"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things:

Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax- Of cabbages-and kings- And why the sea is boiling hot- And whether pigs have wings."

It has been two years since I moved into my house and I am pleased. It still feels new sometimes.

I challenge myself daily to let go of the old and bring newness to my life, my home and my family.

This is the house where I tried to save my marriage and failed. I see that when I look at the walls sometimes.

Life is a struggle, it makes life have flavor. Sometimes the flavor is sweet and sometimes it is bitter but it is the life we get and to waste it with worry and stress are a sin.

During my marriage and the relationship that followed, I suppressed a part of me for a long while. I suppressed this part of me because it was a part that did some bad things and hurt a lot of people and tended to be selfish. It was also the part of me that would kick down a mountain, that would give you the 'I know you want me' smile, that had not a single moment of doubt and had never known regret.

Being that guy is a balancing act and sometimes I want to retreat to the me I became when it came time to make amends for my past misdeeds. But that's not the real me. The real me is a little bit crazy, a guy who smiles and laughs easily, a guy that isn't afraid of you, your friends or any army you might have with you, he's a passionate lover and a passionate fighter. He's 50% hero and 50% bastard. He's the me that we tried to kill in therapy. He's the me that my friends deserve, my kids need and my enemies fear.

He's the man you see when you look at me. The one that I would see in your mirror.

And he's walking a road on fire.

Burn with me.

"Do you know what it is like to be a warrior in a world of sheep and pacifists?"

“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.” - Hermann Hesse

"There is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this." - Rorschach (Watchmen, 1985)

“Honor is simply the morality of superior men.” - Henry Louis Mencken

“Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.”- Akhenaton (King of Egypt, 14th century BC)

“He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.” - Walter Lippmann

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.” - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions." - Nikolai Gogol

"All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love." - Leo Tolstoy

"Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. " - General George S. Patton

"Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one." - General Robert E. Lee

Burn with me

Culture of Honor

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
- John 15:13

Burn with me

When in doubt, break the rules

Just don't break your rules, or, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, Rules are only oppressive in the third person as in: Their rules.

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."
- G. K. Chesterton

Burn with me

"You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends." - Joseph Conrad

When you walk into a room, look around you. The ones that just got nervous, the ones that won't look you in the eye, the ones that try to hard to smile or laugh, the ones that won't speak or look at you. Those are the ones that lie, even to themselves. Watch them leave, one by one, and you are the only one they won't look at on their way out.

"And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." - John 8:9

I love being the Elephant in the room that no one can bring themselves to talk about.

Burn with me

If I could have one wish alone, it would be to come home.

"A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder… if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it." - George S. Patton"

Sherif, is there not one thing in your life that is worth losing everything for?" - Mulay Achmed Mohammed el-Raisuli the Magnificent (The Wind and the Lion)

Burn with me