According To:

1. A ruling on Bacon... According to the internet, there is no 'Greater Hudson Bacon Guild'. Well, guess who's been laboring under yet another false presumption. I was in the offices the other day, to gab with Kristi. All was as it should be, until she broached the bacon theme with something Tim had shared about his bacon preparation protocols; it seems that he bakes his in the oven. 'Bakon'?

This morning, Pat was asked by his wife Carla. "Do you have to do bacon EVERY Sunday?" Dearest, dulcet lambs, without whom we men are incomplete, It's Bacon..

Presented with this surge of bacon confusion, and given that bacon IS the purview of Men, and in the absence of a Greater Hudson Bacon Guild, The Man Code heretofore adopts this bastard child of the breakfast table as ward. All bacon-related queries may; and questions of protocol and practice must, be directed to this regulating blog.

Resolved: Bacon may certainly be prepared, in the oven, at the prescribed temperature, until it chances upon the desired crispness or lack thereof.

Resolved: Pat indeed must "...do bacon EVERY Sunday".

Good Day!

Just In Time

So, while it is possible to be a man and not a Dad, it's just too pathetic to be a Dad but not a man... So, this in mind, I very nearly missed an opportunity to show I am either.

We do AWANA, and when I say 'we' I mean I sit in the office at church and answer questions while the kids participate in all of the activities. Anna walked in to the office and told me that a boy had hit her in the face with a ball, and ".. he had not even cared." I comforted my little girl and kissed the side of her face, where I could see the ball had hit. She lingered. Suddenly, it dawned on me that she was awaiting action of some sort..
"Would you like me to go, and talk to them about it?" She nodded, yes. I walked into the community room to perform some quick, corrective action. "Did one of you boys hit this little girl in the face with a ball?" I asked. A nice, you man confessed, adding that he didn't mean to, and.. I stopped him. "Did you apologize to her, for hitting her in the face, with a ball? He began to start with a second explanation. I repeated my question. A couple of little girls, interested in the spectacle unfolding in their space, piped up. "NO, HE DIDN'T! He said that he had not. "Do you think it might be a good idea to apologize to her, now? I suggested. He apologized, the nice kid.

As I walked out of the community room, I looked at my daughter; in her eyes and all over her face was something I will never forget. She was looking at her Daddy, who had come to stand up for her, had taken up her case and followed through on what was important to her. She felt valued and honored that I had been there for her when she needed me to be there. She can trust me more, now. She knows that I believe her, and what matters to her, also matters to me.

Thank You, God for letting me be the Daddy of that little girl. Thank You for not letting me fail her, tonight.

I'm Still Laughing..

Man, do I love me some children's literature!

Marking My Territory

I really have no time for a dog that marks, in my house. It is a challenge to my position when he does it on my stuff. To be fair, Ohana used to do it and Maggie peed in the house for a while after we adopted her. Gizmo began when he got here and continued even after his castration, as many dogs will. There's just something about the urine that matters to dogs.

This morning, he marked in my bedroom. I took him outside on a leash, held him down with my foot and, sparing not his face, marked my territory. He squealed a little but stopped struggling as soon as he realized what it was. I walked him inside, drenched to the skin, and let him wait outside the tub until Cheryl was done with her shower. He is now, once again, a cute, fluffy dog.

The other two dogs were Very curious about his smell, after the soaking. I wonder what they're thinking.

Man Code's Rule of Thirds

I have this theorum which, given the referendum, by virtue of my position of sole writer for this site, must be affirmed as a 'Rule'; to whit: 'Any stimulus which, by itself can compel an action, must itself be subject in it's authority over the body and it's actions, to the influence of other ovrwhelming stimulus'. Here's my example: I am in constant levels of varying pain. In this, pain is the stimulus. I subscribe to a pain management program of medication and moderated activity. If either of the two components are inconsistent, the level of pain stimulation overloads the limbic system and I get uncontrollable spasms throughout my body.

