Two young men in a forested area clearing sat about building a small underground house. All they had were a few crude tools and the materials in the surrounding area. It was not but one room but it was built quickly. I can’t say how long it took, but I’d guess less than a week. With a few power tools, it might take a couple of days.

Mostly the house was just dug out of the ground and had a table and seats for eating as well as a bed big enough for the two of them. There was also a small pool to bathe in. The roof and part of the walls were built from a skeleton of wood poles and covered with straw enforced mud. Then that was covered by grass sod. It had a stove on which they fixed a meal of meat, rice and vegetables. Side note, the stove could easily be outside.

Okay. Such an environment isn’t a five star hotel, but it was inexpensive. With a $5000 lot in the right location just might make something you can survive in. Beats having to live in a shelter.

To be sure, if you build such a thing, you do need to stay inside the law and outside flood areas. Even so, should such a home flood, you haven’t lost that much. Moreover, it can be added to and reinforced as time and money permits.

So, instead of building things like this, we Americans have our hands out for a handout.

Give me a minute. I’ll think of something. Some might say steak is better, but would they really mean it. I mean steak is steak. Pizza has some of this, some of that. It doesn’t have one flavor but half a dozen or more.

I am sure there are many things better than pizza. Take for instance spaghetti. I have always liked that. When I was a kid, I had problems pronouncing it so I called it basketi. Still, when I discovered pizza, spaghetti had to drop to second or third place.

So, give me a little time; a year or two, maybe four. I am sure I will be able to build a list. In the meantime, I will be eating a lot of pizza. Incidentally, corn dogs are pretty good too. I still think pizzas are better.

It’s difficult to beat all those wonderful flavors in one place. Besides, we are talking a variety of pizzas. There is pepperoni, sausage, ham, taco, and yes, hamburger. I am sure I left a few out. Oh yes, just plain cheese. Oddly, I know a few folks who like that way too.

I owned a Honda S-70, a CB-160 and a BMW R-60 sequentially. None of them were new and I liked them very much, though the S-70 had only a max speed of 68, and that with me leaning forward as far as I could. The R-60 rode like a dream. I really would have liked to have had a new one, but I couldn’t afford the old one.

However, what I really wanted was a Triumph 650. I don’t know what the model was, but they were all just so iconic. My cousin had one and he let me ride it. I just fell in love with it, that is, if such a thing was possible.

It was probably good I couldn’t afford one. I just might have killed myself. All of my 2 year motorcycle riding days were very conservative. I was very careful and never had an accident going more than two miles an hour.

Now I know, you absolutely have to know how I had that a two mile an hour accident. It wasn’t hard, really. I did come through it with not so much as a scratch. Oddly, though I was going slow, the accident happened so fast.

You see I was approaching an intersection and I was in the left turn lane. The light was red so I was slowing to a stop. There was a car in front of me and one a short distance behind me. I had almost come to a stop when I hit a fresh oil patch.

In case you don’t know already, motor cycles actually are very stable despite only having two wheels. I am not an expert on the subject, but I have heard experts say so. They all say the that the two wheelers are more stable than cars. Even so, they do have one problem. If the wheels lose their footing, the vehicle can slide out from under you. Oddly, this is more probable at lower speeds.

I can definitely attest to much of that from experience. I had learned to avoid lose sand and oil slicks early in my two wheeler days, on bicycles. Nonetheless. I did not notice this particular oil spot and the motorcycle was lying on it’s side faster than I realized it. Oddly, I was still standing. I had managed to get my feet under before the bike went down.

Still, how embarrassing. For that little instant in time, it was as if the whole world was looking at me. Actually, it was more like a tenth of the world. The other nine tenths missed the little show.

It is a good thing I was not going sixty when I hit that oil spot. I could have gotten badly hurt and I would not have been standing after it was over. Oil is likely one of the worst hazards for those of us on two wheels. There are two ways to avoid them. First, keep your eye peeled for signs of them. Second, stay away from the center of the lane. When cars leak, that is where the oil lands.

Well, I guess I can add one more to it. Be particularly careful in or near intersections. Stopped and slow moving cars have more time to leave more oil behind.

As a side note, an R-60, if I remember right, is just about 450 lbs. It took about all I had to get my bike upright again. It sort of made me wish I had that Honda CB-160 again.

I keep hearing the quote by Kamala where she says something to the affect that a strong middle class makes a strong country. She says this all while she and Old Joe are doing all they can to destroy the middle class. If you can’t figure out how, here’s a hint. Inflation causes more harm on the middle class than any other. The poor have no money so inflation doesn’t effect them. The rich are not harmed by inflation. In some cases they are even helped by it. Meanwhile, the earning power of is drastically reduced. Finally, mostly, inflation helps the government. It allows them to pay off yesterdays bills with tomorrows inflated dollars.

