Soldiers don't need to carry guns

Shark!!

I work with California National Guard recruiters. A few days ago recruiters were shot at during work and other military members were shot at their duty station. The National Guard can do things other services can't because it is decided by the state what to do. Some states had their recruiters start to carry guns. This isn't really smart because then you have nervous people walking around with guns. It is also hard to get schools to accept the recruiters that might be carrying guns. It would feel uncomfortable to talk to a recruiter about a job when they are carrying guns.

Can you imagine sitting with a recruiter and talking about future jobs and he puts his gun on the table and says, "You DO want to join the military, don't you?" HAHA it makes me laugh just to write that. Yesterday I was at the headquarters for the recruiters and asked them if California was planning on changing anything for recruiters. We already have all the buildings locked and we have been worrying about safety. Today I went to a recruiter office and they were not in uniform. The were wearing civilian clothes, one was wearing blue jeans.

artist adding paint to a Thomas Kinkade painting

Instead of arming themselves the California recruiters are camouflaging themselves. They are blending in with their surroundings. They still get their job done, they just aren't moving targets or radical people. When the units get together they wear uniforms, when there is a meeting they wear uniforms, but, when an individual recruiter is walking out on the street they don't wave the red flag in front of the enemy and invite trouble. The only place I predict we will have trouble is San Francisco. The San Francisco Unified School District doesn't allow recruiters on high school campus unless their wear a uniform.

Sitting around Carmel

 In the next few days I will go get permission for an exception to policy. We never know what San Francisco will do so we will not try to predict.

boots for all occasions

Emotions

some pictures bring out emotions

When I watch that audition I tear up. Most people that know me know how true that is. I get emotional about many things. Sometimes it is laughter, sometimes it is tears, sometimes it is anger, and sometimes it is love and admiration. You have heard the expression of people wearing their emotions on their sleeves, I wear it on my face and in my eyes. I wish I could control my emotions, but I often lose control. When I taught in Korea every Christmas time I would play the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. I think it is a good way to understand American culture.

Giants in 2015

If you have ever seen the movie you probably know the end where the bells are ringing on the Christmas tree. I always tear up at that part. I don't care how many times I see the movie I lose my emotions at the same point. When I show the movie during class I always turn my back to my class at that point. My tears are running down my face and then I wipe them off and then turn around and face the class. I have mentioned before how I have gone to the movies with my youngest daughter and during the movie she will tell me to quit crying. The theater is dark so I ask how she knows I am crying.

49ers 2015

She says she knows I am crying because she is also. I don't like being so emotional and I hope my daughter doesn't inherit this weakness from me. I don't think it is good for a man or a woman to be so emotional. I know it has hurt me in my life. When I was an Army officer it was really bad when I would be yelled at and I would start to tear up. It was terrible! I would not be that upset, but tears would be in my eyes. Or when I had to punish someone and I would have water in my eyes as I tell them what their punishment was.

Seeing the flag always brings out my emotions.

When I was young I would sometimes laugh so much that I couldn't stop. I had to hit my head on the wall to try to stop laughing. I have become so angry that I couldn't think rationally and had to just leave the situation so I could think of what to do. I don't get scared so easily and I don't avoid many situations because of my emotions. When I like/ love things immensely sometimes I can't control myself. Today I drove past UC Davis and thought about the first time I took my oldest daughter there to go to college and I started to tear up! AHHHHH!!

Run, Scottie, Run!

12K across the Golden Gate Bridge

In 2011 I decided to lose weight because I saw a picture of myself. I was embarrassed and didn't want to look like that fat slob any more. I lost the weight, 20 pounds, in 3 months and didn't want to put it back on. So, I started running 5K races, "fun runs". I ran my first 5K on 11/11/2011. I ran it with my oldest daughter Lindsey.

Crossing the bridge and taking pictures.

I did one more that year and then I decided I would do 2 a month the following year. So in 2012 I did 24 5K or more races. I did 10Ks, mud races, and a 12K. I ran in California, Idaho, and Arizona. The following January I even did a 5K on international waters (on a cruise ship). The following year I decided to try one 10K a month.

Running downtown San Jose

That didn't work so well. I don't like doing 10Ks and I started regretting trying. The following year I didn't run so often, I just did the runs I enjoyed doing.

San Jose Japantown

People ask me why I pay to run when I can do it for free by myself. Last year I found out that if I don't pay then I don't feel a need to run. If I don't run 5Ks then I don't run to prepare for them. When I do a 5K I am motivated to run every day to prepare for it.

4th of July on the Parade route

I always try to find people to run with me. I can't get others interested in running with me, or in the same races.

Audience watching us run!

