When to only tool you have is a Hammer

All problems begin to look like a nail.

"Historians looking back at this period in America’s development will consider it to be profoundly odd that at the exact moment when violent crime hit a 50-year low, the nation’s police departments began to gear up as if the country were expecting invasion — and, on occasion, to behave as if one were underway. The ACLU reported recently that SWAT teams in the United States conduct around 45,000 raids each year, only 7 percent of which have anything whatsoever to do with the hostage situations with which those teams were assembled to contend."

Well, after all, a bureaucracy's budget must, at all costs, be justified. 

Cold Fury is one of my favorite blogs. I think the only reason Mike doesn't have a bleeding ulcer is his blog.

I do believe it is time for a drumstick.

Pot Pies and Drumsticks

No expense is spared in the BAR corporate HQ executive dining room.
For the main course, frozen pot pies.  Desert is drumsticks.
What?

Ga'head. Tell me you don't want one now.

Forest Gump rides a bike

99.9 miles in one day.

Now, we're so old now we don't care that we're old anymore
While surfing through old pics I ran across this.
I think I was 36 when I got a hair up my ass to ride the MS150 from Houston to Austin.*
Ah, to be 36 and pencil necked again....sigh.

*Technically it turned out to be just shy of 165 miles and I should have circled a few times to round it off to an even 100 for the first day, but I was so elated that my legs had not fallen off at the knees it slipped my mind.

Range Date Sunday

I find that Belle and I are going to range a little more frequently these days.
Going to the range with someone is far better than going alone.  Especially when it is your best friend and spouse. :-)
For today's range date, lunch was at one of the better Tex Mex places and a trip to Shiloh to run rounds through the pistols.

A few things are contributing to the increasing frequency.
Ammo prices have come down a little. Both the former college students graduated and are gainfully employed*, and Belle has a renewed interest in her personal armory.

So, I ran both my nines**. I decided to use the short mags in my Ruger to work on my grip without the extended mag grip. The pistol is a bit more "hoppy" without the extended grip, but I was not dissatisfied with the target group.
 Today I made a point to shoot one handed, both strong and weak. I tend to forget to do this.  That was a little sloppy but I managed to not put any holes through the white on the target. Boy, the recoil is much more apparent in the weak hand.
Quite a pleasant day. Capped by watching the Houston Grand Prix...from the air conditioned comfort of my couch.





* I know! right?
They both came out of school with skills and knowledge unrelated to dead languages of women's studies.
** Belle recently mused about a revolver.  I hear the distant siren call of a .45.

Liquid cat

Peavey has begun to outgrow his perch...   He folds himself up accordingly... Hubby informs me that really cats are classified as a liquid..   I think I see his point.

Range Day - Getting to know Irina....

I have decided that Tuesday mornings are going to be my range day.  I will alternate between long guns and pistols every week.  Although last week I went to the rifle range, I decided to go again this week since I left them with my Mosin Nagant (aka Irina) and wanted to keep pecking away at sighting in the scope on Aphrodite (the AR15).

I've not fired Irina much since the sights were way off so I really didn't know her.  Natasha (Tokorev), I know very well, but not my sweet Irina.  When I got to the range today, I was very happy that she was ready to go, so I took her to the line, got situated and loaded her up.

At first I was pulling high and to the left, no doubt anticipating my shot, not really remembering or knowing what to expect from her, but as I really got the feel for her.. well let's just say that I was much improved.

I still have a lot of getting to know you better sessions before I get as consistent as I am with Natasha but I'm very pleased with the outcome.  The one almost dead center is a beauty and makes me hungry for more.

Getting to know your weapon is somewhat like getting to know a lover or even a friend.  You must take the time to really understand them.  To know what they like and dislike, to know how they are going to react when you touch them here or there, or know exactly how to hold them.  You need to get to know every contour to get the most pleasure but most of all, you have to nurture the relationship to keep it sharp and to stay in tune, otherwise, all you're doing is spinning your wheels and getting no traction.

The better you know your firearm, the better the relationship between your weapon of choice and yourself will be.  Understanding how they work, how they feel, knowing every curve and edge is of the utmost importance for a true partnership to occur.  When you are at one with your firearm, then you are accurate, safe and I would even say, at peace.

