This time of year between Christmas and New Years always reminds me of a gap or hole in the space-time - a dead week when it's hard to get any work done, and not much reason to either. I believe in the Mayan Calendar, when they had finished counting through one Time-Cycle and there were a few days before the beginning of another Cycle, they held feast-days to fill up the gaps in Time. It was a dangerous time-out of Time, and anything could happen. They probably killed a few important sacrifices they had saved up for just such a momentous occasion as well.
With respect for my wife's wishes and family privacy I have removed the rest of this post - we deeply appreciate all your condolences, concern, and very thoughtfull comments.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Old Style Sights
I left a comment at Astro's blog in a post where he was discussing sighting-in his 1903 Springfield, and the origin and functions of its sights. Some suggestion was that they originated with the Mauser, but it reminded me of something my old Krag has in common, so I went to have a look at two different Krag sights and take some pictures. Sights are a whole 'nother area of collecting, and of history. Here’s a 1901 type-3 sight next to an 1898-modified to 1902/1904-configuration.
(click to enlarge to 800x600 pic)
Between 1890 and 1906 they went through a bunch of different sights and sight-types with minor and not-so-minor changes — I have a chart in my Krag book (Poyer) showing about a change per year from 1982 to 1901, and multiple simultaneous types.
(click to enlarge to 800x600 pic) As you can see the 1901 flips up to a vertical position, and has a useful little peep aperature. The 1902 Type-4B is a modified 1898 sight having the side-sighting notches ground-away and does not flip up, but it does have a teeny-tiny peep on a little pop-up leaf on the face of the eyepiece. Weird and cool and interesting old stuff.
Update:
(click to enlarge to 800x600 pic)
Here's a view of the left side of the 1898 sight, showing the very fine cut serrations along it's length that allow the elevation tightening-knob to stay fixed between one adjustment and the next - it's fascinating workmanship and attention to detail.
Between 1890 and 1906 they went through a bunch of different sights and sight-types with minor and not-so-minor changes — I have a chart in my Krag book (Poyer) showing about a change per year from 1982 to 1901, and multiple simultaneous types.
Update:
Here's a view of the left side of the 1898 sight, showing the very fine cut serrations along it's length that allow the elevation tightening-knob to stay fixed between one adjustment and the next - it's fascinating workmanship and attention to detail.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Adventures in Housekeeping
pot·pour·ri - [poh-poo-ree, poh-poo-ree] -noun 1. a mixture of dried petals of roses or other flowers with spices, kept in a jar for their fragrance. 2. a musical medley. 3. a collection of miscellaneous literary extracts. 4. any mixture, esp. of unrelated objects, subjects, etc.
In the winter with the cold (not sayin' much since our location here is pretty much always mild), as with most winter people we tend to keep fewer windows open for a fresh breeze.
A closed-up house however can gather smells, especially in the kitchen, and sometimes three or four cans of Glade or spray-Febreeze isn't enough to quell the turgid olfactory disturbance and you just want to throw-open all the doors and windows. But it's cold so you don't.
My wife has a small pot that she uses to simmer a fragrant bouquet, a homemade scent of oranges and cloves and other odor-penetrating and dissipating aromatics. I call it the stink-pot, but it's a genuinely nice aroma that suits the kitchen and it's not suffocatingly floral and old-ladylike. I left it on the burner unwatched and burnt the shit out of it.
The water boiled away and the scent that emanated from the kitchen more closely resembled a burning-scorching swamp thing, or an old farmhouse barn on fire complete with the animals inside. I had to turn on the exhaust fan and throw-open all the doors and windows. We are back to normal now except for the pan. Totally Carboniferous, dude!
It would be nice to salvage the little pot since it's a good-quality one and probably has more steel in it than an '87 Corolla.
UPDATE: Fabric softener rescue! I cast around on the 'Net for "burnt pan repair" and came across some cooking related home-remedies. One was that a couple cap-full's of fabric softener, heated, will soften the carboniferous crust and it can be scraped off. It worked - and beats the hell out of a wire-brush attached to a drill-motor which would leave scratches too deep to polish out. We're back in bid'ness with the little 2-quart pot.
In the winter with the cold (not sayin' much since our location here is pretty much always mild), as with most winter people we tend to keep fewer windows open for a fresh breeze.
