Kids play

Jonathan,

This one is at your askance. You asked about activities for preschoolers or for young kids on summer vacation.

You’re right. You won’t find here a whole lot of parks or libraries like those back home, especially not up to the same standards of safety and quality that you are used to. Of course I’m speaking generally and there are probably some towns and cities where you CAN find some nice playgrounds. I’m not sure where you plan on visiting, but its best to contact someone there and get the local scoop before you show up with your kids.

I just asked my wife about the subject as it applies to this area. We live in Angeles City and there are probably more places here to keep kids busy than in other spots in the country. I can think of three offhand, and I asked my wife about all three.

There is a playground park over by the Air Force City area on Clark that is grassy and has slides and swings. My wife says that is a fairly safe place to take kids so that’s one option.

A few years back the CDC (Clark Development Corp.) also built a pretty nice municipal style park in the huge open rectangular area in front of the main gate. At first it was an okay place to take your kids, but according to the wife, not so anymore. The “hold uppers,” as she calls them, have made that area not so family-safe these days. You will hear a chorus of “not so’s!,” but believe me, neither she or any of her friends will take their children there. You could try to go and act as security, but it’s just not worth the risk. Purse-snatchers, pickpockets, and gun-toting muggers use that area all the time.

She says the best place to take your kids to play is to the SM Mall located just inside the Clark Main Gate. My wife says the security is very good in the mall’s enclosed play area and she takes our two girls there all the time. Even so, watch your wallet and belongings.

There is a water park on Clark as well. I’ve never been to it, but my best buddy has taken his 10-year-old daughter there several times and he says it’s not bad. So that’s another option. Pretty much anything on Clark is safe. Once you leave the confines however, you MUST keep your wits about you.

Its Christmas time, and as my wife just reminded me, the muggers and robbers are working overtime to get money to buy presents for their loved ones. (Isn’t that sweet?) Along those lines, she just told me a “lovely” little story about what happened to her girlfriend a couple weeks back. The lady drove to her bank on Macarthur Boulevard to withdraw from her dollar account. Her next move was to drive up Main Gate Boulevard towards Checkpoint to exchange her bucks for pesos at Norma’s Money Exchange. She'd just pulled off Main Gate drag to make her way over to Field’s Avenue when a motorcyclist pulled in front of her, blocking her way. Another guy, also on a motorcycle, pulled up next to her window and fired one round from his handgun past her head to demonstrate that he meant business before aiming it at her face. He told her two things: “Give me the money you just got from the bank,” and two, “If you tell anyone about this I will kill you and your family.” She handed him the whole wad, and taking him at his word, never reported that she’d been mugged. And mind you, it all happened in broad daylight.

Much violent crime goes unreported here, especially that done to Filipino victims. People are easily cowed in these parts and their fear causes them to shrug off their outrage. I guess I can’t blame them. I could move away if I want, but most locals have no place to go. As for me, I’d rather die than give in to threats. Of course, if anyone ever threatened my kids I’d probably try to use my resources to track down those making the threats and try to kill them first, but that’s not the way the average person here thinks where fear is indeed the watchword.

No one EVER thinks it can happen to them, but eventually, it does. I’ve told my wife to have a “mugger’s purse” available with only a couple hundred pesos in it to hand over just in case; and even though she’s been held up at gunpoint herself once, she STILL has no fake purse. I can only tell her right? But that’s the way to go. Best advice: If a man points a gun at you give him what he wants—just don’t give him your REAL wallet or purse.

That reminds me:

Two years after I got here I got a call to get my ass over to the hospital. A fellow veteran had just been shot and needed my relatively rare O negative blood because his was all but gone. He and his wife had pulled into a quiet subdivision in Dau and were just getting out of their van when he heard her cry out. She did so at the sight of a gun being pushed into her face. The veteran rushed around the side of his van to her aid. The robber snapped off a round into the big American’s thigh and rushed off with his wife’s purse. The stricken navy vet, only about 6 months retired, made a tourniquet from his belt, and his wife was barely able to get him back into the van to drive him to a nearby small hospital. They took one look and turned her away. She then took him to the then PIH (Philippine Int’l Hospital) about 20 minutes away. I ran into the emergency room and begged them to take my blood but they shook their heads. I knew at that point he was gone. The wife, her jeans soaked in her husband’s blood, waited downstairs in our Veterans Service Office. Lucky for us, she had a good friend there to catch and console her when we told her that her husband didn’t make it.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but that’s the way of it. It’s just that I see so many expats here that run around this place taking their safety for granted and that’s a huge mistake. Be paranoid, be wary, be ready for the worst-case scenario and keep your family and yourself safe.

