And then, the fight began...

As I was about to mix a rum-n-coke, I was gently reminded by my better half that perhaps my love handles were becoming inverted winglets on the blimp of late...

"Maybe you don't need any more rum," she says.

"What do you mean?" I'm asking but wondering "am I drinking too much?"

"Rum has lots of calories and Coca Cola has even more" she says.

So I make a drink without any Coca Cola, and leave the conversation at an impasse. But, I figured why not add some pictures to express the humorous side of this.

(I "borrowed" photos from around the web for this, so THANKS to all whom contributed.)

"What do you mean gravity challenged?"

"Let me think 'bout this for a minute...... of times where I may have over indulged":

"uhmmm.........how did I get here again?"

Heineken's best swim wear for a kegger.....

"There it is again. I distinctly heard the word beer...."

"We're at a Chinese res-suarant. Whazzzza problem?"

"And da fruit azza bottom ish tastEEEEEEEEE TOO!!!!"

"I kin walsh jus fine ossiffer............."

"Those sonsabitches are gonna pay for this!!"

"They said open bar. Hiccup. I musta fell in or something.....................hiccup."

"I can neither confirm nor deny existence of said "tekillya" but the hat, if you must ask, protects me from invading worms of outer Mexico. That's my story, and I'm sicken to it."

"I have not yet begun to defile myself, thank you very much."

"Let's see now.........1.75 litres of rum minus 2 drinks minimum per day in a glass having a diameter of 3.5 inches and 4 inches tall.........pi times radius squared multiplied by 2-1/2 deviations for ice volume displacement times glass height..........allow for coefficient of linear expansion of Coca Cola times temperature shift for volume expansion and the delta of viscosity during consumption allowing for velocity outflow per Bernoulli's principle of non-laminar flow........would put the bottle on the middle shelf. And yet, it is somehow not there. Why is the rum always gone?"

But I always arise the next morning to ingest copious amounts of coffee, ...........which brings me around to the normality of my role as an instructor:

In all of this, I've come to the following conclusion:

So, whether or not I'm too fat, consume too much, or wind up sleeping in the strangest places............. just leave me the hell alone..............K?....................hiccup.........

"Hamp!"

A clearer view

Summer. The heat waves caressed the image as if it were a shimmering desert mirage. Wafting back and forth in clarity and near illusion like an object obscured by a solid sheet of water...........falling. There, but not precisely still. Wind blowing but not cooling. Refracting light through curved paths of confusion. Hot. Wicked heat. Beating down......and yet upward in collusion with wind to blind. Stifling. Can't breath. Sweat pours from brow to sting and blind.

"One minute left, now."

Without hesitation, I reached to adjust windage in truth observed. Ignore all else but what is seen.

"Breathe........slow breaths..........relax"

Calm the heart. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. Calm the desire. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. Calm the impulse. The sound of heart-beats like horse hooves clopping along cobblestones and swaying back felt in every pulse. Echoing throughout my body. BOOM............Boom..................boom

The strap was cinched tight. Connected from butt plate to fore-end. Wrapped so tightly around forearm and bicep that each heart pulse is felt and resounding like timpani emphasis for orchestra in chest and ear drums. Pulsing blood through artery and vein bouncing the cross-hairs up and down. Swinging wildly to and fro. Left hand numb from loss of circulation of sling pulled so tight. Tight. So tight. Bound by strap, jacket, and rifle. Right hand free to roam with fingers able to gently pull the stock back into my shoulder. Right index finger caressing a 2 ounce trigger.

"Send it."

Breathe.................exhaling........................CRACK!!!!!

Sharp recoil without reflex. Eyes back centered on target to watch the trail of sound waves, heat, and wind part.

"Hit! Send another." A familiar voice of assurance and trust but not congratulatory. A simple statement of achieving what is desired. Expected.

A smile crosses my face knowing that I'd struck true. Working the bolt without hesitation, another round was readied for the trip of more than half a mile. Heat. Sweat. Constriction. Wind blowing but no respiration granted. Squeeze the strap and lock into position. Bone structure support for a solid base. Breathe. Boom-Boom-Boom. Eye centered and target up. Boom-Boom-Boom. Exhale slowly. Time the bounce of the cross-hairs on target. Know when it settles. Know when to gently squeeze...

