Friday, January 15, 2010

Gun Porn

I Wish I'd Said That...

A good friend sent this to me in an E-Mail this afternoon and I couldn't resist putting it up here on the blog because it's good stuff if you are a law abiding gun owner...here goes...


Clint Smith, Director of Thunder Ranch, is part drill instructor, and part time stand-up comic (Thunder Ranch is a firearms training facility in Arizona ).

Here are a few of his observation on tactics, firearms, self-defense and life as we know it in the civilized world.

"The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win and cheat if necessary."

"Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way..."

"Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. You may get killed with your own gun, but he'll have to beat you to death with it, cause it's going to be empty."

"If you're not shootin', you should be loading'. If you're not loadin', you should be movin', and if you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick."

"When you reload in low light encounters, don't put your flashlight in your back pocket.... If you light yourself up, you'll look like an angel or the tooth fairy...and you're gonna be one of 'em pretty soon."

"Do something. It may be wrong, but do something."

"Shoot what's available, as long as it's available, until something else becomes available."

"If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If you have a gun, what in the hell do you have to be paranoid for?"

"Don't shoot fast, unless you also shoot good..."

"You can say 'stop' or 'alto' or use any other word you think will work, but I've found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much a universal language."

"You have the rest of your life to solve your problems... How long you live depends on how well you do it."

"You cannot save the planet but you may be able to save yourself and your family."

"Thunder Ranch will be here as long as you'll have us or until someone makes us go away, and either way, it will be exciting."

More Excellent Gun Wisdom.......

The purpose of fighting is to win.

There is no possible victory in defense.

The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either.

The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

1. Don't pick a fight with an old man.
If he is too old to fight, he'll Just kill you
(blogger note...at this point in my life...that would be ME .)

2. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

3. I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

4. When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away .

5. A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and asked him

'Why do you carry a 45?'

The Ranger responded, 'Because they don't make a 46.'

6. An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

7. The old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. 'Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?'

'No ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my rifle.'

8. Beware of the man who only has one gun, because he probably knows how
to use it very well.


"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
---G. K. Chesterton---

A people that values its privileges above its principles will soon lose both.

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.."

---Thomas Jefferson----


And I think that THOSE words pretty well sums things up here on a warm balmy (it's 53 degrees F here in my back yard) Friday afternoon...

Stuff I Don't Usually Talk About

Not Braggin'...Just Sayin'...


I'm sitting around here this morning waiting on a couple of things to happen regarding paperwork and the Internet and project stuff, and I keep glancing with one eyeball at FOX News' coverage of the hellish situation going on down in Haiti since the Earthquake.

I can't even begin to tell you how my heart goes out to the private citizens of that country, and the amount of anger I feel toward the corrupt, abusive government and government "officials" which in past and present administrations have taken advantage of and in the process neglected innocent men and women and children over the past 200 years the country has been free from the French.

The song lyrics from Janice Joplin comes to mind saying "Freedom's just another word for...Nuthin' left to lose" when it comes to thinking about Haiti.

And I have to ask where Jessi Jackson and Al Sharpton and all of our other demagogue "race war-lords" are when stuff like this happens outside of Watts or Harlem or anywhere USA and the leaders are BLACK taking advantage of other BLACKS?

The scenes of people digging through the rubble of crushed houses and apartments and hospitals and orphanages with their bare hands has brought back to me this week some uncomfortable memories of my time spent in the Philippines back in the late 1970's while that country was still under the rule of Ferdinand Marcos.

Like Haiti today, the Philippines was and is a country of vast social and economic stratification, with a very thin upper class and almost as thin middle class sitting over and around a giant group of people living in abject poverty--which when I was there meant living on less that $1000 per year.

They would offer to sell a young Midshipman in the US Navy EVERYTHING and ANYTHING for any minimal piece or part of the equivalent of $18,000 per year stipend we earned while wallowing around on a ship in Subic Bay on our summer orientation cruises.

Any way, it was Monsoon season while I was there stationed on the USS New Orleans LPH-11 Amphibious Assault Carrier (a boat load of "Squids" and "Jar Heads" and clunky helicopters) and it rained almost every day and some days it rained so much that the sides of the surrounding mountains would get so wet that they decided to slide over and cover the crude roadways carved out between the little towns and villages surrounding the Naval and Air Force Base.

They had this one big rain and mud slide and word came out for volunteers to go help look for survivors and dig people and some cars and a bus and other stuff out of the debris.

I went.

I lasted a half day.

After hitting a dead woman in the head with a shovel before excavating the rest of her body and finding a purple colored cold wet tattered kid--striking him in the arm and making a cut that didn't bleed--I had to leave the recovery effort along with several other young 19 year old men because it was obvious there were no survivors and the more experienced guys were tired of watching us suffer in an operation which was beyond our capacity to process mentally and emotionally.

They let me leave on the first truck out, and I hate to admit that I was actually glad to get out of that situation because I guess I was just not up to it all in the end.

In my considered Redneck opinion, it's real easy to sit around and watch TV and pontificate about how you would do things in any given situation, but I'm here to tell you that what's going on down there in Haiti right now would drive most average Americans mad, and I'm fairly certain that most of the idiots we've elected to our House and Senate would run screaming from the scene if they actually had to face the realities on the street there.

