Spam Callers

 My buddy, a CFDA club member has a home range in his shop.  He practices fast draw out there so that he can place consistently in club matches. Last week, he reported that he was shooting in his home range when He got a spam call. The conversation went like this.

Phone rings, he answers it.  "Hello"

He listens for a few seconds, determines it it a spam call, then speaks in a frantic tone. " Who are you?  What are you doing in here?  I'll shoot you.  

He then fires two shots into a target.  Pow!  Pow! "Oh, damn.  Look at all that blood"

He says at that point, the call dropped.  Imagine that.

Doing PawPaw Chores

 Several weeks ago, grandson Zach told me that his car wasn't starting properly.  We got it into the shop, and I had a son come over and we could not diagnose the problem. When I, with an ace mechanic stood over the car, it started fine.  The mechanic told me that the starter was the original in the car, and when it finally died, replace the starter.

I remember going to my grandad when I was a stripling youth with mechanical troubles.  He would sigh deeply, put on his shoes and come out to the shop where we would fix whatever was broken on the car.  I remember those days fondly.

Zach drives a 2004 Toyota Corolla that was bought brand-new by my Dad.  He died in 2007 and Mom drove it until they took the keys away.  Now it's Zach's car and he loves it  It's his first car, and we all remember our first car. (Mine was a 1960 Ford Falcon).

Zach came to me today.  His car would not start.  I sighed deeply and went outside to the driveway, where we made room in the garage and pushed his car into it.  Got out some tools, watched a YouTube video and started tearing into it.   In about an hour, we had the starter out, went to the auto store and got a replacement.  While the starter was out, we checked the battery.  Meh.

By the time it was cocktail hour, we had a new starter and battery in the car.  I was pleased to see that his air filter is clean, so he's doing basic maintenance.  He took a shower and now he's off doing whatever it is young men do on a Friday evening.  As for me, I'm having a cocktail and nursing a sore back from pushing a Corolla into the garage.  I think I'll have one more, then go get a shower myself.

That's why this place is named PawPaw's House.  It's all about the grandkids.

In Comments

 As we're remembering Katrina, oddly enough it's raining outside.  A good, old fashoned stump floating rain, I'm looking at comments.

Steve says:

Everyone talks about NO but Katrina didn't actually hit NO. They never had hurricane force winds. Nearly all the damage in NO was due to a defective (due to corruption) levee breaking. The storm actually came ashore in Mississippi and travelled up the middle of the state, destroying almost the southern third of Mississippi.

Yep, you are correct.  Katrina hit New Orleans only as a glancing blow.  They got mild Ct 2 winds.  What killed New Orleans was the lack of planning and a series of levee breaches.  Katrina was a flooding event for New Orleans.  Mississippi got hammered, but the officials there were quick to respond and to begin the rebuilding process.

Bon recalls:

3 things I remember most: 1. Months of finger pointing. 2. Cops looting. 3. The disarming of an old lady in her own home as she was trying to defend herself from the out of control lawlessness.

That is also correct.  Katrina changed Louisiana law in many good ways.  One of the biggest changes was a constitutional amendment making it illegal for cops to confiscate any firearms during a public emergency. The agency can be held liable ad the cops can be held individually liable.

Both the mayor and the police chief were indicted after the disaster, and the NOPD was virtually disbanded. Individual cops were sued and some were jailed.

Remembering Katrina

 Monday morning, August 25, 2005.  A big storm was in the Gulf and they weren't sure where it was going.  The schools were closed and I was sitting home watching the Weather Channel. During the few hours before landfall, it wobbled and looed like it was going to hit Bay St. Louis, MS.  Of course, it was a big storm and the western side of it hit New Orleans.

I was watching the disaster unfold, with pictures of hundreds of school buses, flooded in a large parking lot. The TV went to our governor, Kathleen Blanco, who was crying on national TV and the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, who was deflecting blame.

I remember telling Belle, "Well, there goes New Orleans."

One of the most iconic images to come out of that tragedy was the fellow stealing beer, who we all called Looter Man.

He's got it going-on.  Waist deep in flood water with a plastic tote of stolen beer.  He's going to a party.

It's been 20 years and I don't know if New Orleans has fully recovered. The governor died of cancer a few years ago, ad Ray Nagin is out of prison.  I understand that he is in New Orleans, still trying to deflect blame

Sixteen Years

 We're learning more about the Minneapolis shooter and what we're learning is disturbing.

He was part of the LBGTQAI community.  He was a full-grown adult and he purchased his firearms legally.

In 2002 our local sheriff spotted a trend and decided to do something about it.  He passed a tax initiative, a one-cent sales tax to fund it.  He promised the voters that he would put a fully qualified in each school in the parish. The tax passed in the spring of the year and the sheriff started identifying deputies to work the schools.  I was one of those deputies selected.

The School Board initially resisted.  To no avail.  The concept had been voted on by the citizens of the parish. We, my fellow School Resource Officers, did not work fort the schools.  We worked for the Sheriff.  We were free to conduct law enforcement to the best of our abilities and training.

In my sixteen years as a school-house cop, no one was seriously injured on my watch.  I  attended a lot of sporting events, wandered the halls of the school, and made a few arrests. Sometimes the principal was happy, sometimes the principal was not.  I didn't work for them.

Would a Resource Officer have made a difference in Minnesota?  We'll never know, will we?  However, having a trained law enforcement officer on scene when the day goes sideways is never a bad thing.

Troubling

 News sources everywhere are telling us of a shooting earlier today in Minneapolis.

School children were attending a Mass at their local parish to celebrate the beginning of the school year.  Some coward started shooting into the church.

ABC News is reporting that the shooter, who committed suicide at the scene,  had changed his/her name several years ago.

A name change application for a minor born on the same date was approved by a district court in Minnesota in 2020, changing the name of a Robert Westman to Robin Westman, explaining the minor child "identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification."

 I'm not sure what to make of that, but it doesn't sound like the shooter was a right-wing nutjob.  Actually, very few mass shooters identify from the conservative side of the political spectrum.

We will learn more as the investigation gains momentum.  There are still victims in the hospital and we will pray for their quick recovery.

Land Acknowledgement

 I see that the DNC started their summer camp with a land acknowledgement.  Those seem to be in fashion these days among some quarters, so I thought that I would do a little research to see who we stole this land from.

As it turns out, nobody.  This land was never stolen.

Sometime around 1785 a Pennsylvania trader named Fulton came to this area and set up a trading post.  Over the years, he bought land from the Choctaw tribe.  The Choctaw thought it was a good deal because the land was unfit for farming and would grow nothing but trees. The Choctaw moved into what is now LaSalle parish.  They still have a tribal home there and a casino just down the road.  The Choctaw people are not hurting.

Fulton, of course, sold bits of it to others and they subsequently sold it to yet other people, and today I own a bit of it.  The damnYankees burned out Courthouse during the war, which really screwed up the land records, but we sorted it out.  Then, sometime around 1898 the Courthouse burned again and we had to start over.

Lots of sketchy history in this area.  David Bowie of Alamo fame was a land speculator in the area, but got into trouble when he killed the sheriff at the Sandbar Fight.  He then decamped to Texas where he got involved in another fight that turned out poorly for him.  The Sheriff's picture hangs in the new, rebuilt Courthouse, but np pictures of Bowie can be found.

But, we didn't steal land from the Choctaw.

Big News

 It seems that the big news this morning is that some football player is engaged to marry some pop star.  Woo Hoo!  We're all supposed to be excited about that.  Sorry, I just can't gin up the enthusiasm.

I'm taking Belle to lunch today.  We're searching for a venue for next years state shoot and we're excited about that. We think that we have a spot identified and we're meeting with the venue owner to hammer out the details. Our shoot isn't until Memorial Day next year, but the sooner I have a contract, the sooner I can start promotion.

Tangipahoa Parish

 Four days ago, Smitty's Supply in Roseland, LA blew up.  Smitty's is an oil and lubricants supplier on the Tangipahoa river in Louisiana. Everybody is pissed.  Rightfully so.  Oil fires leave a huge environmental footprint, and it is on the river and only four days have elapsed, so the answers aren't forthcoming right now.

PawPaw is in central Louisiana, so we're fine  We're just watching the drama and keeping track of our own little day-to-day.

