Skateboarding with a serial killer...

Remembering Miguel "Mike" Venegas this evening, who was the most daring skateboarder I ever hung with as a teenager...

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Triple-ax murder case of 1991

Rubio's activities regarding a triple-axe murder case early in 1991 have continued to be questioned though the matter did not affect his reelection prospects. James D. "Jim" Smiley (1958-1991), a Missouri native, Laredo businessman, and a Baptist deacon, Ruben Martinez, then twenty-one, and Daniel Duenez Capetillo, then fourteen, were murdered in Smiley's home by two teenagers wielding an axe. The killers were Miguel Angel Martinez, then seventeen, and Miguel Venegas, then sixteen. Martinez was given the death penalty and for a time was the youngest person on Texas death row. His punishment was commuted to life imprisonment. Venegas was imprisoned but not tried as an adult.[15]

The axe and knives used in the crime were provided to the killers by Milo Flores, a son of then State District Judge Manuel R. "Meme" Flores. Milo Flores was also the alleged getaway driver.
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The unseen fire.

As I push past the age of the average medieval king, I start to take notice of some individuals who, like me, seem to burn with the unseen fire.

I'm referring to the intense passion, wisdom, and intelligence that few people seem to possess nowadays on at any point in their lives. Sure you may have faith, or aptitude, or even good health. But how often do those attributes all come together in a perfect union for DECADES at a time?

Rare.

I am, however, convinced I've burned away most of my potential in self-seclusion considering how often I chafe at "the bit". In a slightly different timeline, I might have been a mercenary, a child prodigy, or even a charismatic leader of nations. But sometimes you just shun the limelight and want to be alone.

Too bad.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in my life wondering "what could have been" or "what's next?" Don't let yourself become like me. Being alone is fine for some, but the notion that you have wasted your youth and great opportunity is difficult to live down as age creeps in.

One cast, two cast.

Finally out of the things. Good riddance hot and stifling summer.

It occurs to me after I am out of the infernal things WHY you are better off being in a cast after suffering a bone fracture. The idea, apparently, goes beyond protection. The sheer immobility promotes atrophy and ligament "shrinkage", which appears to pull the fracture tighter together. This combination of immobility and protection (from further breakage and trauma) allows the bone to heal undisturbed for as long as the cast remains on.

The only problem: Seizing up or calcification of the joints.

I'm currently learning how to make a fist again after not having done so in 2 months. Very painful to do so, but not as painful as the Hand Doctor pressing down on my broken metacarpal with his viselike fingers after I complained about pain! Some people. Sheesh.

Hope everyone else is doing fine and healing on time.

Got to mow the lawn and push an olympic bar a few times on the bench this afternoon.

Can't remember a time when I was happier!