And still, look at the fundamental, critical, vital role that the US and the US Military is playing... and how utterly useless the United Nations is in this process, and then please consider reality rather than wish for "hope and change" the next time you go to the polling booth to vote in an election.

New Toilet Seat

I'm So Excited I Can Hardly Set Down...


But when I do...it's C O M F O R T A B L E

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Dead Internet Service

Creative Juices All Backed Up...


I think that I need some "Mental Liquid Plumber" this morning as I look at the back yard weather station display showing a temperature of 19 deg F.

That would be because my synapses are starting to feel clogged up if not frozen for a variety of reasons beyond my control this week.

If you stopped by here before 8 AM you only found yesterday's ramblings because by the time I got through working on fine tuning PLC #1 (a.k.a. Ava) I couldn't get to the Internet to write anything.

Comcast apparently was performing maintenance and had a "system outage" allowing me to still have cable TV so I could watch Food Network reruns with Alton Brown--at the same time preventing me from accessing the www since some time around 3 AM until just now.

I'm probably only one of two people over the age of 45 in Knoxtown that regularly gets pissed off when my Internet provider decides to cut a wire or fiber optic cable in the wee hours of the morning...of course all of the perverts and college students are inconvenienced because they have to log off and stop looking at photos of naked strangers and Twittering about what they ate for dinner or the hot babe/guy that made eye contact with them walking down the street.

Then of course after the outage I had to perform my usual ritual of bowing down to the Technology Voodoo Gods, scurrying around the house with a painted face, splashing goat's blood on random surfaces with a petrified Rooster's foot & chanting gibberish while rebooting the server PC and two laptops and two VoIP boxes AND the wireless router to get things back up and running.

In the mean time the lost couple of hours of Internet time not only stopped my blogging, but also ended some work I was doing putting together the owner's manuals for the PLC's (a.k.a. sisters Ava and Eva.)

As you probably know, very few companies actually send you an owner's manual these days when they sell you anything made from China or Silicon Valley no matter whether it cost $9.99 plus shipping and handling or a months salary...they make you go online and spend your money on paper and printer ink if you want a real hard copy of the instructions rather than clicking on the "Help" button and wading through a list of unrelated topics a couple of miles long.

So now it's time to try to chase my programming consultant down on the telephone and get back to downloading some stuff for Ava and Eva's documentation and other than that...

y'all have a FANDAMTABULOUS day...

If you will...


Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Crap What Pisses Me Off

I've had Better Days...


Sometimes on this blog I enjoy indulging myself by screaming and ranting and raving and yelling and uttering explicatives like %$#@%$#@ and *$&# and bluuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaahhhhhh youuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaah to my heart's content.

Then there's day's like yesterday when I'm angry and upset and generally out of sorts but I prefer to keep my discontent to myself and suffer in silence.

Yesterday was most definitely one of those days.

Still, having suffered a couple of month long visits to the hospital in the past couple of years and disappearing from the Internet as a result, and having developed a semi-regular following, and not wanting to appear to be a "drama queen/king", I pretty much try to put something up here every day just to try to make a few people laugh and let the balance of the population that find me more annoying than funny know that I'm still alive and well and still breathing.

All of that said, just know that it seems that when I do as little as I manage to do all day for as many days as I do or don't do it, it's sometimes hard to remain upbeat when I don't accomplish anything at all for large periods of time.

I often pride myself in and with my sloven-ness and devil may care attitude toward life, but in then end I'd like to be remembered for having carried my fair share of the freight around here...and I'm afraid I might be a wee bit short of that task when looking at the black ink---falling into the red column of the ledger books if I don't straighten up here shortly.

I beg of you to please excuse my terse, tense tone if and when I let it leak out, and await the day when the warm balmy winds & salty breezes awaken the lofty, carefree wisps of my spirit allowing the eruption of steaming, stinky BS which would otherwise normally tumble out of my mind...

...through my fingertips...

...across my computer keyboard...

on to your expensive finger print smudged monitor for your enjoyment and/or dismay.

(did I just write that?)


Then...in the words of "Emily Latella"...

... never mind...

Monday, January 11, 2010

It's A L I V E !!!

Still Stupid, But Better Looking Than The First Model...











And don't do anything to make me cause it to "probe" your temperature because it knows several places to look...

Yawnnnnnnnn

Somebody Poke Me With A Pointy Stick...


I guess that about says it all this morning. I have a serious case of lethargy complicated by sunlight deprivation.

Years ago when things got like this I just started looking at airfares to the Florida Keys or Jamaica.

Today I guess I have no choice but to put on a sweatshirt, go down to the shop, and turn up the heater and go to work...

...trying to avoid the unfinished sled on one workbench and concentrate on the nearly finished PLC panel on the other.

Y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will...

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Better Send Over The Guys With The White Coats And The Net

My "Transformer" Beach Chair...