This past year or so, I've neglected my girls.  With the ammo shortage and cost of shooting, I've neglected to go to the range like I used to.  Shame on me.  My skills are not what they once were and I no longer feel confident in carrying my pistol day to day for fear of the what ifs....    What if I actually have to draw and fire, will I be endangering someone else?  What if I miss?  I am responsible for every round that leaves my gun, period.  So out of worrying about the 'what ifs' I am not carrying these days.  Again, shame on me.

Now that I've settled in to being at home again, I have set aside Tuesdays as my range day and I have to say, when I get home from the range, I feel happy and I feel like I've done something wonderful.  Life is good and I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to enjoy my weapons.

Until next time....     Belle.

Got an email from Tactical Firearms....

 a couple of days ago, and two more today.*

Yep, that Tactical Firearms.
I read  all the emails and I find myself not "all in" on this one.

I've been watching the net for past few days to see if this got any traction.  Not that much...
I've seen in the news where banks are getting strong armed into dropping gun stores accounts, but this part made me think things weren't so cut and dried:

"When it became time to refinance the loans, one of our owners (30%), [Name Redacted**], decided to back out. It is our belief based on what we have since learned that [NR] wished to seize control of the company."

Tactical Firearms has been aggressively tweaking Obama's nose with their signs, and so it is plausible that Obama's Orks have in fact gone after their bank to get at them.  But that one quote gives me pause.

A statement that a sleazy banker made to me many years ago has always stuck with me, "In business, your friends will fuck you, your enemies will fuck you bad."
Unfortunately, I have found this to be true.

The internet never forgets, and neither do I.    My reply to a comment on the post seems to have come home to roost.

"Gaining customers via competition is fair game. Gaining customers by having the Federal Government put them out of business and impinge on my rights in the process is not."

Karma is a bitch.


As I stated before this could be Obama's minions coming after Tactical Firearms, but I'm not totally buying it just yet.  Call me skeptical.




*  Shot there once with a bud. After the subject of the second link, I've never gone back.

** I am a highly educated redneck, I am not stupid enough to get dragged into this moron's problem.

Cat Prepping

Belle picked up kibble for the cats.
I thought we adopted...by siege... a lost cat. Not a freaking Mountain lion.

Can containing my my highly efficient nicotine delivery medium provided for scale.


Good Lord No. I am certainly not up at this hour on a Saturday.  Blogger schedule thingy werks Gut.

OOPS! My Bad

All your email are     belong to Us are lost.
Really now.  Conveniently all the email from the IRS fascists associated with suppressing any organization with the keywords "Tea Party" or "Patriot", among others, have been lost.
Hard drive crashed.
Oh and yeah, uhm, the hard drive was recycled within days, because the infernal gubmint is so incredibly efficient.

Oh! and the other six IRS people's email you "requested", their hard drives crashed too!.  It was a request, right?

I fear the sad thing is the Republitards are going to go, "well shucks, there you go.  I guess we'll never get to the bottom of this."


You can bet your sweet ass the government's email is not cached on the user's computers.  You can bet the farm that the only place the User's email would be stored is on the user's computers. I mean, that would be a huge security vulnerability.  (ok, I know, it's a federal bureaucracy, but still....)

The email servers are backed up at the very least.  It's the infernal gubmint and they tend to be a good ten years behind current technology, so perhaps a replicated server is out of the question, but they have backups, bank on it.

Looking forward to the IRS audit on my next tax return.  ;)
With no dependents now, I'm damn near back to being able to file on a 1040 EZ form.
This might get down to the typeface or font I used to fill our the form.

3 boxes of BS appears to be down

Error establishing a database connection

google has muted me

For whatever reason I find myself unable to comment on blogs.
I am logged into my google account. I am able to post on blogger, but when I go to comment on another blog and hit the publish button, my text disappears and my comment does not post.

srsly?

No wonder they call them pussy cats.....

I absolutely love my cat Peavey.  He is really a darling.  Very smart, playful and so affectionate, that it warms the heart.

At first I thought he was brave.  I mean really, any cat that will climb on your chest while you're in the bathtub to curl up and sleep without fear of being dumped in the water, is brave in my book (especially since I can be quite the prankster).

I'm not sure if Kx told the story of how Peavey got his name, but he is full of Piss and Vinegar, P&V, PV, spelled out = Peavey.

