Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Withdrawal

Well, my Intermediate Welding class finished up tonight. We didn't really learn anything new, but that's because the school didn't order compatible parts for the TIG welders. At this point, I'm pretty much proficient stick welding in all positions (which, for us laymen, means on horizontal and vertical seams and surfaces, as well as in overhead seams). I'm already signed up for the Advanced session, which starts in February, and is intended to prepare us for certification.

I hope to get certified, for several reasons. I'm getting tired of my job, for starters. I do what I do pretty well, but frankly, sometimes it sucks having "people skills". I'm to the point where I don't really want to have much to do with .... well, people.

The more welding I do, the more time I spend fantisizing about moving to Alaska and welding on the pipeline for a living. If drilling actually goes on in ANWR, I may have to stock up on coffee and get used to the dark. Look at it this way ... considering the kind of money there is to be made welding, combined with the stipend the oil companies pay to Alaska residents .... what's not to like? Um, no, please don't make me move to Alaska and live where I might actually have a WHITE CHRISTMAS and not have to deal with people all that much and weld for a living... And Alaskans don't seem to have that gun-fearing-wussy hang-up that afflicts Kalifornians. Maybe there's such a thing as too much sun. Oh, how I'd love to say, "goodbye coat-and-tie, hello Carhartt!!"

Anyway, I'd like to do a project or two over between now and the time the Advanced class starts. I may make a little wagon/cart for the Mule or something like that. When it comes right down to it, I just need to fire up our welder in the tool shed & get used to using it.

And now, ladies & gents - it's time for beddy-bye. I was over in Hazard, KY today for my job, and I stayed overnight Tue. in Harlan. For those of you who may live in the "flat-lands", let me tell you - driving in Eastern KY is .... stimulating. I don't know if it was because my hotel room smelled funky or if it was 'cause I was all keyed-up for the next day, but I don't think I slept a wink. I'm pooped.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving!

This'll be a quick one - family's here. Wine and way WAY too much food. I always get the turkey leg. Mmmmmmmm, turkey leg...

Anyway, be thankful. Take a look at the news - it could be worse.

Hopefully we'll have some shooting tomorrow. I'd like to get the old Marlin .22 lever-action out, since I haven't shot it in a while.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Happy National Ammo Day!!!!


Happy National Ammo Day !!!

If you haven't already, stop reading my half-witted drivel, get in your car, drive to the nearest store that sells ammo, and buy at least 100 rounds. Any caliber will do. Buy more if you can afford it.

I did my part this morning while I was out running errands. I buy some of my ammo here in my little town from the "corner gas-n-go". I pay more buying here, but it keeps the guy's family buisness going (... and that, ladies and gents, is how you stick it to Wal Mart.) I bought 100 rounds each of by beloved .45 ACP and 9mm for The Illustrious Miss Fluffy. (Note gratuitous tacti-cool ninja gun picture above.)

Do your part. Show the politicans and businesses of this country that we know what the Second Amendment is really about. "Regulated" indeed.

Oh, and before I forget - Happy Birthday, Gun Guy!


Friday, November 18, 2005

Why doesn't it say...

... "Responsible, gun-owning store owner saved the lives of two of his employees when he shot some snotty-nosed punk who aimed a gun at them and said he was going to kill them. " But noooooo ..... they start out with the investigation. Why is it referred to only as a "fatal shooting" and the phrase "self-defense" or even just "defense" isn't used once? Why were the two people referred to as "witnesses", instead of "potential victims"? The nuance and suggestion of language is important, folks, and the "news" media understands that. I do, indeed, hate the "news" media.

Snotty-nosed punks, take note: some of us are armed, and most of us can actually shoot straight. Personally, I work from home - if someone comes in here & points a gun at me & says he's going to kill me, he'd better come with it, because my draw & sight picture acquisition time is gettin' pretty quick. Evidently, our responsible gun-owning store owner has been perfecting his draw, too.