Luckily, no one was hurt in the explosion of fire, so that is a blessing.  Tangipahoa parish will recover and the clean-up should begin shortly.  Then, the lawyers get involved and complicate what should be a very simple, straightforward process.  

Chicken Fried

 Let's talk about this.  Fried chicken is a Southern staple, especially on Sundays.  Fried chicken has the bone in it. Go to KFC or Popeyes and get some fried chicken.  There will be a bone.

Chicken Fried is a process.  You can have chicken fried steak, or chicken fried pork tenderloin,  or even chicken fried chicken.  But that is different from fried chicken.  Today, I took some boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut them into strips, then pounded them uniformly flat.  Seasoned them in Toony's seasoning, rolled them in flour, then an egg was, then into panko crumbs. I make my own panko crumbs by the simple expedient of crushing saltine crackers into crumbs.  Then, I heated the oil to 350F and dropped them in to a golden brown.

We served those with baby lima beans, mashed potatoes and cream gravy.  I served eights people with seven chicken breasts, and we have leftovers.

Rebrand, Refresh

 I see that Cracker Barrel is going through a rebrand.  The internet is going crazy, which is to say that it is just another day on the internet.

I've always liked Cracker Barrel.  It was a roadside standard, like McDonalds or Popeye's.  You knew what you were getting. Lunch served on a plate rather than a cardboard box.  Belle liked walking through the gift shop.  Looking at the shirts.  All I cared about was the meatloaf and the mashed potatoes.

But, it is fun watching the internet go crazy.  On both sides.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have Saturday to get to.  About 20 shooters will show up in an hour, and I have to get the range ready.

Drop Safe

 Dropping a handgun is bad juju. We all remember the old Colt SAA, where if you loaded all six chambers, the gun was demonstrably unsafe because the firing pin was resting on a live primer.  There were ways to get around that, the most common being to load only five chambers and letting the hammer rest on an empty chamber. Very safe.

The original 1911 had an inertial firing pin but if dropped directly on the muzzle on a live cargridge, the gun could fire when dropped.  Having an empty chamber kinda-sorta negated the idea of a semiauto, so in the 70s, Colt introduced the Series 70 which had a firing pin block to lock th firing pin until the trigger was pulled. The engineering on how to do that is well known and the patents have expired.

Other manufacturers have other ways to skin that cat.  The Glock dingus on the trigger, the Savage Accutrigger,  are other ways to deep us safe.  This is not rocket science.

I spend a lot of time shooting Cowboy Fast Draw, using Ruger single actions and Colt reproductions to play a shooting game. Occasionally a shooter will drop his or her revolver and we have a procedure for that eventuality. The shooter cannot retrieve his own dropped handgun. The gun must be retrieved and made safe by a match official.  It's a process, but invariably, when the gun comes to rest, it is cocked and pointed toward the fringe line. Again, there is a process for making the gun safe, but the one thing that you never see is that the gun fired during the drop or impact with the ground. I've never seen one fire when it hits the ground.

Odd, isn't it?  It must have something to do with the trigger geometry.

Even though we use safety ammunition, we still consider a dropped gun to be a safety violation. If you drop the gun once, you lose that round.  If you drop it twice, you are disqualified.  But I've never seen one fire when it hits the ground.

Can SIG Recover?

 Back in the early 90s, the Louisiana State Police bought a bunch of SIG handguns, and used them for a year before finish problems became an issue. The finish on the Sigs to that date siply couuld not stand up to the humidity of the Louisiana roads. LSP went to Glock and never looked back.

Couple of years ago, my grandson was in the Army and attended 93F (Small Arms Repairer) training at Fort Lee, VA.  He worked with the then new M17 and M18 pistols.  He liked then well enough but was not at all a fan of the modular fire control group in those pistols.

More recently, the P320 has gained a reputation for un-commanded firing of the pistol.  They just go off, occasionally.  I dropped down that rabbit hole today and it seems to be quite the problem, including one death of an Air Force member. I went to the Sig website and can't seem to find where Sig is addressing what is becoming a huge problem.  Whether the problem is poor design, out-of-spec parts, poor quality control, a statistical anomaly, or simply an internet perception, the idea that Sig is not addressing it is the main problem.

A problem with perception is still a problem.  As Ian McCollum pointed out, there are people who still refuse to shoot Springfield 1903s because of a perceived heat-treat problem from 100 years ago.

Ignoring the problem won't make it go away.  I, for one, have my pistols.  I won't be buying any Sigs, simply because I don't need one.

Here is Brian Herrera's take on it.

Fried Bologna

 Fried bologna is probably one of the most Southern recipes I know.  Simply put a slice of bologna in a lightly oiled skillet and fry it until it is brown.  Many of us cut slices in the edges of the bologna so that it won't curl up as it fries.

I had mine today on toast with mayo and provolone cheese.  It's what's for lunch.

Watching the Tropics

 A quick check of the National Hurricane Center map this morning shows that the tropics are becoming more dynamic.

Nothing to get too excited about, at least in the short term.  Nothing there that might hit my acre in the next several days.  We awoke this morning to overcast and drizzly.  Moderate temps, but the humidity is like walking into a wet blanket.  It's going to be a quiet day, I don't even expect to cook today.  I have salad fixings in the fridge and sandwich makings as well.  Lunch is likely to be a tossed salad and a fried bologna sandwich.

Pure Evil

 I see that Hillary has come out of her cave, consulted with Beelzebub and offered her wisdom on the current political climate.  Seriously.

I've never been on a subway, and I doubt that Hill has been on one in the past twenty years.  I also doubt that she has walked down any city street without layers of personal and government security.  Therefore, her observed opinion is absolutely worthless.

But evidently, she is now in favor of crime and homelessness.  That is just evil.

Hillary, in the broader sense, displays the disarray of the Democrat party.  By complaining that President Trump is cleaning up the streets, they fall on the low side of an 80-20 issue.

Late Afternoon Thunderstorms

 We've been getting them this week.  Every day this week. Sometimes between 3:00 and dark, the bottom falls out.  Lots of thunder and wind.  By dark, it's done.

I don't recall ever seeing this in August.  August is normally the time for drought.  Right now, outside, the thunder is rolling.   The cats are upset, but they know where to stay dray.  Belle estimates that, based on the level of the water in the pool, we have gotten about 3 inches in the past hour.

It's Friday afternoon, and I have a good roof.  We're indoors and dry and cocktail hour approaches.

Root Causes

 We look at teen violence and try to ascribe root causes to try to rationalize behavior.  Most of that rationalization is bullshit. I watched lots of families raise kids while I was raising my kids.  Both in the social circles I cruised and as a law enforcement officer. I watched families struggle to raise kids with mixed results and it is almost impossible to predict criminality.

I watched single parents (both men and women) struggle to raise kids, and raised them successfully.  I know one family who had stable parents and good parenting skills who raised six well-adjusted successful tax paying citizens. But that same family had one child (not the oldest, not the youngest) who had been to prison three times by the time he was 40 years old. 

The sociologists try to put people in groups to explain societal problems and that is not always predictive.  There are always outliers.  Some single parents do a great job and some two-parent households experience disaster.

The best thing that a society can do to establish tranquility it to set rules and enforce them. A rule that is not enforced is useless.  We could start with the 10 Commandments, or use Hammurabi's Code but to be effective it must be enforced.

As a cop, I learned that the rules change from time to time. It was not my job to try to understand why someone would choose to break the law.  It was simply my job to enforce it.  If the legislature wanted to change the rules, they were free to do so, and I would adjust my performance to comply with those changes. If the Courts wanted to re-interpret the rules, that was okay too.

I never worried about root causes.  I left that to the academics.

Most Dangerous

 Each year, US News and World Report lists the 25 most dangerous cities in the United States.

President Trump made news this week when he announced that he was federalizing the Metro DC police department.  Judge Jeanine made news saying that she was not interested in "root causes", that her while job was prosecuting criminals and making victims whole. Evidently, roving gangs of unsupervised youth have become a problem, committing crimes that the "juvenile Justice" system is either unable or unwilling to prosecute.

The issue for juvenile crime is not what the system treats.  The issue is parenting.  Parenting is hard.  I know that I did crazy stuff when I was a kid, and I know that my kids did crazy stuff when they were kids.  Yet, I had good parents and my kids had good parents. My parents were responsible for me, and I was responsible for my kids. It works out well like that.

