Spider Gasket

Evidently, in the multiport valve on the swimming pool is something called a spider gasket.  Mine went out, so I went to YouTube to learn how to fix it.  You can learn anything on YouTube.

So, I took out the old spider gasket and went to the pool supply.  Evidently what I need is a Pentair, Gasket Praher Top, #271104.  Not that any of you care, but when I need another one, a simple Google search on this blog will bring me to the part number.  This information is for me, not for you.  You can even find it on Amazon.  Go figure.

I'm waiting for an hour for the adhesive to season, then we'll turn it on and see if it's fixed.

Rubber Bullets, Really???

It seems that there are folks reporting on the ground in Ferguson who have no idea what they're looking at when they see common shooting paraphernalia.  Like this idiot, a HuffPo reporter named Ryan Reilly.

Those are earplugs, you dumbass.  All of my grandchildren know about earplugs.  Who educated you?

Jeez, where do reporters come from these days?  Are they all idiots?  Or just this one?

Sunday Morning Dawg

It's August in Louisiana, the dog days where heat shimmies off of asphalt roads and every living thing seeks shade. Our patio, the project we completed in July, catches the full morning sun and in the summertime when it's 80-by-eight, the hottest times on the porch are between 8:00 -10:00 a.m.  Full sun on brick and concrete, so the dog has found a spot under Milady's chair that offers a modicum of shade.

That's normally where the dog can be found on a hot summer morning, under Milady's chair, helping her with the crossword puzzle.  Morning sun is a great feature of that porch in the wintertime, but in the summer it's best to wait until noon when it's fully in shade.

The Elio

The Elio is a three wheel commuter car, soon to be built in Shreveport, LA.

It's a two seater, completely enclosed, with an MSRP of under $7,000.  Interesting.

The Elio, a three-wheeled prototype vehicle, is shown in traffic in Royal Oak, Mich., Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Instead of spending $20,000 on a new car, Paul Elio is offering commuters a cheaper option to drive to work. His three-wheeled vehicle The Elio will sell for $6,800 car and can save on gas with fuel economy of 84 mpg. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) 

It looks like a fairly interesting little grocery-getter.  More at the link above.

Skeet

Skeet was my first love in the shooting sports.  Way back in 1965 I was hired as a skeet boy at the McBride Rod and Gun Club, England AFB, LA, for the princely sum of 50 cents per hour.  I was 12 years old.  The club had intramural shoots on Saturday and it was the duty of the skeet boys to lug cases of clays to the trap houses and keep the machines running.  At the end of the day we got to shoot a little, before the range master closed the range.  Great stuff for a 12 year old kid.

With the advent of sporting clays, five-stand, and the other sports, skeet kind of fell by the wayside. but I've always had a love for the semicircular range with eight positions.

I thought that skeet in this area was dead, a long-ago sport that I'd never see again.  Until I opened our local rag yesterday and found that there is a club nearby.  Not much information, but the Bayou Boeuf Skeet Club is located at 120 Meeker Road, Lecompte, LA.  318-776-9301.  Very little information about them on the NSSF page above, but now I've got their address and phone number.  I'll have to call them and see what they're all about.

Date Night

Milady and I are slipping off tonight to see a Neal McCoy concert.  Whatever else needs doing can wait.

It's time for my lady and I to have a little fun.  Y'all play nice until I get back.

Ponchartrain

Pontchartrain is a lake just north of New Orleans.  It's briny, almost salt water and it maintains a healthy population of bull sharks.  It seems that a boy was bitten last week, nothing life threatening, but he got a good dose of teeth marks on his heel.  Of course, this is big news, and we're all concerned for the lad.  However, my daughter commented on Facebook about the incident.

Friend: Hey, (Daughter's name) wanna join me for a swim tomorrow in Pontchartrain? Lol

Daughter: Sure! Ill bring the chum!

She ain't right.  I wonder where she gets her sense of humor?

Golf Ball Launcher?

Aw, jeez!

I was surfing this forum this morning, when the subject of a golf ball launcher came into the conversation.

A friend of mine comes by the other day and hands me a few 5x56 blanks and says "Do you have a golf ball launcher for your AR?" My first thought was what the hell would I want with a golf ball launcher? Anyway long story short, it arrived yesterday and now I'm out of blanks just that fast. Giggles for sure. Did you know that you can get about 150 golf balls on e-bay for $40 bucks? Do now.

Aw, hell.  I didn't realize that such things existed, but it flung a whole 'nuther line of wondering on me.  I wonder, for example, what might happen if I showed up at the next law enforcement golf tournament with a golf bag, an AR-15, and a putter?

The rules would be simple.  Launch the golf ball off the tee or fairway with the AR.  Anything not on the green would be launched by rifle and the player would have to use Kentucky windage to get the ball to the green. On the fairway (perhaps), the butt of the rifle would be placed on the ground and the rifle used like a mortar. On the green, the ball is putted like regulation play.