An outsider would only observe a person lying prone in sun-beaten August heat with rifle while wrapped in a long sleeve jacket with only a wide brim jungle hat of sorts to shade the sun from his eyes. Perfectly still. Seconds..............minutes drag by and no movement. And, wonder why.

I see only a set of cross hairs bouncing wildly with each heart-beat creating the asymmetric sign of infinity.....but always coming back to rest on center target. The frequency is predictable now. It doesn't matter what the season. Only the wind and light matter today.

My friend was sitting on a folding stool above and behind me peering through a 45 power spotting scope at a target a thousand yards away. Below him on the ground wrapped in a jacket made of many layers of cordura and leather that neither breathed nor gave "cooling" quarter to anyone crazy enough to embrace it, I lay dehydrating. Jacket, sling, rifle, Gehman glove, booney hat, and determination. Windage and elevation were all that mattered.

"Send it."

Breathe...............exhale........................CRACK!!!!!

"Hit!"

A familiar voice of knowledge. A friendly voice of comfort, confidence, and camaraderie. I roll slightly to my left to look back at my friend.................and he is not there.

I awoke to realize my friend had come to visit me one last time on the grounds that we had first met, and last parted in life - the grounds of a competitive rifle range. Maybe not the place most would picture meeting past friends, but to us it was near to heaven.

Life is a bit empty without my friend, and not a day goes by without remembering some of his jokes and funny viewpoints of life. Dan always did have a way of making you look at life through different eyes, and a lesson was to be learned or shared every time. It was always a clearer view......

K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple Stupid...

Aaaahh.......the New Year's Resolution time is upon us. The time when we swear on whatever is most holy that we will follow through this year on a new resolution. "gonna lose 20 lbs....." "gonna quit smoking...", "gonna eat healthier...", "gonna stop surfing porn sites at work..."

What ever your worry-stone becomes for the new year, it should be assimilated so easily that it doesn't create added stress to everyday life. Why rob Peter to pay Paul? Why should it be a great sacrifice that is consuming every waking moment? I've tried doing calorie counting this past year and gained back 12 pounds over 6 months. WTF? I got good at identifying every food's required energy expenditure to maintain my weight and it served no good results. I gained the weight mostly from not exercising as much while still consuming the same calories. It was mostly a stress filled year of laziness. That may be an oxymoron.

I'm planning to keep it simple this year and go back to what worked for me 3 years ago when I dropped over 40 pounds in 9 months and got much stronger and faster on the bike. And, I did it in a healthy way rather than like most people do --> stop eating altogether. All that does is put your body in fat-packing mode.

It's just 4 simple things this year:

1st- Spread out my eating.
Rather than packing a full belly at prescribed times during the day, I'm going into "snack mode" to ramp up the metabolism. This doesn't mean Little Debbie's, crackers, and cokes from the junk vendor, but rather eating small meals 5-8 times a day to keep the growler from getting angry. Eating a small portion of baked chicken breast, fruit, unsalted mixed nuts, yogurt, etc. throughout the day instead of big meals.

2nd - Just ride.
I've got cold weather gear, rain gear for sprinkles, enough ways to carry water during hot days that 5 other riders needn't carry bottles, so why shouldn't I be riding? It doesn't have to be an epic ride, nor a ride for the sole purpose of seeing black spots of oxygen deprivation while trying to time the explosion of muscle and ligament fibers with complete exhaustion. Although I do enjoy those rides......

3rd - Enjoy the scenery.
It may be cliche to state the obvious fact that we only pass this way once, but I've missed a lot of my surroundings in each of my hobbies these last few years because I was focusing solely on whatever the goal was at that time. So, I plan to look around a bit in the coming months to see what I'm missing. I can honestly say that the only time I actually enjoyed flying this past year was on two occasions because I got to see what was around me rather than worrying about the next challenge. On road rides, I've only focused on the wheel in front of me or the 30 yards directly ahead on the open road. Just concentrating on breathing, eating enough, and drinking enough while keeping up and not getting dropped. I use to enjoy talking to whoever was on the rides, but I don't believe I got to know anyone this last year on the bike. And that's a shame. I enjoyed what little moutain biking I've done this past year, but we've got to start visiting other trails as I've become really tired of Thomson.

4th - "Just smile and wave boys.....smile and wave."
I guess the penguins from Madagascar said it best. There's no sense in stressing over the things you cannot change and no sense in creating stress for others.