A Ride Along the California Aqueduct

We all know exercise can extend life, maintain sharper brains, and just plainly makes a person feel better every day. One of the best forms of exercise in my opinion, available to everyone is bicycling, since it is easy on the joints and works as a fantastic cardiovascular work out. Another great aspect of turning the peddles is the fantastic places you can visit and the marvelous scenery spinning by on your route.

With this in mind, my friend Paul and I decided to take a day trek from Victorville to Palmdale, approximately 50 miles away. That may not sound very far but when you consider the heat of a Southern California July day, the daily winds, and other factors to be discussed, one can easily understand that 50 miles is a pretty decent workout for a couple of middle-aged men.

Paul and I have been riding for about a year, but normally only have time for 15 to 30 miles per week with our busy schedules. So prior to the 50 mile ride, we spent two weeks moving up our pace and extending our rides, getting used to the heat and winds. These winds can blow in gusts making the bike lean over on its side or give a steady breeze in excess of 15 knots, making the headwind so severe it can slow your pace making every mile grueling and unforgiving.

I ride a Trek Navigator 2.0 which is more of a hybrid off road/street 21 gear comfortable riding bike. I especially like the large padded seat instead of the typical narrow road bike seat which can become rather intrusive after an hour or so of riding. Paul rides a Dawes which is also a hybrid road bike with 27 gears and the narrow seat which I do not like. Paul does not seem to have a problem but may be too proud to whine to his friend that the sharply pointed seat has become more personal than usual.

Anyway, the ride started early in the morning on a windless and warm day which we had not counted on allowing us a rather fast pace to Palmdale. Faster than we had predicted but once nearing our destination, about five miles out,  the winds were howling and the pace slowed and as we hunched over the handlebars swearing like sailors with the only desire for the ride to be over and grabbing a cold libation.

In between the beginning and the ending there were miles upon miles of black ribbon guiding the path toward Palmdale which we enjoyed with each push of the pedal. One thing about riding through deserted landscapes is the wildlife you can spot from the seat of your bike. Dog sized jackrabbits sprinting for cover when we approached, lone coyotes eyeing us from the highlands near the canal, snakes slithering across the asphalt warming up in the sun, and above all the red tail hawks gliding effortlessly in the blue skies of the desert. A camera is a must for a ride like this.

One must remember that the canal roadway is not just a flat piece of road but has hills which can make the calves and thighs scream out loud with exertion and these hills only take about fifteen seconds to conquer but this conquering comes almost every half mile or so but do decrease to about every mile once you get further away from civilization. You have to get off your bike and climb over fences to continue the ride where the Department of Water Resources have installed gates to discourage peddalists but left it open to joggers, fishermen, walkers, and the occasional car thief who dumps a stolen vehicle into the canal for kicks. The fence or gate you have to cross is no real concern and should not discourage anyone from utilizing the canal path for enjoyment.

Some of the hills leading to or from the canal, when you have to portage certain unreachable sections, can lead to speeds of two miles an hour to more than forty miles per hour depending on the direction the hill has you going. I liked the forty miles per hour sections rather than the gut wrenching sweat producing steep inclines where you basically have to 'walk' your bicycle--where you are in the lowest gear and barely moving forward. A real rider would never get off their bike and actually walk beside their ride but instead stands up and pumps very slowly trying to make any distance at all the while wondering why they just do not get off and walk. It is just not done that way.

The ride continued with two friends talking, laughing, gasping for breath, and having one hell of a day. Palmdale came into sight and we nodded with the knowledge that we had made the ride in the heat of the day at a much faster pace than anticipated.

The ever lovely Laureen had agreed to pick us up in the FJ and then we stopped at Casa Ortega for a late lunch in Pinon Hills and toasted each other with a couple of mugs of very cold libations. The ones we had thought about while fighting the head winds which had met us toward the last miles of our ride into that high desert city of Palmdale.

I intentionally wrote little of this trip knowing the video will do the justice which I may not be able to do with words.

Stay tuned for other rides with the boys!

Olympia SnoweWoman

This article is just for fun -- it's been a while since J and L has been online -- what with this and that and now the weather, so we thought we'd give you something for the spirit of the season. Built in Bethel, Maine and named for the state's US Senator, it took 115 days to construct and even longer to melt. While most ladies won't talk about about their weight, this lady was over 122 feet tall and weighed 13 million pounds. Check those hips! She knows how to wear her curves.

