Idaho Liberty posting categories

Was the grasshopper correct?

I have lived ant’s part in the fable of the ant and the grasshopper while over thirty years ago my ex roommate, best friend, and one who cared deeply about my well-being advised wholeheartedly that I would be much happier and better off if I quit even thinking about The Deep State and ugly side of the world around us. That is over 11,000 days he spent power boating, traveling, watching pro sports with friends, believing in an honorable media, living in a pleasant, unconcerned leisure class while I kept my nose to the grindstone, squirreled my nuts away, researching, working, and railing against the evil elites. As my, our enemies come down home stretch on their nefarious Agenda […]

some things elude quantification

Early this week I shared bits of a personal exercise wherein I attempted to quantify, weigh my time management. As I mentioned there, blogging did not land anywhere near the top. It in fact seems to be near or at the bottom of things I objectively think I should be doing. Yet here I am. I just finished a review of the list I created, made some modifications, but still came up with no justification for doing what I am doing at this moment. My difficulty lies in quantifying community service, building a team with survivable potential, calling out warnings, or some Paul Revere-ish driving mechanism inherent in my psyche. There is another part of me that HATES BULLIES. […]

The Sunday Morning Ride

I woke up quite early that Sunday as was normal for me. I considered quietly creeping around my sister’s house until she got up around 11, which was normal for her. The drive from Palo Alto to Santa Rosa would change from mundane to ugly by mid-day were I to delay my departure. Instead I unzipped and opened the driver’s side of my tonneau cover, tossed my bag into The Speedster and headed out before the traffic woke up. As I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on this glorious summer morning I decided to enjoy Highway 1 instead of plodding along the northbound freeway. With the crack-of-dawn absence of traffic, the windy coastal road would add no time, but tremendous […]

Ukraine has me in their crosshairs

In my estimation, my websites are the tiniest little annoyance, minuscule, less than a pinprick. Nevertheless, five out of the five that I maintain are now being regularly probed by hackers located in Ukraine. Really??? How do they have time for me? C’mon Russia, give them something more interesting to think about. You probably know one of my websites, but I built four for various purposes from commercial to politics and one for my wife to play with. They are all still standing, and regardless of their extremely low threat profile to anyone, do attract enemy attacks with unending regularity. Check them out: Bitterroot Bugle, Idaho Liberty, Ted Dunlap, The Fixer, Free Missy. Do you see anything worth their […]

Fasting along – Day 7 report

Looking at a websearch on what others have shared about fasting, I tripped over a new-to-me phrase that fits well: therapeutic fasting. Upon finding out that I am fasting, the normal first assumption is that I am working for weight loss. Not that my 6′ 175-pound figure appears to be overly plump, but few can come up with another answer to “Why a person would skip meal after meal for days on end?” As I begin Day 7 of this fast, I weigh in at 163 … down 12 pounds. However my love handles are still apparent and poochy belly is still there … but those won’t be apparent to others until swim suit season … an event I […]

taking a time out

I am cutting back on my webpost side to regain more of my other Renaissance Man aspects. I am master of four websites. I am still wrestling with cutting back on the out-of-pocket financial costs without resolution, but certainly can pare down the time I have been donating to this slice of my life without a solution to the expense question. Woodwork, metalwork, strengthening my 2-way comms, building physical things, making music, reading, two-wheel-riding, wrenching, drawing, artistic painting and more have been calling to me – and I have answered their calls less than I want. Most of the posting, writing, research and creating I do will be at Bitterroot Bugle .com This site will drop down my priority […]

my turn as an enemy of the state

I was recently asked why I am unwilling to cross the border into and out of Canada. Here is the real answer. I was a significantly above average Libertarian activist. I ran for governor of Idaho twice, gave the Ada County Sheriff the closest race he had in 20 years, though I had no peace officer experience, and spent several years as Libertarian Party of Idaho state chairman. Needless to say, I was working diligently against THE STATE. When TSA had just (unconstitutionally) taken over transportation security at all the airports, I went through the Boise airport on my way to a convention of state chairs in Houston. I was the only person who got “randomly” plucked out of a […]

last ride of the season -?

The weather prognosticators are predicting significant drops in temperature and increases in that frozen water thing Montana likes to do to us. Meanwhile, my new-to-me 2009 BMW R1200RS-P (patrol or police model) bike has way-too-few me miles on it. Thursday I pushed all my ‘get the estate ready for winter’ chores aside to grab what may turn out to be my last highway munching ride of the season. The Iron Butt (long distance motorcyclist) guys may snicker, but 160 miles was way better than spending all winter wishing I had taken it out one more time. The roads were excellent, the patrol bike was a great pleasure to ride, the weather suited my clothes perfectly and the scenery was […]

Who am I?

sailing the San Francisco Bay on my Nacra 5.8 catamaranThis is an update to a post I published a few years ago. You can go see that one if you wish: https://www.teddunlap.net/who-am-i/, but I republished it below to save you the trip. A little bit older for sure, slower, wiser, and now with a few more experiences under my belt. Ohmygosh, I am probably 15 to 20 pounds lighter too, having discovered fasting as a healing and fitness tool. I have also worked on the estate, which now suits us a lot better than it did in January of 2019. I got to scratch my sports car track time itch for the first time in 35 years. This year I […]

settled in to my domain

A main driver of my life is gaining control of my homestead, estate, working spaces and equipment. After each move from one to another, the list of urgent/critical projects is immediately followed by the crucial, then important and so on until I reach the settled in phase. In each case there is some marker that gives me the feeling I have arrived. Seven years into our Bunkhouse occupancy, I finally hit what I think is that marker. I am comfortable that I know what spaces I want to irrigate, have them relatively easy to wet and no longer have to disconnect hoses, move pipes and reconnect to run my mower around the yard. This evolved irrigation system will be reasonably […]

Tennis tales from the only guy the coach couldn’t beat

My Dad loved tennis and gave me excellent private lessons. The skills and techniques he taught me were a great foundation. Tennis is a very fast-moving strategy and technique game that I was uniquely well suited for. In a graduating class of 1,000 and a school of almost 3,000 students, I was not only among the smallest boys there, I was the third best tennis player in the school … including the tennis coach in that pool. Among the more important bits in tennis are hitting the ball where your opponent is not, making it as difficult as possible for him to return the ball, striving to keep him off balance, doing the unexpected… an undercut short shot just […]

Gone RACING

I recently posted Gone Fishing using that phrase as a metaphor for my particular breakaway from the normal, everyday life. Here I use a much more accurate title. Racing is most accurately described as a competition wherein one tries to go faster than another. I will not be in a competition, but rather just running the track as fast as this man and my GT50 machine care to go – which is a whole bunch faster than normal people would drive within their comfort zones. I expect to get my ’87 Honda CRX around 115-120mph in the straight between TURN 15 and TURN 1, before braking hard for a corner likely to require me to be going 35-45 in […]