Changing gears to make a metaphor, if I had a vicious dog and let him roam freely, than I have no doubt that when that dog hurt someone, the police would soon be at my door to hold me accountable.  Likewise, parents should be held accountable for the actions of the child.

Imagine my surprise when I read the US News list of dangerous cities, and I found my hometown, Alexandria, LA, listed in #6.  A small metro in central Louisiana of about 45,000 folks.  Wow.  Who is responsible for a city making the list?  That is easy.

The Mayor.  The mayor is the chief executive, responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen.  The mayor sets the tone for the local police department.

The Sheriff.  The sheriff is the elected law enforcement officer in the parish. While the mayor controls the local police, the sheriff is still the elected cop running the parish.  He can augment or take over the law enforcement in the whole parish.

The District Attorney.  The District Attorney is the prosecutor.  That is his sole job.

Crime is a problem.  The reason I don't live in Alexandria any more is because crime got too bad 20 years ago. The lected leaders let too many people get away with too much.  It's time to crack down hard and make Rapides Parsh a safe place to live and work.

Here Comes Erin

 The Atlantic hurricane season is cranking up, and we're already up to the Es in named storms.  Here comes Erin.

It is too early to know if she is going to hit the continental US, but she certainly bears watching.

No DEF, No Regen

 I hear that President Trump is going to roll back some of the more onerous of the Obama-era fuel emission standards.  It's about time.

When I bought the Kubota in 203, one of the first things I wanted to know was if the engine needed DEF or had a regen cycle.  No on both counts, and I bought it.

I was alive in '75 when the standards took effect.  We've suffered under these standards for 50 years and they have only become more onerous.  These days, the only engines that truly breathe are built in garages by backyard tinkerers.  Rolling back some of these regulations should help the industry at large.   

The world really needs a good, simple pickup truck, about the size of the old F100 or the similarly sized Chevy.  Put a small V8 in it, with a good standard transmission.  Add air, a decent radio, and add plenty of cell chargers.  Set the price at $25K and they would sell a million of them.

The Kubota is doing fine, by the way.

Mexican Expeditions

 I'm hearing rumblings that President Trump is going to let DoD partner with CBP and the FBI and other agencies to target the Mexican cartels.

Tis is not unprecedented.  I the 1870s, US Troops were in northern Mexico looking for Germinoma.  In 1916-17, US troops were in northern Mexico looking for Pancho Villa.

Is it a good idea for the US to become embroiled on foreign soil looking for the cartels?  I'm not sure.  They are a pain in the ass, trafficking  both humans and drugs across the border, killing thousands of Americans.  As much as I like to wave the flag and turn our enemies into pink mist, I have to admit that this may not be a good idea.  The cartels are well armed, technologically competent, and they know the ground.  

I'm no expert on the cartels in Mexico and the challenges that we might face when we cross the river, but I hope that the decision-makers are listening to experts in that region.  With the 1st Armor at Bliss and the 1st Cav at Hood, we have plenty of forces on the ground to take and hold terrain, but I'm not really sure that this is a job for Big Army.

Watching the Tropics

It's August now, and history tells us that the tropics are going to tart getting frisky.   Some of the notable August hurricanes that I remember whacking Louisiana were Camille (1969), Andrew (1996), Katrina (2005), Gustav (2008), and Harvey (2017).  I'm sure I missed a few, but those are the ones that I recall re-arranging my property. Katrina missed us, but the inflow of refugees played havoc with our locale.

The weather-weenies are telling us that this August is shaping up to be more active, but historically, September is the big month. I've been keeping an eye on NOAA and I'll continue to check them until November.

Selling Clothes

 Like much of America, I was mildly amused over the past couple of weeks about the faux outrage over an attractive female selling jeans. Imagine that, a girl who might be described as "a good-looking thang" is used to sell a product.  From all reports, the jeans are flying off the shelves.

I'm old enough to remember when Jordache or Girbaud were considered must-have for the fashionistas.  More locally, down behind the rodeo pens, you are likely to see Wrangler or Levis. Until last week, I had never heard of American Eagle, but their ad campaign is a smashing success.

If the Budweiser execs were smart, they would do an ad with Miss Sweeney in jeans and a tank top holding a Bud Light.

Maintenance

 I spent an hour today with the gun cabinet open, taking out old friends and new acquaintances.

My old Winchester 94 was dry as a bone.  It needed a little oil and a little exercise of the action.  This one, of course, is in .30 WCF and used to go on stalking hunts with Junior Doughty.  It hasn't been out of the cabinet since Junior died, and that is a damned shame.  I really need to take it to the range and let it bark.

I took out the push-feed Model 70, the latest addition to the cabinet, and gave it another once-over.  It's a lite-model synthetic stock, but I swear, that rifle has the best trigger I've ever felt on a factory rifle.  It could use a better scope, and we'll see about that soon, but this one also deserves a trip to the range.

It's August, and it's timeto get out the rifles and make sure that we're ready for the fall.

What's Fer Lunch

 A new recipe for me, basically a Chicken Parmesan

The Parmesan sauce is simple, ;a half stick of butter melted in a saucepan, with a cup of heavy cream.  Heat the cream, the melt shredded parmesan in it until the sauce has the flavor you like.

The chicken is simply a piece of breast meat, tenderized, then dredged in seasoned flour, than an egg wash, then panko crumbs.  Fried at 350F until golden brown.

I whipped up some box mashed potatoes to go with it.  Now, by belly is full and I'm wondering how to spend the afternoon.

Procedures

 Took Belle to the hospital this morning for a routine procedure.  Everything is fine, one of those routine things that the doc can use to justify his existence. The procedure took about 20 minutes, but the rest of the time was taken up by intake paperwork and discharge paperwork, so a 20-minute procedure took five hours.

Can't really blame the doc or the hospital.  They do what they need to do to keep the government and the lawyers at bay.  Still, it pisses me off.  But, Belle is fine and that eases her mind. So, today wasn't a total waste.

AC Installed

Today after church, the boys came over and we installed the  new AC unit in the shop.

My shop is 40X50 with 10' eaves, the roof peak rises 5' in the center.  Simple math tells me that I have 25,000 cubic feet to cool or heat.  When the shop was built, I had 1 inch of closed-cell foam sprayed everywhere. To cool it, I have three (3,) window AC units, each pumping 18,000 BTU. Which means that I actually have more tonnage of air conditioning in the shop than I have in the house.

The challenge was the framing in the shop.  When we built it, we had the AC units on the floor ready to install and the contractor used that measurement when he framed the building. The holes in the side of the building are welded purlin.  They aren't moving  I had to make sure that whatever unit I bough would fit in that hole.  As it turned out, my measurement was good and we were able to take out the chassis of the old AC unit and simply slip the new AC unit into the old cabinet.  It worked like a charm.  Of course, we had to go to Lowe's and buy anew female outlet, because the electrical connection on the new unit was different fromwhat I had in the box.  And, I needed a new bod.  Oh, and let's not forget the new breaker, because this unit is rated at a higher amperage than the old one.

But, the new unit is installed and working, and that is off my list.  For that I am grateful.  Next week will bring another set of challenges, and I'm ready for that.

French Girl Reacts to Louisiana Cajun French

Okay, this is coo.  Surfing around on Saturday morning, I stumbled across this video where a French woman talks about Louisiana French and how it differs from standard French.  It all goes back to the history of Louisiana

In the mid 1700s, the British expelled the French from Nova Scotia. This took several forms, but a bunch of those unfortunate souls washed ashore in Louisiana. They formed the basis of our French-speaking culture.  My maternal grandmother, Gretna Segura, was directly descended from those Canadians and spoke French in her childhood household.  When she went to school, she was punished for speaking French and refused to teach it to her descendants.  What little I've picked up was from other sources.

So, we have this Parisian gal listening to our Louisiana patois and commenting on how close it is to her standard French. It's a cool 13 minutes to spend on a Saturday.

Refrigeration

 July was the month for refrigeration problems at PawPaw's House.  On July 12th, the home AC system went out after 24 years and we replaced it on July 16th.  About that same time, I noticed that one of the AC units in the shop was struggling, so I cleaned the coils and filters and prayed that it would limp along until the end of the cooling season.  No such luck. I went down on Wednesday and bought a new one.  We will install it this weekend.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that the beef/soda fridge in the shop was acting wonky.  I moved some stuff around in the freezer, thinking that the door had not sealed properly.  Termite came ovver yesterday afternoon, and the beer was cool.  Not cold.

