Country Roads

Bluesun at Dead Man Dance is out up in the High Country on a job interview, so I thought I'd put up my favorite John Denver song, it's sung by a legendary Hawaiian and a little bit different than the snowy continental-divide. :-)


UPDATE: corrected title. :-)

Leather Wedding

Whilst some far-off funny-talkers share elevated nuptial blandishments across an ocean of who-cares(?), closer to home regular folks are in a terrible hurt put on them by powerful twisting winds that shredded their lives and towns and left corpses in their wake and funerals instead of weddings -- but here the Brown Truck of Happiness has delivered the richly scented non-vegan goods.

Franco-Italian CONFLICT!

From Zendo Deb at  TFS Magnum, we get this nugget of Euro-continental discord.

European Press Review: Is Border Despute a Betrayal of EU Values? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International.

 Rome's recent decision to grant temporary residence permits to migrants from North Africa, allowing them to travel within the Schengen area, has pushed Paris to restore border controls with Italy to block those attempting to join friends or parents in France, sparking a diplomatic mini-crisis that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are trying to defuse.
But the damage has already been done: Incapable of finding their balance faced with the consequences of the ongoing revolution in the Arab world or of resisting pressure from domestic anti-immigrant parties, European Union leaders are succumbing to the temptation to retrench. The development could have serious consequences for the 25 countries that have implemented the Schengen Agreement, which removes internal border checks between those lands.

So, the way I see it, Socialist Italifornia wants cheap workers but Sherriff Le Aparo-Sarkozy in Francizonia has put up a wall - maybe they should settle the border dispute the traditional European way, with artillery! As the French daily La Tribune writes: Certainly, illegal immigration is a real problem: The arrival of illegal migrants penalizes the societies that have to absorb them, starting with those immigrants who have already obtained legal status.
Ya think??? And then you have to buy oil from Libya...

Elvis vs. The Beatles

Cultural hyperbole inspired by The Fabulous Tam: What was the difference between 1961 and 1968 - Skinny Elvis vs. The Beatles? What made Smith and Wesson get all chunky?

No Rails Old School Naked and Covered

The sun's shining and birds chirping and I got nuthin' while the kewl kidz are at the NRA-something in Pennsywhatchamacallit way-back East.
But with the goober holster collection now comes this old K-frame wearing a beater Galco "Fletch" eBay holster - in and out of leather. It's a step up from the G&G nylon holster anyhow.


Clickit to embignify.

Happy Easter to my Peeps

This is a re-run but it's buried in archives so I get to drag it out again.

Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Kanji Answers - I think maybe...

弥 - MI ・ BI ・ iya ・ ya ・ amaneshi ・ iyoiyo ・ tooi ・ hisashi ・ hisashii ・ wataru - all the more; increasingly

吉 - kichi ・ kitsu  - good fortune; good luck





The thing about all this is there so much more data packed-into a single byte of language than a computer can hold - the mind of man can grasp way-beyond the on/off mechanics and see into the past as well as the future.

The first glyph: 弥 - MI or BI, originates from the ancient Namu Amida Butsu, a prayer to Amida Buddha for a peaceful death - which on a GUN intimates a whole bunch of things, but in Japanese also means, "I worship Amida Buddha and follow his doctrine." - or it means Maitreya (a bodhisattva) - and in a vulgar meaning it is a verb to jeer (at); to hoot; to boo; to catcall; to heckle - something a GUN can also do, so to speak.

The second glyph, 吉 - KICHI or KITSU can bit-flip depending on it's position - it can be good luck or ill-omened, ominous, unlucky, black as night, sinister, bad luck, ill omen, inauspiciousness - which again, in the context of a GUN intimates even more... And in another location is a part Paladin: a man of incorruptible character.

Or it could be a family-name: Yayoshi  弥吉 

UPDATE: And the winner is BornLib - for Yayoshi! Turns out it is a family name. I returned to the gun-shop and gave them the translation I had collected. The owner was there and thanked me, confimnring the seller of the gun was a Japanese-dude (or of that ancestry) with such a family name... At least now the new owner can be happily confident in his purchase of the, "Always Increasing Fortune" gun! Or whatever. :-)

And it's still a price I can't afford in a caliber I don't already have.

What's it mean, Kanji?

Had to go back and have a closer look at this sweet Series-70 Stainless Colt.  The scrollwork is small and fairly tastefully done, it's not all-over like a full sleeve.

The stainless steel is pretty too, a soft luster glows from the gun, even under fluorescent lights the green cast is warm.


The Colt Commander is a 9mm too, unusual I think? The serial number starts with a 70 then has two letters and three more digits - is it a Series-70 then?

Seven little bits of deeply cut scroll-work - two fore and aft on each side, and on the top.

