Ron Helwig

And I'm in it!

OK, so far there's only a glimpse of me for a second. It was at the illegal manicure civil disobedience event, which was also my and Otis' first activism in the Free State . Since then I've participated in many events of many sorts, but "Otis the protest dog" now mostly protests children.

For more details about the documentary, see their website at http://www.candid-world.com/ .

The First Church of the Gun is doing well. We've had many parishioners over the last few weeks. The video shows one of the newest, a visitor from a far away land, partaking in the sacrament of the flintlock.

Thanks go to Anthony for bringing his holy device. Thanks also to Jeremy for his help in preparing the sermon. Finally, thanks to Kate for providing the repast.

It has been just over a week since I ran out of drugs. Things are going about as good as can be expected, although there are some issues.

Well, we finally have a "real" address. It seems that once a road has at least three houses on it, it needs to be officially named for emergency services reasons. Since the newest neighbors have finally gotten their house built, it is finally time.

The new official address is:
6 Freeses Pond Road
Deerfield NH 03037

Of course, the post office still won't deliver mail to this address; so you'll have to continue to use the PO box when sending snail mail. (I can hardly wait until we can end that monopoly!)

Back when I was in the army, I could have gone "hard-core" and been a gung-ho soldier. Thankfully a friend of mine had introduced me to Arlo Guthrie in high school. I spent a lot of time listening to Arlo's music, which I contend saved me from a life of soldiering. I considered Arlo my personal saviour.

Somebody posted my favorite skit, performed by Rowan Atkinson , on one of the forums that I frequent. I hadn't even thought to check YouTube for it.

I first came to enjoy Mr. Atkinson's work through the fantastically funny series of series known as Blackadder . If you haven't seen it, you are missing one of the few things to prove that television is actually a good thing.

OK, I'm on break.

After Otis broke his pelvis chasing the plow guy, we got a week long visit by 10 young Ron Paul supporters . These guys were great, and joined dozens more coming in from all over the country to campaign for Ron Paul. I hope most of them join the Free State Project and move up here soon.

You'd think that getting hit by a truck and breaking your leg in 13 places would teach a dog not to run after cars. No such luck with Otis.

Yesterday while the drive was getting plowed, we heard a yelp. Otis came limping up the drive, and after some checking, we went to the vet.

Today I got my new OLPC "green" laptop. I'm using it to write this blog entry, even.

So far it seems pretty cool, but it does have a few drawbacks. The keyboard, while spill-proof, is a bit small. Also, since it is totally open and free software, it doesn't have Flash. I think it can be installed - I'll have to figure that out later.

Today got off to a good start with some woodsplitting. The weather was excellent for winter outdoor work. Then I took off to Manchester for the LPNH board meeting. That was mercifully short and business-like.

Then I went over to Murphy's Taproom and had an excellent dish of Portabello Parmesan Pasta while getting some good work done on the laptop. Rich Tomasso and I talked a bit about silver, and I got to show him the new sites ShireSilver.com and ShireSilver.org .

Then a group of us got together and held signs at the Obama/Oprah event at the Verizon Wireless Center. There was a good sized group of people who were out standing in the cold trying to combat global warming (idiots!) and some Kookchinich supporters. I got interviewed 5 times by media, including the short scene in the video.