I checked it this morning, and it had gone tits-up.  Deader'n Het.  Belle did a quick online search, and we fired up the truck and headed to Lowes.  We lost some stuff out of the freezer.  We were able to save a couple of pounds of deer meat and a small package of catfish filets.  Termite came over and helped me unload the new fridge.

Thanks, Termite.  Nothing else can go out in July, simply because July is over.  I can't wait to see what August holds.

JJs Burns

 In the village of Natchez, LA in south Natchitoches Parish, stood the twin business of the Rite Way grocery and JJs Lounge.  John and Judy Gibson built the place in the mid 1970s.  Rite Way sold bred, milk, gas, and beer.  JJs Lounge was the redneck hangout for farmers, cattle growers and blue collar folks who lived in the area. It was the place to stop in a get a beer on the way home, and they had live music on the weekend.  It was a hopping joint and I had a lot of good memories from that place.

KALB.com, our local TV station is reporting that it burned this morning.  Judy left the area about 20 years ago when she and John divorced, and I heard last year that John had sold the place and retired. Today, I hear that it has burned.

Rite Way and JJs were a fixture in south Natchitoches for about 50 years. KALB says that the cause of the fire is under investigation.  

Balance

 As in all things in life, moderation is key. It's a matter of claim whether any man in this age is truly free and most of the freedom we have lost over the past several decades is self-imposed. Many of the chains we carry in our daily lives were forged in technology.

My father was a visionary, predicting in the 60s that one day our television would come to our houses through wires and our telephones would be carried in our pockets. He worked for Ma Bell and spent time at the laboratory in upstate New York.  He knew what they were working on.  I'm old enough to remember when a telephone was something that hung on wall in the kitchen beside the refrigerator.

Nowadays, the cell phone is as ubiquitous as pants.  It has replaced the camera, the rolodex and the wrist watch.  In many cases it has replaced the television and the road map. There was a time when we could leave the house and be un-reachable until we returned, whether for an hour or a month. If you ran a business, you needed someone in the office to answer a phone.

The contractor who installed my new AC unit last week (and he did a great job) was on the phone several times during the installation.  It's a vital part of his business and I understand that. Times change, and people with it.

Cell technology has revolutionized modern culture, yet  I wonder sometimes if it is more a necessity or a leash. Call me a curmudgeon, but I refuse to be leashed.  It exists for my convenience and no one else's. There are times when I put it on the desk and walk away from it.  Maybe for an hour, maybe for all day.  If somone dies, I'll hear about it.  If it's important, I'll see the missed call or check the text.

Balance is important.

Monday Reflection

 I may have been wrong about that whole po' folks with cell phone post.  I've been wrong before. I'll be wrong again.

Lets move on to the whole "Russian collusion" scandal.  The hyperbole is as over the top now as it was when they were accusing Trump of being a Russian asset. "The Biggest Scandal In Our Nation's History".  I don't know about all that.  Credit Mobilier was a pretty big scandal. Watergate took down a sitting president. When people start getting indicted, I'll believe that this scandal has legs.  Until then, it's just noise.

Turning to our Justice Dept, and the number of things we've been promised that doesn't seem to have been released.  For example, the Epstein files, the JFK files, the RFK files, I'm beginning to believe that Pam Bondi has a Bermuda Triangle desk.  Files that land on her desk seem to vanish without a trace.

Locally, the heat wave continues unabated.  This is late July and we're screaming toward August. Todays lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich, along with a nice cool salad. I have no plans to cook over the next several days, but I am placated by the idea that by mid-October, we'll be back to gumbos and stews.

Po' Folks

 We had a visiting preacher at church this morning.  A Godly man who preached out of Luke.  He was relating a story about a recent mission trip to Guatemala, where he helped serve the downtrodden, poverty-stricken people of that country.  Spreading the Gospel of Christ along with meals and a cot for those who needed it.  Godly work.

Then he lost me.  He was telling about a big tent that the community used as a gathering place and he was in there one night and found an old guitar.  He picked it up and started strumming, singing a song that he knew, then noticed that the downtrodden had taken out their cell phones and were recording him.

What?  Cell phones?  That's where I draw the line.  IF you have a cell phone, you ain't poor.

The cell phone is the technological marvel of the late 20th and early 21st century. Cell phones cost money, and cell service costs money, and if a person has a cell phone, they hold in their hands the complete knowledge of the human species from the pharos until today.

Fifty years ago, no one could afford a smart phone.  At any price.  I remember resisting the impulse to buy a cell phone plan because it was too expensive.  And, I remember my first cell phone.

The people of Guatemala that the good pastor was helping may be a lot of things.  Like everyone else, they need the Gospel, and I'm sure that they need food and a helping hand.  But, if they have cell phones, they ain't po' folks.

Late July - Dog Days

 It's hot here in central Louisiana in late July. Nothing moves during the afternoon that doesn't have to move. Find a shady spot and get comfortable.  Right now, it's a balmy 92F with 70% humidity and a real-feel of 102.  We're in that rhythm of a late afternoon thunderstorm. Indeed, the weather app is telling me to expect a thunderstorm in the next 30 minutes.

So far, we have had a fairly quiet hurricane season, but the peak of the season starts in August and runs into September. Our worst hurricanes seem to come in September.  So, we'll see.

Why We Built a Portable Fast-draw Range!

This is how we build our portable range for Cowboy Fast Draw.

Lunch

 Belle wanted a little Cajun-Oriental fusion for lunch, so I started by chopping a pound of good Conecuh sausage and browning it in a skillet. Then I added a bag of Picsweet 3-pepper and onion and let that sautee with the sausage.  Next, a pound of good Louisiana Gulf shrimp, along with a half can of pineapple tidbits and a can of water chestnuts.  Then I added some teriyaki sauce and some Sweet and Sour sauce.

I let that simmer for a bit while I nuked some leftover rice.  Go easy when you add the sauces. It's easy to overdo it. You can always add a bit more.

Outrage

 I'm hearing all this outrage on the left and commentary on the right because CBS has decided to cancel Stephen Colbert.  Next year.

Big yawn here.  He makes upwards of $12 million a year, and they are going to pay him this year and next year. Simple math says that he is walking away with more money than I'll ever see.

I've never been fired, but I've seen people fired.  Generally, they get escorted off the premises, not given another year to make plans.

I really don't feel sorry for the boy.  He'll be fine.

Go Get 'Em, Judge

 I understand that Judge Jeanine Pirro is now the US Attorney for the DC district courts.

Judge Jeanine was a Fox News contributor for many years.  I'm a fan. I like her no nonsense style of calling it like she sees it.  She and I may not agree on everything, but you don't have to worry about where she stands on an issue.

Good on her.  I don't know why she wanted the job, but I'm convinced she will do it right.

Ruminations

Belle's daughter from Missouri came down this weekend for a visit, bringing her husband and two granddaughters.  They got here Friday morning and left this morning after breakfast.  It was good to see them.  The husband is an old soldier, having served both in the 25th Infantry division and the 5th Infantry division..   We have things to talk about.  He also likes Scoth whisky.

The great-granddaughters, both 10 years old, had never seen an in-ground pool. They were amazed, and spent several hours in the pool Friday and Saturday.  I am amazed that they are not sunburned, but they are not.

Of course, grandma cooked all weekend.  On Friday, it was chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and white gravy.  On Saturday, it was crawfish etouffee with rice, a salad, and fried fruit pies for dessert. PawPaw was showing off, too.  I showed off my selections of single-malt whisky, which is fairly depleted as of today.

The kids left this morning about 9:00.  Missouri calls.  Belle and I ate Popeye's for lunch.  Right now, I'm into some bonded bourbon, thinking about the benefits of family, and the pleasures of a working AC system.

Tropic Lightning

 No, not the 25th Infantry Division. I'm talking about the unnamed weather event that hit us last night and will probably roll across us again today.

This thing is basically a nothing-burger, just lots of thunder and lightning.  It has no wind field to speak of and never really got organized before it came ashore.  This thing originated in the Gulf, so technically it is a tropical something-or-other.