And finally back by the hammer on the right-side there's this Chinese or Japanese Kanji (or (hànzi) glyph:

Nobody knew what it meant - I said, "That's kinda important, tadpole." There's a couple of different websites dedicated to improper or mis-attributed Asian characters... "Picnic Table" and "Buff Chick" indeed, "Naive American" or simply gibberish.

It's the first time I've really been attracted to a 9mm, apart from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. P-38 gun.

Spring Cleaning

The drooling-dribbling carpet muncher at rest.  The heavy old uncomfortable futon is gone, but the mattress roll remains.

Atlas Wept and Sweated

I have not read the great Libertarian Bible.  I once tried reading it in my youth but couldn't get past the first ten or so pages.  It was painfully like slogging uphill through quicksand in 120-degree heat wearing wet canvas and cutting razor brush with a dull machete while someone with a megaphone was shouting at you from all sides. 
Reading was extremely important to a kid with bad eyes, and I read novels to enjoy and to escape, to feed my life with passion and stock the bare cupboards with rich foods - not to "better" myself or hammer my brain into a certain shape.
Being a PK/MK I was already too familiar with the Jedi Preaching Voice and ran to avoid it at every *optional* opportunity - of which there were too few, until I grew up and could step outside the smothering embrace and breath fresh air.  (re-quoted from my comment at Og's)

Buy An (OLD) Gun BOOK Day

Found this at the local Hippie semi-Transcendentalist groovy Book-Buyer-Sellers - they don't discriminate against guns, they have transcended that.




The dust-cover is fairly heavy-duty and plastic.



Inside it says, "Copyright © MCMLV and MCMLXI by Elmer Keith" - So it's not a signed first edition or anything.






$45 or so.  Anybody want me to pick it up and ship it to 'em?

Does Not Compute - They're Crazy

Federal Spending Fail:

Obviously, you don’t have to be a little touched to see that the case for getting Washington out of our schools is a powerful one. Unfortunately, some people would rather dismiss it as delusional than deal with it on its hugely important merits.

Why not just give the kids a bottle of whiskey and the car keys?

BAG Day - Buy A Gun Day!

I have been remiss at reminderizing my readers of the Holiday today.
Go getchaself one! Or two.

Or a whole damn bag-full.

Left, Right, and Out-There

H/T House of Eratosthenes. The Left that so proudly proclaims itself "not-Right" is correct, they're not right (about anything), they're also not really "Left" - they're just out there as Morgan Freeberg notes:

They aren’t “left” at all; they aren’t anything. People who live on the left-to-right spectrum, anywhere, have to follow their own rules. These advocates we call “The Left” exist, not on a classic French Napoleonic/royalty spectrum of left-to-right, but on that other spectrum, authoritarianism to “libertarianism to point of anarchy.” And they occupy the two extreme ends.

Straddling this impossible divide offers them an ideological nimbleness denied to other movements, and which anyone on the outside of the leftist movement, over the longer term, cannot afford. They say, “we need a rule…” and then they say it again and again and again. Once met with the natural consequences of living in such a rigid, overly-regulated “perfect” society of their own making, they simply sidestep it all. Like Terri said above: “Because we’re revolutionaries!”

Marketing Fail - Zappos

From Falnfenix (insert witty title here) we are alerted to a monumental idiocy. I don't usually get too exercised about advertisers and commercialism/capitalism, but it takes a real Marketing Genius to come up with this kind of skank-brain idea.
Linking the low-IQ, despicable and much hated, one-step-from-burger-flippers at the TSA with yourself is not a good way to endear your Brand to people, or elevate it. For most air-travelers, this will be se3en as an utterly disagreeable in-your-face marketing implementation - a seriously BAD idea, but you can never tell much to a "marketing genius" - and with Tigerblood bad-boy Charlie Sheen as the poster child for Hollywood's mantra of, "there's no such thing as bad publicity" I don't expect that a negative response will have much impact policywise.

I will find another merchandiser from whom to buy shoes on-line. Buh-bye Zappos, it was nice knowin' ya, for a while...

New Yorks, New Yorks

Grillin' time. Still looking for holsters, but some things come first.

Good Doggy

She likes the stick. The water was cold and refreshing.

Places and Spaces

visited 42 states (84%) - There really might have been more I visited but I really can't distinguish between all the minor principalities on the East Coast.

Create your own visited map of The United States


visited 32 states (14.2%) - I could cross Egypt off the list. And Alaska and Florida shouldn't even be on there, but it's a default position.  Europe should be it's own little war-zone, as it so often happens - but clearly I'm a north-of-the-equator kinda guy, sorry all you antipodeans.
Create your own visited map of The World


visited 15 states (42.8%) - The interior gap is a lapse of memory I could probably with some effort recall...but train travel can be hugely soporific in the heat.
Create your own visited map of India

Country Eggs are Different

The come from blond and speckled and red and speckled and gold colored chickens that roam freely about the house and property - guarded by a big-ass rooster-dude. They each have little boxes with some straw in them, placed around the house - in the garage mostly, on a workbench, behind a bag of feed - in which they cluck and lay the eggs.The blue ones come from the blond.
The shells are harder than what you get in the grocery store and the yolks are intensely yellow-orange.

