02/14/2019 Earworms

Memorial Day, 2018

Or, Remembrance Day, or Decoration Day, depending on where and when you're from.




I don't now if this story is true -- I certainly never heard it before -- but I usually post a recording of "My Buddy"...

Oh, By The Way...

...Brigid has made Home On The Range public again!

Go, read some of the most profound writing in the Blogosphere, laugh at doggie stories, steal some recipes...

QOTD, Blast From The Past Edition

Reviewing some more old posts, and found this one (The Clue Meter: Definition of the Day, 03/28/2010):

Sunday, March 28, 2010
 
Definition of the Day, 03/28/2010

So, there I was, trying to craft a really deep, profound, post on the nature of "human rights" and how to define what is, and is not, a human right.
Still struggling with it.
So I go to Google Reader and start reading... reading... Gun Blogger IV participant's blogs... reading... What's Chuck up to...?
Damn it, he summed it up better than I could.

A great litmus test is this:  Does this right have to be provided by someone or something?

If the answer is yes, then it isn't a right.

OK, so a "litmus test" is not a definition, but still.  

 The topic of  "The nature of human rights" came up recently in a Pistol-Forums thread a week or so ago, I may have to seek that thread out and post there...

Note to Everybody

Inspired by Tam's post Copypasta from my Bookface wall...

Go ahead and unfriend me.

The only way I am going back to Facebook is if they change their rules to let one post using a pseudonym with your "legal ID" not publicly available, and not searchable, without a warrant.

I'd even be willing to pay a double sawbuck (that's a Jackson for you kids, AKA an Irony Note, until Harriet replaces Andy, at which time it will be a Freedom Note, I guess) per annum for the service.

Facebook can be a useful way to stay in touch with family and friends; people evacuating from Hurricane Harvey only need a couple of minutes to post to their wall "Safe in Dallas, more later" and everyone will know they made it out OK.

Google+ could do that much, too, and anyone who has an Android phone has a Google+ account by virtue of having an Android, AKA GMail, AKA Google, account. And Google+ does not demand you post your legal ID anywhere. (Ask me how I know...)

But Zuckerberg et. al. are more interested in making piles of money and in manipulating society than in providing a simple service that people would actually like.

So feel no guilt at all about trimming your friends list by one there.

BTW, I'm still on Twitter, as of this week. Not real active, compared to some, but posting a link to the blog posts will (or used to) cross-post to Facebook, and occasionally some SJW does or says something stupid...

Odds and ends

So, over the last few weeks I've alluded to a friend who was going through a rough patch, most recently in Earworm, 06/14/2017.

Basically, her son went from a 5% chance of surviving, to full consciousness, coherent speech, and walking unassisted.

Apparently, it is possible for certain organs which have shut down to regenerate.

Somewhere in there, I wondered if this was going to turn into a Lifetime movie, or even in to a Hallmark Special.*

Then she told me that certain other aspects of her life were turning around, and now I suspect even Hallmark would turn the script down as too unrealistic...

***

...In the meantime, my wife has been listening to me obsess about the problems of a woman shes never met, and all she says is "What's the news? Is she  doing OK? She probably needs a break, why don't you see if we can take her to lunch or dinner?"

So, yeah, I think even Hallmark would say it was too hokey. 

Also, I love my incredible wife.

***

Also in the meantime, the NRA has relented on it's ban on 1911s and revolvers in the Carry Guard self-defensive shooting classes.  (Dear NRA: WTF is wrong with you?!)

I heard a lot of rationales why this rule made sense, but frankly, IMnsHO none of them stood scrutiny. If someone is paying $850 for a three day class, you should be a little more lenient about what gat they bring.

If Mas can design the shooting courses of MAG40 to accommodate single-stack pistols and 6 shooters, than by Friar Schwartz' ghost so can the NRA.

***

*Okay, so I have this theory that women's lives can be divided into one of three categories:

1. Hallmark Channel movies
2. Lifetime Channel movies
3. Oxygen Channel movies

depending on how horrible the tragedy is, how sordid the scandal is, and/or how many people die and/or go to prison.

There may be other categories, the woman I first developed this theory around turned out to need one of those pay-per-view channels, if you know what I mean, and I think you do...

(Edited to add that I was only "involved" wih this woman as a co-worker.)

I haven't yet heard a proposed equivalent for men's lives, although I suspect my life story will star Bruce Campbell...

Earworm, 06/14/2017

For a very good friend who got some very good news today.*


*Technically yesterday, but when you work my weird schedule...
Also, her family member's not out of the woods, but much, much better than yesterday.
Technically the day before yesterday, etc., etc.

Earworm, 12/23/2016

Sometimes I need to not share the events of the day by texting a peer who is off...

...Sorry.

If I had the buck$ to spend...

...on fellow bloggers, including those I haven't actually met...

I'd buy Bobbi one of these keyboards.

Of course, I don't know how good of a keyboard it would be, so she'll probably need a spare computer, too, so maybe it's just as well I don't have the buck$ to spend on fellow bloggers...

(Although for a mere $100+ they will sell you a set of keycaps that work with other keyboards if they use certain switches. I'm ignernt about that switchology, though, so I'll hold off...)

