I still don't know whether to take the bus or drive to NYC tomorrow.  I know, another first world problem.  Probably cheaper to drive, even with the parking and the fact that I've surrendered to the idea of staying overnight, regardless of the cost.

North Atlantic surf season is just beginning to pick up and I'll be staying here through October until the big move to Daytona Beach for the winter.  I'm looking forward to the new surroundings as well as the long trip down Interstate 95 and sleeping in the truck again.  I miss the self-contained simplicity of it.

It May Just Be Me, But Islam Doesn't Look Too Attractive A Religion

Yes, Next Question

Are rom-coms worse than porn?

First World Problems

Yeah, some minimum wage guy didn't make your burrito the way you like. Your life is a great tragedy.

On earth, we use the word “burrito” to describe a tortilla filled with things you eat. Pretty simple stuff, and I’m surprised you at least got that part right. My burrito was, in fact, filled with food. In this, you and I agree and are friends. But this is also where my lifelong hatred begins for you and anyone else whose brain has been repeatedly scrubbed with the same mixture of bleach and Pop Rocks as yours has. Because that should have killed you, but left you around long enough to do what you did to me today.

This is from a "comedy" site.  I weep for our culture.

This Did Wonders For My Fantasy Life

Model Punches Topless Protester During Paris Fashion Week

Although, to be honest, when I first saw the video, I thought she had punched a 12-year-old boy.  Or that Beeber creature. [Yeah, I know I didn't spell it right.]

And Also What The Media Hasn't Bothered To Tell Us Until Now

10 things Obamacare won’t tell you

Yeah, That Really Describes Hillary Clinton

“You and Debbie Stabenow are two of the record 20 women to serve in the US Senate right now,” Page asks. “Do you think women govern differently than men do?”“With women I will say this,” Heitkamp said in response. “I think we measure our success on results not whether or not we get our picture in the newspaper,” she said with a chuckle.

Rule 5 Friday: Why I surf

I have to go to New York City to see my publisher on Monday and I'm not sure whether to make it a day trip or an overnight.  An overnight would be hugely expensive, as midtown hotel rates are now over $300.  Even my university club, which has guest rooms, is creeping closer to that figure.  While a day trip would mean considerable savings, all I would have time to do is go to a meeting and grab something to eat on the bus back.

Then again, an overnight would not only permit some time for browsing in shops and bookstores, but also allow me to enjoy Sebastian's martinis at the club bar, eat a mess of steak, and roll gently into the elevator to my room; all without having to leave the club's comfort.  Hmmmmm....

Well, this is a thinker.

I was worried that I would get seduced by the settled life, comfortable in this nice house with its beer fridge, friendly and companionable cat [I call him Killer Joe, which is far better than his slave name of, God help me, Pussywillow], the ocean and its waves a mere block away, and the house's owner, the mother of some former students whom I have known for twenty years, coming down from her house in Maine for some casual sex from time to time.  Really, this is heavenly; especially since the weather in September has been sublime.

In fact, save for my morning and afternoon sessions in the surf, I've all but given up on exercise.  I haven't been for a run for almost two weeks and the standard and rather old-fashioned calisthenics I used to do have fallen away as well.  I've been eating dessert every night and, last night, when my blood sugar must have dropped, I ate two discs of cookie dough.  Dear Lord....

But the mornings are getting colder, even if the water temperature isn't yet, but I'm wearing the spring wetsuit.  It means that my morning surf session will be surrendered soon as both the air and water will continue to cool.  I can start running in the morning and keep planning on the winter move to Daytona Beach for three months in a studio apartment about two miles from reasonable waves.

Before then, I have to get up to my former town to check my post office box and meet a dental appointment.  I also have to see my editor at the academic press in New York as I've written a couple of book reviews that can easily be placed in the few remaining literary journals.  That's next week, though.  Today, I feel like taking a tremendous nap.

I better get out of here soon.  Oh, look.  Hoda and Kathie Lee are on....

Keep walking

DEMS WALK OUT BEFORE PARENTS OF BENGHAZI VICTIMS TESTIFY

Rule 5 Friday: Why I surf

This is the cover of this week's Time magazine in all of its international editions:



This is the cover of the US-only edition for the same week:

Staffers at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. held their own private ceremony Wednesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya after finding out the agency would not be organizing a formal, official memorial service.

