Vanon Batteries show and tell!

Ever heard of Vanon batteries?  I haven't either, but my sones seem to like them.  I'll leave the link right here so I can find it later.

Lunch Date

 I took my mother to the doctor's office this morning for a routine visit.  Then we went to lunch.  She's 90 years old, and doesn't get out much, and that's as much my fault as anyone's

We took her to a little diner that has been around forever, then drove the long way back to her house so we could remanence abut places and things.  She is back home now, probably taking a nap.

That's how I spent my morning.
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Bump Stocks, Again

 The Supremes are listening to arguments about bump stocks today.  The justices are out of their element, because most of them don't understand modern firearms at all.  Truly, they are clueless.

One of the best ideas of the day comes to us from the Firearms Policy Coalition

Justice Jackson says guns with bump stocks can fire 800 rounds a second.

More coverage here.  But, 800 rounds a second?   Methinks that Madame Justice Jackson just exposed her complete ignorance on the subject.  We generally consider the cyclic rate of an M4 carbine to be about 700-900 rounds per minute, but cyclic rate is an engineering term. Not even a rotary barreled minigun can reach 800 rounds per second.

Justice Jackson should check her ignorance.

What Do YouDO?

 I'm sure by now you have all heard the tragic story of Laken Riley, a UGA nursing student who was tragically murdered on her daily run. She went out for a jog, got killed for her efforts. The world surely mourns the loss of her life.  She had great things ahead of her and now she doesn't.  It's tragic on many levels.

The guy identified as her alleged killer is an illegal immigrant.  He wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.  If he had stayed home, Laken would have finished her run. He didn't and she couldn't. And now the University of Georgia is a border town.

Is it Biden's fault?  He opened the floodgates that let the killer in.  But, wherever he is from, murder is generally considered a heinous offense. Malum per se.  It's horrible everywhere.  So, we are left with the undeniable knowledge that there is evil in this world, and it is the job of every moral person to combat evil.

I mourn for Laken, and pray that somehow justice will be delivered for her.

Doing Things, Learning Stuff

 I've spent all day playing with flyers and posters for an event I have coming up in August.  It's never too early to get things done.

Trying to get under the hood of Microsoft Word, to make it do things I want it to do.  Fried my brain in tutorials. Old dog, new tricks.  

I bought tires online for the first time today.  Now, I have an appointment to get the tires installed next week.  I've never made an appointment to put tires on a car.  Until today.

It's a brave new world.

Constitutional Carry

 That's the big topic in the state legislature today.  Who can carry a gun in public?  Who should be allowed to carry?

Regular readers know that I'm a 2nd Amendment absolutist.  "Shall not be infringed" means just exactly that.  

But, the legislature is hashing out the details right now.  Some places will still be verboten: Bars, schools, federal buildings.  We'll have to see the law when it is finally passed, but it looks like Louisiana is about to rescind the requirement to get a license to carry a concealed firearm. Louisiana has been an open carry state since President Jefferson bought it from France. That has never been a problem.  We learned to deal with that a long time ago.

Still, it will be interesting to see what the legislature comes up with.  The governor is generally supportive of the idea, and will probably sign whatever the legislature passes.  Let Freedom Ring.

Some Photos

 My daughter, like many of her generation, take cellphone pictures. She was at the match yesterday and took some photos.

The old man in the cavalry hat is your humble scribe. The pretty one is my daughter.

A view of the firing line.  You may notice the end stripes of a large American flag hanging in the rafters. I found that flag at an auction.  It is what is known as a mortuary flag.  It originally draped a veterans coffin.  I found it at an auction and I knew that if someone didn't buy it, it would wind up in a dumpster after the sale.  I could not let that happen, so I bought it and hung it over the range.  At the start of every match, we honor it with The Pledge.  It is fitting and proper that wee do so.

The spectator area behind the firing line.  The ladies like to hang out on the couch.  That spot produces a lot of palaver and good-natured ribbing.