World's Largest Snowman
Height: 122'1"
Weight 13,000,000 lbs of snow;
5 foot wreaths for eyes; 16 skis for eyelashes;
chicken wires and wood frame built by elementary school children;
5 red auto tires for lips painted by children;
48 ft circumference fleece hat made by middle school students;
30 foot spruce trees for arms

Who is Jonas Peters?

Book Review by Les Chappell

In a recent webinar for Cambium Learning (Back to School with Language!), Laureen changed the student names to protect the innocent (as the cliche goes), and has had more than a few inquiries about the identity of Jonas Peters. Laureen simply identified him as a character in her favorite novel.  Her principal often closes conversations with her by asking her to say hello to Jonas or asking how Jonas is doing.

So who is Jonas Peters? Jonas made a cameo appearance in the webinar in the company of Johnny Depp and Bart Simpson, and had the starring role in Pursued, the novel by John R. Beyer. Any resemblance he has to her husband is completely, well, coincidental. At least, that's the story...

You read.  You decide.

Pepperdine Faculty and Alumni Authors

Barnes and Noble customer review

Now available as E-book

And notice this: "Discover Pursued by John R. Beyer, one of the most interesting books and ebooks available at Coralhub.com." Apparently Jonas is HUGE in India!  Great job Jonas and John!  Keep writing!

We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.

President George W. Bush in Shanksville, PA at the Flight 93 Memorial, today:  "One of the lessons of 9-11 is that evil is real and so is courage."

Other Bush quotes worth remembering today:

American will never run...And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders.

If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.  We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our background, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.

Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring just justice to our enemies, justice will be done.

Shining Path -- Terrorism in Peru

Recently hearing from a dear friend from our honeymoon days in Peru, brought to mind the reality he and his family face daily while we sit contentedly in our homes -- he has fought the fight we hope we never do here in this country. Oh, indeed, as we move ever closer to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we are reminded of those families who have been touched by the kind of terror these cruel ideologues can mete out. Perhaps only those who have tasted the bitter tears that terrible day or lost loved ones in the war which followed can begin to fathom at all what it must have been like, what it might be like again, to live under the reign of Guzman and his thugs.  This article is based upon an article written by Kathryn Gregory (Council on Foreign Relations) and upon our conversations and experiences with this brave gentleman and soldier, Carlos, who lived this fight and knew the Shining Path all too well.

First, for a bit a background, and I must emphasize a bit, because the research on this subject is both lengthy and conflicting, there are two primary Peruvian guerrilla groups. Both are leftist. One, best described for our purposes here as Maoist/communist, the Shining Path or Sendero Luminoso, and the other, the Cuban-inspired Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. Both operated most forcefully in the 1980s and early 90s. At that time, Peru's government fought a war against both insurgent groups, costly in terms of both lives and soles (Peruvian currency).

The U.S. State Department continues to recognize the Shining Path as a terrorist organization, but not the Tupac Amaru (since 1999).  The Shining Path, dormant since the 90s and the imprisonment of Guzman, has begun to realize a resurgence  in rural areas  neglected by the government along with a revival in the Peruvian coca trade. It seems if one does not learn from history, one is destined to repeat it -- this is much the same way the Path gained such a following initially.

How did it all begin? The best reports seem to indicate that the Shining Path began with the cultural revolutions of the 60s.  It started in Ayacucho as a small communist revolutionary group led by a philosophy professor at the San Cristobal of Huamanga University named Abimael Guzman.  Just as others of his era, he drew upon the teachings of Marxism and the example of Castro to build a significant and violent guerrilla army that utilized terror tactics  in an effort to destabilize Peru's ruling class.  Their stated goal, replace what Guzman and his followers saw as a bourgeois democracy with a dictatorship of the proletariat.

At one point, members of the Shining Path numbered somewhere around ten thousand, holding tight a country of nearly thirty million, and Guzman adopted the nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo. He then re-coined their trademark ideology "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism"  in favor of a cult of personality coined "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo" thought. He further rejected the concept of human rights, stating in part, "...human rights are contradictory to the rights of the people, because we base rights in man as a social product...human rights serve the oppressor class...our position is very clear. We reject and condemn human rights because they are bourgeois, reactionary, counterrevolutionary rights, and are today a weapon of revisionists and imperialists, principally Yankee imperialists."

