Mullets Alive!

Well, despite moronic politics, mullets still run free and wild.  My last phone was not conducive to capturing mullets, but with the acquisition of a new phone equipped with an awesome (and silent) camera, I'm back in the hunt.

These were all captured on our recent trip to South Alabama/North Florida - an area very rich in mullet habitat.  Mullets grow as thick as the peanut fields.  Here are three captures of notable specimens:

Fort Rucker Mullet:

This mullet was serenely gazing at static displays in the Ft. Rucker Aviation Museum, where Trent's graduation was held.  I had to feign interest in the display text I'd already read just to make sure it wasn't one of those deceptive hat-mullets, where a wig is actually attached to the hat.  I was able to personally verify the authenticity of this mullet. 

Navy Aviation Museum Mullet:

Mullets seem more at home in certain situations - such as truck pulls, Nascar races, and county fairs.  I'm going to go out on a limb and make a scientific claim based on my own observations - mullets are also attracted to static displays of military airplanes.  This femmullet was glorious, but safest when viewed at a distance.

Rockin' Biker Mullet

This is a classic biker mullet.  Rugged, tough, and windblown.

This next photo is obviously not a mullet, but was a sight that proved definitely photo worthy.  I would also guess it might be driven by a mullet.  Yes, it's a cat car.

Complete with a cat butt.  You have to give extra credit for anatomical correctness.

Just Call Me Stupid

Recently a reader questioned my avoidance of political posts.  I haven't been consciously avoiding commenting on politics - it's been more of a "head in the sand" attitude lately while we've been moving, redoing our house, selling a house, and dealing with all the stresses that come with it.  But, rest assured that many of the recent goings-on in politics has my head spinning, and should have every American's head rotating rapidly, whether your preferred animal is the elephant or the donkey. 

Unless, that is, you're a Progressive, Marxist, or Socialist...all of which seem to be (most disturbingly) gaining ground as an acceptable alternative to our current system that made America great in the first place.  It no longer seems to matter what the majority of Americans want - this administration has made clear that it is going to do what IT wants, when it wants, how it wants, with or without going through the proper channels as mandated by the Constitution.  President Obama ran on a platform of transparency and holding government accountable, and thus far he's run an administration behind closed doors, has out-and-out lied, and has put in place policies hidden in "reform" that allows government agencies to operate without accountability.  Many more of these policies, and we can officially kiss the idea of "Freedom" and determining our own destinies goodbye.

So many issues today just defy common sense.

The latest thing I just simply can't understand is all the hoopla and angst over the Arizona immigration law.  Call me stupid, but I just can't wrap my mind around why there are thousands marching to protest Arizona's attempt to hold the Federal government accountable for the law they're supposed to be upholding, but refuse. 

I'm not heartless, as liberals like to call conservatives.  I understand why people want to come to this country, and if I were on the Mexico side with a starving family to feed and work across the border, you bet I'd be risking my life to get to the other side.  And, I believe they should be able to legally immigrate.  Our immigration system definitely needs an overhaul - an overhaul where everyone wins.  Immigrants should be able to come and work if they so desire, but we should know who they are.  They should pay taxes, have a social security number, and everything that comes with being a U.S. citizen if immigrants expect to have the rights of a citizen, period.

But, what we have on the border is a hostile takeover - not just innocent families trying to make their way to a better life, but drug cartels, gangsters, and human traffickers, even snipers, all heavily armed, literally reclaiming American territory for Mexico.  Again, call me stupid, but shouldn't we be defending our territory?  Why is this concept so hard? 

Other questions I have - would anyone else reasonably expect to immigrate to another country and not be expected to go through certain channels, show documentation, and answer to authorities?  I would not in my wildest dreams travel to Australia, refuse to show documentation, and then not expect to be thrown in jail.  I would surely not expect to be given free healthcare and other benefits.  In other words - I would not in my wildest dreams expect to "fly under the radar" without repercussions in any other country.  Why is this expected of the United States?  How is this fair to those immigrants who DO go through the proper channels?

When you get pulled over by the police for just cause, do you show your driver's license?  That's proper documentation - why are illegals not required the same as legal citizens?  As it is now, illegal immigrants in the United States are afforded more rights and services than legal citizens.  Why is this even a debate?