A closed-up house however can gather smells, especially in the kitchen, and sometimes three or four cans of Glade or spray-Febreeze isn't enough to quell the turgid olfactory disturbance and you just want to throw-open all the doors and windows. But it's cold so you don't.
My wife has a small pot that she uses to simmer a fragrant bouquet, a homemade scent of oranges and cloves and other odor-penetrating and dissipating aromatics. I call it the stink-pot, but it's a genuinely nice aroma that suits the kitchen and it's not suffocatingly floral and old-ladylike. I left it on the burner unwatched and burnt the shit out of it.
The water boiled away and the scent that emanated from the kitchen more closely resembled a burning-scorching swamp thing, or an old farmhouse barn on fire complete with the animals inside. I had to turn on the exhaust fan and throw-open all the doors and windows. We are back to normal now except for the pan. Totally Carboniferous, dude!
It would be nice to salvage the little pot since it's a good-quality one and probably has more steel in it than an '87 Corolla.
UPDATE: Fabric softener rescue! I cast around on the 'Net for "burnt pan repair" and came across some cooking related home-remedies. One was that a couple cap-full's of fabric softener, heated, will soften the carboniferous crust and it can be scraped off. It worked - and beats the hell out of a wire-brush attached to a drill-motor which would leave scratches too deep to polish out. We're back in bid'ness with the little 2-quart pot.
Friday, December 15, 2006
1941 Singer SN#AG684145
It was a dark and stormy night and the streets were wet and slick with fear and the nervous flopsweat of a deadline fast approaching, like a hurtling train roaring down the tracks, brakes screaming in the night but the speed not diminishing...
unexcelled -- and it's damn complicated to run.
We don't have any little kiddie-toys to give to anybody, and we're cheap - the 18-year old thug-nephews have been cut off already - and I don't think they ever gave us any gifts anyhow, hey it's a two-way street you ingrates. Merry freaking Christmas, I gotta go polish my nails.
Tipping my hat to the Portobello girl, I drove my Hudson into the office. I passed the guard with his feet-up reading a pulp-novel in the foyer, and quick-stepped it up the first flight of stairs. At the landing I paused and with my hand on the big Colt at my waist, took a quick peek around the corner of the dim and stained corridor. The matchbook over the transom was still there and the dust on the faded wallpaper was undisturbed. Beneath a yellow light I unlocked the frosted glass-door of my office and entered. I closed the door and leaned against it, exhausted. With an outstretched hand I made my way in the half-light to the desk and reached out for the chair-back. I swiveled it around and slumped my tired weight deep into the leather. I felt another weight at my ankle and reached my hand down past my hip for the flat little hammerless .380, to slide the holster off my ankle...
Suddenly the tiny Eifel-Tower on my charm-bracelet caught my hose, and I felt it give and run. I lurched upright in the chair and reached across the desk for my nail-polish to quickly repair the run, but accidentally brushed against the glass of Chardonnay sitting there and spilled it all over my new purse. Standing up in a rush for the chintz towls hanging on the file-cabinet, I caught my high-heel in a gap in the rough wooden floor and twisted my ankle, knocking the chair flying across the room into the boxes of Manolo Blahnicks stacked aginst the wall. My goodness, I felt quite flushed and embarrassed...Yeh, yeh, OK, OK -- I'm not really overdosing on estrogen. We're making our Christmas gifts by hand this year, and with the help of this old '41 Singer - so what are you lookin' at? Hey, sailors make sails don't they? This tough old machine could sew your hand straight through two layers of canvas and it's already drawn blood. It's industrial-strength and gear-driven, with straight-cut steel gears and it's the BEST straight sewing machine ever made. Runs quieter and smoother than anything else, and the straight stitch is
unexcelled -- and it's damn complicated to run.
We don't have any little kiddie-toys to give to anybody, and we're cheap - the 18-year old thug-nephews have been cut off already - and I don't think they ever gave us any gifts anyhow, hey it's a two-way street you ingrates. Merry freaking Christmas, I gotta go polish my nails.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Jean Kirkpatrick and the San Francisco Democrats.
When former Ambassador to the UN passed away recently she was eulogized in part for her stand at the 1984 Republican Convention in San Diego, where she spoke as a Democrat, and repudiated the NorCal Democrats' local and conventional wisdom that is so prevalent in this region - Blame America First.