Oh, I just thought of another possibility as far as activities for your kids—swimming. There are a lot of hotels that will allow you and your family to use their pool. Some, like the Clarkton will charge you a pretty stiff fee, but others will welcome you for your food and drink business. I believe the Swagman Hotel still falls into the latter category and it’s a good kids pool because it has a water slide.

And speaking of water, you can never go wrong with just spending a lot of time at one of the hundreds of seaside resorts in the country. I’ve been to Puerto Galera several times and my girls love it. I don’t know of any kid that doesn’t like playing on the beach. Just bring plenty of sun block.

For the most part, my girls stay pretty close to home. We live at the end of a quiet dead-end street and they ride their bikes with their little friends out in front of the house where we keep an eagle eye on them. I also put a little swing set and slide out in our yard, which they and their playmates also frequent.

Then again, if you are ever in the area you are welcome to stop by. We can chat and have libations while the kids play…
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Playing at Nepo Mall

Bicycle Memories, Part 4, from hybrid to mountaineer

Before I could REALLY get into the sport of mountain biking I knew that I would have to modify my inadequate hybrid mountain/road bike adequately for safe use on off-road trails and tracks, at least to the point that I could ride it downhill without crashing. Lord knows I didn't want to do THAT again.

The bloody crashing fall from my previous post was never repeated again, at least none ever as painful or dramatic as that first one. The primary reason I had fallen in the first place was the improper setup of my bike. The arrangement of my seat and handlebars put my body too far forward and my hands way too low on the steering. The thing is, I didn’t know this intuitively; what I needed was an expert to help me figure out how to fix it. My friend, Rich, got me started on the right track, but finding genuine expertise was the next step.

In short order and quite by accident, I managed to find just the guy I was looking for—he was in a new bike shop that I happened to stop in at while looking for some new knobby tires for my bike. He was the manager, a "kid" in his early 30s who had spent most of his life riding bicycles competitively on the BMX circuit. Lucky for me, for the last few years he had taken up mountain biking as a way to stay in shape for BMX. Right off the bat I could tell he knew what he was doing and over the course of the next few paydays he fixed me right up. I had found my bicycle guru.

Based on my new riding mentor’s recommendations I bought several new components to affect a more suitable off-road ride, especially for negotiating my nemeses, those steep rugged descents—as far as I’m concerned the most difficult type of riding there is.

Over the next several months, as I transferred my mindset from street riding to mountain biking, I also strove to transform my “partner in crime,” my heavy red “confused” hybrid. She was more expensive than a new girlfriend. I bought "her" a score of new components, most of them elective, like knobby tires and water bottle brackets; but to get my “baby” where it really needed to be to effortlessly handle those steeply nasty descents I made three crucial component purchases.

First, I got a significantly longer handlebar stem. The longer stem put it higher and allowed me to extend my arms to keep my bodyweight as far away as possible from the front wheel. I've seen downward tracks so precipitous that I had to actually push away from the handlebars. As a street rider for 20 years I never had to worry about such a thing before, but mountain biking is a different animal. Its much more extreme, but then again, its also much more exciting. Draping one’s body over the handlebars is how it’s done on pavement to reduce drag, but try that off-road on a mountain bike and you WILL fall. Just ask me.

Perhaps the most important modification was changing out my seatpost and seat. The new post was cantilevered so that the new seat, also improved, hung an extra inch or two further back. That allowed me to sit back closer towards the center of the rear wheel for better control and stability.

As a matter of technique, on exceptionally steep long downhill runs I would sometimes stop at the top of the hill, release my seat and lower it almost as far as it would go. This gave me an even lower center of gravity, although sitting lower sacrificed peddling leverage--it was like trying to ride a child's bike. But the way I looked at it, descending a crazy-steep hill requires little peddling anyway and when climbing most mountain bikers stand on the pedals anyway.