Score: Responsible, gun-owning store owner protecting himself and his employees = 1. Snotty-nosed punk = 0.

Why would anyone be stupid enough to try & pull something like that in TEXAS, anyway?!?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/111805dnmetshooting.6c68f8f1.html

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Quick rant

I just got the Holiday 2005 Catalog from Patagonia. Nothing ruins my day quicker than pseudo-hippies who contribute absolutely nothing to society, preaching to me about the environment and how their company has a "culture" (cult is more like it), and by the way, please buy our $80 fleece because we eat granola and sleep on the floor of our communal van.

They're oh-so pleased with themselves because they take the money they had for plane tickets to go see family for the holidays, and they use it to go skiing instead. You brats. I hope you get written out of the will. And when your mother uses her last ounce of strength to spit in your ungrateful face, don't wonder why.

Screw you, Yvon. I'm not paying your bloated prices for paper-thin glorified nylon so you can go to bed tonight feeling all warm and fuzzy about how much you love the environment and you contribute 1% of your sales to help save the trees.

If you own a product made by Patagonia, have a look at the tag. Where was that product made? Not here, I bet. Their web site is so enviro-friendly it'll make you puke, but they won't tell you where their overpriced crap is made. "Imported" is all I can find. It's probably made by some 10 year old in Vietnam who works 14 hours a day and doesn't give a damn about the trees. What percentage of sales goes to the poor saps sewing Yvon's organic cotton? Their web site tells you all about how they have no "private offices" (translation: socialism - be afraid), and how they have on-site child care, but how much do the employees make? Do they have health insurance? Do they think about it while they play volleyball and surf during their lunch breaks?

This is the kind of thing that's driving me away from climbing. I climb for climbing's sake. It's not something I can explain. I'll be the first to admit, though, that it contributes NOTHING to the world around me, and in that sense, is the ultimate expression of selfishness. I cannot stand it when climbers try to take their stupid hobby and spin it like they renounce "greed" and love the environment. Environmentalism, indeed. How is it that some hippie can wear about $1000 worth of nylon and claim to renounce greed, exactly? I'm sick of climbers ranting about the environment while they wear hundred-dollar shirts made by some overworked, underpaid child somewhere. Yvon Choinard's self-riteous drivel (and that of his hippie minions) makes me furious.

If you know more than I do about Patagonia (which most likely isn't saying much), make a comment and correct me if I'm wrong. I won't be happy about it, but I'm not above being corrected - but I rather enjoy foaming at the mouth with rage when I get catalogs.

Geez ... this was supposed to be quick...

Forget the Tylenol. I need a beer while I watch this catalog burn.

Thought for the day...

"Everybody loses all the bloom - we're not peaches - that doesn't mean you get rotten - a gun is better worn and with bloom off - So is a saddle - People too by God."
-Ernest Hemingay, in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hendaye, France, September 13, 1929

I swear, I could read nothing but Hemingway for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. I know I read "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in high school, but I can't for the life of me recall when I started reading Hemingway in earnest (is that a pun?)

I can't explain why I get so absorbed in his writing. Except for letters, I think I've read everything he ever wrote that was officially published.

Mom says he's depressing. Of course, her favorite book of all time is probably "Anne of Green Gables", so that should explain it well enough.

Frankly, to most people, he probably is depressing (read "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", though I think that story is downright inspirational, not depressing). But what I see is that he manages to communicate dignity, grace and beauty, even though, on the surface, he seems to be telling a simple story. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent of my literary analytical abilities. Aside from that, his writing just rings true to me. I can see what he's talking about. I don't know why. There's nothing political about what he writes. Frankly, I don't care why. I think there's something to be said for reading strictly for pleasure. He writes about the woods, and fires in fireplaces, and whiskey and women and war, hunting, fishing, fathers and sons. I guess it sounds all chest-beating and manly put that way, though I'd have to say that would be a mischaractarization of what he's all about.

