RECCE ROOM

  Behind where the house once stood, there is still something left. We called it a barn, but that’s not quite right. It was more of a shed—high-ceilinged, open, covered with a mix of tin and plastic roofing that had seen better days even back then. It extended forward and to the right, creating additional covered space. It wasn’t pretty, but it was useful. Vehicles, equipment, whatever needed shelter found its way under that roof at one point or another. Today, it still stands… barely. Time has not been kind to it. The structure leans into its own age. The roof looks like it could give up the ghost with the next strong wind. And yet, it remains. The man who rents the pasture keeps a piece of farm equipment under it. There was also an old Mitsubishi Mirage sitting there, its license plate years out of date, like it had been forgotten mid-sentence. That shed is the last physical connection to what this place used to be. Everything else is memory. But that one structure… it st...

The Day I Realized I Could Fight Without Hurting People I grew up in a violent household. There was not violence every day, but there was more than there should have been. No, it wasn't spanking - though spanking did happen. There was also true violence. Something that should never be aimed at a child from their parent or parents. But, it was aimed at my siblings and myself.  There are moments in life where something shifts, and you know it’s not going back. This story is about one of those moments. The Story I was about 19 or so, still living at home and attending college. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was there with us. The family was doing something simple: folding and putting away laundry. There was a stack of towels that needed to go upstairs. My mother asked my younger sister to take them. My sister asked a reasonable question - how many towels should go in each of the two bathrooms upstairs? That question was taken as defiance. The situation escalated instantly. ...

About 30 to 40 feet west of the house stood a two-car garage. It wasn’t tall—maybe ten feet at most. Low enough that my grandfather’s 1985 Dodge Ram barely cleared the opening by a couple of inches. Pulling into that space required attention. You didn’t just drive in. You placed the vehicle there. The driveway in front of it still exists. Concrete doesn’t forget as easily as wood does. Inside the garage, the front half was for vehicles. Functional, straightforward. But behind that, partitioned off, were two smaller rooms. Storage rooms. The kind of spaces where things went when they were no longer needed daily, but not yet ready to be discarded. You could access those rooms from the main garage or through a side door on the east. They weren’t glamorous. They weren’t organized in any modern sense. But they served a purpose. Like everything else out there. The garage, the shed, the grain bin—these weren’t aesthetic choices. They were solutions. Each one answered a question: Where...

  The house is gone now, but I can still walk through it. It faced south, like it was meant to greet the day head-on. There was a front porch that wrapped across the front and leaned slightly toward the west, as if it wanted a better look at the setting sun. A side door sat on the west wall, and a back door on the east—each one used for a different purpose, each one part of the rhythm of daily life. Inside, everything revolved around a central fireplace. Not tucked away on a wall, but planted right in the middle like a heartbeat. The rooms spread out from it—bedrooms, bathrooms, the kitchen off to one side. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t modern. But it worked. There was a small room near the kitchen, something like a utility space. My grandfather used it as a laundry room. It also served as a kind of back entry—one of those in-between spaces where outside life met inside life. Upstairs, there was an unfinished attic. No insulation. No drywall. Just exposed structure and stored item...

Shameful One: "You lost me at not needing a sling. Unsub." Reply: "LMAO - this is not an airport. No need to announce your departure. And LMAO2 - you were never subbed."  Context: Video explains the insanity that is people who advocate a sling on a home defense firearm, then use a rubber band or similar to immediately tie it up so the sling doesn't snag on things. Solution offered: simply don't put the sling on the home defense firearm. If a sling is needed, store it with a go-bag. 

  Death tried to take Chuck. Chuck, of course, was Chuck, and kicked Death's ass. However, Chuck over did it. The final roundhouse kick was too much, and Death himself was literally kicked out of existence. Chuck is many things, but dishonorable is not one of them. As such, Chuck took up the mantle of the Grim Reaper for the rest of Time. Moving forward, the scythe? It’s just a fancy training prop. Chuck can harvest souls with a glance and a one-inch punch if he likes. This is not a mourning of a loss, this is an Origin Story. And you found it here first: In the time when mortals whispered the name of Death with dread, a shadow walked the earth that even the void feared. Death, the eternal collector, came to claim its latest prize. It was a challenge unseen in all the eons. But the mortal before Death was no ordinary man. He was Chuck Norris, the man whose fists rewrote the laws of physics, whose gaze made mountains reconsider their stance, whose roundhouse kick could split oceans...