Thoughts Since the Re-awakening

Modern travel is decidedly more comfortable than it was. Everything is lit and services are available at all hours. It's easier to be us in a lot of ways. Nobody thinks it odd when a fellow in a truck pulls in and fills up at 2 a.m. I do have a box full of random food though. They think it odd if you fill up and don't purchase a soda pop or snack of some kind. Maybe I will drop that box by the homeless shelter. It'll give those folks a treat.

I've gotten awful used to the way things run in the West. Firearms are just an accepted fact out here. The once or twice I've been pulled over by highway patrol, they don't even look twice at the rifle. The only comment it elicits is chit chat about caliber and usefulness on the deer hunt. I've gotten out these ticket with simple chit chat, no need for violating their free will.

Traveling East was a lot more interesting. It's a good thing that I have a lot of self-control. On my one traffic stop, a lady cop in the Midwest commented on the rifle compensating for my height. She seemed shocked when I just signed her ticket and thanked her for her service. Just cuz you're country doesn't mean your a misogynist. That lady cop will never know how long I've supported her right to be a lady cop. Maybe I'll send her a long rifle for the holidays.

My mapping's coming along. I need to buy a large world wall map and those tacks with the little flags on them. That way, I can write notes on the flags and tack things out. The scribbles in my atlas have started to get illegible. I'm sure there's wall space in my house for such a thing.

Atlanta was largely a waste of time. The assholes there were too busy trying to stab each other and play political games to usefully exchange any kind of information. I got more out of my visit with Tommy Twotone in California.

The Movement's obsession with the Meritocracy experiment is irritating as well. The Meritocracy is just the Movement executing the Invictus ideal better than the Invictus do. Maybe I'm getting a little long in the tooth, but all the rabble rousing and running about is wearing on me. It's especially bad when the rabble rousing only accomplishes Invictus goals. Perhaps we should make "Animal Farm" required reading for all new Carthians. It's a great analogy for what Meritocracies really are. Carthian Domains should be a crazy quilt of ideas and Experiments, not a spreading "empire" that enforces uniform laws across multiple Domains.