The weather-weenies tell us that we are under a 99% chance of rain today, which means that there is a change we won't get rained on.  Yeah, right.

Hogwash

 I'm seeing a lot of hogwash online about the .30-06 cartridge being obsolete.  Hogwash. The old Thirty Aught Six is an old cartridge, no doubt about that, but obsolete?  Not likely.

It can still take all the game on the North American continent.  There may be other cartridges that are better for a specific task, or more suited to specific game, but that doesn't make the old warhorse obsolete. It's proven itself over and over, and it is the cartridge that everyone compares against.  It is a benchmark cartridge.

If I knew that I was going on a medium-to-large game hunt somewhere in North America, with no other inclination of where I would be, the old Savage 110 in .30-06 would go along, and I'd be neither under gunned nor second-guessing my choice. From deer in the thickets to moose in Alberta, the .30-06 would be just fine.

Obsolete, indeed.

The Crew Is Here

 The AC crew is here to install the new unit. I'm very happy with that.

I told Belle this morning that it is now illegal for me to wash dishes. When she asked "Why", I explained to her that Donald Trump had signed an executive order forbidding men from competing in women's sports.

Just so you know.

Tuesday Yard Work

 It's supposed to rain on Thursday, but it has been over ten days since I mowed. My yard holds water, and the afternoon showers have the ground saturated in sports. I decided that today would be a good chance to roll the dice and see if I stick the mower.  I didn't.  Got the front mowed except for the front ditch.

Tomorrow we have a contractor coming in to replace the home AC unit. It's been limping along for a while, and it is 24 years old.  It's time for an upgrade.  We're getting a new inside furnace and outside AC unit.  The contractor told me that out present unit pulls 40 amps, and the new one should pull no more than 13 amps.  That should help the electric bill quite a bit.

We have a 3-ton unit now and I asked the guy if we needed to increase the tonnage.  He took a quick measure of the house and told me that 3-tons would cool and heat it just fine.

It's allpart of being a homeowner.  

Why "MAYDAY"?

 Waiting for the AC guy, I was surfing around and came upon some videos talking about the Air India crash. And I started wondering why MAYDAY became the universal call for distress.  So, I started looking again.  From Wikipedia:

The "mayday" procedure word was conceived as a distress call in the early 1920s by Frederick Stanley Mockford, officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport, England. He had been asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency.[1][2] Since much of the air traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the term "mayday", the phonetic equivalent of the French m'aider.

 And there you have it.  It was phonetically distinctive and easily understood over the radios of the day. And now you know.

Spoke Too Soon

 I was feeling good about the home AC unit until about 5:00 yesterday, when it went out again.  Just dammit. I borrowed a portable AC unit and installed it in the bedroom so that Belle could sleep comfortably. Then started texting around, getting recommendations from friends.

This morning, I found a guy, recommended highly by a friend.  I called him and he said that he could be here sometime early afternoon, as soon as he finishes a job, he's on just across town. That works for me.  Belle and I are in she the shop, where there is plenty of air conditioning. In battling the weather it helps to have a fallback position.

Cool Breze

 Belle and I spent most of yesterday in the shop, as we usually doo.  About cocktail hour, we went intot he house to find that the AC unit had quit working.  I put a call in to my AC guy, not really expecting a response late on a Saturday afternoon. Well, hell.  It soon got too hot, so we fell back to the shop where the AC units work. and spent the night in the shop.  Noot terribly comfortable, but it beat the hell out oof sweating our butts off.

I started watching YouTube DIY videos and trying to learn what I could about modern AC units.  Before lunch, second son came over and we tore the outside unit apart to do some troubleshooting.  We learned that the controller and the capacitor are okay, and that the problem seemed to be in the control circuits.  And, we were having a problem with a switch called the high pressure reset switch.  After we got the unit torn apart, I got out the water hose and gave the condenser coil a good washing from the inside.

Just before we were about to quit in disgust, second son had the idea of turning the complete system off at the breakers, waiting five minutes, and letting the endite system reset.  We tried that and it worked.   When we turned the breakers back on, the system came to life. The house is cooling off slowly, and it appears that Belle will be able to sleep in her bed tonight.

I am pleased to know that the compressor is okay, the fan is working, and the controls seem to be operating for the time being.  When my AC guy calls me tomorrow, I'll schedule a service, tell him everything I've done, and let him give the unit a thorough inspection.  The unit has been running now for about two hours and the house is cooling down.  We are spoiled to air conditioning in these latitudes and I do not apologize for that.

257 Roberts: The Second Chance Cartridge

I'm putting this right here, for a variety of reasons.

Ask The Question

 I was watching an interview on Fox with Kristi Noem, the DHS Secretary.  She was telling Fox that DHS is making some changes in airport security, and one of those changes is that passengers will no longer be required to remove their shoes as part of the screening.

Fox asked her (and I'm paraphrasing here), but she said that she asked why removing the shoes is necessary, and evidently no one in authority had had asked that question.  The answer is that the tech has gotten better and that there is no real reason to have a passenger remove their shoes.

Luckily, I don't fly much.  I don't have to fly much.  I used to really enjoy flying pre-9/11, but the security theater after 9/11 made me more likely to schedule a colonoscopy than an airline flight.

The bigger point of the Noem interview is that no one had asked that question.  In my experience, the biggest function of leadership is to ask those questions.  "Why are we doing this thing?" If the answer you get is "We've always done it like that.", then you have a problem.

There may be very good reasons why an organization does certain things. Those reasons may be regulatory, or legal, or based in logic and reason.  But, if the worker bees cannot articulate good reasons, then it's time to look for alternatives.

At the very least, Kristi Noem is asking the right questions.

Random Thoughts

 So, I'm seeing where Trump, Bondi, Patel, et al, is saying that there is no Epstein list.  The guy was implicated in sex-trafficking, and his gal Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking, and there is no list?  No file of clients? If we don't know who the clients were, how can we be assured that sex-trafficking was happening?  I understand that the victims were young girls, but who were the Johns?  The administrations answers beg for clarification.

Now, I'm hearing a lot about that nutjob that the Democrat party nominated for mayor of New York.  Good for them.  Who cares?  I love nowhere near New York.  The one town I live near, I can't tell you who is mayor.  I just don't care.  Likewise for the mayor of any other burg in the nation. Mayoral politics are local politics, and I ain't local.  Or for that matter, the mayor of Buttcrack, NV or Armpit, MS.  Just don't care.

The calendar tells me it is Wednesday.  For some reason this week, my internal calendar is shifted.  It's out of sync.  Weird.  Thankfully, the tropics re quiet.  I've been checking the National Hurricane Center every day. Historically, August and September are the busy months.  I hope it is a quiet season.

Pancakes

 I love pancakes, both the kind you cook on a griddle and the kind you wear on your belt.

Remember that J-frame I got back on June.  Yeah, that one.  I needed a holster to carry it and I've always loved a good pancake holster.  I've worn kydex and the other synthetics, but what I wanted was a nice leather holster that was simple and comfortable.

So, I went over to Simply Rugged and bought a Sourdough pancake holster.  I had it border-stamped to give it a little class. They told me that it would be four weeks and it came in yesterday.

I put it on this morning, and honestly, it fits just like it is supposed to.  As a cop for 37 years I've worn a lot of holsters, either in uniform or plainclothes.  The very best just seem to blend with your attire.  You soon forget that you're wearing it.  It's just there, with no pinching or rubbing. It holds the gun tight to your body with little tension.  Wear a jacket or a large shirt and it just vanishes.

It's simply comfortable.

Pray for Texas

 I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like that.

I've lived through floods, but I've never seen one like that.

I admit that I am unfamiliar with that part of Texas, and totally ignorant of the hydrology in that area,, but from what I've seen, even long-term residents were surprised.  This thing was way outside the norms.

Pray for Texas.

Colion Chimes IN

Referencing the post below, and the idea that the NFA tax on suppressors and SBRs had been repealed, Colion Noir gives some thoughts on the development.

NFA Items

 With the passage of Frump's Big Beautiful Bill, some provisions are starting to come to light. It appears that the bill eliminated the excise tax on short-barreled rifles and on suppressors.  I'm sure that the provisions will flesh themselves out in the coming weeks, but I admit that I am intrigued.  The items will still have to be regulated, but that $200 tax is gone.