To officially acknowledge their deaths would be to officially acknowledge the distopic leadership that lead to them.  That would make at least one president look like he didn't know what he was doing and another wannebe president look like she didn't care.  We can't have that, can we?

I learned a long time ago, and rather first hand, that a government will use anyone it can and discard them when convenient.  Even the ultimate sacrifice for one's country will be ignored if it means some authoritarian figure might have their access to power and its trappings limited.

Rule 5 Friday: Why I surf

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

I decided to mark the end of summer by staging my own, limited version of Endless Summer.  Instead of being filmed riding waves around the world, I was on my own as I rode waves up and down the coast of New Jersey.  Not the same, I know, but I'm on a fixed income it's the best I could do.

Actually, I wasn't entirely alone.  The only surfing friend I have joined my for five of the days, which was a good idea since the buddy system was recommended by the conditions at some of the beaches that still show the ravages of last year's hurricane.  While there were a few calm days, most were more than fine and the rides were satisfying.  Jersey in the fall is the best.

Now the friend is gone and it's raining.  The sea is flat and I've got muscle strain, a pulled groan and hamstring, blisters, sore triceps, and a flattened nose from where a wave kicked my board into my face. In other words, all is nominal.

I took the truck to the local Ford dealer for a once over this morning.  It was in good shape for its age, which means we will shortly be readying for the Florida adventure.  Something about being on the road again is rather calming.

VDH

Instead, Obama relied on his rhetoric and talked loosely, sloppily and inconsistently from crisis to crisis, the only common denominator being that he always took the path of least resistance and thus did nothing concretely to match his cadences. Usually to the degree he made a decision, he made things worse with empty, first-person bombast.

Currently on a surfing safari up and down the Jersey coastline and I left as much as I could back at the borrowed house, including the computer machine.

Rule 5 Friday: Why I surf

I'm picturing Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld sticking a daisy in the barrel of John Kerry's M-16 @KurtSchlichter

— Being Monitored (@marklindesr) September 5, 2013

McCain: "We know who the bad guys are, right?" Kerry: "For the most part."

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 3, 2013

This Is A Brilliant Example Of Clever Advocacy

Military: This is the face of doom

 

Someone who could use a considerable amount of psycho-therapy is pushing for yet another group of Marines and soldiers to be sacrificed for his fading sense of manhood.

Wow, what a Labor Day this is

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation's largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

And again re-Tweeted by Instapundit!  I should just go off-line now, it won't get any better.

This comment of mine was just re-Tweeted by Instapundit. I win Internet for today.

@wellturned @instapundit @universalhub If it didn't burn so much, I'd enjoy the irony.

— Sadhu's Bob (@vicarclem) September 2, 2013

On behalf of all of us old time watermen [Nyad knows that means her, too, as she's not a dope]: Thanks, Diana.

Breaking: CNN reports Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad reaches Key West, becoming the first person to swim Cuba to Florida without a shark cage
— Hartford Courant (@hartfordcourant) September 2, 2013

Government thinks guns, fast cars and alcohol should be banned. I think guns, fast cars and alcohol should be our national motto.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 2, 2013

The nice thing about temporarily residing in a resort town is that the local business owners completely ignore the absurdity of Labor Day.  Places such as this are driven by capitalism, so everything is open. If you are desirous of pizza, funnel cakes, caramel corn, or miniature golf, this is the place to be; and, since the employees are trying to squeeze just a few more paid hours of work out of the summer season, they don't seem to mind working when everyone else is encouraged by the government not to work or go to school.

I was desirous of a healthy breakfast prepared by someone else this morning and, as I have yet again exercised to the point of muscle pain, have decided to skip a day of running and surfing and biking.  So, it's off to the Surf Cafe for the hometown special, which is a couple of sausage links, some eggs, and gluten-free cinnamon bread.  They also do the dishes.

I may go for a leisurely swim later in the day, but since the whole barrier island is filled with the indolent seeking the "last day of summer" and half price off t-shirts, it's best to stay off of the beach and boardwalk and, instead, write some letters by the pool.  Actually, Killer Joe and some Plymouth gin make for nice company.

Quiet. Genius at work.

That's a beautiful desk

I'm the son, grandson, and great-grandson of carpenters, and that is an extremely well-made piece of craftsmanship.  Now, get your filthy sole off of it, please, you gormless undergrad.