Cane Cutter, Deckhand, Roughneck, Mud Man (which is a drilling fluid technologist), Geologist, Pilot, Pharmacist, Oil Field Trash and proud of it, full time Iconoclast.

In accordance with Northeast Louisiana University they gave me a bunch of paper that said I am an educated man. Francis Leblanc, The Driller I worked for on the rigs in South Louisiana could barely read and write. He taught me more than any college professor. Thank you Francis for every thing I learned from you and my professors. If not for you I would not have listened.

Happiness is being in a glider at 25000 feet over Colorado Springs and looking over the entire state of Colorado, part of Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Pan Handle of Texas. Unhappiness is when the canopy ices up.

Good things is when the British Caladonia flight (now taken over by BA) lands at Lagos and takes you back to London. Unhappiness is when the same plane takes you back to Lagos 28 days later.
My wonderfull wife.
Sitting outside in the dark around a fire with a good friend that goes back 35 years and sipping a Scottish Malt or Irish whiskey.
My children.
A long slow meal in a good restaurant and a glass of congac at the end of the meal with a cup of coffee, and a fine cigar.
Unfortunately today circa 2017 I can only smoke that cigar outside the pub or very expensive restaurant. That is just not right. Give me a room to eat and smoke a cigar if I am paying top dollar. It "just aint right."
Flying a glider at VNE (Velocity Never Exceed) down wind above the runway at about 2 feet and pulling up into a chandell and landing. That is damn near as good as sex.

10 years from that post, sex is losing. :)

POSTINGS AND TAG LINES ETC SHAMELESSLY PLAGURIZED FROM HISTORY AND OTHER FREEPERS

This is ERIC OF THE OZARKS PROFILE. It was so good I copied it all. "The Road to Serfdom" by Fredrich Hayek, interpreted in one sentence by P.J. O'Rourke: "The worst possible world would be created by taking the most prominent experts in every field and giving each one absolute power over his area of expertise." For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous, knowledge class arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism.) Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. --Charles Krauthammer 6/1/08 Global Climate Change--A synonym for "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." -Jimmy Vallentine. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. --H. L. Mencken For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end. The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivim -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality. People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources. Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern -- the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use envirnmentalism to advance collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.
George Will December 16, 2005

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” Abraham Lincoln Read this one twice, I see it happening in Washington DC now.

Religion is the opiate of the people Karl Marx. Now you know what is wrong with the Demonic Rat Party, that and the rest of Karl Marx teachings.

NEVER FORGET American Soldiers... Fighting for the... Freedom of others, Those that train them and... Their loved ones who wait... For them to come home... Or not... Are...
....H-O-L-Y..!!!
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer "WE WERE SOLDIERS" Veteran-Battle of IA DRANG-1965, Landing Zone Falcon
From the profile of Freeper "ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer (Thank you for your service Guyer, I am humbled by your actions and honor, you sir are what we call "ONE HELL OF A MAN."

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

" We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
Freeper Tet 68

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek neither your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams

Oppressors can tyranize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace" - James Madison

"Among the many misdeads of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." - Ghandi

To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privileged of their corps … and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whether hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.
Thomas Jefferson

INSTEAD OF TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK , I PREFER TO STARE INTO MY ENEMIES VACANT DEAD EYES.
Freeper River Rat

ALEXANDER WAS A WUSS
Freeper Ghengis

THE DEMOCRATS OFFER NOTHING FOR THE FUTURE AND THEY LIE ABOUT THE PAST
Freeper MJY1288

,"

.....Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) is a science of vauge assumptions, based on debatable figures,taken from inconclusive experiments, performed with instruments of problematical accuracy, by persons of doubtful reliability and questionable mentality..............who pride themselves by knowing just how much C-4 to shove up a bulls ass to blow his horns off without making his eyes water....... Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
Freeper Squantos (I like his twisted sense of humor)

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety or Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. Quatrain 71, The Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam
Freeper Tench_Coxe

Socialists like to tout their confiscation and redistribution schemes as noble and caring, but we should ask if theft is ever noble or caring. – Robert Hawes
Freeper Rick_Michael

"The Constitution is sacredly obligatory upon all, until and unless it is changed by the authentic act of the whole people." T Jefferson

"The worst thing about a living constitution is that it will destroy The Constitution" Justice Scalia (He is the greatest legal mind on the Supreme Court in the last 100 years)
The above two quotes were stolen from the "Less than honorable Congressman Billybobs" home page.