When I find myself thus cascading I have previously been resolved to ride it out and chastise myself for allowing the wheels to, once again, fall off of my pain plan. Hmmm. Enter my new 'Rule'. Think of the pain in it's extremity as Stimulus #1; driving my body into spasms. In order to interrupt the signal to my brain I need a stimulus with equal or greater power to compel...I nominate the pleasure center. Pain and pleasure work in the same way, using the same receptors for different must-read messages; "Stop doing that, it's causing damage." And. "Do some more of that, it brings benefit." The body is hard-wired to hit the pleasure button and release those feelgoods, the endorphins. Pleasure seeking behavior results in propagation of the genetic line, provisioning of nutrients and maintenance of overall health.

Given the option, I suspect that the body will elect pleasure, to abate tortuous pain and I believe it is within our grasp to force the process.

Tell me if this passes the sniff test.

Hangman

Timmy was there when I awoke this morning. I generally stretch my arms and legs, shoulders, hips and hands before I can get out of bed to take my morning pain-meds. Tim contemplated me in silence before asking. "Dad, why did you go to the war?"

I explained that I had chosen to be a soldier many years before and that as such, it was my duty to go and do this thing. I explained that there was a very bad man, named Saddam Hussein who was the leader of a country and he had been killing thousands upon thousands of his own people for many years and America's soldiers answered the call of humanity to stop him and remove him from power. I said. "and we did catch him; he was dragged from the concrete hole where he had hidden himself. He was put on trial by his own people and they determined that he was guilty; they put a rope around his neck and they hung him.



Right away he said It's like 'hangman' the game but he didn't get to guess his letters!

No Tim, he sure didn't.

Flash To Bang

In the world of uniformed military 'flash to bang' is a rough estimate of the distance you are from an explosion. Sound travels about a kilometer a second, so if you count off the time from flash until you hear the bang, you should know approximate distance.

I developed a vernacular characterization to apply to those I thought of as pompous and useless people; "all flash - no bang". I want to discuss with you, reader a problem endemic to our society at all observable levels; the impression that some lives do not matter.

As a parent of two pre-teens, I am sensitive to the culture they are entering, wondering what role I have played in creating it and surveying my options to prepare them as young followers of Christ to impact His will. I am home all the time and devote a tremendous amount of attention and circumspection to both of my kids. The way that they are changing in maturity, becoming more aware of content and context and connecting with the world has me "on the bounce" as Sergeant Zim would say. The other morning, while I was making breakfast, Timmy brought out a deck of 'Armored Vehicle Recognition' cards from the 1980s. He said that he had some cool cards that he wanted to give me, that he had been 'saving for a long time' I replied that I recognized them since I'd given them to him... He began to review them, quizzing me about each one. He showed me the picture or described the vehicle or just read me the name; I was supposed to tell him something about each one. This made me smile because it was exactly what we used to do in the Infantry to train for 'Squad Intelligence' testing. Timmy described one vehicle to me and I asked him if it was a tank. He replied that No, he didn't think so because it had no main gun mounted.

I'm doing some things right. I try to be the same person when I am alone that I am in their presence because integrity can't be compartmentalized. If you spend any amount of time around someone or if you are a trained intelligence agent observer you can detect where the pattern ends and the frayed thread begins to reveal what is behind the curtain.

I am in a position to see a lot of what happens in the environment that my family lives in. I think spatially, which makes me good at analyzing and making obscure connections. I also have learned to be silent about what I know so people talk freely around me. I have long felt that there are perhaps more liabilities connected to great intelligence than there are benefits; I cannot enjoy the bliss of ignorance or convince myself that all is well, so how do I raise children that I anticipate will be every bit as perceptive as myself and yet encourage them to engage in a world that is really just a rotting melon?