First off, some people think California is just one single state - and if you live here and drive from LA to Eureka you notice the cars have the same license plate, so ostensibly it is. But for many natives it's not, to begin with there's NorCal and SoCal - two different entities with different folklore and even different speech-ways. For example down south they say, "the 405," and "the 710" to refer to Freeways - up North there's no use of "the" - nobody would ever say "the 280" or "the 101" it just isn't done, and doing so reveals a SoCal background. There's probably about four California's if you separate-out the Far-North and The Central Valley, but the main divide is at the Tehachapies, the watershed mountains that separates North from South geographically.
So there's cultural differences, and Jean in her speech was speaking across a gulf from one to another - from the Republican stronghold of San Diego (where future Governor Pete Wilson had been mayor for the past 11 years), to the Beatnick Collectivists and Bay-Aryans of the North, throwing it in their face saying;
And this is where she comes in for a bunch of criticism from the Left who will do everything to tear-down the Legacy of Reagan (and build up the bull-crap pseudo-Legacy of an idiot like Carter - just because). Some suggest that "San Francisco Democrat" is a code word for "gay democrat" - but it’s really a code-word for Socialist. At first I was a bit surprised that Kirkpatrick identified the characteristic, and as far back as that – but upon reflection I quickly realized it went back much further in time.
Socialists are the actual dominant local political group in this region, hell, even outright full-tilt Communists are not at all uncommon around here - some of them were my High School Teachers in the early 70’s in Palo Alto.
My AP History teacher basically lectured us about every atrocities that the US committed, from the Revolutionary War (which was a "wrong" war to start with) to the Civil War (Lincoln only freed the slaves because it was politically expedient and would hurt the South), to Vietnam. In class we were taught to believe all the "Winter Soldier" accounts that Kerry dreamed-up to discredit his and our involvement in Vietnam, and also about The Inevitability of Socialism and The Failure of Capitalism. My teacher saw things pretty much as a zero-sum game economically, and that in the end pure Socialism would triumph and Capitalism would collapse - but not until after Capitalism Ruined the Earth and Devoured The World... And this was AP History, this was Education in California. I think you can trace the notion of Global Warming to this, at the very least its heartfelt regional acceptance among the countless Prius drives.
Growing up in this group-think attitude and having few alternatives you tend to accept it, and inasmuch as even supposed Adult-people say ridiculous things like, "you create your own reality," - like a fish in water you are aware only of yourself as an individual - and that’s exactly what I was for the longest time. And as well-indoctrinated as I was I also thought that in order for everybody-to-get-along, it’s what everevery body else should also be - and learned to be fairly intolerant of any deviation from that. Fight the Man! Heh.
In this deep-blue sector of a Blue State, the deeper you go the more red you see and it’s not Republican red. This region has one of the largest concentrations of non-working trust-fund baby Socialists powered by inherited old money and BigMoney. From up in Marin County to down the Peninsula - from places like Atherton, Belmont, Hillsborough, and Palo Alto where seriously Big Democrat fundraisers are held every election cycle and most of the cars still have Kerry-Edwards stickers while many still have Gore-Lieberman plastered next to that, with few Republicans in the mix.
Some people are confused about the irony of Rich Communists, that somehow because of the ideology it just can't be - but really, from all the evidence there shouldn't be any illusions. Communists like their own money best, taking yours next, and they sure have plans for other people's money besides. So it's a hypocrisy, big deal-get real it's money, they have a Dacha at Lake Tahoe and a Chris-Craft and you don't. People who are susceptible to the confusion about ideology vs. reality often labor under a similar delusion of "Soaking the Rich" and other deranged economic and tax-advice. They are swayed by the notion of a single, unchanging, Monolithic-Rich who operate as a secret cabal controlling every aspect of life and society - in other words they're nuts.
Back to "San Francisco Democrats," historically they had their palaces on Russian Hill, their Summer-Home down on the Peninsula, and the cabin at Tahoe. (For "SoCal Democrats" substitute the cabin at Big Bear.) Now their ancestors, flush with money (and the confusion about ideology), fund every anti-American cause and effort to weaken American influence abroad. It feeds their moral and political vanity as well. They have enough money and free-time to fly up to Portland to protest a G8 summit for "Global Warming" one week, and to attend anti-Capitalist rallies in other States and even in other countries the next. They're rich wingnuts, confused mentally and politically, and it’s their hobby to make their voice heard. If we could only get them to shut-up for a minute, the silence would be deafening.
Maybe I should have titled this "Growing up Communist in America."
