Friday, January 14, 2011

It's ABOVE Freezing For The First Time In a Year Month Week!!!

Hurrayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

Footprints Are The Best Thing About A Good Snowfall

Helps You Know Who (Or What) Has Come A Callin'...



I just took a tour of my property boundary at 5 AM this morning in the dark. 

Outside in the cold, frosty, silence, I remembered that I'm still a country boy at heart.

I think that I've written that phrase/information/declaration several times if not several hundred times here on this blog, but I somehow felt like reiterating it again this morning because of the experience I've just had looking at the world through the prism of winter weather.

Thinking back now, my lament is partially due to in retrospect to some poor decisions I made earlier in life resulting in my relegation to living 27 at first glorious and in the end hellish years in Atlanta and the "Atlanta Suburbs" while attending college and the following miss-directed years of professional "aspiration's" which yielded a bunch of money for companies and business partners and a couple of ex-wives...but only a little for me when the balance sheet was closed. 

Efforts which only proceeded to allow various "parties" and "individuals" to take said money and let my aforementioned wives and/or my aforementioned business partners and/or their lawyers and/or their accountants and/or their  "fiduciaries" to go do something else and/or someone else other than me with it all when the dust settled.

I guess that you could say that I have a PHD in how NOT to do things when it was all said and done.

What was amazing was that I somehow put  up with the process for that interminably long period before I managed to get my butt out of that town i.e. "regional metropolitan area" and not be jailed for life for being convicted of committing a capitol crime of passion or otherwise.

Of course my defense would be INSANITY then just like it is today.

You Know?

...BIGgggggg breath here Boss...

That said, I was wandering around out in my yard a couple of times the past week since the snow started falling and it is interesting to see all of the activity that happens out there night and day which I may or may not see just sitting around picking my nose and Googling around the computer screen each day,

Take the footprints you can see in the snow for instance.

I'm an expert animal and human tracker when there is snow on the ground just like the "injuns" and other guys that were paid to such stuff in the old John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies.

I see my own foot prints from yesterday and get all excited before I remember that I was out that way already...Barney Fife style police work...
OK, actually I'd rather damn be looking at "footprints in the sand" on a beach somewhere, but still it works the same way here in the deep freezer we call Knoxtown.

But now back to the subject regarding "SNOW footprints"...

Just tonight on my evening tour I could see the footprints of  our local Crow (Raven) population all over the place in my yard, and that the "Rascally Wrabbit" or "Wrabbits" (in the words of Elmer Fudd) are jumping all around the place for some reason...I guess looking for whatever it is that Wrabbits look for to eat, and then there is the neighbor's Tomcat which makes his rounds early every morning just making sure everything is in order.

If you've ever owned a good Tom Cat you know what I mean...if you bring something into the room or move it around the Cat will come in and do what I call "inventory" and identify the change within about ten seconds and then sit there and point at the offending artifact while continuing to inspect it extensively.

Our yard sort of works the same way for our Neighbor's Tom Cat.

And apparently there is a Possum or an Opossum wandering around and a Raccoon and the obligatory squirrels and so on...

So any way...in conclusion this morning...

...it snowed another half inch or so yesterday morning, we still as a result pretty much have a couple of three inches on the ground all around, and I still have to wear a shirt and socks even INSIDE MY HOUSE here Dammit.

And Y'all have a LOVELY Day ... If you will...

Thursday, January 13, 2011

It SNOWED Here Again This Morning

Somebody Shoot Me And I promise Not To Prosecute...

Old Musicians

I'm Busy...Watch This In The Mean Time...





Heh...

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

I Stand Corrected

I Miss-Spoke Regarding Glock Magazine Capacity...


Other than having strong opinions, I'm nothing if not as technically accurate here on this blog as possible, thus the reason for this posting this morning.

I have to admit that I was ignorant in not knowing in my earlier posting that Glock makes a factory 33 round clip for their model 17, 18, and 19 series 9 MM caliber weapons. 

It looks pretty stupid because it hangs out a long way out of the bottom of the pistol's grip. The clip is intended for military and law enforcement purposes but is also available to the general public in the states which don't limit the clip capacity to 10 rounds.

Thus I stand corrected.

As an excuse I offer that I have never owned one or even seen one in person on the gun ranges I've visited, and with the cost of ammunition what it is with all of the new federal taxes I don't see why anyone would want to load up nearly $20 worth of ammunition at one time when your hands hurts after firing ten rounds and you need a rest.

I guess if you are a mass murderer it's an advantage, but again...like I wrote before...

a RESPONSIBLE well trained gun owner will kill a burglar or other life threatening assailant with one bullet and the extra 32 rounds are just there for back up or unless there a small mob breaking into their house.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Wintertime Reflections...