There is, admittedly, a fair influence of my own psychological damage in this perception of mine but not so much that there really is a Santa Claus

"ich will sie bumsen" The days of my youth included seasons of rebellion and forays into dangerous behaviors. None of what I experienced as a wild teen placed me in nearly as much peril as that which today stalks a naive high school student who engages in risk behaviors. I do see the danger that lurks in the daylight, in the guise of harmless or even helpful strangers but I just don't believe that the kids who put that slogan above on their facebook page are even mildly aware of the scent it puts out to real predators.

I believe we too value less noble pursuits than we are capable of. It cheapens us as the children of God when we set, as virtue, the deception of appearance over substance of Godly character. I see our political process as the vilest example of this chicanery. In the last Presidential election campaign we saw the very worst of subtleties emerge in the manipulation of the electorate. Sophisticated marketing strategies were very successfully applied in order to influence the audience at a subconscious level; the very goal being the association of strong character values with someone who had none of those attributes. I expect that this degraded state of character is an end-times trend. We have been a state in decline as has been the case with any culture that sets themselves aside from God and replaces Him with secular aspirations. We are only a step away from making God illegal in America but as I have long averred, I will resist and become noncompliant with societal fads that make my behaviors illegal. Remember that the Constitution of the United States of America does not grant rights but recognizes inalienable rights granted by God and therefore inseparable from the citizen by the machinery of the state.

Be assured, I am the parent who actively pursues the well-being of my children.

Regardless of how an individual conducts themselves with the tasks they have accepted responsibility for, they are not just valuable but precious, to God. Each of us can take no step that is not seen by a loving heavenly Father who delights in us and mourns our bad choices. It then falls to us to be caregivers for our brothers and sisters in the way that Jesus would, cherishing and jealously protecting them.

Barack Obama: Infanticide Advocate

The Barack Obama Infanticide video.

Test Balloon

Feel free to share in my fun; this image is free for everyone to use.

Abcessed Tooth

I'm typing with a mouthful of Tortugan Rum because I need to see a dentist. A few weeks ago I began experiencing pain in my left, upper teeth; I figured that they might be moving and pressure was causing pain. Yesterday, the area began to hurt a lot more so I let hot coffee sit on the teeth and gums which settled it down some; this morning I suspect an abcessed tooth.

Skol! The rum is supposed by the on-line community, to be whiskey. Now what kind of pirate would do a thing like that? I'm on my second glass of therapy so I figure that I hadn't written anything on Man Code lately and it has caused an abcess to form in my tooth; It's my reckless irresponsibility come to roost, really.

A partial list of my other man-sins that may have caused the abcess:

1. I missed the EAA Warbird Show at Osh Kosh. Radial engines... 2000 horsepower R 2800 Pratt and Whitney Rolls Royce Merlin 18 cylinder 2,800 cu. in. or the 1700 horse Allison Model V-1710-51 (right-hand drive) 12 cylinder, supercharged with a 1,710 cu.in. displacement...

Third glass. The tooth is numbing nicely.

2. I have yet to imbibe the essence of the varmint poontang when a prairie dog does the 'misty prairie hop' and the scent of cordite embeds in my flesh, making me irrestistable to my wife. The concussive effect of the long-bore, high-power firing might have cleared the foul tooth demons out; Coulda-woulda-shoulda...

3. I've had several occasions to start fights with tough teenagers that, when properly instigated can loosen teeth and release set-in tension.


4. I have yet to be abducted by space aliens; I don't care what they might do to my ass as long as they do some of that advanced alien-tech dental with no co-pay.

I'm looking at glass 4...The instructions said you are supposed to spit it out; perhaps that's why they also suggested whiskey. I'm gonna go curl up in my bed with my wife and my dog too; I'll bet he could lick and chew out that abcess. Guess if it's still hurtin' in the morning I'll make bacon and let him work on it through my bad teeth.

McNo Thank You...

Ronald McDonald wants to hold your pickle and hold your nuggets... Ha, that's funny to me. Disgusting agenda

Why can't the Golden Arches just stick to selling burgers?

I Know What I Want To Do...Epilogue

Well,



I finally got to talk to her dad. He was wide-eyed and angry; appreciative for my willingness to step up as a neighbor.



