Tag Archives: #Benjamin Franklin quote on security

On My Way to Munich

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I’m feeling much better today, even tho I’m pretty darn tired. I FINALLY got called for a job that didn’t get cancelled. I only got the call on Thursday and didn’t know for sure until late Friday and didn’t get my flight information (so I would really know for sure) til yesterday.

I’ve been keeping myself fairly ready to leave since I got back from my trip around the world. I left right at the beginning of November and got home right before Christmas. I was supposed to go to work January 3. I’ve basically been on call since then. I’ve had about a dozen calls to go to work since that first job got cancelled, but none of those jobs actually happened.

I still had a few things to take care of before leaving. Laundry, cleaning out the fridge so I won’t have to come home to a fridge full of rotten food, paying any bills that might come due before I’m due back home, calling my property manager to clear up any issues that might come up while I’m gone, arranging a ride to the airport, get my ‘smart phone’ working again for the trip, and finish up packing.

I left home yesterday around noon. Got to the airport and for some reason they wouldn’t check my baggage all the way through to my destination. My flight was delayed for about an hour, but thank goodness I have a club pass and could spend my time chilling out there. It was about a 10 hour flight to Munich and of course I really couldn’t get any sleep.

So here I am now in the Munich airport, waiting for my flight to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Thank goodness I have a long layover! I had to get my passport stamped into Germany so I could collect my luggage, then run across the street to another terminal and go through security again. I thought we were ridiculous with our security theater in the US, but Germany takes it to an even more absurd level!

I’m so glad I was able to get the TSA pre-check in the states, but as far as I know they don’t have any kind of international program like that. I really wish they did! I didn’t have to take my shoes off (I’ve still got my flip-flops on), but I had to take out EVERYTHING from my pockets including cash (which I HATE to do since it’s so easy for someone to walk by there and steal it all), credit cards, passport, etc. Remove not only computer, but ALL electronics from my bag. Thats Kindle, cameras, phones, iPod, etc. What a bunch of insanity!

Apparently the world is overrun with suckers that are completely willing to trade their freedom for ‘security’. It’s as true now as it was when Benjamin Franklin said it over 200 years ago.

You CAN’T make that trade! You give up your freedom for NOTHING but an ILLUSION! It infuriates me that we ALL have to put up with this violation of our rights all because the majority of the people on this planet are so gullible.

While I wait for my flight to Las Palmas, I have a little bit of time to blog. I can’t connect to the wi-fi here. I don’t know why. There’s supposedly free wi-fi here in the airport. I should arrive at 1830 and someone should be waiting to bring me to the ship.

I’m going out as Chief Mate this time. I did sign on this time as Chief Mate, not like the time I signed on to the Sevan Louisiana as Second Mate and they made me Chief Mate anyway and then refused to pay me for it! I’m a little nervous since I haven’t sailed Chief Mate for quite a while snd never really on anything so complicated. I’m hoping everything will go well and I’m looking forward to a great learning experience. It would really build my confidence to get through this trip without any major issues.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to get online once I get to the ship. As Chief Mate I expect to be a lot more busy than I usually am as DPO. Will be spending more time on deck instead of stuck on the bridge for 12 hours a day. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Wish me luck! 🙂

PS- I finally got the wi-fi to connect. 🙂

JusJoJan: Boisterous

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Day 2 of the Just Jot It January challenge. Today’s prompt is: boisterous. Click on the link to see how it works here.

You can chose to use the prompt word- or not. Yesterday I used the prompt of ‘drama‘, and got off on a tangent. I’ll try to stick to it better today. 😉

I’m having a hard time thinking of anything boisterous around here lately. 🙁

I’ll have to go way, way back. Yeah, I admit, years ago my life was a lot more exciting. I was much more rowdy and I did enjoy going out, having a good time, partying every weekend. I was pretty wild myself and liked to hang out with other weird and wild folks. Sadly, I’ve had to give all that up.

I’m too paranoid to go out anymore.

They’ve pretty much broken me. Not completely, since it still angers and frustrates the hell out of me! But I can’t take the chance anymore of getting arrested, just for going out and having fun. I used to love going out to all the little dive bars around the county. Stopping in for a beer or 2. Listening to music, playing pool, talking to interesting people from all over.