I include the seat with the seatpost, but technically they are two separate components. Eventually, I swapped out the original seat for a beefier, better-engineered one; because once again, I learned the hard way what happens to a normal seat when an inexpert rider (me!) does not always properly use the knees to absorb the G-forces when “bottoming out.” The worst one I ever screwed up caused my seat to break a weld and very nearly broke my lumbar spine along with it. So, I found it was better to have a seat with heavier springs designed for idiot riders like me.

The third and final vital component needing replacement was the pedal set. One of the reasons I crashed my first time out was the lack of a means to hold my feet to the pedals. All that jouncing over the rocks and ruts shook them right off. There are newer and supposedly superior pedal systems, but I went for the old-fashioned toe clip and strap arrangement. That way, I could ride wearing my running shoes, which I liked to have on just in case I broke the bike and had to hoof it out of the woods for a few miles. It happens.

Truthfully, by the time I got "Hybrid" squared away into a real mountain bike, or almost so, I was totally hooked on the sport. My riding buddy, Rich Fucci, and I could not get enough of it. We lived and breathed trail riding, exploring every patch of woods we could find, both on and around the base. I don’t think there was a road or deer trail within 10 miles that we hadn't tried. We searched for promising trails and unimproved dirt roads until there was no place left to search. Often, when the trails petered out we simply put our helmeted heads down and bushwhacked to prevent from having to double back.

On that subject, bushwhacking can be a lot of fun. Bushwhacking is when a biker rides through the trees, fields and undergrowth without regard to trails or paths. When doing this sort of riding bring along plenty of tools, a patch kit and pump, and oh yeah, extra chain links. Flat tires and broken chains are par for the course, especially once bushwhacking is in your blood. I learned it the hard way.

I should say that most mountain biking lessons ARE learned “the hard way.” It can be a very tough sport. Depending on the difficulty and wildness of the trail, it certainly is not an activity for the faint-of-heart or weak-of-will.

And now that I think of it, I’m reminded of another mountain biking lesson:

A good reason to have a lightweight bike is because there WILL come a time when you’ll have to carry it over your shoulder. Why not just push it along on its wheels you say? Well, sometimes the damage to the bicycle is so bad or the trail so muddy or impassable that the wheels won’t turn. Believe me, it happens.

So, after turning my red hybrid more mountain than street, I felt like I was turning into quite the rider. I knew this because Rich Fucci could no longer beat me. I bought my bike a month after I got back from the war in May or June of ’91. It took two more months to get it “right” by upgrading it.

As I mentioned, by the end of the summer, Rich and I had ridden every nearby (and not so nearby) trail and dirt road at least a dozen times and I was bored with them all. I wanted something more challenging and closer to home. Soon a hazy plan came into my brain housing group. I’ll tell you about it in my next post…

Bicycle Memories Part 3, Mountain Biking the Hard Way

When I transferred into the QA shop in 1989 I got my first glimpse at mountain bikes or rather into mountain biking. I had seen them around of course, but being an inveterate road biker I never understood the appeal of riding bicycles on trails and dirt roads.

My boss, Chief Master Sergeant Lutes, was a "boy into his toys,” things like cameras, crossbows, and mountain bikes. Whenever anything struck his fancy, he REALLY got into it. For instance, one camera wasn’t enough for him. He had untold numbers of them and that included even more lenses. He never went anywhere without at least one camera and two lenses. His trademark was his camera vest. With his penchant for weightlifting he looked like an outsized National Geographic photo guy.

A single hobby was not enough for Gerald Lutes, or even two for that matter. In his typical fanatical style, he soon became every bit as passionate about his mountain bikes as for his cameras. Before long, he had a collection of bikes too, and on weekends would take them all over Northern Arkansas to ride the trails. Naturally, he combined his two passions so that along with his skintight biking shorts he also wore a camera vest bulging with camera stuff.

At first, I just listened to his “ravings” feigning interest. After a while though, he dragged me into it; not into the camera stuff mind you, but inevitably, thanks to his constant badgering, I too became a mountain bike enthusiast. It didn't happen overnight though.

Less than a year after joining the ranks of the group's QA inspectors, I ended up doing 7 months in Southwest Asia, doing my part as a military cog in the war machines of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. When I returned, things had changed drastically in the quality world. One of the pleasant changes for me was the onset of a much less intense environment. This gave those of us in the QA shop more casual time. I loved it and adjusted to it easily. (Yes, I AM being facetious. "Adjusted" is an understatement!)