I caught up to him as he was leaving for work; he gave me his card after hearing his nightmare-come-true and we're meeting later to take the boy for a walk in the woods, where we'll force him to dig his own grave before dad beheads him with the shovel. My neighbor is a very likeable guy who has worked as a construction contractor. I wouldn't want to be man-boy tonight...

Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to do the right thing and tell Dad.

Everything Old Is New, Again.

The First part of King Henry the Fourth

Act 2.

SCENE III. Warkworth castle

LADY PERCY

O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talk'd
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.

And hast your wife, herself a victim of this internal warring set beside thee and watched? Doth she also cry as in your dreams the battle rages ahead and behind? Hast thou a remedy for this hot illness upon thy armory? Treat her then as a gentle beloved who knows thee beyond thy stern countenance; love her for thyself.

I Know What I Want To Do...

The neighbor has 2 daughters that are now off for the summer; school is out. I have been doing preparation in the back yard for the annual install of the above-ground pool, so I see into their yard along our shared fence-line. He must have asked/hired his daughters' boyfriend to power-wash his house and other light, yard work. (the little pimple-farmer doesn't look like he's good for any real work.)

Two days ago, I hear the power-washer start up and see the girl and her friend walking alongside the house with the washer. I think. "Good, He's getting some work out of the boys that are sniffing around his girls." The house gets a little spray as I go back to my puttering. The next time I look, they are under the deck; she is standing between his knees as he sits and his hands are all over this girl. I'm thinking. " With gas $4.00 a gallon, I can't believe he's just letting that engine run while he mates with his girlfriend." I smiled and looked away, minding my own business; high school kids will always find somewhere to make out.

Today I learned that he is a high school junior; she is only 13.

Like I said, I know what I'd do...but it's not my daughter and maybe her parents know.

I am not happy with this conundrum.

Manual For Boys Contemplating Dating A Man's Daughter

I brought Ohana's balls home in a jar this morning, following his castration and it got me to wondering how I will behave when boys begin to sniff around my daughter in another 10 years...

I've begun formulating a questionnaire to sort of 'pre-qualify' them.

From the questionnaire:

Here's a likely scenario:

Suppose that you had wronged someone, really done them bad, and you wake up in an abandoned barn with a locked 1/4" braided steel cable secured firmly around your junk and bolted to the floor, a rusty shears in your hand. Just as you begin to realize that the cable is too burly for the shears, the barn bursts into flame...
You will roast like a suckling pig if you stay there. There is also a brazier with a red-hot piece of metal, just out of your reach, that you could use to cauterise your junk-stump, but you'd have to use the shears to get to it.
Question: Isn't there a bus leaving for Cleveland you could be on?

Scenario #2:

Detonation cord burn rate=approximately fifteen thousand feet per second to approximately twenty-three thousand feet per second, depending on pressure and other environmental variables. Extreme caution must be used when handling detcord due to its' potential to induce significant tissue and bone trauma, ugliness and corpsification when incautiously detonated.
note: figures representative of 50 grain PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) variety.

Because of the diversity of loads and bullet styles, it is hard to generalize, but the following are typical American factory loads for the .308 Winchester and are also probably representative of the majority of handloads. The 150 grain Spitzer bullet is usually loaded to a muzzle velocity (MV) of 2,820 fps and muzzle energy (ME) of 2,648 foot pounds. The figures at 200 yards are 2,263 fps and 1,705 foot pounds. These are estimates based upon averages due to different grades of propellant used in rifle cartridges and other varying conditions.

Burn rate for common cannon fuze=30 seconds +/- per foot. Cannon fuze is a primary ignitor for most explosive compounds of commercial manufacture or local improvisation. Source; TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook, United States Army.

A highly motivated runner in the prime age category (17-22), according to standards of measured time used by the United States Army is capable of covering only a fraction of the a distance within the working effective engagement range of 400-600 meters. In that time a skilled marksman could cover that same distance and terrain with no significant shortage of breath.
Question: Were you aware that certain Tibetan Monastic orders take vows of celibacy?

