Can't leave the house without some mercenary thug tagging me.  Had one follow me into a check cashing shop this evening.  Big guy on a Harley wearing a NYPD T shirt.  He tried to get behind me in the old checkout line scam, but I never turned my back on him.  I locked eyes with him and he apparently thought better of his little game and left the store, but hung around the strip mall and was still sitting on his bike when I left.

It never ends, and I am accustomed to it, and I know there are a lot of people out there, ideologues, who will do anything they're told to do for money or the rush or the "cause.".

I know the rush.  I've been living the rush all my life.  The edge is out there, beckoning, and I have walked it for much of my life, beginning at age 16 when I began flying small airplanes and at age 18, when I began jumping out of them.

I have repeatedly and professionally faced death many times, and she is an old friend.  At age 70, she may call me very soon. So many old friends and acquaintances have Gone West. The world gets smaller and smaller each passing day.

No one knows their hour of departure except the condemned.  Am I condemned?  It's likely, but those who condemn me are cowards and lurkers and losers and slime that oozes in the night.  I do not fear them and this must drive them nuts, because they are the terrorists, the scum who seek to instill fear into my heart.

They will fail.