One day the chief brought in a couple of his mountain bikes and during a break he demonstrated how he could easily peddle into and out of the alarmingly steep six-foot deep concrete drainage channels out behind our building. He bade me to hop on a bike and try it out. At first I felt foolish when I pushed the gear shift levers forward into “granny gear,” the lowest of the mountain bike gears, because I was peddling like crazy and yet the bike was barely moving.

I changed my mind about it being ridiculous though, when I steered the bike down into the smooth-sided channel and was easily able to peddle right back up the other side of the steeply angled ditch. That was the moment I became hooked and the beginning of my two-year love affair with the sport.

Before long, I figured it was time to splurge on a mountain bike of my own. So, I went to a bike shop, and wouldn't you know, I bought the WRONG dang bike. I should have brought someone along who knew something about them, but I didn't. I ended up purchasing a "hybrid," which has the half-assed characteristics of both mountain bikes and street bikes.

The problem is that my hybrid wasn't so great on off-road trails OR on pavement, but to its credit it WAS able to handle both, just not very well. For one thing it was too heavy, I suppose because I didn't splurge enough--the super lightweight bikes are made of expensive alloys and I just opted not to do it. The other problems were not so obvious, but would soon make themselves known, and painfully so.

The lesson, or one of them, I was to soon learn is: If you want something or someone to do something "special" then go for the "specialist;" but, as the saying goes, "Live and learn;" and Oh boy, did I ever learn!


The very next weekend after my acquisition I went riding on the base perimeter trail with another sergeant from my shop, Rich Fucci, a fellow avionics inspector. He had an honest-to-God mountain bike, or at least more so than my half-assed hybrid. On the rough dirt roads and single-track trails he easily out rode me on it. Trailing him, I felt hugely unskilled and decidedly unhappy.

I didn't get it. I knew I was strong and in better aerobic shape. I could out-run Rich in a foot-race, and on a road surface I had more endurance than he did peddling a street bike; but riding over rocks and rills on these big-tired heavy-duty mountain bikes I was sadly unable to keep up, and that was maddeningly frustrating for a competitive madman like me.

My aggravation soon took a turn for the worse when my foray into the world of mountain biking almost ended just as it was starting. A narrow stream passed through the southeast corner of the base and a 60-foot section of the dirt road fell steeply down to it. Rich stood on his pedals and glided down the dusty rough track, easily avoiding all of the extra-nasty sharp rocks and precarious ruts.

I paused at the top of the daunting drop-off to watch his downhill technique. He made it look relatively effortless and he said as much from where he waited far below, looking up at me by the edge of the creek. After his words of encouragement, I began my descent and hoped for the best.

Ten feet after letting go the brakes I was in bad trouble. I was hopelessly out of control and crashing seemed certain, especially as my speed increased shockingly. Near the bottom was a patch where the rocks became more plentiful and larger. They went from occasional potato-sized stones near the top to stacks of ham-sized small boulders near the bottom.

Too late, I desperately pulled both brakes, but doing so put me into a position over my handlebars that made me feel even more unstable. Changing direction to avoid the worst of the rocks and ruts seemed impossible—I felt I had no control over the steering—the bike and the hill were now in charge.

I held on for dear life knowing that I was way over my head and waited for the inevitable with great foreboding. In a matter of seconds, it happened; it might have been a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, but regardless, I crashed, and it was every bit as bad as I had envisioned.

It might be clichéd to say so, but as the crash unfolded, time slowed to a crawl, and right when I would have preferred that it speed up so that it would all be over with! One of life’s little ironies the way that works.

Clattering in a vibrating rush down the deeply-rutted rocky trail, I managed to make it to within 20 yards of the creek bed when my bike, operating under the anthropomorphic principle of “a mind of its own,” spitefully jammed its front wheel between two large rocks, causing it to abruptly stop. Physics doing what it does, my back wheel was compelled to continue its onward travel, resulting in it flipping up and over its partner to the front.