Scenario #3:

You are swimming to shore from the floating dock at the beach after behaving in a generally un-gentlemanly fashion towards my daughter. Suddenly your hear the splash of oars and, upon examination find a rowboat converging upon your path and dividing your angle to the shore.
The smiling man that pushes you away with oar is me.
Question: How long can you tread water?

Lick 'em While You Got 'em.

I'm conflicted. Ohana is going in for a neuter on Tuseday and I have the following considerations:

Upside:
1. Neutered dogs live longer and have fewer issues with aggression.
2. Ohana won't miss his nuts, or so I'm told.
3. I could (there's still time) to purchase some Neuticles and have them installed during the surgery.
4. I could put them in a jar and show them to teen boys who start sniffing around my daughter in 10 years..."See these balls, boy?" "That boy sings in the choir now as a soprano."

Downside:
1. Ohana's man-tackle has been an excellent weather barometer, or at least thermometer; they swing when it is warm and wither up like a French soldier when it is chilly.
2. Those balls, swinging in the open made an important statement that I endorsed, albeit vicariously about this house and my position here as regards male masculinity.
3. Can you say 'Emasculate'?
4. Can you say 'Gender Traitor'?


Oh well, Ohana cannot be bred due to a mildly dysplastic left hip. He'll still, always be my best bud; faithful and true.

Howard Delaney

Howard Delaney died a couple of months ago. It was a quiet passing, off the radar of public notice. My friendship with Howard was such that it took me a couple of weeks to learn about it.

Howard would have liked that immensely; he was old-school agency with Bill Donovan and operated in the Aegean during the greek Civil War. Howard had migrated to CIA with other talent from the army after WWII.

He was, in his vernacular an "Aviation Buff" who collected warbird prints and could cite particular facts about the artist, aircaft and story behind every one of his pieces. He fussed over flight sims on his computer and clipped interesting articles which he could never again find in his condominium.

He left everything to charities in St Paul and nothing to the angry niece who showed up after his death to claim his possessions. I don't know everything but from what I knew of Howard, she'd had many years to earn exactly what she stomped away with.

I've been thinking about closure and the measure of someone who lives in quiet dignity, but social isolation. I never got to say good-bye and his phone number is still in my cellular listing. One of these days the message, like Howard himself will be replaced by an emptiness.

shot group

"The U.S. military said May 18 it had disciplined the sniper and removed him from Iraq after he was found to have used Islam's holy book for target practice. The copy of the Quran was found May 11 by Iraqis on a firing range in Radwaniyah, west of Baghdad, with 14 bullet holes in it and grafitti written on its pages.

On May 17, the top American commander in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, and other officers held a formal ceremony apologizing to tribal chiefs in Radwaniyah.

Al-Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party issued a tough statement May 19 saying that apology alone was not enough and the U.S. military should impose the "severest punishment" on the Soldier to ensure others do not repeat his act."

I just wonder what size the book was, the range he was firing from and if it was in the coat pocket of an Al Queda Terrorist...14 shots in a quran is pretty fair shooting.

Mmm-Hmmm

Yeah, baby!

Man Code, What War Movie Should I See?

If you want to see what the war in Vietnam meant in 1965, without the filter of the weepy little Hollywood historians like Penn, Cruise, Sheen(s), Clooney et al; This is a terrific opportunity. The screenplay is the faithful adaptation of the book co-authored by Moore and Joe Galloway, who was a UPI correspondent on the ground at Ia Drang with 1/7 CAV. Imagine, a war film by warriors who spent time there with a rifle in their hand…

I especially appreciated the role of CSM Basil Plumley, played by Sam Elliott.