What was the strategy of Sendero Luminoso? Simply, they used violence to attempt to bring down Peru's democratically elected government, disrupt the economy, destroy the state's reputation among the people, especially in rural areas, and ultimately in the court of public opinion, nationally and internationally. Sadly, this may have been somewhat effective, as I eluded to earlier, the Path is, pardon the pun, on the warpath again and gaining popularity -- in addition, many of those who fought successfully against them, including our dear friend, at the request of his government, were wounded, lost friends, tried essentially as war criminals and now blacklisted from travel in many countries including our own.  An important note which will be expanded later by the gentlemen involved, this soldier was trained along with his fellows to do exactly what he did by our own Navy Seals.  Without them, Peru would be a very different place indeed.

Walk down any street in Lima.  See the beautiful homes in comfortable neighborhoods like Miraflores and San Isidro surrounded by high imposing walls topped with wires or cut glass and often you are met by a guard.  Even modest homes are fortresses.  And this phenomenon is not limited to the capitol city.  This is what corruption and terror do to an ancient culture which has brought us the Inca, the Nazca Lines, and Mario Vargas Llosa with a rich history ranging from the Spanish conquistadors to the Viceroyalty through years of pirates and privateers.  In some ways, little has changed -- there are still pirates of a type in Peru, but they are elected and run the government or businesses as they do in any modern civilized nation and the people are as diverse as the geography and climate.   

But amidst all the beauty that is Peru, grew this glaring ugliness that persists today. A New York Times Report notes in a recent article chronicling the extradition of a former military officer that the Shining Path was famous for hacking its victims to death with machetes to save ammunition.  In this New York Times article, they talk about an officer given blanket amnesty in the 90s who has since lost his immunity when the Supreme Court nullified the law.  He now stands accused of several murders.  

The victims of Shining Path, who numbered perhaps seventy thousand during the eighties and nineties are beginning to grow again. In 2008, 26 people were killed, including 22 soldiers and police officers. Yet, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found the human rights violations of the military response to the terrorists a close second to the terrorists themselves and the Catholic Church complicit in failing to do anything to stop the violence. Small wonder the TRC has little credibility with the rise of the Path.  Who will be willing to stand up to fight the terrorists this time?

Originally, the Sendero Luminoso targeted local authorities and political leaders, police, mayors, judges, etc. As the group gained in power and influence, their targets became wealthier and more influential as well.  Frequently a foothold was gained in a small rural community when a dispute occurred over a piece of property of livestock. 

Imagine for a moment the following scenario:  two farmers live in an outlying village.  One accuses the other of stealing his livestock.  The police for the area is non-existent, incompetent, corrupt, or murdered by the Shining Path.  Enter a member of Guzman's Shining Path to mediate the dispute (even though they may have caused it).  "You want your llama back?  We'll take care of it."

The next morning, the farmer has one or two llamas in place of the missing one.  No questions. The other farmer may be missing.  But the first farmer is grateful, and too afraid, to ask any questions and now owes the Shining Path.

What is the US role in all of this?  Initially, Washington lent money and provided military and training (remember the reference to the Navy Seals?) in order to help Peru wage war against the insurgency of the Sendero Luminoso. This continued even after President Alan Garcia defaulted on some of the loans. Then, under President Fujimori, when the US perception was that near absolute power was in his hands, all aid, other than humanitarian was withdrawn, until a return to our definition and perception of democracy.

Finally, September 12, 1992, Abimael Guzman was captured and imprisoned -- but it was years later that he requested a peace deal.  After his second trial in 2004, Guzman received a life sentence in 2006. He is currently incarcerated, fittingly, at a Naval base, Callao.  His subterranean cellmate neighbors include Victor Polay, the head of Tupac Amaru, and Vladamiro Montesinos,  the former head of the National Intelligence Service. The current head of the Shining Path is Comrade Artemio.

So, there you have it. A bit, as I said, of the background, as an outsider, looking in and feeling the pain of a beautiful land and her people while praying we do not follow a similar path.  


Carlos, my friend, please, I am an English teacher -- you lived this.  I have no pride on this issue.  Feel free to correct my misperceptions and inaccuracies.  The floor is yours...

We Want Your Opinion

(photo courtesy TheGreatGeekManual.com)

We were thinking that this just might make a fine mission statement for our blog, and we want your opinion.  Please respond by commenting or vote in our poll and help us decide if this helps define the goals of J and L Research and Exploration.