Just in case you forgot, I still had a roll in this mini-drama, and taking my cue from gravity and momentum, my body, unmindful of any input from my well-intentioned yet paralyzed brain, tumbled over the handlebars in an awkward midair forward roll. If only I were a cat I would have sensed my position in the air and twisted my body to lessen the painful effects of my hard "single point" landing. Alas, what actually happened is that I thudded into and skidded across the rock-strewn ground like a sack of Idaho potatoes--the extra big ones. I heard my body slam into the rocky ground more than felt it.

As the impact dust settled and as both “up” and “down” resumed their normal aspects, the two of us, my bicycle and me, lay stricken on our sides. We made the expected aftermath sounds, with me gasping and groaning while my bike's rear wheel ticked slowly around to a stop.

Rich dropped his bike to the ground and scrambled up to me to find out how bad the damage was. He called out concernedly: “PJ, are you all right? Man, that was ugly!”

I couldn’t answer immediately, my breath was knocked out, not to mention that pain was then flooding into those areas of my body where it had just been cruelly traumatized by its punishing reception with rock and earth. There had been little pain during impact, only a slamming sensation; but as awareness came round so did nerve endings.

My right hand was the worst; two fingers oozed blood; they felt broken or badly sprained, as did my right wrist. The rest of my body was just bruised and bloody, nothing serious. The real damage was to my ego and confidence. At that moment mountain biking didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Between groaning breaths I told Rich exactly that.

Ignoring my remarks, he righted my bike and looked it over declaring, “Your bike looks okay. These things are tough, you know? As long as you didn’t break any bones you should be able to keep riding it.”

With sarcasm stemming from pain and humiliation I answered, “Oh yeah? Ya think?”

He paused, “You know, I believe I know your problem. I didn’t want to say anything before, but now, after what I just saw…”

“Really, what?” I bid him to continue, hoping he had “the answer.”


“You’re out of balance, especially going downhill. The seat is too far forward and too high, plus, your handlebars are not high enough. Once you get all that fixed you’ll feel a lot better trying to ride down these steep trails.”

He was right. After I determined that nothing was broken (too badly) we continued to ride the perimeter trail. At the next downhill track he asked me to ride his bike so I could see what he was talking about.

What a difference! With my body weight lower and further over the back tire, along with the higher handlebars, I felt in total control. I was actually able to steer rather than just being along for the ride.

That week I made a trip to the bike shop and bought everything needed to modify my crappy hybrid into a semblance of a real off-roader, although it was always going to be too heavy. There was nothing to do about its weight except to get a new bike, but after putting over $400 into my “piece of crap” I decided to go with it for a while.

Soon, thanks to Rich Fucci's advice, I became pretty good at that mountain biking stuff. After all, you can hold a "natural" athlete back for only so long before inherent ability comes to the fore. Yeah, right! The real truth is that it just goes to show:


“Sometimes it's not the man, it’s the machine!”

(Next post, if interested, will be on how my mountain biking “hobby” became a near obsession).
x

The State Department in Iraq: One More Strike and You're OUT

The last couple of days I’ve been knowingly sniggering and sneering while reading the latest Iraq War news stemming once again from the State Department, its reputation only getting worse with each passing day.

Now, it seems that many in the diplomatic corps of that organization are howling over having to serve in a dangerous assignment like Iraq. My first thought was, “YOU Pussies!” After a shrug, my second thought was, “Well, it figures!”

That’s strike two. It SHOULD be three strikes and “you’re OUT!” The Blackwater transgression of a few weeks ago being strike one. It looks like that private security firm was merely acting out the policies set by faint-hearted Department of State officials who would rather assure their own complete safety rather than "risk a few collateral civilian deaths." That assertion appears to be fairly well born out by a recent assessment by the FBI stating that at least 14 Iraqi civilians died unjustifiably at the hands of State’s "private army."

Strike three, when it comes, should result in the ejection of all State Department officials from Iraq and Afghanistan until the military makes it “safe enough” for these lily-livered civilian bureaucrats to safely coordinate and attend their nightly dinner parties (which is all that they really care about anyway).

Sounds like I don’t have much respect for the State Department. If you think so then good guess. My first run-in with State Department workers was watching a bunch of them scurry away from my comrades and me as we approached them on a bus one evening many years ago. It was about 5 pm and my entire class of about 100 MSGs or Marine Security Guards was just pulling up in front of Condoleezza Rice’s current place of business, the State Department building in Washington D.C.; only at the time, the “head honcho” was The Honorable Cyrus Vance under then President Jimmy “peanut farmer” Carter.