This year I will try a 5K a month. I have it all covered until December. This also encourages me to keep running every day. I am successful in doing that 4 days a week, but I want to do it 7 days a week. My next run is the SF Giants run which runs along the tourist area. There will be over 9,000 people running. Then in September I will do a "black light run" where they throw neon paint on you as you run then you run under black lights at night!

going underneath the bridge

I hope I never get old

Caissons go rolling along in Ft. Ord

One of the hardest things about a blog is consistency, writing every day gets difficult. Today I spent the day with my mom. In the morning I applied for a Fictitious Business Name, Philfril Mercantile, and then drove to Carmel where my mom lives. We just hung out in the afternoon, ate dinner out, then mellowed out at home after dinner. One thing I did today was set up a music system for my mom. I noticed when I have been here before, she just moved to a new house, I noticed she had an old boom box for her background music. I brought an old computer and put iHeart radio on it.

Field Artillery in Ft. Ord

I set it up so she can choose what genre music she wants to listen to by using the touch screen and then the music will play until she stops it. I also put old pictures of family trips, the Monterey area, and the trips I take around California. So, tonight we are listening to classical music and watching pictures of trips I have taken. I will change the pictures sometimes during the year and on the other side of the living room she has pictures from the on-line digital frame my sisters provide the pictures for. I think one of the hardest things as you get older these days is keeping up with the technology.

Remember when we would buy big radios? Remember when we had huge stereos as furniture in our house? Remember when we had reel to reel tape machines to replace the phonographs? Remember when we would ... you get the idea. Now we try to get smaller and less conspicuous. I hope my kids keep me up to date when I get old. I remember how long it took us to convince my mom that texting was not rude and just because we can pick up a phone and call doesn't mean we need to.

Seal balancing on a rock to stay dry while his buddy waits for his turn!

I've been gone for SIX Months!

Carmel beach at sunset

I haven't written in this blog for six months. I plan on writing again. When I originally started writing this blog I was trying to write a letter to my future grandchildren. I wanted them to know the things that happened to me and thoughts I had so they would have an idea who I was. I know my children never read this, and that is ok because it isn't written for them. Then it got to be a way for me to share my thinking with people I know, and don't know. I don't often share my thoughts with people these days.

Carmel beach kelp

On the 20th of January I met someone that I could share things with and I enjoyed her company. I had no need nor desire to continue writing in this blog because I spent the time I would be doing that talking to her and it made more sense to do that. When I wrote this blog before I would think during the day what I could write about that evening. Sometimes my writing was interesting and sometimes it was just rambling. When I had new events in my life I enjoyed contemplating things through writing about them. Just thinking about the writing helped me make decisions. Sometimes the decisions were good and sometimes bad, but writing here forced me to think about them more. I will be making some big moves in the next year or so, so I want to start writing and thinking about things  I am doing. I live in Sunnyvale, California which is in the South Bay Area of San Francisco Bay. This has got to be one of the most expensive areas in the country. The average price of houses in this area is $900,000 and everything else is comparatively as expensive. When the radio talks about the highest gas prices in the country it is usually a city near me. Food is expensive in this area... everything is. I can move an hour away and the average house value is $250,000.

Monterey Aquarium sea anemone

I was thinking of moving to Pennsylvania last year to make the same money I make now, but costs were much lower. Instead of moving across the country while don't I move a hundred miles? I have friends in the area I am thinking of moving to, but will leave many friends I have in this area. I will only be an hour away and will still work in this area so that shouldn't stop me. I will be moving further from my mother and sister, but I will still work in those two areas, so that shouldn't stop me. I hate moving. I have moved a lot in my life, but that doesn't outweigh the benefits.

Monterey aquarium jelly fish

I have someone that will buy my house and now I can't put off moving any more. I don't have anyplace to move to as of right now, but I will actively look in the next couple of weeks. This should also help me get out of all my debt and help me start on a bright future!

Monterey Aquarium sea otter

I will write more about it in the future, I just wanted to be sure to start this today, since it is my 6 month anniversary. Please remember that when I post pictures on here they are just pictures I have taken recently and don't necessarily have anything to do with what I'm writing about.

Monterey Aquarium Penguins

Can Men and Women be just friends?

As a single man I get lots of women that want to be my friend, but don't want any romance. Most people know what it means for a man to be in the "friend zone", you never get out of it. Most men hate that zone and many women look for a man to be in that zone with. I think it is a trap! It is ironic that women want to be in this zone, but they don't want their boyfriend to be in this zone with another woman. So, men don't like this zone! If they have a woman friend then other women don't want a relationship, but the woman that is "just a friend" doesn't want a relationship either. Does this sound like a relationship trap to anyone else? I hear many women say they wish they had male friends like they used to in high school or maybe even college. But, they don't want their boyfriend to have female friends like the guy used to in college or high school. A few months ago I had a friend that was a female and she kept saying she didn't want to be my girlfriend. She introduced me to people as her "mentor".