Rep. Mrs. Giffords making an unbelieveable recovery

As I watched the news 08/01/2011 with the debate over raising the United States debt ceiling I had lots to say but will not comment here since this is not a political blog but one of research and exploration which brings me to the next point.

One majestic moment during all the nonsense going on in Washington D.C. the last few weeks was when Rep. Gabby Giffords (D)  took her seat and voted (in favor) of the bill on the floor. I must say that a few tears stained my cheeks as I looked at this marvelous woman standing amidst her peers and mouthed (she can not yet speak) her thanks and other words of encouragement to the others standing in an ovation to her honor. An unbelievable touching moment and if tears weren't there in your eyes then you need to see a head shrinker. Mrs. Giffords is one brave and proud American!

Imagine being shot in the head (I was shot in the head years ago while visiting Alicante, Spain but the bullet only cruised around my hard skull a moment or two leaving me no dumber than I was prior to the incident) as Mrs. Giffords was and the idea of her living let alone six months later she would return to vote on something she believed so strongly in could almost make science fiction. The medical field has emerged so greatly and so quickly it boggles the human mind - of course, this human mind as been rattled by a piece of lead  - that it is amazing.

Sadly, what saved Mrs. Giffords' life was from the current wars America is involved in with brain injuries from the heroes serving on the front lines. We have learned so much about pressures on the human head/brain from the trauma these soldiers have suffered fighting for our freedom that doctors were able to take that knowledge and save the congresswoman's life. Due to these sacrifices from our soldiers and those countries assisting the United States one must realize medicine, out of necessity, is progressing faster than one can imagine. It's as though the world is racing toward the time zone of Star Trek.

 God bless Mrs. Giffords and the injured and deceased soldiers who gave her a chance for a full life and God bless the doctor's working unknown hours figuring out how to save lives daily. They are all hero's to respect and love.

Memories of Machu Picchu

This summer marks our tenth anniversary -- not of when we were married, but of our second honeymoon which we celebrated in Peru. Summer (winter in the southern hemisphere) is a quieter time with fewer tourists and an opportunity to take your time and truly enjoy all that the country has to offer.  While more of our memories will have to wait for another posting, something happened in the news which brought us back to Machu Picchu.

The Lost City of the Inca was discovered, or shall we describe it better as rediscovered, by the American explorer Hiram Bingham who climbed the steep jungle slopes exactly one century ago this month. Bingham -- credited as the inspiration behind the creation of the character for Indiana Jones -- wrote about seeing a large and well-preserved city 8,000 feet in the clouds. That city, tucked between the peaks of Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu and rising above the cayman in the Urumbamba River is just as awe-inspiring to this day.

His finding of the lost city paved the way for its restoration and preservation, but not until some treasures had already been looted, like the one just recently discovered. This treasure, a stone statue, possibly of the Inca emperor Pachacuti, once stood in Machu Picchu where it is believed he was buried.

J and L finds it inspiring that all is not lost to history and that our memories of Machu Picchu will continue to grow.

The site at Machu Picchu where archaelogists believe a state of an Inca emperor once stood.
Paolo Greer

The too-quiet American - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

The too-quiet American - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

What does Al Jazeera have to say about our economy, our very internationally public debt debate and our president, and why does it matter?  This blog is not about things political, but as Americans, it is important to know how we are viewed in the court of world opinion. It can be enlightening, whether you agree or not.

Welcome Back to Oz!

http://www.dorothyofoz.com/

The long-awaited, much anticipated animated film, Dorothy of Oz is finally now less than a year away from release.  So mark your calendars for Summer 2012.  The cast includes a stunning repertoire of your favorites (and definitely ours) including:  Lea Michelle from Glee as the voice of Dorothy Gale, Martin Short, Oliver Platt (ah, the mighty Porthos indeed), Dan Aykroyd (could anyone else play the Scarecrow?) , Kelsey Grammer (a more sophisticated Tin-Man you've never heard), Jim Belushi, the not-so-cowardly Lion, and, saving the best for last, of course, Patrick Stewart boldly going to the Land of Oz.  


To call it a must-see is an understatement.  Just read on....


Written by Frank L. Baum's great-grandson, Roger S. Baum, in "Dorothy of Oz," Dorothy discovers shortly after returning to Kansas, that Oz is in trouble and the people there need her help. Glinda magically transports Dorothy and Toto back to Oz where she discovers her old friends -- the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion -- have disappeared and Oz is in a state of decay.  As Dorothy journeys to find her friends, she encounters a number of new companions and problems including a man made of marshmallows who can't think for himself, a china doll princess whose bossiness is a cover for her fragility, and a tugboat with as many personalities as he has pieces.  Dorothy must help this odd group band together against a new villain -- a wicked Jester who thinks all of Oz should be under his control.