And, guess what. Kamala don’t care. She likes it as it gives her the little election quip.

My wife is neither a fan nor an expert on computers. Just for grins, I decided to see if I could get her interested in computer jigsaw puzzles. There is actually some logic in this. Even as a child, my wife liked jigsaw puzzles and spent hours on them. It did bother her if she lost pieces, but onward she went anyway.

Well their are many advantages of computer jigsaw puzzles, one of which, you cannot lose pieces. It is impossible, though I did find out you can misplace them. Talk about something that defies logic.

At any rate, I set up the Microsoft jigsaws on my relatively new computer and, guess what, I liked it. This is somewhat confusing. I am not a fan of the real puzzles and my wife has no interest in the computer puzzles. It might have something to do with her determination to hate computers.

If you’re interested in my opinion, here it is. Each picture provides many different levels of difficulty. There are aids to help, such as virtual trays to hold pieces you’re going to “work with later.” Once a piece is put in place, it locks. This both confirms it is in the right place and keeps them from coming apart.

From my time spent with the real puzzles, I keep trying to rotate a piece to get it to fit. That doesn’t work. First, you can’t rotate them. Second, they are all presented in the right rotation. It does somewhat simplify the puzzle as it does provide, so to speak, auto-orientation.

I have worked about a dozen of them, mostly in the hard level, almost 100 pieces. I worked one in the more difficult mode and it just had more pieces. I can’t remember how many. At that hard level, it usually takes about 80 minutes, more-or-less. Naturally, I get a little faster as I learn tricks. Some people will likely work them faster; some will take a little longer.

As normal, I generally start by separating the edge pieces. As with the real puzzles, this does not always work so neat. I have looked at edge pieces 4 or 5 times before I realize they are edge pieces, which, of course causes me to wonder if it is possible to lose pieces. It is one of those frustrations they managed to carry over to the computer versions.

Overall, unfortunately, I do find the puzzles entertaining. I could very much end up spending entirely too much time on this new version of an old past time. To be sure, I am glad I gave it a try, I think. It is a little habit forming. I do have a tendency spend time on them when I should be doing other things.

Just came to my attention that a woman in Secret Service assigned a position to protect President Trump was absent from her post. When they found her, she was nursing her baby. Moreover, she had her other two children with her.

Not a good argument for equity. Not much of an argument for women being on Secret Service. Another reason, if I were still in the Marines, I would not want to share a fox hole with a woman. As far as I am concerned, the equity ends when it puts lives in danger, especially a possible or even probable next president.

I guess since there was big businesses, there have been arguments as to which is better. Let me relate a little true story that might get you to think about it a little. When I was going through advanced electronic training in Memphis, I used to go to this little privately owned restaurant next to a MacDonald’s.

I sort of got to know the guy that owned the place, being as I went in there so much. So we did a little conversating one day. The subject did get around to the MacDonald’s next door. He fussed that the MacDonald’s bought the same bakery products as him. Only thing is, the MacDonald’s paid less for the ones they got.

And so it is that we see one of the big advantages of big business. Because they buy more, they pay less. Somewhat seems unfair. It was and is a common thing. Big business, which does not need as much of a break, gets the price break and the little guy ends up paying full price, as if Micky D’s doesn’t already have the big advantage. (You know, coast-to-coast ads and such)

Still, I went to the little place. They had shrimp and Micky D’s didn’t. In general, though the bakery goods were the same as Micky D’s, I found they tasted better on the hamburgers that the little private place made.

In this day and age of the big stores, we, more and more, see the little stores fall by the wayside. It’s a shame. In the old hardware stores, I actually had someone ask me if I needed help the instant I walk in the door. Maybe I can get the same hardware at a lower price these days, but it seems I feel as if I am more likely to get what I need in the small store, even if I don’t know what I want.

By the way, there was one more reason I liked to eat at the little place instead of MacDonald’s. She had blond hair and blue eyes. Unfortunates she was only polite to me because it was her job. Not much chance of a woman like that paying attention to me a lowly marine sergeant.

If my house should be on fire, I don’t much like the idea of paying the person who started the fire to help me put it out, especially if he was planning to put it out with gas.

Kamala says she would fix things, you know the border, the economy, the wars, the crime. It was she who helped to cause the problems. And by the way, her way of fixing it is to pour more gas on it. (figuratively, for those who cannot figure it out)