Quote of the Day...

From the Wall Street Journal:

The kidnapped captain of the Maersk Alabama has been rescued and is safe aboard a U.S. Navy ship.

Wonderful. Just plain wonderful.

And I can't help but love the image this projects to the world and to the cursed Somali pirates: you screw around with an American ship, not only do you not have a crew, a ship, and a cargo to ransom – you die at the hands of American warriors.

Feeling lucky, punks?

Guess not, eh?

I don't often agree with Obama on anything at all, but from what I've read he played this exactly right – especially issuing standing orders to the men on the scene to use deadly force if they felt Captain Phillips' life was in danger. No micromanagement like Carter – much to his credit, Obama left this to the pros.

And those pros pulled off something very impressive here. I can tell you from personal experience in the Navy that a lifeboat towed some 80 feet behind a warship is going to be bobbing and weaving all over the place – not an easy shot, even at the relatively short range. The three Somali pirate assholes had guns to the head of Captain Phillips, and the Seals took all three of them out before they could fire a shot. Nice work, guys. And thank you, sirs, for your service to this country.

A Little Advenure...

Debbie and I did a little four-wheeling today, in a beautiful area that was entirely new to us – to our shame, as it's very close to home! We drove through areas between Corte Madera, Skye Valley, and Lake Morena, as you can see on this map. We took a big loop, counter-clockwise from a junction called “Four Corners”.

The first part of the trip as we left Four Corners was our favorite part – from there up to Los Pinos, down to the saddle between Los Pinos and Corte Madera, and then down Espinoza Creek to the Corte Madera road. This stretch had it all: grand views (especially of Corte Madera itself), pine forests, meadows, and oak forest.

Shortly after the junction with Corte Madera Road (where we start to head down toward about 10 o'clock on our loop) we entered lands that burned in the October 2007 wildfires. While it was interesting to see the recovery, and there were some beautiful wildflowers in there, we still much prefer the unburned areas.

Here are some more photos from today: