I’ve been tinkering with genealogy off and on for probably a dozen years. My dad accomplished a tremendous amount of work in thirty years doing things the old-fashioned way. He’d have been stunned with the information available online now. When he first got online, it was with a 1200 baud modem, and that cost about $40 a month, I seem to recall. Plus long distance charges. I know he never saw a personal web site, but I feel fairly certain he’d approve of the way I’m displaying his research and our family history.

I keep a family history online for a number of reasons. If I’m doing research at a library, I’m almost certain to have internet access. I’m more likely to have access than I am to have my laptop with me. Keeping it online makes it easier to collaborate with other members of my family, since they’ll be able to see what I’ve got, and make corrections and additions to their records or mine as needed.

I also do it so people who happen to be researching the same families can find me. My dad accomplished a lot, but there are still branches of the tree that have no leaves, as it were. For example, a couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone with information about my great-great-great maternal grandmother. He’s almost certainly related, but we haven’t quite figured out where or how yet. It will certainly be interesting to track that one down.

My great-grandfather John Carl Mueller came from a family of eight, born between 1839 and 1854. My grandfather Robert Mueller visited John Carl’s brother Philipp in New Jersey in 1912, on Robert’s honeymoon. My dad wrote:

Henry Mueller, or “Uncle Henry,” was living in Newark, N. J., when Robert and Leona Mayer Mueller visited them during their wedding trip in the fall of 1912. A picture taken at that time apparently shows the three daughters of Henry and his wife. There are or were letters exchanged between the Henry Muellers and the Robert Muellers around the time of the visit. One of the letters is dated “Newark, N. J. Dec. 2, 1912,” and is signed by a Maude Mueller, one of Henry’s daughters. No further address in Newark is given, and all contact with this branch of the family has been lost for many years.

Newark NJ City Directory for Mueller, Philip (p 684)

It’s an odd swirl of feelings when something like this happens. I’m thrilled to make contact with someone new, especially when they seem to have lots of information that I don’t. But it’s bittersweet when I think about everything that both families missed out on: Births. Weddings. Firsts. Victories. Defeats. Funerals.

Joy is doubled when it’s shared, and heartbreak is halved when others bear the burden. I hope as descendants of Johann Heinrich Mueller and Susanna Gertrude Wenzel rediscover each other, they can reunite to share those burdens and joys.

Then again, maybe they need to pull the trigger, because someone else is already shooting.

Nah. That’d never happen.

Gives new meaning to “Friendly Skies,” or “Sky-high,” doesn’t it? But they’re all about keeping us safe.

A 60-year-old high school teacher in Virginia thought it would be a good idea to line up the students in his welding class and shoot at them with a blank-firing pistol.

No, I’m not making that up. Reports are here, here, and Google News here.

This is just stunning in the stupidity of it all. The pistol belonged to the criminal justice program at the school. It’s not clear if Manuael Ernest Dillow had permission from the CJ department to have the gun, although I’m not sure why he would have it. What is clear is that Dillow just wasted his teaching career. There’s no way he can talk his way out of this. The administration seems to have had no clue this was going to happen, so it probably wasn’t a planned event.

What’s more disturbing to me is that in a high school just 100 miles from Virginia Tech and just days after the 5-year anniversary of the VT shootings, when someone starts shooting a gun at a bunch of people in a school, no one attacked the shooter. No one ran. No one went for help.

I know some people are going to say “But these are just kids! What do you expect them to do?”

I expect anyone, anywhere to fight back when attacked to the best of their ability.

I expect us to quit teaching our kids that fighting is wrong, and that defending yourself is bad, and that they should just give the bad man what they want, and he’ll go away. What if the bad man wants your life?

I expect people to take responsibility for their personal safety.

Is that too much to expect?

It’s spring here, and that means cleaning and changes. We gave the kids a week off for spring break, but the tradeoff was that we had to deep-clean the rig. That theoretically gets done weekly, but there’s cleaning, and then there’s cleaning. Pull stuff out, realize we haven’t used it since we’ve been on the road. “Does anyone want this? No? Put it in the giveaway pile.”

