Thor’s Hall

A tragedy struck today in Tacoma. Kind of close to home as I have a lot of extended family that lives in the area. The story is here.

Over the past few years I have become a big advocate for self defense.  Close in to moderate distances.  These are the kinds of stories that drive me nuts.  Here we have a school teacher who has done all the “right” legal things to protect herself from a known threat, and she is slain by that threat because he has no qualms about violating the law.

There are many things that could have been done to prevent this tragedy,  including the deceased taking an active role in carrying a weapon for defense.  In this case nothing less than a firearm would have been appropriate.

I pray that the victim is not one of my relatives (so far no word), and hope that people begin to separate themselves from the emotional arguments about gun control and start to focus on the facts and statistics.  The phrase “An armed society, is a polite society” rings very true.

Sometimes, it sucks. This trip is one of those. Evidently I missed the forecast that had a retrograding Nor’easter passing across NYC yesterday, and today, and….

I was able to spend an extra night away from home as a result. I have had two flights canceled on me in the last 24 hrs. I am now scheduled to depart 25 hrs later than planned. Now, I have had worse trips, and other folks have nightmare travel stories to share (I could too). From that standpoint, this has not been that bad a trip. It more the mental disruption, and having to be nimble and deal with customer service folks that are totally stressed out that always throws a kink into the situation.

I finally made it out to LaGauardia. I can’t remember the last time that I saw an airport with no planes at it. They have really been impacted by this weather. Some aircraft are beginning to land, which is a good sign. Still will be a couple of hours before we begin to see some United planes arrive.

Listening into other peoples conversations in this kind of situation is always funny. Guy behind me was canceled this morning, and is trying to get to Moline. He has no additional reservations and is on the phone trying to get out. He is now wondering how far it is from LGA to JFK. Doesn’t seem like a good trade off to me but, I was the one asking my travel folks if they could get me out of Newark to Denver, LA, Dulles, anywhere this morning. Life’s curve balls always makes for interesting stories.

I am staying optimistic that I will actually be able to get out of here, today.