had siblings as opposed to the ones who didn’t…they were flat up spoiled if they were the single kid.

I had fun though. Our team won 3 of the 4 competitions, and would have won the fourth (I believe) but there was a little nepotism involved…can’t beat that I guess.

We had a bit of a storm blow through on Thursday night, no rain, just gusts. One of the gusts, about 2am caught everybody by surprise. We were all outside (the counselors), just getting ready to get a little sleep, when all of a sudden the temp dropped about 10 degrees. We knew that something was coming. A lot of us had buttoned up the tents earlier, made sure the lines were tied tight, but some of them still had their sides up. As soon as the temp dropped, a couple of us knew that something was coming, and decided to start getting the tents buttoned up. I saw one tent, wide open, and started to it, grabbing somebody along the way to help. As soon as I said we had to drop the sides on the tent so it didn’t blow over, a nice 50mph gust came along and took that tent right down…We ran over, made sure none of the kids were hurt, and started to evac the kids to the shelter at the rifle range, about 2 miles away. that was fun…140 some kids complaining ;) We got the rest of the tents all buttoned up, the kids out of there. About 15 minutes after we got all the kids over there, we were cleared to come back…overall, about 2 hours had passed from getting them out of the rack to back in.

That was about the extent of last week. 4 days 3 nights of that. I’ll be going back if given the opportunity.

Other breaking news…Jessica and I got married on Monday. It was a little civil marriage, just us, the kids, and a couple of friends. I’m feeling pretty good about it. I got pretty lucky with Jessica. 2 years into it, a deployment that lasted 13 months, moving twice to areas she’s never lived, and she just rolls with it. I know that every relationship has ups and downs, but we really haven’t seen a down yet. We’re pretty much on the same level with everything, and it makes things automatically comfortable. She also doesn’t blow things out of proportion, trying to mix drama and more stress into things (and I hope that I don’t either hehe) that area already stressful, but instead figures out the logical process of fixing the problem. I know that I got lucky. A lot more so than a lot of guys I know.

Anyways. This week, it’s back to work. I had a week of catching up to do, but since the week before I left for LAW camp and all the prep work done then, I had everything caught up by lunch Monday. I have a problem or two that I’m still working on, but for the most part, I’m completely caught up, even on my side projects that I’ve been working on. A few blueprints to make, logical network diagrams to produce, and I’ll be sitting pretty. It’ll be a good thing to leave this job, whenever I happen to do that, with the feeling that the next guy or girl taking this job will have a well documented and thoroughly explained group of airports to manage. It’s something that I wish I had when I took over.