I’m not a “Hide behind your Mask” sort of guy. 

I do think that the Covid is real, and serious. 

If you wear a mask,  except under protest, that is your choice. 

But if you go out today, and mingle with everyone else to do your Black Friday shopping, in large crowds, you are an idiot. 

 Well, this year, compared to most years, has Royally Sucked Ass. Financially, personally and for other reasons, it has been, shall we say, a less than stellar year ( I am sure that I am not alone in this sentiment).

Having said that, I am very thankful for my life. I live in a country where, despite recent developments, I still enjoy a relatively great deal of freedom. I have a country which is, mostly, still under the rule of law, with the protections that our Constitution provides, against both the Government and it’s minions, and my fellow citizens. I am thankful for the security and safety that the Military and the Police provide.

I have my home, my possessions, all of which are mine (debt free), and relatively free of the threat of theft or confiscation. 

I am thankful for my friends and family, and their support. 

My life is, actually, pretty good. I’d bet that 75% or more of the people in the world would gladly trade their problems for mine. When one considers the Big Picture, my life is pretty good. 

All in all, while this has been, as I said, a less than stellar year, I am thankful for what I DO have, and that it hasn’t been worse. While the next year will entail some changes and some learning in my life, I also have the belief that things will get better. 

I hope that everyone reading this has things for which they can be thankful. 

 I’m seeing lots of video of the surge of travelers at the airports….Those traveling for Thanksgiving. 

Yet, in all the videos, I am NOT seeing much “Social Distancing: in the lines leading up to the folks fondling those travelers screening those passengers. Odd, that. One might think that these lines would be a major place where “Social Distancing” would work best, as tens of thousands of people per hour funnel through this checkpoint, coming from a diverse range of places, interacting with the others, mingling in a line that can last for an hour or more…in close proximity to those strangers….

Perhaps the masking, the Social Distancing is as much Theater as the TSA’s “protection”?

 But, at least in my area, you really have to work to get a speeding ticket right now. Unless your speed is egregiously over the limit (like 2X or more what the sign says) then the cops tend to not see you. 

How is it in your area? 

 So the Media is showing tens of thousands of people lining up in their cars to get prepackaged food handouts.  Idling in their cars for HOURS, waiting for the handouts. 

Each person appears to pull up to the staging line, where another person loads the prepackaged box of food into the trunk:

I have noticed that the boxes are pre-printed with slogans like “food Bank” or “Helping Hands” or other slogans. I find it interesting that these boxes are not just repurposed or off the shelf boxes, but are printed especially for this food handout….tens of thousands of boxes. One wonders what the lead time is for a purchase of tens of thousands of custom printed boxes?  

These folks are not sitting in junk cars…they are high end automobiles. One might think that if one has the ability to own such a car, that one might have the means to feed their families without handouts. I mean, these cars cost a lot not only to purchase, but for things like insurance and such…

But there they are, sitting in line, each burning gallons of gasoline, (Probably 5 or more while in line) just to get a $50 box of food…..

(Of course, the question comes up also…..Where is the food coming from? Who is paying, not only for the food, but for the labor to package it (in those custom boxes) and for the labor to set up the distribution point and for the labor to move it to the distribution point and put it into the waiting car?)

 Watching the weather and news this morning, (channel 2 Chicago/WBBM-TV) and listening to their advice on Covid….Stay home, don’t travel unless necessary, don’t do thanksgiving, etc…..followed by their human interest segment where they told the rest of us about the neat things these TV announcers (who are based in and work in Chicago) had seen and found in neighboring states…one showed us the neat stuff she found in a market in Wisconsin, the other a neat decoration he and his wife had found in Michigan,,,

And, remember, for anyone else who travels across the state line, Illinois requires a 14 day quarantine period….I guess this doesn’t apply to “journalists” Talking Heads. 

Yet the rest of us should stay home. 

 And yet, at the same time, pretty much the same.

I’m taking Multi-Engine instruction now…

Flying a twin is like driving a Corvette…when I’ve been driving a station wagon. 

Make no mistake, I love my Cessna 182. But compared to the Baron that I am getting my multi engine instruction is, it is a dog. 

LOTS more power, which makes for MUCH greater performance. And all that power (and the fact that it is a twin) means that it can kill you in ways that a single engine plane won’t.. (Which is what I am learning…not How to Fly ..I (supposedly) already know that…but how to fly a twin engine plane when one engine isn’t working). 

It has been a challenge.  

 So the Media and many Liberals are now deriding those who felt that there was fraud in the 2020 elections…laughing at the claims that the obvious irregularities and statistical anomalies are nothing…that they are simply wishful thinking. 

They claim that not only is there no “evidence” but that there is no way that there could be enough changes made, even if it were possible, to influence the outcome of the election.

Yet these are the same people that spent tens of millions of dollars looking into “Russian” interference in the 2016 election. 

So which is it? A foreign entity could have influenced our election enough to change the outcome, but a domestic entity (the DNC) could not have done the same 4 years later?  

When one turns blue, does any logical thought simply disappear? 

 So driving today, I was listening to WBBM and they had Governor Pritzkers “Covid News Conference”…which is apparently some kind of weekly radio show where he lectures the rest of the citizens of Illinois about what they are doing wrong and how they should just listen to him and do as he says….(As opposed to what he and his family do).

But his main message today was that people Just Don’t Believe the severity of this “Covid Crisis”.

“The Projections show a massive increase in cases and out Hospitals COULD be overwhelmed”…Gee, where have we heard THAT mantra before? And oddly, it didn’t happen 8 or 9 months ago, despite the “Projections” telling us that there were gonna be 7 Million …no 4 Mill,,,no, 2 Million..no wait, lessee here, 1.2 million…no, wait, 850 Thous…no wait, half a Million, no like maybe something less than that…

And we trashed the economy and basically huddled in our homes for nearly 8 months….and yet we gained nothing. 

So WHY don’t the citizens of Illinois believe the Great Governor Pritzker? Maybe because he hasn’t been right at any point in this crisis? Maybe because the predictions he used as an excuse to destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in his state were off by several orders of magnitude? Or that the 2 weeks 8 months of “flattening the curve” didn’t change anything? Or, it could be because he doesn’t make his family follow the rules he thinks everyone else should follow? 

I dunno.