Part of our training before being assigned to any of the hundreds of American embassies around the world was to actually inspect offices at least once for possible security violations. Out in the field that is part of the duties of Marine Embassy Guards. There is a technique to it, and after learning the theory in the classroom they sent us into the lair of “the enemy” to get a feel for the real thing. (Actually, we didn't think of them as "the enemy" so much as they did of us!)

It was funny. As our two Marine Corps buses pulled up to the fancy front glass entrance doors we could see State Department workers—diplomats, FSOs and secretaries—do U-turns back into the building. Some of them actually ran back inside when they spotted us 100 young Marines in our "C" dress blues descending upon them like the avenging angels that we KNEW we were (grin). It’s a huge building and we would only be able to inspect a comparatively few of the offices, but they didn’t want to take the chance of getting busted and finding a career ruining “pink slip notice of violation” on their desk the next day.

Right away, that made me think little of these people. It told me that they probably didn’t have a very high level of security attentiveness if just our presence made them spin on their heels back into their warrens of paper.

After graduation once I got out into the embassy world, my negative opinion of State people did not waver much except to become even more negative. If you know Marines then you know we can tend to arrogance, but no one is more arrogant than Foreign Service Officers. It seems that they start off this way and become more so the longer they “serve.” I never met an FSO that wasn’t egotistical, absolutely convinced of their own importance.

These people have like four primary jobs—to gather intelligence, to take care of consular matters like passports and visas, to represent the USA in a positive manner, and supposedly to take care of Americans who live or pass through their country of obligation. But there is a fifth "job," and they take it the most serious—to live WELL!

What does that mean? Just like it sounds—to party hardy, to acquire “for free” the best furnishings possible for their “free” luxurious apartment or house, and to save up and invest most of their more than adequate salaries.

I have to laugh whenever I hear statements praising Foreign Service officials for their “service” in backwater and dangerous places throughout the world. The fact is that diplomatic duty is the best-kept secret in the US government. It is rare indeed that any of them ever has to truly suffer or “serve,” because that’s not their style. I dare anyone to honestly compare the living and working conditions in Iraq of any of the “lowliest” FSOs to that of the average US military personnel over there. Believe me, there is no comparison.

I can attest to this since I have first hand knowledge. As an embassy guard, operationally assigned to the State Department, I never touched a penny of my military wages. I lived completely off my State Department allowance, and I didn’t draw even half of what the average FSO gets. I was stationed in a supposedly dangerous backwater country, yet we managed to find a party to attend almost every night, if we weren’t throwing one ourselves.

I couldn’t believe how expansive and plush the typical abode was of my fellow State Department workers. Each drew allowances for carpeting, furniture, appliances, even for drapery, yet they didn’t have to spend a dime of it for any of those items since they had access to a State Department warehouse chock full of some of the nicest stuff you could ever want to outfit your home with. I don’t know if they still have this scam going, but a scam is what it was.

What really sealed the deal on how I felt about these oblivious prima donnas was an encounter I had with a young FSO one weekend afternoon. I was standing duty at Post 1 right at the front entrance of the embassy. The bearded young FSO was there to learn the very basics of my job as a Marine watch stander.

I doubt if it’s done anymore, but back then none of the Marines had to stand watch in the embassy during the annual Marine Corps Ball every November 10th, which believe it or not was the embassy’s most important social function of the year. FSOs voluntarily stood watch for one-hour increments, allowing all of us Marines to attend our Birthday Ball.

During my briefing to the young pup, although he was probably a year or two older than me, I explained to him some of the complaints we Marines had with the security setup. It was totally inadequate and obviously so to us. The window to our front was mere Plexiglas, cars could drive up within yards of the front door, and a side door to our left was secured with a chintzy cypher lock that could be easily breeched. I told this guy that if someone wanted to take out the lone Marine on duty then it could be done with only a couple guys with minimum weaponry in all of about 2 minutes. Then I told him exactly what I would do to correct the situation. He shook his head and said something that I think is typical of the thinking of many of the liberal-minded folk working in the State Department.

“Your job is to die,” he declared nonchalantly.

He explained. “The United States has an image to project and turning our embassies into fortresses is not the image that we want the world to see.”