I enjoyed the boisterous crowds, the (sometimes drunken) conversations, the crazy drama. I never was much of a dancer, but I always loved watching people dance. I liked to sing karaoke and cheered for everyone else (no matter how awful they might be).

Now, I’m getting too old to enjoy it. I can’t really enjoy myself when I’m worried about getting arrested. I don’t know how so many people can think its a good thing to make everything ‘illegal’.

Instead of hanging out with friends, having interesting discussions about what’s going on in the world, I’m sitting at home watching Law & Order: SVU reruns and blogging for a connection to the world.

Maybe it’s just that I’m getting old. Too old to take chances anymore, but I think it’s more than that. I think the world is changing. Our country is changing, and NOT for the better.

Nothing to do with Trump or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton, or whoever might happen to be president. It’s way beyond that. Trump’s right, it is the swamp and it needs to be drained! Other people call it the ‘deep state’. Whatever, it is reality and it is a big part of what’s wrong with this country!

Seriously, do we really need so many thousands of ‘laws’? Obviously, NO, we DON’T! We got along perfectly fine for the first 200 years since the foundation of this country without 99.99999% of the laws on the books today. This country used to be much more free (and boisterous- it was good for us!).

Today, everyone wants everything to be ‘safe’. Everyone wants ‘security’. No one wants there to be any chance, or risk to anything. Look at all the warnings on everything, everywhere. It’s absolutely stunning to me that the USA, the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave”, has degenerated to such an extent.

I think it’s incredibly sad. We’ve ignored Franklin’s warning. We have thrown away our freedoms in hope of security. What a sad shame. 🙁

Just Jot It Jan: 10 Danger

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First thing I thought of when I saw todays prompt (danger) for Linda’s Just Jot It January challenge was the robot on the old TV series “Lost In Space“. I used to watch that show after school in the afternoons and always got a kick when the old robot would freak out. It kept repeating “Danger! Danger Will Robinson!” while madly waving it’s ‘arms’ around and spinning it’s little ‘head’. 🙂

But I really wanted to make a few comments on the perception of ‘danger’, of what’s dangerous, and how much it’s changed since I was a kid watching that show.

For example: just being kids. We used to stay out all day long. No cell phones. Nobody thought twice about not being able to contact us every minute of the day. We rode our bikes or skateboards everywhere (without helmets). No one thought that was OMG sooooooo dangerous! We were allowed to run around by ourselves, without an adult, even outside of our own yards and nobody ever considered calling the cops. We were ALL ‘free range kids’ back then and nobody had a problem with it.

We drank plain old tap water, sometimes even out of the hose in the backyard. Nobody worried about ‘germs’. Cooties, maybe (but you didn’t get those from the water). Nobody died from the lack of expensive bottled water.

I’m only going to list these few examples. I could go on for hours! I just don’t understand WHY the perception of ‘danger’ has changed to the HUGE amount that it has. I think the attitude of so many people today is just absolutely ridiculous! The risks today are NOT that different! None of us was really harmed by ANY of that stuff we did as kids. All of which could get parents hauled off to jail today (or at least dragged into court). It’s happened!

WTF is wrong with people these days? Why does everyone consider all those things suddenly so dangerous? We all survived our childhoods just fine. What exactly is the problem?

Why are we, here in America (especially), changing from a country where people once came and put up with real hardships, real dangers (wolves, bears, indian attacks, blizzards, tornados, etc), into a country where we insist that we must be 100% perfectly safe at all times, in all circumstances? And if we find the slightest little risk, we must strive to eliminate it from all possibilities of it ever happening?

And if, by some ‘miracle’ after all we’ve done to prevent it, something actually does happen, then we have to sue the shit out of everyone remotely involved?

What does this kind of atmosphere do to people? How, exactly is it helping us? By turning us all into whiny little babies, screaming for big brother to come and take care of us- to protect us from all conceivable harm?

How is that helping us live our lives as responsible human beings?

Why in the world would anyone choose to live that way? Personally, I don’t consider that kind of existence to be ‘living’. What a drab, dull, desolate and dreary existence. 🙁

As a libertarian, I have to say, let people who want to waste their lives trying to avoid all ‘danger’ do what they think they can with their own lives. But, I wish to hell they would stop trying to force the rest of us into their narrow little mind views!

Ben Franklin said it best…