How Can You be Bored?

A friend on Facebook is convalescing from a painful surgery, and has been on the shelf, unable to do much but lie around for the past week.  She went to Facebook and complained that her boredom was actually worse than the pain of her surgery.

And to that I thought, "What a waste."

There is no greater gift than the gift of time.  None.  And yet we squander it, especially when presented with the gift of an unexpected allotment.  

Personally, I have a list of books I want to read, friends with whom I haven't talked, movies I want to see, things I want to write, topics I wan to research, physical activities and exercises I want to do, magazines I want to read, aspects of my faith that I want to perform, volunteer work I want to conduct, loved ones I want to tell how much they mean to me, chores I want to get caught up on, etc.  My goodness, the list of what I want to do, and am prevented from doing due to time, is nearly infinite.

I've heard many approach their retirement with fear, wondering what in the world they're going to do with their time.  For me, I cannot wait to get to retirement and to finally have the time to do all the things I've been unable to do up to this point.  In fact, I fear that I might not have enough time in my life between retirement and my demise to get it all in.

At the funeral of a friend's mother a couple of years ago, the celebrant talked of things that the woman commonly said which encapsulated her life.  One of them really struck me: "If you're bored, you're boring."  

Time is a gift, even if it comes in a format that isn't exactly optimal.  Gifts should not be squandered, as there will likely come a time latter in life in which time, age, and circumstances prevent us from doing that which we had time to do previously. 

I close with a quote from someone far smarter than me:

Does thou love life?  Then do not squander time, for that is what life is made of.

- Benjamin Franklin

Friends Theme Song Covered by Irish Singers

A pretty crappy original song that's given incredible new life by this outstanding cover treatment:



Even with the bad acoustics and poor microphone, the talent of these guys is incredible.

New York - An Irish Catholic Morning

I spent the first part of this week in New York, and I spoiled myself with some tourist pursuits on Sunday.  And since it was a Sunday, the best place to start was with mass.  And since I was in New York, the best place for mass was St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

The Cathedral itself is under a major state of repair.  It's covered both inside and out with scaffolding and sheets, and the restoration it's undergoing is massive.  Here's a look toward the altar:

I choose to attend the Bishop's mass at 10:15, and got there at 9:30 to try and get a good seat.  Unfortunately for me there was a special event going on that mass, and ushers prevented folks not associated with a celebrated group from sitting up front.  Said usher can be seen in the aisle in the picture above.

I actually was in the middle of a group coming in and made it past the usher with them.  It was too bad that the celebrated group was a Filipino one, and my January Green Bay tan wasn't fooling anyone.  The usher asked me if I was part of the group, and I could have said "yes," but lying to get a better seat in church kind of defeats the purpose, does it not?  I left the cover of my Filipino friends and headed to the back with the riff-raff.

The celebrant for mass was Timothy Cardinal Dolan, whom I written about previously here.  I love to listen to services from St. Patrick's on the Catholic Channel on my Sirius radio, and I just love the Cardinal and the abject joy he takes in his missionary work.  He oozes charisma, and seeing him in person even magnified that for me. 

The mass itself had a lot of pomp and circumstance - the incense, full choir, magnificent soloist, the mitre and crosier - all of it made for an incredible experience.  Cardinal Dolan's homily, in celebration of Christ's baptism, was about the core tenets of our Catholic faith - the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and our salvation.  As usual, it was an extremely relevant message, delivered in a virtuoso style.  

When mass ended, there was the usual processional:

But what was not usual was Cardinal Dolan lollygagging at the back, working the crowd as he was headed out:

As I was on an aisle seat, I was able to say, "God bless you, Your Eminence," which returned a warm, "Good morning!" nice wave and a grin.  And people just ate the guy up.  Me included. 

I bounded out of mass thrilled with the whole experience, but hungry.  Fortunately for me, there happened to be a nice Irish bar just around the corner, where I topped the whole morning off with an Irish breakfast and a Guinness to wash it all down:

Overall, I can't imagine being able to spend a better Sunday morning in New York City.  

Or many other places for that matter.

Tearing the Mask Off Boys?

Or just tearing the masculinity out of them?



Because if boys could just share their feelings, they'd be happier.

Or maybe some ADHD drugs would help.

* Sigh * Why can't they just behave like girls?

Browning Sweet 16, Part 2

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my first man's shotgun - a Browning A-5 sixteen gauge.  It was a gun that I used for a number of years as a kid, but since I was a kid, and since my Grandpa had cut down the stock to make it fit me, I soon outgrew it.  And with that growth I left the sixteen gauge behind, and pretty much didn't think about it much the rest of my hunting career.  