I heartily objected, "Sir! My job is to stay alive so that I can protect Americans, including YOU, in this building. How the hell can I do that if I'm killed in the first five minutes of an attack!" But in his righteous conceit he was not to be dissuaded.

See what I mean? Arrogance! This was just a year or so before the Iranians took our embassy in Tehran and not too long before Pakistanis almost did the same thing in Islamabad, and in doing so shot and killed a Marine Guard as he stood watch on the roof.

I learned something else from talking to and being around various FSOs; many of them have swallowed a form of anti-Western liberalism and have done so hook-line-and-seeker, probably to the toon of at least half of them to one extent or another. Evidently, left-leaning professors teach a lot of political science in our universities, so it only makes sense that a lot of their students who eventually become FSOs would be thusly "tainted." Therefore, it really doesn’t matter who is Secretary of State, these bureaucrats with their “peculiar way” of looking at the world stay on forever and they know it.

Here's what I know about these folks: they are great at pie in the sky theoreticals, but when it comes to the cold hard reality that IS the real world that's when they fall flat. It's why so many of them can't stomach REAL service in Iraq; as long as they can BS each other during their nightly soirees during one of their normal cushy non-threatening assignments then all is right with THEIR world. They don't do so well though when they get into a place where all the diplomacy in the world won't make people stop wanting to kill them.

So naturally, with the news hitting the wire about these “dissatisfied diplomats,” my dislike for them, for their prima donna arrogance, for their luxurious style of so-called “service,” and THEIR willingness to put others in harm's way even as they protect their own pampered asses from danger, all of those thoughts came roaring back to me while reading about their little “uprising,” their ridiculous treasonous tempertantrum against their boss, Secretary Rice.

How dare she! How dare she ask them to ACTUALLY serve where we really NEED them, and in a place where they might be hurt or killed. Imagine that? Finally, some overpaid American diplomats actually earning some of those inflated allowances and “hardship” pay!

I say fire the whole bunch. Who needs these wimps? Ship the whole timid lot back to the safety of the States, or to some cushy consulate in Europe or Asia. Give General Petraeus the whole kit and caboodle. Hell, bring me out of retirement. I volunteer General, to replace one or two of them Sir. Anyway, with me, at least you couldn't do any worse.

Coloring For Free

Like most kids their age, my girls constantly seek to be creative. They love to draw, color and paint. They go through coloring books like candy. Boxes of crayons and marker pens last only a couple weeks before its time to resupply.

Their creativity as of late has expanded into the pc world. It seems that now they can’t get enough of their online computer games. Even now they are begging me to hurry up so they can go online to their favorite kids sites. I’m always on the lookout for new learning games and puzzles so we can combine "getting a little education" with their artistic endeavors.

On several of these free kids sites you can print out coloring pages, but soon we had exhausted even those freebies. Then it occurred to me, why not make our own coloring pages?

I was playing around with Paint Shop Pro when I had my "coloring epiphany" while experimenting with the “Flood Fill” function. This feature is represented by an icon that looks like a spilling paint bucket. It works very much like that as well.

First toggle the color palette into view on the right side of the screen and select the color you want to fill into the photo.

The moment I had “my bright idea” is when I chose to start filling the photo in with white.

As soon as I saw how a few clicks of white “fill” vacated big blocks and swathes of the photo and yet still left outlines of what was there THAT’S when I knew I had come upon a way to make as many pages for coloring that my girls could ever want.

I started out with this photo of my youngest girl. I asked her if she wanted me to help her color herself and she was all for it.
Oops. A problem--the white fill bled into the face area.

The solution: Using the "paint brush" feature and dialing the tip to a proper shape and size I outlined the face to keep white from bleeding into it.

It works. I began to fill in the rest of the photo with white to turn it into a coloring book page.

I ended up having to outline other areas as well when the white fill would completely obscure their original shape. In the above case I had to outline the arm.

Let the coloring begin!

Here's another we did together. We took a picture of me standing in front of a tank at the 4th Infantry Division Museum at Fort Hood, Texas.
From that to....
....to....
Notice how we left the faces untouched, although we did moderate the tone of my youngest's face to give our work of art a kind of toned down "colored" look. If you've got kids give it a try. Mine love coloring themselves and their daddy too. I admit, I helped 'em color. Couldn't resist it... xx