First off, some people think California is just one single state - and if you live here and drive from LA to Eureka you notice the cars have the same license plate, so ostensibly it is. But for many natives it's not, to begin with there's NorCal and SoCal - two different entities with different folklore and even different speech-ways. For example down south they say, "the 405," and "the 710" to refer to Freeways - up North there's no use of "the" - nobody would ever say "the 280" or "the 101" it just isn't done, and doing so reveals a SoCal background. There's probably about four California's if you separate-out the Far-North and The Central Valley, but the main divide is at the Tehachapies, the watershed mountains that separates North from South geographically.
So there's cultural differences, and Jean in her speech was speaking across a gulf from one to another - from the Republican stronghold of San Diego (where future Governor Pete Wilson had been mayor for the past 11 years), to the Beatnick Collectivists and Bay-Aryans of the North, throwing it in their face saying;
They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do - they didn't blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians - they blamed the United States instead.
But then, somehow, they always blame America first.
When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the "blame America first crowd" didn't blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.
But then, they always blame America first.
When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.
But then, they always blame America first.
When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago.
But then, they always blame America first.
The American people know better.
They know that Ronald Reagan and the United States didn't cause Marxist dictatorship in Nicaragua, or the repression in Poland, or the brutal new offensives in Afghanistan, or the destruction of the Korean airliner, or the new attacks on religious and ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, or the jamming of western broadcasts, or the denial of Jewish emigration, or the brutal imprisonment of Anatoly Shcharansky and Ida Nudel, or the obscene treatment of Andrei Sakharov and Yelena Bonner, or the re-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. (read the rest)
And this is where she comes in for a bunch of criticism from the Left who will do everything to tear-down the Legacy of Reagan (and build up the bull-crap pseudo-Legacy of an idiot like Carter - just because). Some suggest that "San Francisco Democrat" is a code word for "gay democrat" - but it’s really a code-word for Socialist. At first I was a bit surprised that Kirkpatrick identified the characteristic, and as far back as that – but upon reflection I quickly realized it went back much further in time.
Socialists are the actual dominant local political group in this region, hell, even outright full-tilt Communists are not at all uncommon around here - some of them were my High School Teachers in the early 70’s in Palo Alto.
My AP History teacher basically lectured us about every atrocities that the US committed, from the Revolutionary War (which was a "wrong" war to start with) to the Civil War (Lincoln only freed the slaves because it was politically expedient and would hurt the South), to Vietnam. In class we were taught to believe all the "Winter Soldier" accounts that Kerry dreamed-up to discredit his and our involvement in Vietnam, and also about The Inevitability of Socialism and The Failure of Capitalism. My teacher saw things pretty much as a zero-sum game economically, and that in the end pure Socialism would triumph and Capitalism would collapse - but not until after Capitalism Ruined the Earth and Devoured The World... And this was AP History, this was Education in California. I think you can trace the notion of Global Warming to this, at the very least its heartfelt regional acceptance among the countless Prius drives.
Growing up in this group-think attitude and having few alternatives you tend to accept it, and inasmuch as even supposed Adult-people say ridiculous things like, "you create your own reality," - like a fish in water you are aware only of yourself as an individual - and that’s exactly what I was for the longest time. And as well-indoctrinated as I was I also thought that in order for everybody-to-get-along, it’s what everevery body else should also be - and learned to be fairly intolerant of any deviation from that. Fight the Man! Heh.
In this deep-blue sector of a Blue State, the deeper you go the more red you see and it’s not Republican red. This region has one of the largest concentrations of non-working trust-fund baby Socialists powered by inherited old money and BigMoney. From up in Marin County to down the Peninsula - from places like Atherton, Belmont, Hillsborough, and Palo Alto where seriously Big Democrat fundraisers are held every election cycle and most of the cars still have Kerry-Edwards stickers while many still have Gore-Lieberman plastered next to that, with few Republicans in the mix.
Some people are confused about the irony of Rich Communists, that somehow because of the ideology it just can't be - but really, from all the evidence there shouldn't be any illusions. Communists like their own money best, taking yours next, and they sure have plans for other people's money besides. So it's a hypocrisy, big deal-get real it's money, they have a Dacha at Lake Tahoe and a Chris-Craft and you don't. People who are susceptible to the confusion about ideology vs. reality often labor under a similar delusion of "Soaking the Rich" and other deranged economic and tax-advice. They are swayed by the notion of a single, unchanging, Monolithic-Rich who operate as a secret cabal controlling every aspect of life and society - in other words they're nuts.