Find out for yourself. His short stories are a good place to start. Start a roaring fire in the fireplace, pour a scotch & water, prop up your feet & read some Hemingway.

I'm a proud Citizen...

... of the Nation of Riflemen. I've flirted with the idea of buying one of the NoR shirts for a while, but now that The Gun Guy is going to change the text on the shirt's graphic, I decided to take the plunge and get one. Yes, I'll drop hundreds of dollars on a new gun, but I stress over a $20 t-shirt. So sue me.

I've currently only got one "inflamatory" pro-gun shirt, and the idea of getting another one was enough to make me hold off - maybe it's because both shirts are black, and we know what people think of guys with close-cropped hair who wear black shirts and carry big, eeeeevil black guns. Oh, well ... I live in the middle of nowhere, and practically no one ever sees my "Peace Through Superior Firepower" shirt as it is, so adding another one to the mix just makes me more smug and most likely won't be seen by anyone else. No harm, no foul.

Anyway, I'm getting the "old" style shirt because I think the quote (or quotation -?- sorry, Mom) is spot on, and frankly, it goes far beyond the "gun thing":
________________________________

"Our Bill of Rights is not negotiable. Not one single part, not ever. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the range."

And at the bottom:

"Turning America back into ... A Nation of Riflemen ... one citizen at a time."
________________________________

(Alpineman wipes tear from eye).

Can I get an "Amen", brothers and sisters?

Americans are armed, and therefore we're Citizens. The rest aren't, and they're subjects.

Check out the NoR at www.thenationofriflemen.com.

Better yet, get one of the old shirts while the gettin's good at www.thoseshirts.com/nor.html.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

National Ammo Day !!!


November 19 - Saturday - is National Ammo Day. What tha' heck is that, you ask?

From www.ammoday.com:

It is a nationwide BUYcott of ammunition. You buy ammunition. 100 Rounds a person.

The goals of Ammo Day:

The goal of National Ammo Day is to empty the ammunition from the shelves of your local gun store, sporting goods, or hardware store and put that ammunition in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Make your support of the Second Amendment known--by voting with your dollars!

There are an estimated 75 MILLION gun owners in the United States of America. If each gun owner or Second Amendment supporter buys 100 rounds of ammunition, that's 7.5 BILLION rounds in the hands of law-abiding citizens!

Let the politicians, the gun-grabbers, and the international community know that America is proud of its Right to Bear Arms and we will not be disarmed.

The gun/ammunition manufacturers have been taking the brunt of all the frivolous lawsuits brought by the gun-grabbers. These gun-grabbers are trying to put these folks out of business. Well, not if we can help it! And we CAN help it by buying ammunition on November 19!
_____________________________

Well, now .... that's a holiday that's right up my alley! Not to mention it gets me good & prepared for the Thanksgiving holiday, during which there will be blastin' o' plenty!

So, instead of going out to eat Friday night, stay home & grill some meat, drink cheap beer and save your money to buy some ammo on Saturday. For what you'd pay for a decent meal, you can buy a heck of a lot more than a hundred rounds.

Then sit back, concentrate, and see if you can sense Diane Feinstein's migrane...

Then SHE can ask, "Where's the Tylenol"??

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Shut up, Barbie...

I made the mistake of flipping by C-SPAN Senate coverage just now, and I heard Barbara Boxer howling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Dangit .... I need to get to work...

Hang on, Barbara - we'll get on the phone with the insurgents, and we'll ask them when they plan to stop acting up. Then we'll have a date for 'ya.

Idiot.

If we leave now - or if we tell our enemy when we plan to leave - we'll do the same thing we did to Afghanistan in the 80s - we'll abandon it to collapse from within, and it'll become the new terrorist breeding ground (which it's already becoming, even while we're there). For God's sake, can we please apply some of the lessons we should have learned from 9/11?!? We must finish the job, and it's not possible - and not smart - to tell our enemy when we plan to leave.