It's cold and dreary outside here in Knoxtown, with snow on the ground and a little more still coming down.

I just realized that I was remiss in not recognising Elvis's 76th birthday this week.

"The King" has been gone now for almost 34 years, but he probably wouldn't mind me posting this video of a rather unusual "Elvis Impersonator" here on the blog who died prematurely about 15 years later...

Enjoy...





Heh...

New Winter Experiences

Shoveling Snow For The Turbo Pup...

I spent part of yesterday afternoon and Earllllllyyyy this morning doing something I've never really had to do as a home owner.

Using my snow shovel.

You know...the one I bought going on four years ago now when we first moved up here to Knoxtown from our little Island.

I didn't really need it so far until this last storm hit, but just like the generator we bought when we moved to the Georgia coast in anticipation of a Hurricane induced power outage and that's as of right now still sitting comfortably in the basement shrink wrapped in it's original packaging, or the Kerosene Heater we bought in anticipation of a winter Ice storm induced situation...

until yesterday my new Snow Shovel has happily resided unused in the carport along with some other sometimes used but often neglected yard tools.

So any way, I strapped on my winter boots and ski bibs and put on a hat and my parka and wandered outside to see what was going on.  Then I got all energetic and shoveled the drifted snow out of the carport, and then one thing lead to another and I worked my way around to the front of the house and up the sidewalk to the front porch.

Then I stopped.

At dinner last night after I had cooked pizza and everyone was settling in to watch Auburn beat Oregon at the last second to win the national championship in the BCS Bowl, Pat mentioned that it would be nice to shovel a little path for Missy the Turbo Pup out from her doggie door across the deck and expose a little grassy area in the yard for her to do her business in.

Duhhhhhh...

Having not had to live with much frozen precipitation in the past ten years, and only owning a little mini long haired dachshund for a little over four of those years (remember I was a Cat man in another life)...it just didn't occur to me to clean off an area for my Turbo Puppy.

After all...She's so versatile having been raised pool side and at the beach and...

having taken to snow while visiting her Cousin Dachshunds Olive and Otis in Kansas City I just wasn't thinking.

She's been coming back in the doggie door covered in clumps of snow from the nose and ears down with this recent storm, so this morning her Dad did like most good Dad's do and remedied the situation while I was outside putting the trash out on the curb and picking up the mail that showed up at near dark yesterday.

Oh the things men will do for little girls...human and canine...when they love them...

Monday, January 10, 2011

If A Thousand or Tens of Thousands Of Men Would Do This

"Parenting" Would Have A New Meaning And Our Society Would Benefit...

This video is definitely "not safe for work," but since when have I worried about my Blog being safe for anything except pissing people off most of the time?

Still, I'm just saying, if a bunch of young black men would get involved with raising their pre-teen and teenaged sons and put some muscle in the discipline we could pay a lot less taxes and worry a lot less about walking down the street at night.

Take a gander now if you dare:



The guy delivering the punishment needs to pull his pants up also and cover up his boxers, but still...no family is perfect I guess...

You Know?





Heh...

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Anti Gun Media At It Again...

They Say "Shooter Fired 31 rounds from his first clip..."


[EXPANDED AND UPDATED EDITION]


I just watched the latest news conference [and thought about things some more now] from out in Arizona where the media and the Sheriff continued to spew subtle anti-second amendment rhetoric non stop. 

Wild eyed, traumatized witnesses are now coming forward and being interviewed and in all likelihood they don't really know or accurately remember what happened, but just like the number of dead and wounded continued to climb yesterday so has the number of shots fired been escalated today.

Now they're saying 31 rounds, before the gunman changed clips and one of the victims tried to grab the gun/clip.  And now apparently they're saying the gun jammed and misfired.

As I have reported here before on this blog, 30 years ago I personally went through the late night robbery of a restaurant where I as a customer had a sawed off shotgun poked into my back and pumped and had a small caliber pistol pounded on my head until the barel broke off the frame of the weapon, and in the heat of the moment all I could tell you was there were four black guys with one shotgun and a couple of pistols and they took my money and my watch.

And these lovely Niggras Negros Blacks African Americans didn't apparently give a Tinkers Damn if it was against the law to carry a weapon or beat people in the head with it or take money and possessions which didn't belong them.

It's already against the law to take a gun and shoot someone or beat them with it, and yet the sniveling, tye- died, tree hugging, patchouli stinking, Kumbaya Singing San Francisco liberal/progressives want to pass even more laws intended to take away MY GUNS under the guise of protecting me from the animals like I've already encountered...

...and when seconds count, without my guns, their Government police department is only minutes away...

...followed by the EMS ambulance and the fire department to plug the holes in my head and mop up my blood off of the floor.