Up Country

There's critters up-country

Inquisitive critters...

And dogs with sticks

And a coyote on the golf course scaring the canadian geese

At the country house...

Floppy Holsters?

Given the recent caution about floppy holsters, perhaps more specifically slide-holsters, these two thumb-strap models are still that which I have most recently acquired for carrying-around the house: one Galco "Fletch" for the 1911A1 - a similar holster is coming for the 4-inch S&W K-frame. It's basic, retention-strap stuff...:

With the thumb-strap in place the 1911A1 can be carried in either Condition 1, 2, or in Condition 3.
And I picked-up a Gould & Goodrich three-slot for the P220.

The P220 in the G&G doesn't seem like much of a concealment gun or holster at this point, but that really may just be an issue/evidence of how marvelously thin by comparison the 1911A1 really is. 
The P220 with a rail is still seeking a holster - the railed forward serrations hang-up on the G&G and resist drawing. Also it has a rail and therefore needs a light. Supposedly.
Several bloggers have recommended Comp-Tac and pdb posted about one that allowed him to tuck-in his Glock with a light. Talk about filling your pants!
I have pretty much abandoned the dual-purpose Galco Pancake holster I used at GBR-IV, it's just not as secure as the belt-held ones.:

Maybe I'll find a way to convert it to use as a hard-mount on my roost-protector. There are screw-type things on the back that allow the paddle to be removed and re-screwed in a fixed location.

Around the house I notice how cold the guns are, and how much I am not used to them. I have been "practicing" with a godawful cold Leatherman tool. I don't usually wear much body-stuff, I quit wearing a wrist-watch several years ago and don't adorn my belt with cellphone and keys and that kinda crap - hell I don't even usually wear a belt if I can help it. I'm not as enamored with the whole Batman Utility belt thing as I once was, but I better get used-to it...

Mexico, oh Mexico...The (Fake) War on Drugs

Did you see the post from the Italian Mexican journalist, about how President Calderon has acceded to the Sinalo Cartel? The security strategy deployed by the federal government in Mexico and particularly in Ciudad Juárez to fight drug trafficking is a lie because the government of Felipe Calderón protects the Sinaloa cartel and its leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, claims Anabel Hernandez, Mexican journalist. Translated text:

In addition, as posed by the author of "The Lords of Narco" in a telephone interview with El Diario, the U.S. action in the midst of this "war" has not been very clear and begin to surface information indicating a suspected Cartel Sinaloa in the country with the concurrence of bodies like the same Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
"For the federal government priority only the enemies of 'El Chapo' and that's why we have the slaughter, so Ciudad Juárez is as it is," says the journalist from Italy, where he teaches a series of conferences on the issue of crime organized.
Indicates that protection group led by "El Chapo" is systematic, almost as a public policy, and although unable to respond if President Felipe Calderón is involved or participate in this action, stresses the fact that the federal agent knows what happens and it is almost incredible that there is an accomplice if it protects Genaro Garcia Luna, Federal Public Security Secretary, who identifies himself as the architect of this war and links to organized crime.
Therefore, stresses, this war is not against drug traffickers as the Government has promoted, but is a drug war "in which the federal government has been part of one of his criminal groups, and has been partly because I mean that has protected them.

And so the US Ambassador to Mexico had to quit.  I just bet some wise-guys from Chicago, who know a thing or two about smuggling and graft and institutionalized corruption, would know a thing or two about this... Isn't the new BATFE guy from Chicago?

Womens' Concealed Carry

From GBR-V rendezvouser Ashley at Girls <3 Guns, we have news about feminine concealment products offered by a woman designer at Naturally Concealed, who has hit upon a way to carry that takes advantage of the biological diversity afforded by being female (although I suppose some men could take advantage of their curves in a similar fashion).

Naturally Concealed is a homebased business brought into being by one woman's desire to find a comfortable, concealable, discreet handgun holster that could be worn under dress clothes as easily as it could be worn under every day work, play, or exercise clothes. After coming up with what I believe to be the perfect concealed carry option, I decided to share it with other women looking for a comfortable, wearable holster.

There are testimonials by women as to the efficacy of this means of carry, which seems to be substantial. I do not know since I am not among the carrying persuasion, but to me it seems highly logical, for instance:
 

The model is wearing a .357 Smith & Wesson Model 640

Check it out, ladies.  It's not salacious either.

Locals Only Friday

On the way back from L&L Hawaiian Barbecue with some Kalua pork and chicken katsu, there was this sweet F-150.

Kinda eye-roasting red.

It's 83-degrees here, but only 79° out at Moffett Field. The weekend cars are starting to emerge from their chrysalises.