If anyone has an answer - without crying "racist!" and "bigot!" - please let me know.

My New Running Shoes

Any long-term readers may remember my former quest to start running (again) and to get in shape.  That, of course, fell by the wayside....what with preparing to move, looking for a new house, actually moving, persistent back problems, and all the other stuff that's made my life into The Crazy Roller-Coaster of Stress ride over the past year.  Sounded like a good enough excuse, until I realized it was just that - an excuse.  So, here I go...again...with the running.

My biggest problem is that I HATE running.  HATE it.  I know there are other things to do to get into shape, but running is the quickest, and you don't need a bunch of equipment, or a pool, etc.  (I do wish I had access to a pool - I love swimming workouts).  Mountain Biking is a great cardio workout, but I do need a new bike, and a new bike (well, the one I want) is temporarily financially out of reach.  For running all you really need is just some shoes and a bit of motivation.

My brother and sister-in-law are bona-fide runners, and have been trying to inspire me to pound the pavement once again.  Recently they've approached running in a new/old way - barefoot.  Minimalist running has been in vogue for a long time, but seems to be getting a bigger following as of late, and after reading up on it I decided maybe that approach was worth a try.  I mean, it does make some sense.  Running shoes keep getting "better" and more complicated to reduce all kinds of pain running causes, which seems kind of silly when you consider we were already born with all we needed for running and walking - our bare feet.  For example - running shoes have all kinds of heel padding to minimize the shock of hard heel striking - when barefoot running eliminates the heel strike altogether.  The general consensus seems that during all of human history human feet were just fine, and in just the past 200 years or so we've really started messing them up, even changing their shape with shoes, which works against the way our feet were designed to function.

For me the biggest draw is the promise of "no shin splints", which have been the bane of my running attempts my entire life.  So, all scientific evidence and hoopla aside - if I can escape shin splints, I'm sold.

My brother and his wife don't actually run with bare feet, for obvious reasons - sharp rocks, glass, gum, bugs, dog poop, roadkill, and all the other stuff you may find on the road or trail.  Instead, they use slip-on footie shoes called Vibram FiveFingers.  (I still haven't gotten a good answer as to why they're not called "FiveToes.")  There are numerous minimalist shoes currently on the market, but the FiveFingers are supposed to be the closest thing to barefoot other than actual bare feet.  The individual toe slots - a feature unique to the FiveFinger - train your toes to spread apart, adding balance, stability, and strength.

First, when I strapped these puppies on, I thought, "No Way.  Not going to work."  Not only did they look stupid, I usually hate the feeling of things between my toes.  But, after a few minutes they started to feel pretty good.  After walking around for about ten minutes, they felt DARN good.  They felt freeing...I got the strong urge to flit and skip around the store with my arms in the air.  Instead I calmly walked to the register, handed over my debit card and purchased these:

I can sum up my first run in one word:  OUCH!!!  Holy Moly!  While it felt great running with just my toe-shoe footies on, the different foot-strike I naturally used caused me to heavily use muscles that have been lazy.  My calves in particular screamed for mercy.  It's essential to ease into minimalist running, especially when you consider most people have lived a majority of their lifetimes in shoes.  This really works for me, since I've been away from running so long I have to ease in, shoes or not.  So far I've been at it for a week, alternating running/walking short distances.  Even if I'm on a running workout off day, I still try to put on the FiveFingers to at least walk around the house.  Despite their idiotic looks, I'm liking the results.

If anyone else has tried this approach to running, I'd like to hear your two cents.

For a good article about the science behind minimalist running, click this:  LINK

Wussing Out

Today is officially day #2 of having no air conditioning.

I'm usually pretty tolerant of hot summers.  We're in the south.  Every summer is hot, some hotter than others, and I try to take them in stride and refuse to incessantly complain about the heat as some do.  The Minnesota/N. Illinois/Wisconsin immigrants that are so prevalent around Mountain Home complained about the weather loudly from May until October to anyone in earshot.  It was always hard not to respond with a suggestion to go jump in the lake.

Now, if I had a lake, I'd definitely be jumping in.  This summer is getting to me.  I'm not sure if it's the sustained heat with no breaks and very little rain, stress, or a combination, but I'm wussing out.  And, it's worse in a trailer - something like sitting in a metal breadbox in the middle of the Mojave.  I don't know how old-timers did it, but they were tougher than me!