So here I am, sitting around today looking at the heat wave we have going on outside--it's up in the HIGH 20's right now on the other side of my front door--and it occurred to me that rather than fighting the inevitable weather conditions I should just go with the flow and come up with some way to enjoy the coming twenty couple of feet of snow we're going to get between now and April.

Then I started looking around for some sort of plans for a cool sled that I could build to replace the three sleds that burned up when my house burned down in 2001.

The problem I have with most sleds is that I am 6'-3" tall and now weigh about 240 to 250 pounds, depending on how much Chili and Ribs and Pizza and Liquor have been through the house in the past week.

And most commercial sleds, at least the ones you can find at Ace hardware and Toys-R-Us and the other local home improvement stores, are designed for children and midgets and women that do underwear and weight loss "system" commercials that could ride down a snow covered hill on a potato chip or a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil.

I, on the other hand, want and NEED a real sled--a MANLY SLED--something that will take my bulk and is actually able to handle different kinds of snow and ice conditions and most of all can actually turn a little so I can avoid busting my brains out against the local oak tree or wedging myself under a Volvo SUV going 30 MPH.

Then I found this website selling this sled and I was in LOVE instantly...




Problem is, I can't really justify spending $345 plus freight for something I'm pretty sure won't work on the beach in July.

And since I'm resolute that we won't be living anywhere more than a couple miles from the beach as soon as possible i.e. NEXT WINTER I won't really need a sled unless I open a Ruby Tuesdays or Applebees Restaurant and want to hang it from the wall or ceiling in the bar area for very long.

Then I said to myself...I says...

"Virgil, you're an Injuneer, Right?"

"And you've got that new high tech workshop with all of those power tools from your previous home and investment property renovation work, Right?"

"And you, being a pack rat at heart, also have a bunch of scrap stuff--metal and lumber and pieces of old cars and washing machines--laying around your property in various boxes and bins and piles just waiting for your next invention to come along, Right?"

So...

"Why not B U I L D your own version of the ultimate adult sled, and use familiar, surplus parts and pieces to accomplish your plan."

Then instead of answering myself directly by talking to myself, I went to work this afternoon on the project, and here's a look at what's currently happening in my basement...with only a couple of hours of thought and a little bit of grinding and drilling and otherwise making sharp metal chips.

I took an old used beach chair like this (this one is still new):



And the reflector off of a cheap old Home Depot shop light that had crapped out last year, then I cut everything apart and now I'm in the final stages of the AutoCAD drawings for a suspension and steering mechanism to make this haul my lumbering Butt down my front yard or the side streets in the neighborhood the next time we get any significant frozen precipitation:





The front handles you see there will ultimately allow me to hold on for dear life and once I cut the "skis" apart into two sets in theory I'll be able to steer the silly thing around barking dogs and police cars and maybe I can get my own reality show or at least make it onto FOX news in the process.

More photos and Autopsy results to follow later...

Wish me luck

Sittin' Around Doin' Nuthin'

I Got A Bad Case Of Winter Malaise...


Well, it's the tenth day of December, 2010 here on the calendar at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River, and I'm pretty sure that the temperature hasn't made it above freezing yet this year.

Looking at the wireless display on the backyard weather station, it's 19 outside right now as I write...an improvement of 5 or 6 degrees over the past half dozen overnight lows.

I don't care who you are, but if you live more than a few inches south of the Mason Dixon line that's cold weather by most standards.

Since I'm actually working sorta-kinda part time these days I've indulged myself in doing ABSOLUTELY nothing so far this weekend if you don't count blogging and otherwise fooling around on the computer...

...wait a minute, I did work on a project spreadsheet and write a couple of invoices yesterday in anticipation of FINALLY shipping these stupid PLC panels out of my basement this week.

I know that starting a business requires an investment in time and money, but if I actually tracked the hours I have invested in getting the Alpha and Beta versions of this Touch Screen PLC based Infared Temperature Sensor Panel (TSPLCITSP for short) put together and fine tuned I made something like $0.025999 per hour.

The good news is that if they work as advertised our customer is threatening us with needing another DOZEN panels this year, and phase Two of our efforts is a new, even bigger and complex custom panel designed to monitor the performance and energy usage on an air dryer system which will also be utilized in multiple locations once the concept is proven.

Continuing in my description of my slovenly-ness, I did manage to take the time to watch the Georgia Tech Basketball Team (previously ranked #17 in the country in spite of losing to UGA last week) solidly BEAT the Duke Blue Devils (formerly ranked NUMBER FIVE in the country) yesterday.

Oh...and I made a new kind of White Pizza with a real home made white sauce for dinner that came out pretty good.

I also trimmed my nose hair and cut a few extra inches off a couple of toe nails while wallowing around in the bed reading the newspaper and looking at junk mail and sales ads did most of the laundry and sharpened my other domestic skills in anticipation of resuming my responsibilities of being a "kept man" as Patricia re-enters the workforce, in the process earning about five times more than I made last year as a professional beach bum and part time brain surgeon, rocket scientist, political commenter, and forensic injuneer.

Time now I guess to grab a early morning nap before resuming my efforts in doing nothing all day (possibly interrupted with some work finishing the control panels...)

Regards Y'all...