Well today, we had thunderstorms roll through and Peavey wasn't enjoying all noise..  he hid behind me and meowed, which is actually a squeak, not a true meow.

Yeah, Cat Prime is a chicken....  

Weather Radar?

I find I have defaulted to doing an awful lot of blog reading and internet surfing with my phone.  This evening I started looking through my bookmarks on the ole laptop.  I have a lot of good bookmarks on this thing. Way more than my phone.

One that I forgot I had is a weather radar mosaic site - This One.  Which some of you might find useful.

Another that I found and was watching leading up to and after Hurricane Ike hit was the Harris County Flood warning site.  I used this site non-stop to ensure my state of freak-out never subsided. :-)

How did we ever survive in the pre-internet days?

Range Day with Natasha and Aphrodite

Ahhh yes...   today was the first time in ages that I went to the rifle range all by myself and took along my beloved Natasha (the Tokorev) and my sweet little Aphrodite (AR15).

Naturally on a Tuesday morning the range was not busy but the ones that were there were either more 'seasoned' gentleman and one lone high school aged boy.

As per usual, I walk down to my lane and the guys kind of look but pay little attention, guess they figure it may be odd for a woman to be out there alone but could she really do much damage?  I unpack Natasha and load her up, then fire off my first shot...    heads whip around and suddenly I have gents watching and waiting for me to screw up.

I love that for some reason.  Maybe it's just in my own silent way educating the old timers that while we may be ladies, we can be just as capable that fuels the thrill of it all, or if it's the knowledge of knowing that I have a splendid tool in my hands and I am very capable of using it that gets me going, but whatever it is, I do know that the sound of the bang and the recoil that follows sustains me in an odd sort of way.

When I'm at this particular range, I always feel my father there with me.  It's the same range where he taught me to shoot when I was only 10 years old.  Good times.  Dad is gone now since 1996 but he still lives in my heart when I'm shooting, playing golf, fishing or if I happen to be working on a car (which i rarely have to do thanks to KX).

I digress.

Today was just a nice peaceful day and I am hoping that Tuesday will be my range day and will alternate between long guns and pistols.

The target that I am posting is of course Natasha.  I'm too ashamed to post the other simply because I was sighting in the scope and so some of it was really really bad...

At any rate, Belle is back.  I got kind of burned out on blogging and really didn't have much to say of importance but then I as reminded that it doesn't have to have all the eclat of a proverb for me to post... just do it......and you know what?   that's a very true statement.

Range day was really wonderful.  I got to shoot of course, but the conversation of the old timers and the youngster that was there was really priceless.   I am truly blessed.

TANSTAAFL

WEEEE!  Yay! Free apps for my phone!

Need a sound meter? There's an app for that!
And it's free!

Well, not really because like many free apps, it accesses all the naughty bits of your phone and reports you location to god knows where.

I have very few apps on my phone because of this. I did install a sound meter app to do some empirical testing* a few days back.

As usual, my battery life diminished rapidly and my phone remained rather warmish for the 48 hours I had the app installed. So, I uninstalled it when I was done.  The code for apps, by and large, is not written for free.  The publishers of said apps will make money off your metadata somehow.



* How loud is a commercial wall mounted toilet when it is flushed?  How much does a cheap ass gyp board partition reduce the sound?  Every now and then, my profession requires that I wander off into the weeds.
Sometimes I find my way home.

70 dB btw.

I didn't know this still existed...

The look of horror on my face when they brought it to the table..  

Lunch with an Ogre and the discovery of a new disorder......

Yes it's been a while since I've peeked into the blogosphere and put words to well, not paper, but screen.  Fact is, I really haven't had much to write about these past... months?  year?  years?  Hell I've lost track.

The wonderful KX has been keeping the blog going while I took a break from blogging for a while, off doing other things, but enjoying myself just the same.  I figured it was time to start working my way back here and there since now it has become two against one, I got something of a lecture from The Big Guy today as well as the hubby......

Today, KX and I met The Big Guy at Goodson's Cafe' in Tomball, Texas and enjoyed Chicken Fried Steak, 2 sides and of course dessert.  Goodson's is famous for their CFS and has been featured on The Travel Channel as Texas' Best Chicken Fried Steak.  I tend to agree, but then I may be a little biased.