I wanted to hear that I was more than just a friend and she didn't want to say it that way. I had other female friends that this woman didn't know about. Well, she knew about it, but she had never met any of them. One weekend another women came to my house to use my scanner and while she was working in my house I was outside trimming my trees. Well, you know what I am going to say (or why would I be talking about this), the woman that called me her mentor drove up and saw me working outside. She wondered why I didn't invite her inside so she went in and saw the other woman.

She took everything she had left in my house and didn't say anything, just walked out. She no longer called me her mentor. She still needs my helps sometimes, but that is all. We don't hang around any more and she doesn't consider me her friend. Since that weekend she has asked me about that girl and mentions her sometimes. It makes me roll my eyes  when women say they want to be friends or have a male friend. I don't think it is possible to be normal friends. I have some female friends and am happy to meet them or help them. But, they are different than my male friends. I don't hang out with them.

I sometimes see some women from high school or college. I don't mind meeting a woman with her husband or a group of women. That is different than a friendship with a man. With a guy I would go out to a bar and get drunk. With a woman I would go to Starbucks and get a coffee. After the drink we might spend the night talking about everything. After the coffee we would go home and talk to other friends.

Just HELP

Today I'm at the San Jose library helping with a MeetUp group I'm in. I often teach this group English classes, but today I came to help a couple of my former students while they teach. When I sit in the back of class I realize I am the worst kind of student and I wonder how my teachers put up with me. I am very disruptive when I'm bored! When other people teach ESL I'm always bored. I like class activities and it seems no one else does. They stand in front of the class and tell students how to speak English rather than have them actually speak English.

On my way here I walked through downtown. Even on Sundays they have city workers cleaning the streets, emptying trash, and making everything look good. As I was walking I saw one of the workers engaging a homeless person. This man was looking in trash cans and taking out plastic and aluminum containers to recycle and make a few bucks. The city worker was emptying trash into the cart he was wheeling around. The homeless man looked apologetic that he was going through the trash when he saw the city worker. The city worker smiled at him and called him over. The homeless guy, and I, were thinking this city worker was going to chastise the homeless guy for going through the trash.

I couldn't hear what was going on, but the homeless guy got this smile on his face all of a sudden. The city worker opened a "secret compartment" on his cart and the homeless guy started taking out a bunch of crushed cans. I smiled at the city worker and gave him a thumbs up as I walked by. We fist bumped as the homeless guy was digging into the secret compartment taking his new found loot. It made me feel good to see everyone pulling together to help each other. We all need to do that. I don't care about race or religion or anything else that people feel is a barrier between each other. We need to help each other because everyone has problems. No one's life is as smooth as others think and we can all use a boost sometimes.
(If it matters ... the city worker was Hispanic and the homeless guy was white)

20,000 push ups and 500 miles

2014 Turkey Trot

Variety, variety, variety ... variety is important in all things. I have lived in many different places, I have had different jobs, and I have had many different experiences. Three years I lost weight and then started running to keep the weight off.

2014 Moonlight Run

When I started this grand idea I couldn't run to the end of the block with my daughter. I went to the gym every day and ran on the treadmill for 20 - 30 minutes. Started at 1 mile and worked my way up to 3.5 miles. The first month I hated it. Even now every time I run I keep saying, "I hate running, I hate running, I hate running!". It was no easy to drag myself to the gym every day. Even when I didn't go to the gym I would run outside and I forced myself to run every day.

2014San Jose Giants 5K

2014 San Francisco Giants 5K

I wasn't sure of the motivation after a while. Was I running to lose weight or to stay in shape?

2014 Burlingame 5K L

I have been running for 3 years and now I don't keep up with it so much. I don't go to the gym very often and run outside only a few times a week. I have known for some time that I needed to do something else.

2013 10K Turkey Trot

2013 Moonlight 5K

Last month my niece's husband put a challenge on Facebook. He wanted to know if anyone else would do 55 pushups a day every day for 2015.

2013 San Jose Giants 10K

Over 20,000 pushups if I can do it every day. I was thinking of practicing before the new year and figured it would be good to work up to it. I couldn't convince myself to do that. I know I want to do it, but I didn't. I will do 55 push ups if possible every day this year.

2013 SF Giants 10K

2013 Burlingame 10K

Just like my promise the I made to myself 3 years ago I WILL do this. I'm going to try to combine the pushups with running 1.5 miles every day and keep running 5K and 10K races.

2012 Burlingame 5K

When I decided to run 2 5K races a month I did it. I will do this. But, then again I will do what I can do. The first day I was able to do the 55 pushups and I walked 1.5 miles since my foot is hurting. The next day I could only do 30 pushups, my arms literally wouldn't move any more. On the 3rd of January I didn't do any pushups and then the 4th I am back to 55 pushups. Running will catch up. As of today I am at 140 pushups and 1.5 miles. I WILL do this!!

2012 SJ Earthquake 5K

2011 Turkey Trot (1st)

2012 MS 5K

2012 Morgan Hill 5K w/ Lindsey

2012 5K Santa Cruz

2012 Monterey 5K