Another part of “Out with the old” involved our van. We’ve had the Big Blue Bus since summer 2001, when we bought it new from a Columbus dealer. 151,000 miles later, it was time for us to replace it. We weren’t really happy with Chevy, so we decided on a Ford van. Then it was just a matter of finding one with what we wanted. We quickly realized that the 6.8L engine we thought we wanted (for towing capacity) was pretty rare. Same with getting a non-white van. We don’t have anything against white per se, but we wanted something different from the thousands of white Ford vans out there. We finally found one in Illinois. A friend here in Muskogee is a dealer, and got us a decent price break as well as picked it up for us. I mentioned to Diana that we might do something to make it a little more distinctive, and she rolled her eyes at me. We’ll see.

It was interesting to see God at work here. I got laid off in Columbus in January 2009, and spent the next two years looking for work. Couldn’t even get hired at a retail warehouse for seasonal work, even though I had three years of warehouse experience. But then we arrived in Muskogee and less than two weeks later, I had a full-time 8-5 weekday job. It paid just over minimum wage, but that was enough for us at the time (one of the advantages of the RV lifestyle). It certainly felt like confirmation that we were supposed to be in Muskogee. The work wasn’t bad at all: pick/pack/ship, all lightweight stuff. The conditions in the warehouse were pretty good. Two of my three co-workers were a little more than I really felt I could handle after four months though, so I’m back home.

But I’ve had the time to finish a rewrite of Don’t Stop Believin, and a 2d draft of Sad Girl. I’m looking for an editor for those books (and have one in mind), and I’m trying to decide which of three or four projects to start next.

The boys are well-established in Pack and Troop 699. The girls are wrapping up cookie sales for Troop 282. Diana had a credentials review with the Northeast Oklahoma District and should be ordained next year. She also now the Administrative Assistant at the church, as well as the Children’s Director.

Life is good.

So this is really just a post letting you know I’m still alive (if this is the only place you see me), and I’m going to be resuming my semi-irregular posting pattern Real Soon Now™.

That last sentence contradicts their actions. If they truly believed that it’s best to defer to communities, and if they truly have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, they should have left their advertising in place.

Advertising during a particular television program doesn’t mean you support the program. Do advertisers who pay $1milliion per minute for a Superbowl spot really endorse the game or a particular team, or are they just trying to get their product in front of as many eyeballs as possible? It’s the latter. Advertising is about getting people to know what your brand is, and what you sell, and doing that in the most cost-effective manner possible. If you’re trying to increase your sales in a particular demographic, it makes sense to advertise on a show that demographic is watching.

Nielsen says the show averages 1.2 million viewers per episode. That’s several hundred thousand potential customers. Compare that to the number of people who have heard about Lowes’ actions now – probably in the double-digit millions at this point. Most of those people are strongly polarized about Lowes right now, and that’s not a good thing for Lowes.

Lowes probably couldn’t win this one either way. But deferring to a small anti-Muslim group was not the best way to handle this. As one poster on Facebook says, “Muslims are probably the last group in America where it remains politically fashionable to collectively demonize and discriminate [against].” I’d add that Christians and gun-owners are right there too, but that would be awfully ironic.

Read that again. No booze, beer, or alcohol of any kind while carrying. Nothing.

Opponents are predicting blood in the bars, just as they predicted blood in the streets ten years ago when Ohio finally reformed their self-defense laws. “Guns and alcohol don’t mix,” we’re told. And they’re right. The Ohio legislature agrees with them. The ORC says you can’t be under the influence when you’re carrying a firearm. They’ll allow you to have a drink or three, up to 0.08 BAC and still drive, but they don’t think you should have any testable amount of alcohol in your bloodstream when you have a firearm.

Before we go too far, we need to work on our language choices here. In Ohio, a D permit allows consumption of alcohol, including beer, wine, mixed beverages and spirituous liquor on the premises. D permits apply to any establishment, from Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Applebees and Hooters to Mccarthys Ale House & Patio, Union Bar & Grill, and Billy Goat Tavern, if they sell alcohol for on-premises consumption.

