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

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