This is a post that will take the place of me filling out the standard profile.

I was born on Palm Sunday in 1964. I grew up living in the country out eastwardly of San Antonio, Texas. I went to a small school in a small town. Where I lived, as a first grader, our school bus didn't come down our road to the house. I was dropped off at the highway and walked about 2 miles home every day. Back then, we lived in more or less of a wilderness. One day I even saw a cougar while walking home, which scared the snot out of me.

I grew up in a family in which my father worked full time, but also raised cattle and pigs for extra money (and for a while, goats as well). We always had a big garden on our 20 acres, and my summertime chores always included keeping that big sucker very well irrigated. I was also the Assistant Pig-Keeper.

During my childhood, my father owned three guns: a .22 rifle, a 16-gauge shotgun, and a .243. These are basically the only three types of firearms that are practical for the life we had. The .22 for general purposes, varmints, and occasional plinking, the shotgun for dove hunting, and the centerfire rifle for deer. A friend of the family broke me in on centerfire handguns when I was a teenager, and I have always had a thing for handguns over all others.

I rarely had a real summertime job. I made most of my money during winters, by trapping, skinning, and selling pelts. I knew this was as close as I'd ever come to living like a "frontiersman" and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

I graduated high school and went to college, where I majored in music. I played the sax and a little piano. About this time I realized that I didn't have the ambition or dedication that it would take to become a professional musician, and with the dreadful fate of ending up a band director ahead of me, I dropped out and went to work.

I spent some time working in a feed mill as a stacker. This is a guy who picks up the feed sacks from the conveyor after they have been filled and sewn shut, and stacks them on a pallet.

I spent several years going up and down the ladder in a pizza restaurant. I went to a tech school and got an associate's degree in electronics. I got a job for a company as a pager repair tech. The same month that I finished paying my school loan (about 10 years later), the company closed down the shop and I was out of a job.

I got a commercial license and drove a truck for a while. I spent a short time as a security guard. Another short time installing alarm systems in houses that were under construction. Then came the current job as a meter reader.  I am now the field supervisor for this company.  I don't think I could handle going back to a desk job like I had as a repair tech. I think sitting there all day in one spot would drive me nuts. As hard as my job is, I do like being outdoors most of the time and I know all the exercise is making me a lot healthier than the sedentary bench job I had before.

I am a member of the Church of Christ. Yes, I am one of those dreaded conservative Christians who are at the root of all the problems in the world. I am not perfect, and I think my greatest weakness is my occasional inability to keep silent when I should keep silent. I am outraged at many things I see in the world, and I often find that polite conversation is insufficient at expressing my anger.

I used to read a lot more than I do now. Most of the time I am so tired when I go to bed that I fall asleep right away, whereas I used to stay up for hours reading into the small hours of the night. Most of my reading time is spent just keeping abreast of world events by reading news and blogs on the Internet.

As you have probably already figured out, I am a big fan of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. While growing up, I spent most of my time reading science fiction, fantasy, and westerns. These days I like to read a lot of non-fiction, filling in my ignorance about various wars, and occasionally reading some true crime books, as well as mystery novels.

This post could be subject to updating, whenever I think of anything more that I should add to it.

UPDATE: Or, what is this blog all about? The main body of this blog is simply clip-blogging: I post excerpts from and links to news articles and websites that interest me. Sometimes I might comment on them. Occasionally I will attempt a satirical "news" article myself, if something I read happens to inspire me. Expect other oddball, bleak and/or sarcastic humor to pop up often. Obscure book, movie and TV references are par for the course. Items regarding H.P. Lovecraft may also appear in the midst of all the gun stuff.