Friday Prepping

 The CFDA shooting season is in full swing, and I'm prepping for several shoots.  We have our club monthly match tomorrow, and I'm in the shop, getting ready for that.  Then, looking forward into March, it's going to get busy

Second Saturday in March, the club is hosting a jackpot shoot.  We're doing a 100% payout, so we won't make any money on that one.  Third Saturday is the Texas State shoot, and we're helping with that one.  I'm almost through loading ammo for Texas State.  Fourth Saturday is our club monthly match, and the calendar will roll into April, with Georgia State coming early in April.

Sometime during March, I'll have to go vote in the presidential primary and pull a laver for Trump. Election day in Louisiana is Saturday, March 23d, but I'm sure that there will be early voting.

Did the Supremes ever decide if Trump will be on the ballot in Colorado?  If they did, I haven't seen any news on that.

Outage

 It seems that the big news this morning is that major cell phone companies are experiencing  outages this morning.  It seems that AT&T is the central hub of the outage.

Cyber attack?  Or did someone just trip over an extension cord?  

I have no idea if my phone is working, simply because I don't live my life plugged in to the phone screen.  I did get my daily devotional text this morning, so texting work.

Projects

 I knocked out a couple of piddling projects today.  Nothing special but stuff that needed to be done.  I'll continue in that vein tomorrow.

I haven't really seen anything in the national news that piques me enough to blog about it. The Democrats are generally crazy, and they continue to use the judicial system to attempt to damage the apparent Republican nominee.  This strategy is borne out of desperation.  They are scared to death of him.

This recent fraud case that wrapped up last week has me scratching my head.  Supposedly some sort of commercial fraud, but there are no identifiable victims.  All the banks would do business with him tomorrow and happily got their money the last time.  That doesn't sound like fraud to me. That was nothing but a Stalinist show-trial.

And they wonder why we don't trust them.

Gullible?

 Did y'all hear about this gal named Charlotte, a New York financial columnist who claims she was scammed out of $50K?

It seems that she was called by Amazon who alerted her to identify thrift

Then she was called by the Federal Trade Commission Then she was called by the CIA, and some point she gave $50K to two dudes in a while Mercedes.. Then, she told the whole story to the media, who lapped it up like a cat given a bowl of heavy cream.

Two things.  Either she is too gullible to be writing a fiancé column, or she is trying to explain to her husband what happened to $50K.

I'm going with the Jussie Smollett angle. She's lying about something and she is $50K poorer. And, her husband is truly pissed.

Crock Pot Red Beans

This may be the easiest recipe I've ever found, and we use it fairly often.

Crock Pot Red Beans

2 lbs dried red kidney beans

2 lbs good smoked sausage

16 cups water

2 tablespoons salt

Cooking

Get out the crock pot.  Rinse your beans well.  Cut up your sausage into bite-sized pieces. Put beans, sausage, water and salt into a slow cooker.  Turn it on low, and leave it for at least 12 hours.  I put these beans on last night about 8:00 and let them go all night.  I stirred them when I was drinking coffee this morning, and they are doing fine.  It's nearly 11:00 mow.  In another half hour, I'll put on a pot of rice, and Belle will make a cornbread.

If you don't need a huge pot, this recipe is easily halved.  Bon apetit.

 

New Player

 I see that Taurus has come out with a new single action revolver, suitable for the cowboy games. In .45 Colt with a 4.75" barrel, it might be suitable for fast draw competitions like Belle and I participate in.

It's a small market, it really is.  Most shooters in the wider handgun market prefer a semi-auto, or at least a double action revolver. As much as I like my cowboy guns, the every day carry piece is a compact 9mm.

Currently, the cowboy gun market is dominated by Ruger, Uberti, or Pietta. It's nice to see another player get in the market, and this one has a very attractive MSRP. Taurus calls its gun the Deputy, and it looks like a nice revolver. I'm not going to run out and buy one, but it will be interesting to see if it will stand up to the rigors of fast draw, and it will be interesting to see if standard Colt clone parts fit in it when it invariably breaks.

Its been a rough week!!! Mistakes were made!!!!

Water math.  It is a thing.

A video from my elder son's YouTube channel. He lives on family property and is caretaking it for us. Recently he had a horrendous water bill and set out to find the problem. So, he and second son broke out the excavator and started doing the detective work.

