I don't know how I got everything done before I retired.  Since retirement I don't think I've added anything to  my life as a matter of fact since leaving the military and now retiring from teaching I should have more free time but I don't. I've talked to a lot of retirees lately and most have the same problem. Not enough time to do what they need to even though they don't have a job to go to anymore.  

Here's what I've been doing this week.  Our church is having an end of  year dinner and the pastor asked me to come up with some mugs to give away and two special ones for the guest speaker and his wife. So, here they are. 

I hope the folks like them.   

My daughter needed one for the "Secret Santa" gift for her office Christmas party.  So I made a mug with this on it.  

In my spare time I'm making things up for friends and just to post on FB and others. Making these things up helps me learn to use the graphics software.  Here are a few more I've completed recently. 

IF I don't get back on for a bit. I want to wish Everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. 

 You would think that retirement would provide me with more time for working on my blogs and other things I want to do.  If you thought that, like I did, you'd be wrong!  I'm not sure how I got everything done while I was on the job and doing the things around the house too.  I'm just not getting as much done as I'd hoped.  I'm still up early and go to bed late.  I just don't understand.  

There are a lot of things I don't understand like how anybody can still support the Biden/Harris/Obama/Rice/Soros/Pelosi/Schumer administration.  I don't understand how anyone thinks Joe Biden (AKA Brandon) is actually in charge.  Those who believe that are more brain dead than Biden.  

So what have I been doing other than skirting the rules and staying out of FB jail?  Well, I'm considering starting a business making handicrafts by sublimating images and sayings on shirts, cups, and whatever I can think of.  I look around and see a lot of people doing it yet the marketplace does not seem to be flooded yet.   I've made some mugs with many different logos.  This is one I'm working on. It will fit a 15 oz coffee mug.  Some images, like this one, I make myself while others I purchase on Etsy and Ebay. 

Graphics Purchased

Anyway, It's fun and I've sold a few to friends and given more away than I've sold.  But that is part of the learning process.  

I'll let y'all go now but I'll be back with thoughts on CRT, Protests, Jan 6th, and other things.

Be careful out there. 

  

Looking Back at the War on Terrorism on this 9/11/2021

 Looking back today at our war on terrorism since the 20^th anniversary of 9/11 is at hand.  I thought about the timing of the growth of three terrorist organizations. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Isis.  

Al Qaeda started in 1988 under Bush 41 but really didn’t start to grow very much until the early 90’s.  At that time another group was forming, the Taliban.  Both groups grew and were under the radar of our then President Williams J. Clinton.  One could argue that because they were under the radar they were allowed to grow and flourish under his administration culminating in Al Qaeda’s attack on the US less than 9 months after President George W. Bush was inaugurated in January of 2001.  We know the outcome of allowing or ignoring Al Qaeda’s rise to power when the Twin Towers came down, the Pentagon was hit and a fourth plane that was headed for the Capital building in Washington D.C. was thwarted by the heroic actions of the plane’s passengers which prevented that group of terrorists from reaching their target.

President Bush’s administration waged what could be considered a successful war against Al Qaeda and to some extent the Taliban for the next seven years as well as the war in Iraq. 

President Barak H. Obama continued to fight the war on terrorism that was started under President Bush, but one could argue that it was more half-hearted in its execution because of changes in the rules of engagement the military was forced to fight under.  While his administration made some strides and had some success including the killing of Bin Laden.  They also had a series of blunders and failures in places like Iraq, Benghazi, and others.  The Obama administration severely underestimate ISIS, calling them the JV team and were not successful in stopping the spread of ISIS throughout the middle east, not to mention the growing strength of the Taliban again under the radar of a democratic administration following the vacuum of leadership that remained after the Americans withdrew from Iraq.

President Trump and his administration took over the fight and took on ISIS and our military was unshackled and quickly drove ISIS back, Freeing Iraq from ISIS rule as well as other areas of the middle east.  He pushed for the end to fighting in Afghanistan and developed a plan for a conditional withdrawal. While the date was earlier than the August 31^st that President Biden set, one could argue if President Trump's withdrawal plan of civilians and allies first, equipment next and military last, he may have well been able to complete it on his timetable. 

But elections have consequences, and we will never know If he and his administration could have completed this withdrawal in the timeframe he originally set.  President Biden decides to withdraw the military without coordination with our allies in the middle of the might leaving civilians to the mercy of the Taliban.  Now he said nobody could have predicted this would happen. Apparently, he did not learn from the history of Vietnam in the 70’s or even the abandoning of Iraq during the Obama administration of which he was a part.  ISIS took over in record time just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, (George Santayana) who was later misquoted by Winston Churchill saying that “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”. Regardless of who said it or how they said it, President Biden who lived through both tragic withdrawals in Vietnam and Iraq should have learned from his own history as a participant in those historic events and should have known this would happen again. 

Islamist terrorists had been allowed to thrive and grow under three presidents.  Al Qaeda under President Clinton, ISIS under President Obama, and now the Taliban has taken over an entire country and is gaining strength beyond what they enjoyed under the Clinton years under this president, Joe Biden. 

Apparently, the democratic party and its leaders either don’t care that these groups are brutalizing women and minorities, destroying all of the progress made over the last 20 years just as long as it doesn’t have an effect on the democratic party power base and their vision of a one-party system of government for Americans under their own iron fist.   Maybe they are allowing this to happen to give them a road map for their own takeover of our nation and how to take care of those who oppose them in the name of freedom.  

 Lordy, It has been a long time since I posted last.  Not that I've not had anything to say, it's just I haven't had time to post much of anything. But now that I've retired and no longer the Dean of Allied Health and I'm not actively teaching anymore I should have time to post more often.  I guess 12 years between posts is just a bit of a long time.  

What have I been doing?  Well, other than teaching and developing curriculum for various health professions, I've been learning new cooking techniques such as Sous Vide and Pressure Cooking to name a few.  I've spent more time shooting and improving my marksmanship. I've learned to use the Cricut and now am learning how to sublimate graphics on T-shirts, cups, and other things.  

I'm going to try to post more regularly and provide some political commentary, recipes, crafting tips, show what I've been taking pictures of, and just anything else that pops into my head at the time. 

These are pictures from the farm at Carriage Hill Park in Huber Heights.  It is one of my favorite places to take pictures.  They have a graveyard for old farm equipment, a working blacksmith, an active farm, an old graveyard from the 1800s. They also have a lake and hiking trails for folks to enjoy.  It's one of my favorite places here in the Dayton area. 

I hope I can enjoy retirement this time. 

Chris