I can't be the first fellow to have thought about this, but the possibilities are interesting.  It would give the Modern Sporting Rifle a whole new market.

Cartridge, Blank, M200

The US cartridge, blank, M200 is ubiquitous in Army training.  Designed to give the port pressures of standard US 5.56mm ammo, it is used in training with a blank adapter to realistically replicate the sound and function of ball ammunition.  It's very effective in familiarizing folks with the sound of an M16.

Recently, I got a heads-up that I may be asked to do some training in which it might be effective to show folks what common 5.56mm ammo sounds like, so I started casting about for a source of blank ammo.  I was somewhat surprised that Ammo To Go stocks the stuff, so I gave them a credit card number and they promptly sent me some.  It came in today.

I was mildly surprised to find that it ships in the common, brown cardboard box that was so familiar to me in the early '70s.  Same stuff I shot in basic training, in officer training, and on multiple training exercises over about 25 years of soldiering.  That old cardboard box is an old friend, I've personally probably shot a couple of pallets of the stuff over those years.

Talk about a trip down memory lane.  Now, I just have to find a blank adapter.  Amazon sells them, but I think I'll look around before I make an order.  If any of you old soldiers has one, I'll make you a good deal on it.

Justice - And Outrage

I don't know if you've been following the problems in Ferguson, MO, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead, by a police officer, and the rioting that has resulted from that incident.  We don't know all the circumstances and we don't know the facts (was there a struggle for the gun?), and the justice system will sort all that out.  It does no good to speculate at this point.

However, Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review  penned a couple of good paragraphs this morning, worthy of consideration.

“Justice,” Benjamin Franklin suggested, “will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” There is no virtue to playing judge, jury, and executioner before the facts are known. Nor is there anything to be achieved by turning a dispassionate process into a partisan game. No doubt, as in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, we will witness sects forming where they do not belong. Conservatives should resist indulging in this at all costs. But they should also resist appearing uninterested. By asking those who wish to talk about authority what they think about civil society instead, many among us are giving off the impression that there is no circumstance in which Franklin’s outrage is going to be forthcoming — however clear-cut the guilt might be. The question of who guards the guardians pertains now as keenly as it ever has. The Right’s answer should be “we do” — and we’re happy to hang them high if we know that they have transgressed.

I concur.  As they say, go read the whole thing.

Sunday Afternoon

We hosted a birthday party this afternoon for grandson, Zach, who recently turned 12 years old.  Swimming pools and birthday cakes go well on the new patio and today everything worked out fine.  Hamburgers for lunch, then the kids hit the pool until we could transition from hamburgers to birthday cake.

That's an ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen.  This is the first time we've tried that, and it worked out fine.  After cake and presents, the kids got back in the pool until a thunderstorm made PawPaw invoke the thunder rule.  (When it's thundering close, everyone out of the pool.)

Sunday Morning Dawg

Sometimes, having a dog is like having a rambunctious three-year-old.  You've got to watch them constantly, because they get into places they know they shouldn't be.

Yesterday morning, the dog and I went out to check the mail.  After I got to the box, I turned to walk back to the house, and the dog thought he'd wander across the street.   He knows he's not allowed in the street, but he figured he could get away with it, before I hollered at him.  "Get back over here!"

That's the dark asphalt street behind him, and the lighter concrete driveway in the foreground.  He's moving fast, still picking up speed.  He knows he's been caught.

He's fully in the driveway now, in a dead sprint.  I couldn't help but chuckle as he headed to the carport door.

Dirty Jobs

An interview with Mike Rowe, on Reason TV, talking about the skilled trades and opportunities today.



Great quote:  In the beginning, a freelancer was a knight who served no lord.  His lance wasn't free, but it was sold to the highest bidder.

Another quote:  If I depended on a skilled work force, I wouldn't depend on the public education system to provide it.

It's great stuff, it's forty minutes, and it covers a broad range of subjects.

Brady Dies, ruled Homicide

USA Today is reporting that the death of James Brady, the former press secretary of president Ronald Reagan, is a homicide, stemming from the shooting that left Brady partially paralyzed in 1981.

WASHINGTON--The death of James Brady has been ruled a homicide resulting from John Hinckley Jr.'s attempted 1981 assassination of President Ronald Reagan, the Virginia Medical Examiner ruled Friday.
As a result, D.C. Metropolitan Police are investigating the death of the former White House press secretary and gun control icon. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the shooting that left Brady partially paralyzed.

 So, why are the DC Police investigating?  We know that Hinckley shot Brady.  He's been tried for the crime and was found not guilty by reason of insanity.  That ship has left the port.  It's done, it's over.

My condolences to the Brady family.  From all accounts, James Brady was a honorable, decent man.  He and I may have disagreed on a number of issues, but that doesn't detract from his honor, or his decency.  May he rest in peace.