As reported by the Associated Press, Sen. Clinton said, "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." Hillary Clinton (I think Karl Marx said that first)

If politics were like baseball, the Republicans would be smart to trade Senator John McCain to the Democrats for Senator Joseph Lieberman, even if they had to throw in a future draft choice.
In general, Democrats are the only real reason to vote for Republicans.
ThomasSowell His dry sarcasm reminds me of the Brits, but he is ours and he is one of the best conservative minds in our nation

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." -- Dante From Freeper Jonx6 home page

Americans need to consider carefully the decision for war... Be clear on who their enemy is, and determine to destroy that enemy. Recognize there is no clean, polite or gentlemanly way to kill a stranger. If you are not prepared to kill all those that stand with and support your enemy,then surrender to him,for he has already defeated you. From Freeper River Rat's home page, I suspect he has been there and done that.

Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution. Tag line of Freeper Spktyr, however Mao Teng Sung said it first, "Peace comes out of the end of a gun barrel" per Mao.

"A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " -- John Stuart Mill, writing on the U.S. Civil War in 1862" "

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." "

It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag." ~Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, Sergeant, USMC
The above three paragrapsh are from the home page of Chode

"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. … He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist." -- Cicero

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well. -- Booker T. Washington 1911
From Freeper The Factor home page

“In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell "

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
Ayn Rand

This is long but it is important, take your time and read it. If you do do understand it come back tomorrow and read it again.Times like these focus the mind. The confluence of events from the 9/11 "Day of Infamy" to Afghanistan and now Iraq, has given us a once-in-a-lifetime moment of national clarity. We must take from it every kernel of truth it reveals before that clarity fades with memory. In war, people die. In some wars, nations die. War, preparations for war and measures to prevent war are the most serious business a nation can conduct. All else is subordinate.

The environmentalists would say it’s the environment. Wrong. The social workers would say it’s social programs. Wrong. The health advocates would say it’s health policy. Wrong. The anti-tax crowd would say it’s lower taxes. Still wrong. Whatever your view on these subordinate issues, as goes the nation, so they go too. Without our wealth-producing market economy, there would be no capital for environmental projects. There would be no funds for social policy. There would be no money for health initiatives or anything else. The first priority of our government must always be national defense.

Somehow, between World War II and 9/11 we forgot this. Despite the many cries in the wilderness from professionals in the military, intelligence and security fields, we forgot the crucial value of good military and political intelligence. We forgot the absolute necessity of maintaining a top-notch fighting force. We dismissed as paranoid delusion the idea that some people are truly out to get us. We derisively ridiculed seemingly pointless security procedures required at airports and other facilities. We forgot that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

Why? Perhaps some is due to complacency borne of our geographic isolation and the fact that we have not had a shooting war on our shores for over 138 years. Absent an immediate threat, the natural human tendency is to become complacent. Also, our historical tradition has been to draw down the military after any large conflict.

Our founders warned against the dangers of a standing army. But there is much more to it than that. The political Left in this country, including people in the news media, entertainment, education, religion, think tanks (many of which are fronts for hostile foreign governments and organizations), even some past and present members of Congress and past Administrations, have over the years successfully sought to undermine both our national defense and intelligence functions – indeed the very fabric of our society – for the purpose of ultimately destroying it, all the while hiding behind the fig leaf of "free speech." In so doing, they made us vulnerable to attack from directions even they didn’t anticipate. They are still active today, but thanks to our recently revived national spirit, temporarily on the defensive.

It took 9/11 and the subsequent military action for our people to comprehend the ramifications of blinding our national eyes and ears. Today, we find ourselves asking how it got so far out of hand. Few now question the need for active intelligence gathering and a strong military. Indeed, many of those in Congress who used to criticize our intelligence agencies for being too intrusive are now asking why they are not more so.

Virtually everybody claims to "support our troops." Yet we still suffer the after-effects of long-term complacency. Anti-American activity seems like some kind of quaint rite. Radical activists are treated like celebrities. Hollywood actors boost their careers and their egos by excoriating our leaders (but they support the troops – really they do).

Over the past 30 years, members of Congress have blatantly aided and abetted enemies of our country. The outspoken Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, for example, lobbied for the release of jailed El Salvadorian FMLN terrorists during that country’s civil war. So did then-Rep. Barbara Boxer, D-CA. Instead of being investigated for her activities on behalf of communists, Nancy Pelosi has been elected by her Democratic colleagues as the House Minority Leader! Boxer went on to become a U.S. Senator. Many congressmen made a notorious trip to Nicaragua in the 1980s to discuss ways Daniel Ortega’s communist government could counter President Ronald Reagan’s strategy there. Relatives of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, conducted business with the communist government of Angola while Kennedy himself voted against funding the Angolan anti-communist rebels we supported. Former Rep. Ron Dellums, D-CA, often bragged of his desire to dismantle U.S. intelligence "brick by brick." The charming Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, never met a leftist dictator she didn’t love. Don’t even get me started on Bill. No one has ever challenged these blatantly seditious activities. Instead, we congratulate ourselves for our "open-minded" tolerance of this malevolent behavior, never fully acknowledging its long-term impact.