I am intrigued. I have long thought that a rimfire with a 12 inch barrel and a suppressor would be the cats meow for small game and varmints.  And, if what I'm hearing about the tax is true, then the price of such a firearm just dropped by $400.

I happen to own a Ruger 10/22 that would be a perfect candidate for such a project.  I admit freely that I am totally ignorant about the various vendors of suppressors.  I don't think that I am looking for total silence (I know that is a pipe-dream), but a marked decrease in decibels would be a treat.

What do you think?

A Little Math

 President Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill on Friday.  One of the things that bill dies is to reform Medicaid. Medicaid was originally designed for the po'folks, those who live below the poverty level.  So, lets do a little math.

Louisiana has approximately 4.6 million residents.  Approximately 18.9% are under the poverty line. By that metric alone, we should have about 869,000 on Medica.  With the Medicaid expansion under out last governor, we have about 1.5 million currently enrolled.   These are government figures, I didn't make them up, but it shows that Louisiana needs to do a better job getting people out of poverty.  And, it shows that there are a whole lot of people on Medicaid who aren't poverty stricken.

Other states have the same problem.  New Mexico, for example, has about 2.13 million residents, with about 375, 000 at the poverty line.   Their Medicaid enrollment is just over 985,000.  These figures are a quick Google, but probably pretty accurate.  New Mexico is a deep blue state, which might explain some things, but the Medicare enrollment is over twice the poverty rate.

July 4th

 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Big,, Beautiful

 I am sick and tired of hearing about this Big Beautiful bill.  Either pass the sonofabitch or don't.  It's getting to the point where there is too much bullshit in it.

There should be a rule in Congress that any bill considered should be written in 12 font and be no more than two pages in length, written at a fifth-grade reading level.  If it makes sense, (like no tax on tips), everyone could get behind it. This rule would keep legislation focused and easily debated.

The budget may have to be a bit longer, but the vast majority of legislation could be short and sweet.  There is no reason for huge bills.

Grandpa's Fix

 I dropped by to see my Mother today.  I am lucky enough to be able to do that. Mom lives in apartment in my sister's back yard.

When I pulled up a char to visit with her, I noticed an old fix that my Grandpa used  to put on chairs when they started to get loose.  Mom and Dad bought these chairs ... oh... 65 years ago.  I was a kid, and they sat in the dining room and helped raise a huge family.  I have six siblings.

When a chair started to get loose from decades of us, we'd take it to Granpa's and he would tighten it up.  He'd install small metal rods under the rungs of the chair, then cut threads on the rods and install a small nut.

That is the way the old man would tighten a chair that had gotten loose.  Decades later that chair is still as tight as the day it left his shop.

I thought you folks needed to see that.

Alligator Alcatraz

 I'm loving it, and the Dems are losing their minds, which I also love.

One thing about alligators.  They are ubiquitous in some areas.  As one old black woman said, "If you put your hand in the water, and it's wet, there is probably an alligator living there."

On the old England Air Force Base, just west of Alexandria, LA, there was a bayou that ran along the golf course.  It had an alligator hazard, with rules that took care of the times when the gator was on the fairway.

When Belle and I moved into our current abode beside a small lake, there were gators.  We got them out, because grandkids.

Back to Alligator Alcatraz, I understand there are pythons there too.  I've never had to deal with pythons, so you're on your own.

Doldrums

July  2nd, and it is hot out there. Right now, it is 95 with a wind chill of 106.  Too damned hot to be out in the sun. I know that I grew up without air conditioning, but we didn't do much in the afternoon.  Find a shady spot and hope for a breeze.  We worked the garden in the morning and mowed grass in the late afternoon.  We tried to stay out of the midday sun.

These days I still try to stay out of the midday sun. I am convinced that Willis Carrier is one of the most important inventors of the 20th century, and I intend to enjoy his invention every day that I can.

Water

 The water system went down for about an hour this afternoon.  Belle and I moved here in 2004 and this is the first time I can recall the water system being down. Once in 21 years is a pretty good track record.

That is good work.  We are on what is called the Buckeye Water System.  They provide water to the northeast corner of Rapides parish and they generally do a good job.  To find a problem on a Sunday afternoon and fix it in an hour is excellent service.  Good job Buckeye Water.

I bet we'll be under a boil advisory.

Dated, but Funny.

Lighting

 I built my shop in 2017. It's a 40 X  50 with 10' eaves.  Full metal construction.  You've driven past a million of them. When designing the electrical wiring, my boys and I consulted and decided to mount  8, 110 volt outlets in the ceiling.  We felt that this would give me lots of options for lighting.

I went down to the Feed N Seed and got some brooder lights.  Low cost, low tech, and screwed some twisty fluorescent tubes into them. That worked great for a while, but after a time, they started to burn out, and while I was at the local electrical supply store, I asked them what was new.

UFO lights, they said. The latest and greatest.  High bay application, plug and play.  So, I bought one for $150.00.  Lots of light, lots of bright.  Warranted for five years.  Those florescent tubes continued to burn out, and I went to Amazon to see if I could do better than the $150 UFO lights.

Sure enough, I found these.  A two pack for ~$50.  So, I ordered two packs  Four lights in the door for about $100.  This morning, I got out the ladder and tempted fate, climbing up to the ceiling. Took down the old lights, bung up the new lights and plugged them in.

These things are made in China, and I'd rather buy American, but for ~$25 apiece, it's hard to justify going down to the electrical supply and paying $150.  If I need them, I still have the brooder lights.

June 26, 1876

 I am reminded that on this day in 1876, General Terry entered the Little Bighorn valley and found the spot where Custer was defeated.  Several miles awa he found the remnants of the 7th Cavalry, where Reno and Benteen had mounted a defense and successfully repelled subsequent attacks.

Every cavalry officer since then has come to look at the decisions made and have come to their own conclusions.  My conclusion is that several officers were wrongly judged and that one of the true heroes of that battle was an Army contract surgeon, Dr. Porter , who established an aid station on Reno hill and saved many lives.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a project to complete.

Geese

 The flock of Canada geese that summered over is getting bigger.  The hatchlings are starting to take on the primary coloration of the breed,

This photo was taken yesterday and I mowed today.   I didn't see the geese today, but they generally don't hang around when the machines are making noise.

Opposition

 The opposition in Iran is led by the son of the deceased Shah, Reza Pahlavi. He claims to want to see Iran be free and democratic.  Toward that goal, he seems to be cajoling the Iranian people to reject the mullahs and turn away from extremism.

I wish him all the luck.  The Iranian people deserve better than the mullahs.

Source here.

That Sentry

 We've all been there, sentry at a remote post in the middle of the night. You can hear minimal traffic out on the main highway.  If you are lucky, you have some help.  Maybe another private, or a low ranking sergeant.  But he's asleep in the guard shack.

If you are in the Iranian Army, you are wondering why someone posted you at a place called Fordow. Something about the nuke program, all you know is that it's top secret and your relief should be here at daylight. It's still dark and relief is still several hours away.  Then you hear a sizzling sound, a thud, then a dull explosion. Then another, and another, and another.  Then you think maybe it is time to wake up the sergeant.

You hope they don't blame it on you.  Nobody came through the gate. The gate is still secure.

Transition

 As the Islamic Republic continues to be hammered by Israeli jets, it seems that the Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, has announced a transition to a democratic government. He is in Paris, so it's hard to know when he will get to Tehran.  There is still a lot of work to be done, but he is premising a democratic government, a separation of church and state, and fair trials to the Islamists.  We'll see how that works out for him.

I would love to see a democratic, parliamentarian style government in Iran. But I'm realistic enough to know that won't happen this week.  I also feely admit that I was surprised to see the Berlin Wall come down in such a hurry.

Knob Noster

 About an hour from where Belle's daughter lives in Missouri is a little town called Knob Noster.  The home of Whiteman AFB, it must be a great place to live.  And a poor place to get TDY.  I don't know how Air Force bomber crews handle it.  For example.

Yesterday, these fools loaded up, flew to Iran, bombed the crap out of it.  Then turned around a flew home. If it was me, an old cavalry trooper, I would have been tempted to have engine trouble somewhere over... I dunno... Italy.  Maybe found a place to eat pasta.