Now, excuse me while I go put my head in the freezer.

Surrounded by Apaches

I think I'm sufficiently recovered from my the bash to my writing ego, so here goes:

Last week we took a short break from the never-ending grind of home improvement, and headed for south Alabama to attend my brother's graduation from Apache helicopter flight school.

As if it weren't cool enough to be a combat-decorated green beret, my brother had to go and start flying the coolest of the cool in fighter helicopters - the Apache.  With the other brother currently navigating a B-52 and fixing to go on to cooler things himself, my feelings of being the underachieving boob of a sibling have been greatly magnified.  I'm also green with envy - Fort Rucker's skies are an aeriel traffic jam of awesomeness in the form of all kinds of helicopters, and my brain was constantly occupied with trying to imagine how thrilling it would be to be able to at least ride in one, let alone PILOT one.  It's still hard to believe that the brother who was once the bane of my existence, who's favorite prank was to rub my toothbrush in soap, and who has the greatest count of stitches given to siblings (we all caused each other to get stitches, but Trent's count is highest), is so accomplished in the impossibly-hard, and is just generally a certified badass.  Yeah, despite my jealousy and feelings of inadequacy, I'm still very much a pretty proud big sis of both of the brothers.

Here are a few pics from graduation:

Hannah pinning on Trent's wings:

The Fam

As I mentioned, the skies at Fort Rucker were full of copters, and I never got tired of watching.  Even after the last few months of living on our own military post crawling with constantly active Blackhawks, I'm still fascinated enough to run outside like a kid to watch them fly over the house.  Perhaps I missed a calling.  Despite my fascination with helicopters, I did get very tired  of the Apaches buzzing our lakeside cabin at night every few minutes, low enough and loud enough to rattle the windows, cause items to vibrate off the nightstand, and to rocket you from sleep with the first instinct to dive for cover.  How my folks slept through that is a mystery to both me and Marden, but after two nights we were weary.  We later invaded Trent and Hannah's house for the remainder of our stay, where we were out of the flight path and the copters were merely a distant rumble.

Crappy Writing

I'm still reeling a bit from my writing analysis which compared me to Stephanie Meyer.  I know it's just a simple Internet analysis, and I don't have any illusions about being a great writer, but still.  And it's not that she's just AWFUL...while her writing kind of annoyed me, and some of her characters REALLY annoyed me, she could tell a good story and keep me interested enough to read all four Twilight books and see the movies.  If it's a good story, I can forgive some pretty bad writing.  I've read much worse from other authors making millions.  I just don't want to annoy people.  I also don't want to populate the world with any more crappy writing.

True, Stephanie Meyer is laughing all the way to the bank, despite her critics, but I tend to be a romantic idealist.  This might be different if I were pursuing a living as a writer, but I think I'd rather be critically acclaimed and broke rather than told over and over that my writing stinks, even if I made money off that stinky writing.  This is weird, because I'm the complete opposite with artwork.  I spent my college years being told by the majority of my snooty art instructors that my artwork was "baseless", "irrelevant", "boring couch art", and on one occasion told by my Advanced Figure Drawing instructor - in front of the whole class AND the nude model no less - "Just because you can draw better than anyone in this class doesn't mean you're an artist."  I kept my grade in mind and my mouth shut, but I wanted to ask if the person who'd just had a show in the student gallery could be called an "artist" because she built two columns, glued pieces of broken mirror to them, then sprinkled dead leaves around on the floor and called it "art."  With artwork, critique from the "experts" doesn't matter a lick to me, as long as I'm satisfied with my own work and the Average Joe or Jill likes it.  Maybe it all boils down to confidence.

I was joking about not blogging anymore - I'll still blog because I enjoy it.  But please, PLEASE someone tell me if, like Stephanie Meyer, I start using too many ridiculous metaphors, create an extremely annoying character, or begin to rave about handsome sparkly vampires with piercing amber eyes and snow-white marble skin, frosty as the arctic winter breeze...

I Write Like...Crap, Evidently

Having taken the "who do I write like" test posted on Stephanie's "Pointed Meanderings" blog, my bubble is totally burst.  I don't know whether to laugh or sob uncontrollably.  It may just be the end of this blog.

My results were Stephanie Meyer.

*sigh*