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.