Not these crews.  No, hell no. They flew back to Knob Noster. I've been to Knob Noster, and there isn't much to recommend it. Nice Base Exchange, small commissary. I believe I would have stopped in Italy, or Spain maybe. Or, the Azores?  I hear it's nice in the Azores. Not these crews, we're going to Knob Noster.

Well done, Air Force.

Kudos also to the submariners who showed then how to launch a  targeted missile strike.  Well done!

Crimson Trace

 That new revolver, my new EDC, came to my hand with a Crimson Trace laser grip.

The revolver itself is one I've been looking at for quite a while.  A Smith and Wesson Model 60 in .357 Magnum with the 3" barrel.  Adjustable rear sight, Crimson Trace grips. I'm no stranger to the Model 60 in particular and J-frames in general, having carried them on-and-off for 40 years.

I'm one of those old curmudgeons who think that revolvers are still relevant in the self-defense world. I'm also of the opinion that the most beautiful revolver ever produced is the old Colt Navy.  Sleek lines, beautiful in concept, it is a stunningly beautiful revolver.  I think that the Smith and Wesson classic revolvers come in at a close 2nd place.  This is NOT to say that I hold semiautos in disdain. Quite the contrary, I am an acolyte of John Moses Browning, and I think that Gaston Glock makes some fine pistols.  But, they ain't as pretty as a classic revolver.

I am old enough to t remember when Marshall and Sanow did their research and came to the conclusion that the best caliber to stop a gunfight was the .357 magnum. Specifically, Federal's 125 grain load. I have no wish to get into a gunfight, but if I have to, I choose to go old-school with a caliber known for winning gunfights.

Back to that laser grip.  The biggest problem that most shooters face is trigger control. The sights must stay aligned with the target during the firing sequence. A bit of dry fire with a laser will show a shooter where the problem lie. If you can't keep that laser on the target through the trigger squeeze, then the sights won't be on the target when the bullet leaves the muzzle.

I've been doing quite a bit of dry fire lately, and the trigger squeeze is getting a lot better.

Chaos in Tehran

 The war is going very badly for the Iranian government, which is to say it is going very well for everyone else. The ability of the Israeli Air Force to operate freely over Tehran is increasing and the ability of the IRGC to launch missiles at Israel has been severely degraded.

I've been watching this guy, who seems to be an Iranian living overseas.  His reporting seems to be six or eigh hours ahead of the corporate media.  He reports that the Iranian army is defecting to the opposition, who is aligned with the Crown Prince, the son of the deceased Shah.  It appears that the IRGC has been severely depleted, and the Islamic government is defeated.

Regime change is the dream, but that is and should be the province of the Iranian people.  I would love to see a secular, parliamentarian government in Iran, but that might be a pipe dream.  The simple fact is that the IRGC is going through its death spasm and there will be chaos for a while.

In the US, the news media are idiots, asking the President to reveal whether or not he will bomb Fordom.  Of couse, he tell sthe media that it's a stupid question.  As well it should be.  Let us recall that the Glo bal War on Terror is still a thing, and Iran is the chief exporter of terror in the Middle East.

Memories

 This imag4 popped up on my computer today, and it is one of my favorites.  That is my Belle, dressed in what I call Country Elegant. A well-dressed lady with a friendly smile.  Confident, poised, graceful, she could be at a backyard barbeque, a church social or a town festival.  From the top of her head to the tips of her boots, she exudes charm and friendliness.  Oh, wait... she's wearing a single-action revolver.

Yep, that's my Belle.  She knows how to use that revolver, too.  This picture was taken in 2021 and the Kansas State Championship.

Renaming Army Posts

 Renaming Army posts was silly when they did it in 2023, and it's probably silly now.  Fort Johnson will be returned to Fort Polk, Along with Lee, Rucker, Gordon, and several others.

Fort Cavasas will go back to being Fort Hood, this time renamed after some WW1 colonel.  Okay.  I still think that the Army missed a sure bet by not naming it Fort Seguin in the first place.

For those who don't know who Juan Seguin was, he was a true Texas patriot, a military and political leader, and probably the only man to serve both at the Alamo under Travis and at San Jacinto under Houston. They should have named that post Seguin from the beginning.

As for Polk, they could name it Fort Armpit, or Camp Swampy for all I care.  I served there a lot in the 80s and 90s and never did like the place.

Network Down

 This morning, I made a call at 0913 that went through.  About 1300 I went to town to run errands.  At the grocers, I was told that their networks were down, and they were accepting cash only.  At another vendor, I was told the network was down, and an employee told me that her husband worked at a nearby federal prison, and all their networks were down.  Interesting.

I tried to text Belle and call her phone.  Nothing works.  That's weird, even in a hurricane, if voice doesn't work, we can generally get a text message through.  Evidently, something has seriously gone sideways at AT&T.  We're still connected through the cable modem, and the TV works, so that's something.  But,I wonder what happened to AT&T?

Over the Weekend

 I got distracted this weekend with the Isreal/Iran thing, and a club meeting, and family on Father's Day.

Completely forgot about that asshole in Minnesota who posed as a cop and started shooting local lawmakers. It looks like they caught him after a pretty intense manhunt and he's due in court today to start answering for his crimes. Initially, we were concerned that he was a MAGA because he was shooting Democrats, but that seems not to be the case.

The cops found a manifesto in his car, and they haven't released that.  Believe me, if the guy was a right-winger, that manifesto would be all over the news.  Listening to the news this morning, it seems that the guy was a registered Republican, but he had been appointed to some bullshit board by Governor Walz. If I understood that correctly.  At any rate, this guy seems to be simply a garden-variety nutjob. Not MAGA, not conservative.

In other news, I did get a new-to-me revolver this weekend.  A sweet little J-frame and we'll be talking more about that later. I've owned... I dunno, a half-dozen J-frames in my lifetime, and I've given them all away. Younger son took pity on me and gifted me one that he no longer uses. In the initial inspection I noted that it does not have a hammer-mounted firing pin. I thought that was odd, as all my Smiths have the firing pin mounted on the hammer.  A little research tells me that Smith made the switch circa 2015 to frame-mounted firing pins. That helps date the little gun to a fairly new revolver.

I have a holster on order from Simply Rugged.  Let me get the holster and become more familiar with the little gun and we'll talk about it more later.

Watching the Middle East

 Like many of you, I'm watching the turmoil in the Middle East, as Israel exacts retribution on Iran..  From what I've seen, Isreal has launched a series of precise surgical strikes on Iran, targeting military and IRGC leadership and command structure, along with the nuclear enrichment facilities.

As I understand it this morning, the leadership of the Iran Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) has been decapitated from at least two layers. Many of the top nuclear scientists are assassinated, and the head mullah, the Supreme Leader has fled the country and is in Mecca.  

Whereas the Israeli strikes have been precise and surgical, the Iranian response has been to launch area weapons toward Israel, targeting metropolitan areas.  The Houthis have chimed in, but their targeting is even worse than the Iranians.  I understand that some Houthi missiles have hit Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and most recently, have fallen into the West Bank, killing Palestinians. The Houthis are a side-show, if a lethal one.

At some point, Iran is going to run out of missiles. The end-game is not yet upon us yet, but we can hope that is is closer than it was two days ago.  The Iranian military is being systematically decapitated, the mullahs are in hiding, and the Mossad sleeper cells in Iran have been awakened.

The timing is most interesting.  The American team who was conducting talks with Iran had given them 60 days to come up with a plan to end their nuclear ambitions.  The Israelis struck on day 61. That sends a powerful message to not ignore deadlines. When America gives you a drop-dead date, ignore it at your peril.

Stryker

     A new bottle of whisky, courtesy of my daughter and son-in-law. Stryker, a Texas single malt from the Andalusia Whisky Company.  Three years old and bottled at 100 proof.  The heat in Texas does good things to whisky.

It's billed as a smoky whiskey, and I admit that I took a taste right out of the neck of the bottle. I'm intrigue.  Not sure what they smoked the grain with.  Maybe mesquite?  I'm not sure, but the flavors that bounced off my tongue were interesting. I'll have to try this in a Glencairn or maybe in a rocks glass over a little ice. This one ain't a mixer, it's a sipper.

250 Years

 Happy Birthday, US Army.

Bats

 It's common for me to go outside on the back porch and enjoy a cocktail in the evening.  Recently, about the time the afternoon sky loses its luminosity and the neighbors' dusk-to-dawn light comes on, I'm seeing little creatures up across the sky.  Darting, turning, aerobatic creatures, doing impossible flights over the yard.