The conversation with The Big Guy is never dull.  Always full of funny stories complete with sound effects, animated gestures and we must not forget the very creative cussing.

After about the (well I really lost count) 6th? 7th? creative cuss word he looked at me and said, as only a gentle giant can, "Oh I'm so sorry sweetheart, pardon my language."

Of course I assured him that a woman that is used to hanging out at gun ranges and hanging in bars playing poker and darts, that I'm not unfamiliar with cussing....   on occasion, I've been known to be as creative as the wildest of sailors.

He smiled at me and went on to blame it on a case of Chicken Fried Tourette Syndrom, caused by the massive Chicken Fried Steak on his plate, one that was big enough to feed a small village in Africa and certainly most worthy to satisfy even the hungriest of Ogres.

So after finishing off the meal, dessert was in order and TBG opted for Banana Pudding and I, of course, ended up with the one thing that I cannot resist.....     Chocolate Pie.....   I was in heaven.

Oh yes...  Goodson's Chocolate Pie...    it's the best of the best...  to truly understand my love of Chocolate Pie I send you here for your reading enjoyment .

It was a lovely day and when I got home, a nice little nap was in order.

Until next time.....    Belle.

I'm not dead yet

A lone Lilly has sprouted next to the a oak tree.  It's been years since Belle planted lillies.  The oak has grown into a mighty tree and sucked the life out of everything around it.  The monkey grass is all bit gone.
The Lilly apparently saw its opportunity for escape.
FREEDOM!

Insomnia

I get it form time to time.
Sometimes it's one night.
Sometime's it goes on for days.

I got again last night

It freaks me out to open my eyes and look at the clock to see 1am, then 2am and 3am.
knowing I have to get up at 5:30.

This happens more than I'd like.

My ultimate vacation would be to go somewhere ridiculously expensive with an awesome bed, by myself, and sleep for four days.... maybe five.

Infinite loop

The Cat Prime*  apparently has diarrhea which is making him not smell so good seeing as it sticks to the luxuriant fur  folding around his hind quarters.
He has made repeated attempts to lick it off which keeps perpetuating his problems.
infinite loop.

Tonight Belle informs me that an intervention is required.
 "We" must capture PV so we can wash his Ass.


It has been communicated to me that I am the one that is to receive all the cat scratches.
Pointers on putting a choke hold on at cat are appreciated.





* There are two now. Another adopted us by Siege.

On a less technical....computer geekery note

Apparently, this one is worn out. Time to find another matching orphaned sock.
And.
No, I do not wear the white tenner shoes with my gray slacks.
I have a really snazzy pair of black and gray cross trainers with reflective silver stripes on the sides.*

*  I wish

Spam, spam, spam

Spam!
No, not the Monty Python show tune, nor the gelled pig fat in a can.
Actual spam.
As I've mentioned before I am not a trained IT professional, but I play one in real life.

The bullet point version:
*  Early on a Tuesday morning I sent an email to be greeted momentarily with a Non-delivery report.
*  A quick check of email blacklists shows Megabuildingarchitects.com on two blacklists for SPAM.
*  A glance at the outgoing email queue shows thousands of emails rejected by the recipents waiting for resend.
*  SHIT!
*  suspend the outgoing queue items containing 1035 down to 10 email messages.*
*  frantically search the email server to figure out what the eff is going on while researching online.
*  Event viewer shows a successful logon by the  firm founder...hmmmm....who passed away over a year ago.
*  Disable founder's account and every other non-essential account...oops not that one.
*  Spammer is locked out but spam continues to inflow.
*  In the Exchange 2007 receive connectors I find an encrypted IP address.
*  Delete Encrypted IP address and spam stops like a switch is thrown.

Sounds like this took all of thirty minutes no?  Try 4..long... days.
It took another week or so to get de-listed form the email black lists.

The spammer has a bot sitting out there, or in here somewhere, that continues to randomly try log on IDs and Passwords.
My favorite ID attempt was  "BATMAN"

Meanwhile, my other full time projects (3) grind on.



* My best guess is that tens of thousands of spam email messages were relayed out before we got black listed.  If you received an email from Megabuildingarchitect.com promising to make your penis immensely large by only taking this one weird supplement, I humbly apologize.