Indiana

The family and i are back in Indiana for the Thanksgiving holiday. We took a red-eye flight from San Diego on Sunday night and got to Indiana on Monday morning. Still hate air travel, although it's good practice should i ever be imprisoned.

Monday was mostly a wash, we were all too tired to do much. On Tuesday, Emily and i went up to Pokagon State park in the morning and i went trail running. Fun, really. Nobody else on the trails and the serenity was much valued after the previous day of travel. The trees are already bare, but i still enjoyed the scenery. It's such a contrast to California.

My parents live in Auburn, Indiana; which unbeknownst to all but hardcore car-buffs is the sight of several car museums and one of the largest annual car auctions. On Tuesday afternoon, we went to one of the newer museums called the World War II Victory Museum, which is primarily a collection of wartime vehicles from both Axis and Allied countries. There were many interesting items, but the ones that caught my eye were the exceptionally large vehicles. My favorite was probably the Pacific M26, aka "Dragon Wagon", which is a vehicle that was used to recover other large vehicles (e.g., tanks). Imagine a semi-tractor built by Hummer and you sort of get the idea. Saw a particulary nasty-looking tank also, i think called a Borg-Werner LVT3. My boys don't really comprehend WWII yet, but they were fairly fascinated by the vehicles. It helps to relate them to things they have seen, like Indiana Jones movies. They understand that the Nazis were the bad guys, but not quite why.

Today it's raining. The boys went to the YMCA this morning with my dad, and this afternoon they went roller-skating. It's amazing how much enjoyment they get out of things that they'd probably never do at home. It's supposed to snow either tonight or tomorrow, which will be a treat for them.

Watched an interesting Q+A with Michael Scheuer on C-SPAN today (hey, i'm in Indiana and it's raining, what the hell do you expect me to do). Anyway, i think i'm going to try to find his book Imperial Hubris. He's a former CIA guy who apparently lead a unit that was responsible for Osama himself. Sounds like a reasonable and credible guy, even if he has an axe to grind. He posits the thesis that Al Qaeda is not merely a terrorist organization, but a global insurgency. That seems somehow right to me, but i want to read his book.