So it’s not just bars. Ohio news media has been fanning the hysteria by using the phrase “guns in bars,” which certainly paints a particular picture in one’s mind. Far better would have been “restaurant carry.” “Firearms in liquor permit premises” would be technically correct as well, but it doesn’t role off the tongue with the same flair and drama as “guns in bars,” does it? Not nearly as hysteria-inducing.

“How are bar owners and bartenders supposed to enforce this?” “How do we know people won’t just say they’re not carrying, and drink anyway?” The same way bar owners and bartenders enforce drinking and driving statutes now. They don’t, and no one expects them to. One person pointed out to me that “Bar owners/bartenders are by law not allowed to serve people, that they can visibly see becoming drunk, more alcohol. It is called the Dram Shop Act.” Let’s look at that.

According to Ohio’s dram shop law, persons who were injured by an intoxicated person may have a cause of action against the business establishment who sold them the alcoholic beverage. The business’ liability depends somewhat on where the injury actually occurred:
• On the premises: If the injury occurred on the business owner’s premises, or in a parking lot under their control, the business owner will be held liable if the injury was caused by the negligence of the business or a business employee.
• Off premises: A business owner or employee may be held liable for injuries that occurred off premises if the establishment sold alcohol to a person who was visibly intoxicated, or if the person was a minor. These injuries may include automobile accidents as well as attacks or fist fights. (Info courtesy LegalMatch.com)

My friend went on to say “It IS the responsibility of the bar owner to make sure that his/her patrons are not intoxicated to the point that they cannot operate a vehicle.” Not exactly. Considering the presumption of intoxication happens at .08 BAC, I would guess that the average bartender or server has no clue when their average customer has reached that legal point, which happens long before they’re stumbling, or slurring their speech. For most people, it happens after the first or second drink. And when’s the last time your server asked you if you were going to drive before they served your third or fourth or fifth beer? When I still drank, I never got asked about my post-consumption plans by a bar employee.

The bee in everyone’s bonnet seems to be that they’re fine with trusting you to stop drinking in time to be safe before you start driving, but they don’t think you can be trusted to not drink at all. Why people fine with allowing people to get behind the wheel of a car after a couple of drinks, but doesn’t think they can be trusted with a firearm at the same point? Scott Heimlich, vice president of the Central Ohio Restaurant Association, says “The law says they can’t consume alcohol, but will that person be honest and play by the rules and not have a drop of alcohol when they have a gun on them?” Well, why wouldn’t they? You trust them about not driving after they’ve consumed a mood-altering depressant. Why shouldn’t you trust them about not consuming that mood-altering depressant in the first place?

It saddens me to think that so many people lose the ability to think clearly when an issue includes the right to self-defense. “I’ve never seen a case that warranted the use of a gun in the bar,” said one Columbus bar owner. But that’s short-sighted. What about the block-and-a-half their patrons have to walk to get to and from their car? What about the trip home? The idea that violent crime only happens in certain areas is frighteningly naïve and prevalent. Violent crime can and does happen anywhere, and the police have no duty to protect you as an individual. It’s nice when they can keep something bad from happening, and they sometimes catch the bad guy quickly, but they’re really only there to write reports, draw chalk outlines around your body, and go after the bad guy after he’s committed the crime.

Ohio is not the first state to recognize that their citizens can be trusted with the ability to carry guns in places that serve alcohol. The predicted blood did not run in the streets or bars or restaurants there, and there’s no reason to think that Ohioans are that different.

The only person directly responsible for your protection and safety is you. Restaurant carry in Ohio just means you can protect yourself in more places.

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

That pretty much sums up my thoughts about this arrest. I’d be curious to know how many law enforcement officials charged with enforcing child pornography or drug laws or weapons laws have crossed the line and violated the very laws they’re sworn to enforce. Maybe this essay should become required in-service training.

Local coverage, with a link to the indictment.