Both of those fellows are Water System Operators, and they each run a municipal water system as a profession.  Licensed and certified by the state of Louisiana, they are masters of the craft of bringing good water in, and bad water out.

Why Bret Weinstein is Concerned About the Migrant Crisis

I'm not sure who Bret Weinstein is, but I generally trust Joe Rogan.

Below is a discussion of the current migrant crisis, and some malevolent hypotheses about why it is occurring and what is in it for the ruling cabal. It's disturbing, it truly is. It's 14:40, but worth the time.

Offering citizenship for military service is not unpresented.  The US offered citizenship to Eastern Europeans after WWII for military service.  My dad's best friend was a Czech who had come to the US, fleeing communism after the war.  He was offered citizenship following a stint in the Army, where he served as a translator.   

The question of why so many people are migrating from South America is interesting.  But the question about the surge of Cinese migrants is horrifying.

The Unfortunate 13th Amendment

 Don Surber makes the case that conditions in the country today are closely paralleling the conditions that existed in the early 19th century.

 “Let’s cut to the chase and call undocumented immigration what it is: modern-day slavery. The flow of undocumented immigrants into the U.S. exists by design, not because of poor border security. Our laws are designed to lure undocumented workers into the country with the prospect of loosely regulated employment (aka a job waiting for them once they arrive). These workers are then exploited while the employers are not held accountable for illegally hiring them.

Go to the link and read the whole thing. Don makes the argument that the Democrats have found a loophole to the 13th Amendment that allows them to exploit migrants for free labor. Kind of like they did in the early 19th century.

Banking in the Century

 An old man ran headlong into the banking industry this morning.  Drinking my coffee, I tried to log on to the bank to assess my liquidity. I could not get in, so I called the tech line, and after an hour or so, decided that THAT wasn't working, so I packed up the computer, cranked the van and went to the back. With a level of pissed-off that I haven't had this year.

I walked into the bank, asked to see the manager.  Sweet young lady, who listened to my complaint with apt attention. Then she told me that she felt like she was being personally attacked.

At that point I took a deep breath, and refrained from telling her that I had been a soldier for 25 years and that if I were attacking her, I would not be talking with her.  I know what an attack looks like and it is much more unpleasant than she could ever imagine. But again, I refrained.  I didn't want her to "catch the vapors", as the old folks once said.

She got me over to her tech guru, and we opened my computer.  It took the tech guru 25 minutes to get my computer communicating with the bank, and she had to call in backup to get it done.  This was not seamless, even for the bank personnel.

This is banking in the 21st century.

Travel Notes

Belle and I rolled in an hour ago, safe at home.  I'll unpack the van shortly.  Traveling in Florida, I noticed VASCAR stripes. VASCAR (Visual Average Speed Computer and Recorder) is a technology we used decades ago.  It detects speeders through the simple math of Distance = Rate X Time.  If you know the distance between two fixed points, you put that in the computer.  Then measure the time it takes the vehicle to go from one point to the next.  Up pops a speed.  It's simple, and accurate with a trained operator.

It's just one way of detecting speeders.  We in Louisiana haven't used VASCAR in decades, but everywhere I looked in Florida, I saw VASCAR stripes on the roadways.

Florida State Update

 We started Florida State this morning with 91 shooters (68 men, 23 ladies).  The way we score matches is that each shooter competes against one individual, drawn randomly by computer.  If you win, you get a W on your scoresheet,  if you lose, you get an X.  We're shooting a 4X match, which means that if you lose 4 times, you are through shooting.

We shot 8 rounds today, and lots of folks have gotten their 4 Xs.  They are done.  The ladies are down to their top seven shooters, which will be decided in the finals tomorrow.  The men had 26 shooters in the 8th round, and several of those got their 4th X.

Your humble scribe is carrying two Xs into the draw tomorrow morning.  I'm sure that the big guns will have their way with me tomorrow, but it ain't over until it's over, and I'm still in it.

Belle and I are ensconced in the hotel, enjoying an adult beverage.  We'll start home tomorrow after I'm through shooting.

Updates

 Like many of you, I rely on a GPS these days to help me through my travels.  My van didn't come with a GPS in the dashboard, so I use a stand-alone unit from Garmin.  I also use the map function in the phone, and actually have a Rand-McNally travel atlas in the van in case things truly go south.