Back to "San Francisco Democrats," historically they had their palaces on Russian Hill, their Summer-Home down on the Peninsula, and the cabin at Tahoe. (For "SoCal Democrats" substitute the cabin at Big Bear.) Now their ancestors, flush with money (and the confusion about ideology), fund every anti-American cause and effort to weaken American influence abroad. It feeds their moral and political vanity as well. They have enough money and free-time to fly up to Portland to protest a G8 summit for "Global Warming" one week, and to attend anti-Capitalist rallies in other States and even in other countries the next. They're rich wingnuts, confused mentally and politically, and it’s their hobby to make their voice heard. If we could only get them to shut-up for a minute, the silence would be deafening.
Maybe I should have titled this "Growing up Communist in America."
Monday, December 11, 2006
There's a new Squid in Town
Early in the morning the Marines, Navy-guy, Army-dude, Brave Hottie Resistance Girl, and the Aircorpsman guarding the Gigantic Electronic Airwave Monitoring Depot were surprised to see a Special Forces Op ride into the compound.
He was a real spode with his knee-protectors on the outside and a ball-cap turned backwards, but at least he had a hydration system and eye-protection. How he's gonna reach his HK-USP with his throttle hand on the loud-grip is another question...
He was a real spode with his knee-protectors on the outside and a ball-cap turned backwards, but at least he had a hydration system and eye-protection. How he's gonna reach his HK-USP with his throttle hand on the loud-grip is another question...
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Carnival of Cordite #80
Bitter at The Bitch Girls generously and graciously hosts the 80th Carnival of Cordite. Once again with my head in the reloading bench I missed it! Please go check it out and the submissions, and leave folks a comment or two.
401-3X
For the Practice-Match I gathered my leftover loads. Twenty "old" ones in twice-fired brass with the 150-grain spire-point and Remington primers which I decided to use for the rapids. Ten of the more recent loads for offhand, using once-fired brass and the comparator-compared necks, with the new CCI-primers.
To complete the match I loaded up twenty fresh for slow-prone. These had a slight boost: 46.5 grains of H-4895, using once fired brass that was weighed-out to find a median group within a few grains. It was the stuff I cleaned and prepped and measured with the comparator last time but hadn't used. Some was way out "overweight" and some was way "under." I selected those in the middle of the weight range, but didn't check them again with the comparator. On top I loaded the 168-grain Nosler HPBT competition round. I have twenty left...
Offhand went well with a best-yet 83 - two Tens and four Nines among that. Could it be the primers and the comparator-selected brass? Hmmm...
The rapids went average, about what I've been shooting anyhow, and since they were the old "average quality" loads that might explain that same-old average performance level. I need to step-it-up with case-prep and bullets so see what improves.
Slow-prone started out great with an X, then drifted out to a Nine and came back for another X - I was stoked! But as time and the shooting-string progressed it developed into a somewhat mediocre 158, more Eights and Nines than Sevens would have been better. The offhand Nines and Tens were what pushed me over the 400-mark, and the X's in prone just helped.
To complete the match I loaded up twenty fresh for slow-prone. These had a slight boost: 46.5 grains of H-4895, using once fired brass that was weighed-out to find a median group within a few grains. It was the stuff I cleaned and prepped and measured with the comparator last time but hadn't used. Some was way out "overweight" and some was way "under." I selected those in the middle of the weight range, but didn't check them again with the comparator. On top I loaded the 168-grain Nosler HPBT competition round. I have twenty left...
Offhand went well with a best-yet 83 - two Tens and four Nines among that. Could it be the primers and the comparator-selected brass? Hmmm...
The rapids went average, about what I've been shooting anyhow, and since they were the old "average quality" loads that might explain that same-old average performance level. I need to step-it-up with case-prep and bullets so see what improves.
Slow-prone started out great with an X, then drifted out to a Nine and came back for another X - I was stoked! But as time and the shooting-string progressed it developed into a somewhat mediocre 158, more Eights and Nines than Sevens would have been better. The offhand Nines and Tens were what pushed me over the 400-mark, and the X's in prone just helped.
Convalescence III - Fibrillation
With respect for my wife's wishes and family privacy I have removed this post, we deeply appreciate all your condolences and concern, and very thoughtfull comments.
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