And let us not forget this magic is set to the music of Bryan Adams.


We grew up with Dorothy and friends, and waited over 70 years to find out what happened next -- it won't be much longer now!

We'll be there -- will you?

Did Humans Crowd out Neanderthals?

Published July 29, 2011 but updated August 24th, 2011

| Associated Press (with J and L commentary)

Were the Neanderthals simply crowded out by ancestors of modern humans?

That is the theory of a pair of British researchers, who say early modern humans outnumbered Neanderthals by 10-to-1 in a region of southwestern France they studied.

Scientists long have debated the circumstances in which modern people replaced Neanderthals across Europe about 40,000 years ago. Leading researchers in the field challenged the research methods in the new study and added that the idea of a larger population prevailing is not new.

Other theories have focused on climate change, differences in Neanderthals' ability to think and other possibilities.

In the report, in Friday's edition of the journal Science, Paul Mellars and Jennifer C. French of England's Cambridge University contend that "numerical supremacy alone may have been a critical factor" in human dominance.

They conducted a statistical analysis of archaeological finds in France's Perigord region, and concluded that stone tools and animal food remains showing evidence of modern humans indicate a much larger population than of Neanderthals in the region. That, they said, would have undermined the ability of the Neanderthals to compete for food and other necessities.

Paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus, of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, commented that he had argued two years ago that evidence that early humans used more resources and engaged in more intensive labor probably indicated a larger population density.

In addition, Trinkaus challenged the data in the new report, commenting that the idea of using the number of human gathering sites and their size, tool counts, and other pieces of evidence "pooled together over millennia to estimate relative population sizes was long ago rejected by archaeologists."

Trinkaus said the number of human sites has little, if anything, to do with how many people were around. "For example, a highly mobile group of hunter-gatherers will leave vastly fewer, if any, recognizable sites than one that stayed put for major periods of the year and accumulated trash in one place," he said.

Several experts agreed the conclusion of the paper was not new.

Christopher Ramsey of the School of Archaeology at England's University of Oxford said it provided "more quantitative evidence for what many already thought to be the case: that is that modern humans simply replaced Neanderthals by gaining higher population densities."

And Joao Zilhao, a research professor at the University of Barcelona, argued that the methods used to estimate the population were outdated. He said modern humans did not simply replace Neanderthals anyway, "as the overwhelming genetic and paleontological evidence shows what happened was assimilation, not replacement."

  

It is the considered and well-researched opinions of J and L Research and Exploration that Neanderthals did indeed assimilate. At one point, researchers considered that modern humans had managed through disease, or superior weaponry, to bring the species to the brink of extinction, yet, closer examination of current archaeological evidence would point to a reality where we cohabitated and perhaps interbred.

Update - 8/24/2011

Upon a request from "Kate," one of our followers, we did a little further research on her comments reference how did the Neanderthals become extinct and came up with three possible explanations.
1. Could Neanderthals and modern humans breed thus ending the distinctive appearance of the Neanderthals? DNA samples do not show that homo sapiens contain any DNA in our biological make-up that would suggest this as an alternative though it must be remembered only five to seven bone fragments from Neanderthals have been found containing enough material to do a DNA match. A very tiny sample for this sort of research since Neanderthals roamed over a period of 200,000 years. Perhaps in the near future there will be enough evidence for serious research into this concept of breeding. Of course, another theory is both species interbred but much like horses and donkeys their offspring would not be fertile and thus not able to reproduce.
2. Much like when Europeans first came to the  new world they carried certain diseases the natives had no immunity to and thus wiped out entire villages. Modern humans who actually did co-exist with Neanderthals for roughly 50,000 years may have inadvertently exposed these more primitive (though the Neanderthals lasted longer than present humans have so far) people to a biological nightmare thus wiping out the already dwindling number of Neanderthals.
3. A change of climate may have produce the catalyst needed to allow the Neanderthals to go extinct. A new ice age was taking over Europe and because of the shorter legs and broader chests compared to the more wiry modern humans the Neanderthals could not adapt to the changing weather patterns. With more snow covering their 'hunting' forests the Neanderthals could not compete and possibly their hunting grounds would no longer support them.