Belle and I are heading to Florida tomorrow for a shooting competition. This afternoon, I brought the Garmin in from the van and plugged it into the computer. Ten minutes later, it was updated. Good stuff.

We are heading to St Augustine for the Florida state championship pf Cowboy Fast Draw. We haven't been to that competition yet and decided that it was a good time to take a trip.   We'll meet up with a bunch of folks we haven't seen since last September and spend a few days enjoying old friends.

Rest In Peace, Toby

Country Music lost an icon, and the American military lost a cheerleader.  Rest in Peace, Toby.

Work Aids

 A work aid is not a tool.  Semantics, to be sure, but evidently it is important, especially in the aviation industry. I have a buddy who has been in the aviation industry his entire working life, generally as a helicopter mechanic. Eventually, he started making small things that helped him during the work day.  This turned in to a full-time business, Helicopter Work Aids.  He's semi-retired now and his sons are running it,  But, he taught me the difference between a tool and a work aid.  A work aid can be as simple as a block of wood to help you hold a part on a bench.

I didn't realize it, but I've been making work aids my whole life.  Simple little things that help me when I'm doing a fiddly job.  Like these two wood blocks, for instance.

Two simple oak blocks, marked with an R, so no one inadvertently throws then away as scrap.  They fit the cylinder hole in a Ruger Vaquero revolver To help me hold it in a vise.

Just like that. A simple aid to hold a revolver so that I can get to the tiny screws without a third hand.

Which brings me to those tiny screws.  Like many of you, I have a cluttered bench and tiny screws are apt to get away.  Or, if someone bumps the bench, they might roll around.  It matters which hole they go back into, and having an aid to keep then segregated makes sense. And, there is one tiny little spring under the backstrap that might get away. Which brings me to my latest work aid.

It's a simple piece of scrap 1X6 with divots drilled into it. When I remove a screw, and that one bouncy spring, I can drop it into a divot and know which hole it came from. I'll have to mark it with a sharpy marker so folks will know not to throw it away.  

My buddy, who makes work aids for a living, has improved on every one of my ideas, with the exception of the wooden blocks.  I showed him my screw-holder yesterday and he looked at it sideways. I could see the gears turning, and I'm sure he will come up with something a bit more polished.  We'll see what the pro does with the idea.

Get Creative

Talking about the Crawfish Bisque recipe, some folks have commented that crawfish are not available, or prohibitively expensive.   Get creative.  If I wanted to use fried fish, I'd just do it a little differently.

One of the basic considerations in Cajun cooking is to use what you have.  If what I had was fried fish, Here is what I'd do.

Boil some angel hair pasta. You know how to do that?  Okay.  When I was making the bisque, I'd add some more seasoning, and maybe substitute a can of Rotel (diced tomatoes and chili peppers) for one of the other cans.

So, we have the pasta, and the sauce, now fry that fish.  When the fish is golden brown, put a bed of pasta on a plate, lay that fish atop it, then ladle some sauce across the fish.  Sounds good, doesn't it?

Cajun cooking is easy.  Use what you have and put as much flavor on the plate as possible. Cajun cooking is not presumptuous, nor complicated. We in Louisiana are blessed with a myriad of seafood possibilities, but other places have other blessings.  Cajun cooking is a way to feed a crowd or a large family as cheaply as possible.  Get creative, and use what you have.  You ain't going to hurt my feelings.

Landry to Explore Death Penalty

 Louisiana has the death penalty for specified crimes, but a death sentence has not been carried out in this state since 2010. Louisiana was suing lethal injections, but there was a reticence on the part of the pharma folks in selling those drugs for ending life.

Last week, Alabama executed a prisoner by using nitrogen, a gas that accounts for 78% of our atmosphere.  Nitrogen is fairly common.  You are breathing it right now. Nitrogen is non-toxic and available everywhere.

Fox News is reporting that Governor Landry is exploring options to begin executions again. Good for him. Louisiana currently has 60 people on death row, and carrying out those sentences is a sure-fire way to reduce the prison population.