Dare I say, though, I have to agree with those who say the war is going badly. "Staying the course" is like continuing to drive off a cliff out of principle. I used to get a headache every time people would refer to Iraq as a "quagmire" or the "new Vietnam", but thanks to strategic inflexibility - or hard-headed stupidity - that's what it's turning into.

Look, Afghanistan makes Iraq look like a Californian kindergarten, but just a few hundred Special Forces operators managed to kick out the Taliban after 9/11 and now they have a functioning government. It's not perfect, but it's holding together. Don't poo-poo that - go Google "Kipling" and read some of his poetry on Afghanistan - that place has been an out-of-control, clan-war killing field for generations. We took what was effectively an American invasion after 9/11 and made it THEIR war. We propped them up, but they owned it, and now they see it as their country. Even warlords can cooperate - especially when they see what can happen when America sides with one particular warlord and brings Spec Ops, SEALs and laser-guided bombs to the party. It's ironic that the Soviets managed to kick us in the teeth in Vietnam by arming a Communist insurgency to defeat a conventional world power, but then they turn around and make the same mistake in Afghanistan and loose ... and we come in a few years later, having learned about insurgency .... and WE WON. At least in Afghanistan, we applied what we learned.

In Iraq, though, we're trying to re-fight Desert Storm - the last of the static, traditional battlefields. Now it's an insurgency, and we'd better start fighting it like one. Get the ground-pounders out, and put more Special Forces in. They'll make it the Iraqis' war, and it'll get done. But if we keep applying anti-Soviet conventional tactics to fight an unconventional war, we'll lose, and God forbid, Barbara Boxer will look like she's in her right mind, and we just can't have that, now, can we?

We MUST learn from our mistakes in Vietnam. We MUST learn from the Soviet failure in Afghanistan. We MUST learn from Clinton-era failures like Somalia. It's not a conventional war. Don't fight it like one. We know how to fight the new war ... we just did it in Afghanistan. Have we forgotten already?

You'll get no timetable, you crusty old hag, because we don't know how long it'll take to finish the job. Grow a spine. Now, not only do we need to finish the job, but we need to clean up the mess our unsound, inappropriate conventional tactics are making. Criticize stupid policies and tactics, but don't hand our enemy a victory by giving them a timetable. The job must get done, and it must get done right. No matter how long it takes.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

My heart breaks ...

... since "Red Dawn" is one of my favorite movies. I have been guilty of watching it and wallowing in my inner paranioa, but all that aside, there are some genuinely hee-larious lines in that film. I have no idea how many times I've seen it .... it's definitely up there with Star Wars.

The Gun Guy (one of my tippy-top favorite bloggers) is telling me to "Wave Good-Bye To Red Dawn". *Sigh* ... but he's right. I'll freely admit to making reference to those fears he mentions, though I like to say "never turn your back on the gutter" ... don't ever count out the idiocy of the U.N. But we'll never gain an inch of ground using that kind of "rationale". I didn't start shooting out of fear of the U.N., and neither did anyone else I know.

http://www.thenationofriflemen.com/nor/index.php/rant/index

Oh, and for those of you reading this who are unfortunate enough to know me personally, I want one of the Nation of Riflemen shirts for Christmas ... in black, of course. Please coordinate your gift ideas with The Illustrious Miss Fluffy.

A great quotation...

... from "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv (Copyright 2005 by Richard Louv, Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). Louv is evidently a bit of a progressive/hippy, which irritated me sometimes, but his utopian leanings aside, the book is excellent. Even as a more individualist/Libertarian leaning cockeyed grouch, I generally agreed with most of his points in the book. In a nutshell, it's about the impact of modern, urbanized society on children, and how the resulting separation from nature is ... well ... bad. He states it much more gooder than that, but you get the point.