Bats.  We have bats.  Cool.   Occasionally, when they zoom close to the neighbors' light, I'll catch a flash of brown. Small critters, the common brown bat.  I've lived here for over 20 years and I've never seen bats. Yet, there they are.  I don't know if someone nearby has put up a bat house, or if they have just decided to take up residence.  It doesn't matter.  They are welcome hang out around here.

Senator Padilla is an Asshole

 So, did you see today that DHS Secretary Kristi Noeem was giving a press conference and some asshole comes charging in,, creating a disturbance.  The security detail pushes him out of the room, face-lants him in the hall, and applies the cuffs.  Just like they should have.  You can see the clip here.

Turns out, this asshole is a US Senator, Alex Padilla from California, and he's all butt-hurt about the troops restoring order in Los Angeles.  Now, this asshole is all like, "If this is the way they treat US Senators"

No, dickhead, this is the way they treat assholes who don't identify themselves and disrupt press conferences where the DHS Secretary is speaking.

Alex Padilla, the senator from California, is a dickhead, a complete asshole, and deserves to be treated just like he was treated.  He's a California Democrat and deserves that kind of treatment every day.  Just for being a dickhead and an asshole.

Thunberg Theatrics

 Greta Thunberg, the climate activist, staged another misbegotten stunt, this time to take a relief mission into Gaza.  She and a bunch of likewise underwhelming activists got on a sailing vessel and tried to sail to Gaza to mount a "relief mission". This ill-advised journey was predicably met by Israeli naval forces who boarded the boat and shut down the thing.

Thunberg and crew were taken into custody, processed and deported.  She, on a flight to France.  She is perpetually outraged, but this is the best possible outcome for her little misguided cruise.

What might have happened had she actually beached the boat on the Gaza shore?  One distinct possibility would be that she would be taken captive by the terrorist, forced to wear a burka, and put to work giving "comfort" to the brave Palestinian fighters.  A 22-year-old blonde?  Or, she may have simply been sold to the highest bidder.

At any rate, the Israelis did her a huge favor.  She should be eternally grateful.

New Knife

 I'm one of those guys who carries a pocket knife every day.  Since high school, I've had a knife in my pocket.  Back when we were living on the farm, it was necessary for cutting baling twine and opening feed bags.  I still open the occasional feed bag, for the cats or the dog, but today my knife is more often used to open Amazon boxes.

The knife I have carried for the past 15 years was getting worn. The spring had broken out of the bolster and opening it was sometimes an iffy proposition. It was time for a new knife, so I went to Amazon because I knew what I wanted.

A Case Sod Buster. It's a good knife with nice steel, easy to sharpen.  The handle is as smooth as a lightly used car of soap, no sharp edges to damage the pocket.  At this stage of my life, it is the perfect gentleman's pocket knife.  Nothing fancy, nothing outrageous, just a simple bit of steel to open bags and boxes.  The price is right, too, at about $35.00.

It's a great design, it's been in production for over 50 years, and there is a reason for that.

Ordering Primers

 The big match has been over for two weeks, and I'm just about done putting stuff away. It doesn't matter how closely you plan or organize, when the math is over and the trailer is being loaded, at some point, you're just throwing stuff in boxes.

The first few days after the shoot was spent sorting boxes. Extension cords in one box, Cat5 cable into another. S-hooks back into another box. Untangling the Caat5 cable and coiling them neatly.  You get the idea. Putting stuff away, storing things, then begin the process of putting together the home range.

Inventory.  I'm about out of primers.  We go through a lot of shotshell primers in this silly game we play and I'm down to about 4000 in stock.  So, it's time to call the vendor and order 20K, which is my standard order.  I buy for the club and re-sell to the members at cost.

I can remember a time, not so long ago, that I could get primers shipped to my door for $20/1000. It's not like that anymore, although it has come down considerably from the $80/1000 that it was during the Covid debacle.

Los Angeles Burning

 I see that the migrants are rioting, for whatever reason.  I doubt that they are rioting for the reason advertised. Some riot out of misplaced anger, others just show up to watch the spectacle. Either ay, it's dumb. Like a child throwing a tantrum.  

If the mayor of Los Angeles had used half the energy she uses to protect migrants and used it instead on fire prevention, Los Angles might not have burned to the ground last year. The governor o that great state is useless.

Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about migrants. I'm a grandson of migrants, like most of the nation.  I know current, first-generation migrants who did it right. I have lots of admiration for those who did it right and absolutely no sympathy for those who snuck in illegally, or who rushed the border under Biden.

I'm really tired of hearing about the plight of the poor migrant. I didn't ask them to come here.  If they don't like it, they can go home.  If they are here illegally, they should be sent home. Either as a family, or alone.  I care not. Sympathy falls in the dictionary between shit and syphilis..

M3 and M3A1 Grease Gun SMGs

One of my favorite military weapons, I was issued an M3A1 in 1976 when I took over my tank platoon at Fort Knox.  I qualified with it as a personal weapon.  Crude, unbelievably simple, it matched my personality completely.  It was also a blast to shoot.. 

Produced by GMs Guide Lamp division, for ~$20, it gave a lot of bang for the buck.  I wish I had one in my personal collection.

Yardsticks

 Growing up in Alexandria, LA in the latter half of the 20th century, I remember the old-time lumber yards before Lowes and Home Depot.  In Alexandria, we had Martins and Handyman.  In Natchitoches, it was Natchitoches Lumber. Every small town had a lumber yard.

In each of those places, there were a couple of constants. Somewhere, normally near a cash register, was a barrel full of yardsticks. Complementary yard sticks. If you needed one, take one.  If you needed two, take two. If you grabbed three, they looked at you like you were a thief, and they would talk about you. These yardsticks were advertising with the company mane emblazoned on them, normally with a catchy slogan.

Grandpa had a work bench.  Along one edge, he had routed out a slot and screwed a yardstick into the surface. He also had a supply of yardsticks near the shop door, and the grandkids were forbidden to mess with his yardsticks. They were used for more than measuring. Often for discipline, with the bunch of rowdy boys I called cousins. Many times, if he needed a lath for a project, he would snip a yardstick rather than rip a piece of dimensioned lumber.

Several years ago, when I was working at the school, they were throwing away some old supplies, and part of the discards was a bundle of meter sticks that someone had bought for the curriculum.  I salvaged them from the trash and took then home.  I have used them up, and I miss yardsticks.

There is one old joke about how they are not making yardsticks any longer.  No, they are still 36 inches.

Overlord

 On this day in 1944, Allied forces entered the continent of Europe through the beaches at Normandy. As in all military operations, by the time the ramps dropped in the English channel, the generals had done their planning, the logisticians had obtained supplies and now it was up to the privates, corporals, sergeants and the junior officers.

We all know now that the landings were a success, but only because of the sacrifice of blood from the boys on the beach. Some historical revisionists find it fashionable to say that Overlord was only a sideshow, that Germany was doomed to defeat from the Russians.  There may be some truth to that but Stalin had long begged for a western front, if only to relieve the pressure on his forces in the east.

Overlord was absolutely necessary to extend Allied influence in the postwar period.

Mowing Grass

 Here in central Louisiana, the mowing season starts in March. I refuse to start a lawnmower in February, even if my neighbors choose to engage in such madness. With the wet spring in March, April and May, I have been unable to get into the ditches until today.

I have two close neighbors.  One across the street, one next door. They tend their lawns.  The next-door neighbors lawn looks like a putting green.  Across the street, the lawn looks like a well-tended fairway. My lawn is the rough.  I'm okay with hat.  If Belle doesn't complain, I'm good.

I am reminded that 83 years ago today an outnumbered American fleet surprised Kido Butai north of Midway in the Pacific. At 10:00 that morning, the Japanese fleet was the preeminent naval force in the Pacific.  By dark, it lay shattered on the ocean floor. This afternoon with my evening cocktail, I will raise a toast to McCluskey and Best, along with the sailors of the Yorktown.

We've all seen the movie, and there were a lot of sailors and airmen who did not come back from Midway. When your plane explodes, or your ship sinks beneath you, it doesn't matter if you are an admiral of a non-rated sailor. We need to remember to honor the loss, along with the victory.