As an aside, while they use the actions of a few lunatics in a country with a population of 308,000,000 to further limit gun ownership, we're actually lucky that in most all of these recent events like Virginia Tech and Columnbine and Ft. Hood and now Arizona that the shooter was really basically a pretty bad shot when the smoke cleared.

I'm not making any threats here, but you can take this for what it is worth. 

IF I or most of the other people I used to shoot competitively with out in the West Atlanta suburbs in the mid 1990's, walked in somewhere and fired 31 shots at close range...

...there would be 31 dead people, not half that number.

That's not a threat ladies and gentlemen, that's a FACT. 

These deranged idiots running around shooting people most of the time really can't hit the broad side of a barn with a pistol from a distance of 10 feet.

Yes, the people causing the mayhem and headlines are technically "gun owners", but not knowledgeable RESPONSIBLE gun owners and most of the time they end up shooting themselves or a family member or leave their weapon loaded and laying around and their small children find it and blow their or a siblings' brain out accidentally and yet the media and the "public" and the government do gooders want to come after every gun in the country because of their actions and stupidity.

Check the statistics, ladies and gentlemen, (and I'm too lazy to Google it right now but I've seen them) and I know that you will find that there were very few if any crimes committed or reported in the past TEN YEARS involving the use of a firearm in an illegal manner by anyone who had gone to the trouble to get the training and pay the fees for a concealed carry permit.

And yet there are a large and growing number of crimes which have been prevented or their impact limited and lives and property otherwise saved by the use of legal weapons by legitimate gun owners exercising their second amendment rights to bear arms and protect their lives and property with a rifle, shotgun, or pistol.

And there is also a large and ever growing number of crimes which could have been prevented if people possessing legal weapons carry permits had not been prevented from using them because the government continues to limit the places responsible gun owners can have guns.

Back to the Arizona story, to any knowledgeable shooter who has practiced LEGALLY on a gun range doing rapid fire, it's not unusual for a semi-automatic piston to jam as it heats up and as you change clips...particularly a gun owned by someone that doesn't really know what they are doing and doesn't clean and otherwise take care of their weapon.

And the idea of a gun holding 31 rounds in a single clip is something believed only by the non-shooting public, the ignorant media,  or shown in science fiction movies.  That is more than double even the largest non-factory clip extensions available in gun shops and on the Internet.

[UPDATE  Ooops...Glock makes a law enforcement/military clip which holds 33 rounds.  It looks stupid and sticks way out of the grip of the gum but they're out there in states which don't already limit clips to 10 rounds.  My mistake...I was wrong and I admit it in another blog posting on January 12th, so don't start bitching at me...]
I'm really disappointed that Fox News, in the rush to get the lead on this continuing story, has done such a shitty job of fact checking their on the air coverage.

Yesterday we had a dead Congresswoman which turned out to still be alive , and today we have 31 round Glock 9 MM bullet clips when there is really no such thing. 

They quickly corrected the report of the death of the Congresswoman because they had to, but you'll probably not hear the 31 bullet clip falsehood corrected

Stupid people (as opposed to just uneducated...and there's a real difference) work in all disciplines in life, but we seem to have some of the most examples of stupidity in the ranks which matter most...

Working in "Education" at Government Schools and writing copy and doing broadcast work in "News Media outlets."

And interestingly enough they have the gumption to blame Talk Radio and Internet Bloggers for spewing falsehoods and hate while they're at it...and get away with it in most venues they control.

Is it just me?

Insanity Continues To Wreck Havoc

Idiots On The left Already Blaming The Right...


As you know if you read this blog, I've been around more than a little while here on this planet and in the past half century I've gone from pure Conservative to Libertarian in my adult life.

Before that transformation, back before I could actually vote in an election, I have to admit that I was a George Wallace Democrat because A) I was born and raised and lived in southern Alabama, and B) I was born and raised and lived in southern Alabama and didn't know anything else to do when it came to politics.

I suspect that people living in South Carolina voting for Strom Thurman and in Georgia electing Lester Maddox were in the same position even if they were a few years or even a generation older than me at the time.

That said, it pisses me off when people, unfortunately usually young white men, take things into their own hands and bypass the electoral process and go out and SHOOT DULY ELECTED OFFICIALS when they don't agree with them and their politics.

Happened to George Wallace during his presidential campaign in 1972, happened to Gerrald Ford and Ron Reagan and Kennedy and Lincoln and God knows how many other now forgotten local and state politicians, but in my opinion this mess which happened out in Arizona yesterday is going to do NOTHING if not make it harder for the people to talk to their governing officials and put a bunch of additional pressure on gun owners because the anti-gun idiots will use the event as a talking point.

My heart goes out to the wounded and the dead from yesterday's "man made disaster" but the media coverage and the political BS coming out of it pisses me off and there is nothing I can do but sit on the sidelines quietly and watch.