War Movies.
Psalm 42:6. Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul : and why art thou so disquieted within me?
War stories are usually cynical. Soldiers are cynical too. Film-making is about art, movie-making about revenue. Nehring offers up some reviews on little-known films that he really enjoyed. Unless you are Mel Gibson, you don’t underwrite your own big budget movies. What do you want when you pay to see a ‘War Movie’?

I was disgusted by ‘Born on the 4th of July’. Life’s a bitch and her pre-nup has a lot of fine print. The message in that film is the socialization of boys to become soldiers/Marines and the effects on the men they become. Ron Kovic has his demons like a lot of us. Psychology and Psychiatry may never catch up to the needs of combat veterans; why should Hollywood understand them any better? The combat soldier is not an alien from beyond the Still-A-Planet, Pluto, just someone with experiences that are outside your frame of reference if you wear soft Italian leather, smoke Gauloises in a Rodeo Drive coffeehouse and have your little set of followers to reassure you and pet your hair when you wake, sweating in the dark, afraid of other men.

To answer my own question, you probably expect some heroism, realistic battle sequences and even a little traditional idealism. You have had to tolerate political ideologies woven into the story that make the protagonist a troubled ‘Anti-Hero’. Soldiers are portrayed by liberal film-makers as sub-human psychotics or junkies who beg for sympathy in old tattered fatigues. O.K., so I'm both but see this film anyway.

I saw the rushes for ‘We were soldiers once’ and took a deep breath, prepared to loathe yet another old windbag who wanted to make a buck and had to gussie-up his accomplishments from a 40 year old war. I’ve never been happier to be wrong.

When you see this film, and you must see it, keep in mind that the LTC ‘Hal’ Moore portrayed by Mel Gibson is, if anything, an understatement of man himself. LTC Moore was the real deal. The soldiers you serve with are generally good at deciding if you are one of the good guys, or a BOHAS. Troops of the 1st of the 7th Cavalry in 1965 had Moore figured for a good guy.
This is excerpted from the prologue of ‘We Were Soldiers Once…and Young'.

The Ia Drang Campaign was to the Vietnam War what the terrible Spanish Civil War of the 1930's was to World War II---a dress rehearsal. The place where new tactics, techniques and weapons were tested, perfected and validated. In the Ia Drang, both sides claimed victory and both sides drew lessons, some of them dangerously deceptive, which echoed and resonated throughout the decade of bloody fighting and bitter sacrifice that was to come.
This is about what we did, what we saw, what we suffered in a 34-day campaign in the remote Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands of South Vietnam in November, 1965, when we were young and confident and patriotic and our countrymen knew little and cared less about our sacrifices.
Hal Moore retired from the Army as a 3 Star General in 1977 with over 32 years active service. Commissioned a 2nd Lt of Infantry in 1945, he served and commanded at all levels from Platoon through Division. Highlights of his career include:
∑ Service in the Korean War as a Company Commander and Regimental S3 (7th Div)
∑ Service in Vietnam as a Battalion and Brigade Commander (1st Cav)
∑ Commanding General of the 7th Inf Div in Korea
∑ Commander of Ft Ord, CA
∑ Service as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Department of the Army

After his retirement from active duty in 1977, Hal became the Executive Vice President of the Crested Butte Ski Area in Crested Butte, CO. During the '80s and early '90s, he researched and wrote a book, 'We Were Soldiers Once...and Young' with his co-author, Joe Galloway then of US News and World Report. The book covers the first major battle of the Vietnam War, the Ia Drang Battle (LZ X-ray), in which both men participated. Hal was the Battalion Commander on the ground and Joe was a UPI correspondent. The book is recognized as a classic on the Vietnam War and spent over 17 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Most Generals have a laundry list of awards and decorations a mile long. The awards most important to Moore are:
∑ Appointment to the Honorary Grade of Rifle Platoon Sergeant by the Sergeants-Major of the 3rd Brigade, 1st CAV in Vietnam
∑ 2 awards of the Combat Infantryman's Badge
∑ Distinguished Service Cross
∑ Master Parachutist Badge


"In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars ... "
--Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I