Even in Iraq, anti-American protests, obvious propaganda tactics, are casually dismissed as "free speech." But is it? There is a fine line between legitimate protest and outright sedition. There is a fine line between our citizens’ legitimate need for privacy and the opportunity it provides conspirators to hide and plot. Concern for the former, however, provides no excuse for condoning the latter. Too often politicians have taken that excuse, and in so doing abdicated their pledge to "defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic .… " They choose to avoid the hard questions and tough fights. The 9/11 terrorist strike was one consequence of this. If we don’t learn, there will be more.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s methods against suspected American communists in the 1950s may have been wrong, but they were based on a legitimate premise, namely, that we do have enemies within. The Army-McCarthy hearings for example, which focused in large part on spy activities at the Army Signal Corps Ft. Monmouth, NJ facility (where Julius Rosenberg had worked for a time) spelled the beginning of his downfall, when Attorney for the Army Joseph Welch posed the famous question: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" Three years later however, Congress shut down the Ft. Monmouth facility—determined to be irretrievably penetrated by Soviet agents. Many politicians in both the Democrat and Republican parties agreed with McCarthy. One of his most ardent friends and supporters, John F. Kennedy, once expressed his outrage at a Harvard Spree Club dinner when the speaker compared McCarthy to convicted Soviet spy Alger Hiss. JFK stood up, interrupting the speaker, and said: "How dare you couple the name of a great American patriot with that of a traitor!" He then walked out. Bobby Kennedy was minority counsel on McCarthy’s Senate investigations subcommittee staff. The Left would much prefer we didn’t remember JFK and RFK’s inconvenient anti-communism. In part because of McCarthy’s failure, our reluctance to seriously investigate domestic subversive organizations really has its roots in this period. As noted columnist and conservative talk show host Chuck Morse relates: "The substantial power the left wielded over our government and media was on full display in the concerted campaign to stop McCarthy, who, in hindsight, has been vindicated of all charges. Politicians who would henceforth be more circumspect when investigating communist or any other subversive element in government heard the lesson of McCarthy's downfall loud and clear. Average citizens, at least subliminally conscious of the auto da fe McCarthy had been put through, would also learn to curb their criticism of the left as well."

But in those times even the communists sometimes revealed what they were up to. For example, the Soviet funded People’s Daily World newspaper explained a Hollywood studio strike thusly: "Hollywood is often called the land of Make-Believe, but there is nothing make-believe about the Battle of Hollywood being waged today…The prize will be the complete control of the greatest medium of communication in history." As Stalin said: "If I could control Hollywood, I could rule the world." Those forces still exist in Hollywood today and at least partially explain why so many movies we see tend to have anti-American overtones. In fact, actors who want to be successful in Hollywood implicitly understand the necessity of being Politically Correct. Conservative actors attempting to get regular employment face their own "Blacklist". Many of the organizations investigated in the 1950s have continued to thrive and grow while we have looked the other way. Seeing fertile ground, new ones have popped up. Loyal Americans need to agree on a methodology for attacking this problem. That means bruising political battles, because some people in virtually all professional disciplines lie with the enemy and many others unknowingly support them. We have allowed them to weasel their way into positions of power that give them direct influence over measures intended to expose and stop them. Yet it has never been clearer just how dangerous these individuals and groups are. You want to protest American policies? Fine. But if your activities serve to undermine our national security and threaten our collective future, we don’t have to tolerate it. After all, your actions are really threatening our lives. Threats like that cannot go unchallenged. It is unfortunate that the death and destruction of a 9/11 and the untimely deaths and injuries of our young men and women in battle were needed to get our attention. But they have, at least temporarily. So now we must seize the moment: The 9/11 victims and the troops who sacrificed all in Afghanistan and Iraq stand mute sentinel over our collective national conscience. We cannot let them down.

PLACES I HAVE BEEN, MOSTLY LOOKING FOR OIL
visited 34 states (15.1%)
Buy Douwe's Machine Learning Book

I have not edited my page in a great while. It still defines me well. My one addition is thank god Donald Trump will be our president. He is flawed an his opponent Hillary Clinton was not only flawed but a criminal and not a patriot of our great nation. The Republic is safe for now. Some years ago I attended a funeral. It was my dads funeral. We were not close due to divorce when I was a child. He was a warrior firstly in Artillery and Engineers, then as a Mustang in flight school as pilot. He retired as a Captain. He was a hard ass son of a bitch. Post Army he was an aeronautical engineer working for Boeing and other defense contractors. He was damn good at his job but a miserable selfish Son of a Bitch and most brilliant. I rather hated him in my youth. I respected him later. When he was old as I and very old as he we both said "I love you."