Y'know, it ain't so much where I am living, though I prefer places with adequate opportunity for big game and varmint hunting and 4 distinct seasons, it is this temporary crud that I've been dealing with for the past few years that has me down. As long as I have to keep living in someone else's home (renting that is), I am prevented from being able to prepare in a manner I would prefer. That leaves me feeling constantly vulnerable. Part of the reason for coming back to Denver or maybe back to Washington is that this move will be the last. Wherever destiny may want to send my sorry hide from now on for this career, it will have to be TDY from now on, for I won't pack up and move again once I build my fortress.

Feeling vulnerable, within certain bounds, is okay. In my experience about the time I think I have all my duckies in line and all angles covered something comes up which I didn't didn't foresee. Often something I can't change or do anything about. This has happened so many times that it worries me when I am not feeling at least a little vulnerable. When I'm feeling satisfied I know I'm overlooking something.

As much as a living in an invulnerable fortress is attractive I have found that light, mobile and adaptable is cheaper, more immediately available and, often, more practical.

That doesn't keep me from dreaming about having a nearly invulnerable, bermed and steel reinforced concrete, 'Lair of Evil and Darkness' of my very own but it will likely remain just a dream.

So far I get by with moderately hardening my residence, luck, staying mobile, and keeping an option open of lashing myself to a big oak if all else fails.

Yeah, that seems to be the more likely MO. Still, I would like to try it the other way for a bit, just to see how it does.

I guess we'll see what fortune the next couple years brings for us.