Decades passed and then Dad got sick with Pick's disease, and as a family we felt it best to get the guns out of the house.  I don't think anybody ever felt there to be any true danger, but why risk it?  Hence all of Dad's guns came to me - the good, bad, and ugly.  Some I kept as they are treasures to me -Dad's beautiful Browning Superposed (which I actually invested in restoring with Browning, and they did an INCREDIBLE job - that will likely be a future blog post) and Dad's beat up workhorse A-5 12 gauge.  

Some I gave away.  One such gun was my Dad's father's gun.  Unfortunately, I never new my Grandpa on my Dad's side, so the gun had no special meaning to me.  Hence I found a good home for that with my Uncle.

The rest I traded in.  And one of those was my original man's gun, that cut-down Browning A-5 16 gauge.  

At the time I felt that the gun had been disfigured to the point of not being relevant anymore, so while I was sorry to see it go, I wasn't too shook up about it.

But as the years went by, I missed that gun.  While I currently use a Browning Maxus as my day in, day out duck gun, I always hunt at least one day per season with  the Browning A-5 12 gauge that my Dad gave me as a gift for my birthday/grad school graduation.  And in holding that "humpback" in the blind, it always proves impossible for my mind not to wonder and think back on that smaller gauged humpback that I used to use all those years ago.

Last month found me in our local Cabela's doing some Christmas shopping.  And, as I'm wont to do, my meandering of the store found me with a stop at their high end gun room.  While my wife will be the first to tell you that the last thing I need is another gun, I can't help myself and sometimes it's fun just to go in there, see what they have, and maybe dream a little.

And then I saw it - a 1965 Browning A-5 Sweet Sixteen.  While not the same model as what I had, it was close.  I picked it up off the display rack, and was instantaneously flooded with memories and emotion.  As I opened the chamber, shouldered the gun, and felt for the safety I was transported back to sitting in a duck blind on Lake Sonmore with my Dad at my side.  Memories of hunts, laughs, mornings, ducks, dogs came back into my head like a freight train.

And Immediately I choked up.  

I must have caught the eye of the salesman, as I was likely toying with the gun for going on a good 15 minutes.  With every shoulder mount and view of the intricacies of the gun seemed to come another memory.  The only bad part was that the gun was in very good condition.  And that meant it came with a very big price tag.

The sales guy saw my emotion and was ready to write me up then and there, but my wife was with me in the store, and there's no way I could spend that kind of money without her support.  I put the gun back, and told the salesman that I may or may not be back.

I tracked my wife down in the store, moved her off to a more quiet corner, and with a lump in my throat and mist in my eyes, I explained what I had just experienced.  And I also explained the cost.  

Without a hesitation she says to me, "Well, let's go look at it."

And that is how I ended up with this beauty.  While I have bought a couple of boxes of lead shells for it, I doubt I'll ever shoot them though it.  To me, I'm content to break out a rag, place the gun across my lap, rub it up good, and just remember.  

Yeah, it came with a big price tag, especially for a gun that will likely never be used again.  But as sweet as those memories are that came with it, it was a price well worth paying.

JM Cremp's - A Store for Boys

As I've reported recently, there seems to be a war on boys and men going on in our society.  Masculine traits are sought to be feminized out of our society.  Thankfully there are bastions that protect those things that are traditional male touchstones.

One such place is actually a store for boys.  JM Cremp's, found both online and in Minnesota's Mall of America, is an oasis that allows boys to be boys.  

See the video at the attached link for a look.

Poo Pourri

Yes, this is real...

Media Treatment: Christie Versus Obama

It has been fascinating to see how the media has handled the Chris Christie traffic scandal, especially in the context of the Obama administration's IRS scandal .  The similarities are striking:

• Both had "rogue" elements of their administration abuse power to punish political adversaries
• Both administrations took steps to cover up the activity 
• In both instances, the public suffered both directly and indirectly by these attacks
• Both leaders claim to know nothing about the activity  

But beyond that, the similarities end:

• In only one situation did the leader accept the blame for the actions taken by his administration
• In only one did the leader fire those responsible
• In only one did the leader vow to continue to be personally involved in investigating the matter further
• In only one of the situations did the leader apologize

And that person, my friends, is Chris Christie.  Obama took exactly none of those actions.  And what does Christie get for taking responsibility?   Vilification.  Just look at the feeding frenzy around Christie, and the crickets around Obama.  It's positively Orwellian.    

This examples shows us all we need to know about the media and their forthright efforts vilify conservatives and protect liberals at every step of the way.