Crazy

Crazy at work today.  Not bad crazy, just steady crazy.  School starts next week, on Tuesday, and lots of parents in the School Board offices, getting information.  Teacher in-services going on, bus driver in-services going on, food service in-services going on.  It's been crazy for the past two days.

Between answering questions and directing people who seemed lost, I've been updating my research on school shootings.  I'm the subject matter expert, so I've got to stay on top of the material, and I've heard a rumor that I'll be asked to in-service the central office staff in a couple of weeks.  We'll see if that happens, but it never hurts to stay current.  You never know when the boss will want to play show-and-tell.

But, now it's Friday afternoon.  As soon as Milady gets home, I"m declaring happy hour.

Brakes

It's been my karma lately to do a couple of brake jobs for friends and loved ones who don't have the cash to take the car to the shop, and I don't mind.  Normally, brake jobs are easy with disc brakes, a lot easier than the old drum brakes I worked on at my grandfather's knee.  However, yesterday I saw something I thought I'd never see.  My friend told me that she had a shade-tree brake job done in December, last, and that she was hearing a grinding in the back end, suspected the brakes.  I drove the truck and agreed.  Something wrong back there.

Got home from work, our friend brought the truck over, and I jacked it up and took off the left rear tire. My son showed up to help, a very capable school trained mechanic.  Yep, brakes are shot, so I inspected the rotor as well..  Yep, it's shot too.  Still, she had a full brake job eight months ago, what's up with bad brakes on the truck?   I went around to the right side, jacked it up, took the tire off.  Those brakes look great, nearly new.  Whazzup with that?  New brakes on the right, horrible bad brakes on the left?  Maybe a bad caliper.

Consulted with my son, a SAE trained mechanic.  First class wrench-bender.  Sounds like a bad caliper to him as well.  So, he's there, helping, and we go to the parts store (and my friend had her receipts from December), and we talked to the parts guy, got a new rotor, new brake pads, and a new caliper.  Came back to the house, installed them.  Bled the system, tested the brakes.  She's good for another couple of years.

Friend called her last shade-tree mechanic, told him what we'd found, and he told her that he had only done a right-side brake job.

Whatthehell?  Who does a right-side brake job and doesn't do the left?  That's the damndest thing I've ever heard.  My grand-daddy (and my father, for that matter) would be shaking their heads in disbelief.   A right-side brake job?  I'm still shaking my head in disbelief.

Laser Strikes

It seems that a California court has sentenced a man for striking a police helicopter with a laser beam.

The man, Brett Lee Scott of Buttonwillow, took a plea deal with federal prosecutors according to a May 5, 2014 court filing. Scott explained his actions by saying that he was “bored.”

It's dangerous to shoot laser beams at airplanes, helicopters and the like  It's also  illegal.  What many people don't know is that it's dangerous to fire a laser beam at a person.  Laser beams are tough on eyes, and if you strike a person in the face, it can blind them.  Even the toy lasers sold in beach-front gift shops are cumulatively dangerous.

I was explaining that to a person once, and they remonstrated, "They sell those things in toy shops, how can that be dangerous?  It's perfectly legal to buy a laser"

I replied.  "They sell rifles at Wal-Mart.  Perfectly legal.  Do you want me pointing my rifle at you?"

This is simply a public service announcement  Lasers are dangerous.  Treat them like they're dangerous.

Timex Alarm Clock

I've got a Timex Alarm Clock on my nightstand.  A common, black alarm clock,   Very simple, analog, it runs on batteries.  It looks a lot like this.

Mine's black, this one is sliver.  Same clock.  Point being that once a year I change the battery in that clock, and I did so this afternoon.  You see, tomorrow I go back to work after my summer break, and while the alarm clock hasn't been set since late May, it'll be set tonite.  And tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m., I'll get up and make coffee.

It's time to put on my boots and go back to work.  Just Damn.

Sunday Morning Dawg

A file shot, if you will, taken Friday morning, of the dog watching it rain.  He's not a big fan of the rain, but he's okay in the garage where he can watch from dry concrete.

It's okay, pup, rain doesn't last forever.

Rain

Gene Hill once wrote that rain is probably the oldest sound to reach the porches of man's ears.  I like the sentiment, and I like the visual image, and that's what I woke to this morning.  Rain.  It's been coming down steadily since before daylight.

Not the angry, thundering, lightning-strewn rain, but the grey sky, steady drenching rain that lasts all day.  And, the weather maps tell me that it's likely to last all day.  The ditches are running, and everything is drenched, and that's okay with me.  The rain held off when I was doing my projects.  For that I am grateful.  I had some things scheduled for today, but they can easily be put on hold.  Rain is God's way of telling me to take a break, and I'm okay with that too.

I've got some piddling I can do inside, and later today, after Milady gets off from work, we'll slip off to the auction, and maybe after that slip off to have some fun.  But, in the meantime, there are piddling tasks I can take care of inside, and the sound of rain on a metal roof is always a good sound to reach the porches of my ears.

I think I"ll sit on the patio for a few minutes and watch it rain.