Anyway, to the quote (or quotation ... Mom hates it when people misuse the term, and suddenly I can't remember which is correct... but I digress ..... again...):

In the chapter entitled To Be Amazed, the author writes about spirituality and nature. He interviewed a gentleman named Seth Norman, who talked about nature and kids, and how he tried to teach his stepson to appreciate nature, but not to "romanticize or deify" it. Norman said, "Grasping the Grand Scheme is demanding for adults; for kids raised on Disney, it's simply shocking to discover that it takes a bunch of Bambis to feed a Lion King, and that Mowgli's wolves would eat Thumper and all his sibs."

Profound.

I knew there was some reason why I could never stand Disney.

Anyway, the book is great. Go buy it. Personally, it took me way to long to finish it, and now I need to let some people borrow it.

On a side note, Mom let me borrow the book. I let her borrow the 9/11 Commission Report. I bet I finished my reading first...

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

I haven't mentioned it in a while...

... but I finished my Red Cross training some time ago. By the time I got my training, saw my doctor to get a health evaluation, got my shots & sent in all the paperwork, I guess I missed the boat, at least it terms of volunteering in response to Hurricane Katrina. I didn't even get a call in response to Wilma. Oh, well. I feel better about myself because I stepped up, even if it didn't amount to anything.

Even if I didn't get to volunteer for anything hurricane-related, I'm still a qualified Red Cross volunteer. I live in a really rural area, and the Red Cross doesn't have much structure here. In the training sessions, though, there was quite a bit of talk about changing that. One surprising thing I learned in training was that the typical "disaster" to which the Red Cross responds is one in which a family's house burns. Hurricanes are seasonal, and typically only affect coastal areas. House fires aren't and don't. Fires happen everywhere. I live amongst many low-income people. If their homes burn, they'll most likely need some help. If things get rolling, and we can organize some Red Cross structure in my area, at least this gives me a chance to potentially put all that training to use in my own community.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

I got a new gun...

... and eventually, I'll stop ranting about the "news" long enough to tell you about it.

Right now, though, I'm livid at some snotty talking head on the Commie "News" Network who's lobbying for "performance" based teacher pay. What tripe. The very idea makes me want to vomit.

Teachers are rare enough as it is. Why drive more of them out of the classroom by making them subject to the failings morons into whose heads they're trying to beat some smarts? A teacher is only part of the equation. The issue we're dealing with in America's schools goes WAY deeper than teachers. Frankly, society as a whole is the problem. I want to say that kids nowadays don't want to learn .... but I didn't particularly want to learn when I was in school, either. But I had parents who made me go to school, and who I knew would tar & feather me (after spanking the snot out of me) if I didn't behave at school. They wanted to see my report card. If I made bad grades, they demanded to know why I wasn't doing my homework or studying harder. They DID NOT demand to know why my teacher(s) had "failed". For those of you who may have forgotten, that's an illustration of the ancient art of teaching kids to be responsible for their behavior.

Both my parents grew up poor as dirt. They both went to one-room schools, with all the grades in one room, only one teacher, and I'm willing to bet their teachers had absolutely no "certification" to speak of. They had no computers (or air conditioning, for that matter). They both went to college and ended up quite successful, thank you very much. That had absolutely nothing to do with the dazzling performance of their teachers. It had everything to do with parents who made sure their kids went to school, behaved, and learned something. It had everything to do with parents who insisted that their kids did better.

No person with a doctorate can make a little brat learn if there's no support from parents. Schools can't teach 1984 anymore. They can't spank little brats for getting out of line. You want to advocate performance-based teacher salaries? Spend half a day at a "low-country" South Carolina school. Imagine yourself in the teacher's shoes. Then consider advocating spanking in schools instead.

Teachers ARE NOT surrogate parents. Stop forcing that role on them, and stop wondering why no one wants to be a teacher anymore. The blame lies with parents who think they can make teachers straighten out their mess, and with society which allows that to become the norm.

Time for my Intermediate Welding class. Maybe enough flame and molten metal will calm me down. If I screw up my welding tonight, can I blame my instructor? Hmmm.....