Any of the three above concepts could be true and a shame for one of our closest ancestors but one thing we, at J and L, have not found is that modern humans intentionally hunted the Neanderthals to extinction.

The Definition of Irony

July 20, 1969 - July 21, 2011

"The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space." JFK 9-12-62

Americans landed on the moon, despite rumors to the contrary, 42 years, nearly to the day prior to the untimely death of America's manned space program.  

As an avid Star Trek fan, one can appreciate that we currently support an International Space Station and that all future missions will be in the spirit of international cooperation.  Yet the spirit which launched NASA, from the days of John F. Kennedy, "We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people...Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war."

"The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds."

"Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation."

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.'

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

What has changed? Are we no longer the nation we once were? No longer with the drive to be first among nations. Are these words spoken by President Kennedy simply to be relegated to history?  I cannot help but be struck by how ironic his words sound today.

Let us hope that NASA remains to fulfill it's mission:  To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind.

Tombstone -- The Town Too Tough to Die

Egypt's Glory

Add This to Your Summer Reading List....

ISBN: 0-595-42928-9

available at Amazon.com and other fine book stores including:

http://www.lybrary.com/john-beyer-m-49069.html

A killer without remorse, burning with pride, and having the time of his life, Zachary Marshall is unstoppable—until Detective Jonas Peters unexpectedly arrives in the midst of one of Marshall’s heinous crimes. After a bank robbery goes from bad to worse and leaves three dead including a little girl—Marshall finds himself the target of the most intensive manhunt Riverside, California, has ever witnessed.

Detective Peters becomes frustrated and half-crazed as the case falters due to lack of clues and evidence. Ordered to take a vacation from the department before he drives all the other detectives crazy with his constant tirades, he reluctantly agrees. But an innocent remark to the media changes the entire scenario—now the pursued has become the pursuer.

Detective Peters takes this homicide case especially hard, having seen his own young daughter murdered during a bungled convenience-store robbery years earlier. The pain of the darkness is too deep, and the spirits are waiting to remind him; they will not forgive him, and he cannot forgive himself. There will be no rest until Marshall is caught.


John R. Beyer worked for nearly a decade in law enforcement in Riverside County in Southern California.  Since then, he has completed his doctorate in institutional management and continues to work with psychologists and law enforcement. He is currently finishing editing a project under the working title Samizdat, and this summer will be putting the finishing touches on perhaps his best work, a timely piece entitled Soft Target.  Stay Tuned.

Awaiting the Reunion

On Saturday, June 25, the Second Baker Girl Adult Reunion will take place -- this time in California.  The first Reunion, attended by Janette, Beth, Laureen and their families took place in Norman, Oklahoma in 2007. Norman, home to the Nichols family, tornadoes, and beautiful green woods is considered the best small town in which to live in the entire state of Oklahoma and in the top ten in the country. Norman is also home to the Max Westheimer Field -- a university airstrip, controlled intermittently by the US Navy during WWII and the Korean War.  Oklahoma became part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase; Janette became a part of our family six years after this author. We hope to keep and grow what has become a family tradition of reunion and exploration.

"We'll always have Bass Pro."

Official Google Blog: Watch the lunar eclipse from anywhere

Official Google Blog: Watch the lunar eclipse from anywhere: "(Cross-posted on the YouTube and Lat Long blogs) We’re always fascinated by the unique wonders of space and the world—what can we say, i..."

Purpose of blog

As it should be with blogs the truth is of utmost importance - anyone can post 'things' and not know if they are true or not or in fact, publish untruths to be mean, inappropriate or just plain rude. We, from J & L utilize the truth as the weapon it is meant to be and that is research items, explore them and then report the truth. Our interests are wide as all interests should be - as humans we need to research and explore every aspect of life to ensure what we are stating, experiencing and viewing is as accurate as it can be. Opinions are fine but if they are not backed up with evidence then they are only opinions and should be viewed as weak. Please do not waste a person's time with nonsense - show the evidence and then proceed. We have little patience for fools but with those who want to explore ideas and expound on them with evidence then please progress to the next level. We value intellectual discussions but abhor pompous self-serving people who want nothing more than to hear themselves. Civility is an art that is losing its luster but should be brought back in these times with much polish and shining to illuminate the world.
Research and exploration is what separates the learned from the ignorant - we want to deal with the first and not the latter.
Welcome to J and L Research and Exploration.

Dr. John Beyer