Next month Matt and I will be getting together for some 'man time'. There are lots of reasons I'm looking forward to it, the primary one being that we two have not had many opportunities to do things together over the years. In fact I've never taken him on a fly fishing float trip for just the two of us so that's what we'll be doing for two days on the Mighty Missouri. We'll be camping too so that'll be fun. I'll have the trailer/campsite all set up for his arrival so he can just plop and relax.

As I commented earlier in the year about this planned trip, fishing isn't the point of this get-together although I hope it adds some fun to it. Time with Matt is its own reward regardless what we're doing.

Life for Matt and his sweet wife, Heather, has settled down considerably. Matt has a really good job now and Heather just started her first full-time job since graduating with her Master's Degree about three months ago. And they bought their first house last month. These two vagabonds are putting down roots now and they're near enough (more permanently) that we can do more together.

A couple of weeks before Matt and I take off on our fishing trip, he and Heather (with pup Johnny Cash in tow) will join Karen and me for a couple days of camping. That'll be so fun too! Family time together is way cool!

Trippin' W/Karen

I'm planning to do some camping with my wife, Karen. I'm getting excited about spending time with her in God's great outdoors! We always have such a good time together wherever we go so it'll be fun. What a blessing it is that we share a love of the outdoors and that we still have good enough health to enjoy camping. Now if only we could get a break in the price of gas!

We're planning to spend a little time in Montana in areas where we haven't spent much time yet. Our usual routine is fanning out around the area where we camp and see whatever sights there are. We'll just hang out a lot too. We'll play a lot of games, especially rummy. Maybe I'll win a few games ... for a change! Whadda ya think, Hon?

I hope to have opportunities to get in some fly fishing, one of my favorite activities. Not many places one can go and have such an abundance of good fishing rivers available as in Western Montana.

Son Matt and his wife, Heather, with their Boston Terrier pup, Johnny Cash, are planning to join us for some camping together. We enjoy all the time we're able to have with them but we haven't done this together yet. We're really looking forward to it. In addition, Matt and I are planning a guided fly fishing trip on one of Montana's many good streams. It'll be sweet just to have one-on-one time with him regardless how the fishing goes.

By God's grace we're able to enjoy retirement this way. Time away together. Time with family. Sweet!

Obama's Hostility Toward Those Who Oppose His Solution(s)

From the President's mouth last week: "I don't mind cleaning up your mess but be quiet and get out of the way". This is an extraordinary notion and even more extraordinary demand.

I know that comment sounds all authoritative, confident, leadership-like, and presidential to those who support him but consider this.

Basically, he has no business saying such things to the people for whom he works. There are three points in his 'command' to us that beg a response so this is for him.

First, you say you're burdened with cleaning up a mess that we who are protesting created? It's OUR mess? To that I can only say HUH? Mr. President, who exactly created the Medicare system as it stands today? Ans: YOU ALL on capitol hill, sir, not us! Who exactly failed to provide proper oversight to prevent fraud, waste and mismanagement since it's inception? Ans: YOU ALL on capitol hill, sir, not us! Who exactly failed to change the system when it became clear (many years ago) that it was unsustainable on its current course? Ans: YOU ALL on capitol hill, sir, not us! How EXACTLY is this mess of our creation? WE don't make laws and run the country YOU ALL do, sir. You all on capitol hill (Congressmen and Presidents, Democrats and Republicans) created this mess and proceeded to mismanage it over the years. You have a lot of nerve blaming us for it and getting all indignant about having to fix it. WE are the ones who have a genuine right to be indignant ... you all created this mess and WE citizens are the ones who are going to have to pay for cleaning up YOUR mess.

Second, telling(!) us to "be quiet" flies in the face of constitutional guarantees of free speech. The President has no right to demand we be quiet. In fact, you have a sworn duty (check your oath of office sir) to protect that right. This is a fundamental violation of your responsibility to stand up for freedom(s) as well as a technical violation of your oath of office.

Third, telling(!) us to "get out of the way" flies in the face of our constitutional right to and guarantee of fair proportional representation and participative government. You are obviously telling us to let you and the liberals in Congress do whatever you all want without vocal or significant opposition from us. You and Democrats in Congress have shut down Republican opposition and you want Republican citizens to be quiet as well? You want to pass all this important legislation without Republican participation. How is that not one-party rule sir? This "get out of the way" comment is a fundamental violation of your constitutional responsibilities to protect our democratic form of government. You may as well declare that only registered Democratic citizens will be allowed to vote in Congressional elections. That's in effect what you want, is it not? Worse, that's in effect what we HAVE, is it not, since Democrats are ignoring what Republicans want done in/with legislation?

So, sir, I respectfully demand that you get out of our collective face with such hostile comments to us and honor (a word/concept kinda foreign to you apparently) your oath of office as well as the implied/documented duties/responsibilities of your office.

Yes Republicans in Congress failed to do things but so did Democrats. After all, Democrats have held a veto-proof majority in one or both houses of Congress for 30(!) of my 60 years while Republicans have NEVER had that in my lifetime. Doesn't that make it a little harder to justify this is Republicans' fault? Another reason you have to NOT blame us who oppose your plan is that many of us helped put you in office because we were fed up with our Republican representatives. So what do you do to respect the support we gave you? You tell us to go away when we express disagreement with you.

One last thing Mr. President. You and your Democrat friends in Congress seem to think that because we elected you, that gives you complete license to do whatever you want. We sent you to Washington to work FOR us, on OUR behalf in just and due consideration of our express wishes ... issue by issue! Just because you were elected does NOT mean we automatically agree with everything you believe and want to do and therefore grant to you full authority to do whatever you want. Getting elected is NOT license to do whatever you want. If you don't get that you don't understand the constitution or democracy nearly so well as you claim. It's really, really difficult to believe that you actually taught constitutional principles as an educator. Gads!