I think I also need to buy a cup of coffee for whoever at Blogger added an "Emoticon" drop down menu to the tool bar. It can easily get out of hand, but I've never been able to figure out how to use ASCII codes to make © or ¢ or ≠ symbols.  Plus, typing in an ampersand usually gets all jacked up, but this automagically fixes it.

Retail Derpitude

Or: How To Alienate New Shooters!

So, a friend and co-worker surprised me by casually mentioning in conversation a week or two ago that she was having trouble finding a holster for her pistol.

I suppose she thought I knew she had bought herself a pistol, but up until a month or so ago we had spent quite a while on opposite shifts, and on those rare occasions when we did have a chance to chat over coffee it was usually over the stupidity of colleagues and/or management.

Anyway, I was glad to hear that she had avoided any pressure or "advice" to go with a snub nosed revolver or a .380, which are all too often recommended as "Lady's guns", and in deciding to go with a 9mm she went with a S&W M&P 9 Compact, rather than a Glock 43 or an S&W Shield because "the extra capacity seemed like a good idea."

Not only that, but she has eschewed off-body (purse, fanny pack) carry for reasons both practical and tactical.

Now, she has decided that for her purposes a cross-draw holster will work best. We discussed the potential drawbacks, and she acknowledged them, but feels that this will serve her best, and I refuse to push lest she decide either not to carry, or not to speak to me again... 😞

Thus we come to the derpitude, to wit, not only is she having trouble finding a cross-draw holster in stock, at least one dealer said that "nobody makes those."

Not "We don't stock those as there's not much call for them, let's see what I can order", but "No such thing".

Furthermore, he implied that there weren't (m)any holsters for the M&P 9 Compact at all!

{Insert Facepalm Meme Here}

Naturally, within half an hour or so I had forwarded her half a dozen links to various and sundry holster makers' wares for the M&P 9C, including cross-draws, highlighting holster makers local to us.

I also had to keep explaining that a cross-draw holster may be worn forward of the hip, but that referring to it as an appendix holster (as Minion #1 kept doing) was going to confuse people as to where and how you are planning to place the thing. ("No, I'm going to wear it for cross-draw." "I understand, but these days when you say 'appendix carry' people will assume you mean strong-side in waist band. With practice, this can be a very good way to carry concealed, but that's not what you intend.")

Hopefully her fashionable belts will support the holster, when she finally gets it...

Deal Alert! 09/03

I almost forgot to mention, OldNFO's first three books in the Grey Man series are on sale in Kindle format for the weekend. I probably figured the three or four people who read this blog read his, too...

Anyhoo, good stuff, highly recommended, go here and order.

Remembering Ray

Barron has The Playlist, and some stuff from Ray's Memorial Service and afterward, posted in Saying Goodbye to a Friend... - The Minuteman

In Memorium, Raymond Edward Carter

I think Barron said he got the playlist that made up the prelude and the recessional. I was surprised to enter the Sanctuary and hear Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing", but if the idea is to celebrate a life...

Damn it

So, I just finished up my previous Memorial Day post about "My Buddy", clicked on Tamara's link, and saw that My Buddy Ray has died.

God damn it.

"My Buddy"

Once again, Memorial Day is not about those of us who made it home, it's about those who "Gave Their All."

It's never said so in the song, but the assumption from the day it was released is that it was for a friend who never made it back from "Over There."

Lyrics are found here.

I'd never heard this version before. It may be a bit of a change from what most expect from Jerry Jeff Walker, and I think my buddy George would have liked it. There was really no reason for us to hit it off as well as we did, other than a mutual interest in guns and hunting. And Science Fiction. And a shared distrust of authority, which I suppose seems odd to those who never served, in a couple of NCO's.

But we did, and I always had a couch to sleep on if I needed to get away from the barracks, even if I needed to drive 800 miles to do it. (Long weekends. Great things, but don't tell the Army I drove that far in a night...)

Like me, George served overseas several times, but never saw combat except for on TV.

Somewhere I read that a high percentage of military, police, and fire/rescue retirees die about a year after retirement. That was the case for George; one night he stood up and then hit the floor.

Pat, his wife, told me later that when she was filing for survivor  benefits the person from the VA took one look at his retirement physical and upgraded him retroactively to 100% disabled. She also told me that he kept getting a job, and then waking out when they told him he had to join a union. He figured if he joined a union that would mean two bosses, which was at least one too many.

Eventually I lost contact with Pat and her kids. She went her way, and put her life back together. This being before cell phones, the Internet, and social media, keeping in touch meant expensive long distance bills or actually writing a letter and mailing it, and the Army was keeping me pretty busy then; even when I moved back to within a hundred miles of where they were, I met the future Mrs. Drang and was otherwise occupied.

Speaking of upgrading George's disability, this is the other sing I usually play on Memorial and Veteran's Days:

Hey don't ya remember...?

Earworm, 03/15/2016; TLG, RIP

Ever since I got the word that Todd L. Green had passed away this morning I have had the stanza about The Duke in my head:

Now on the day that John Wayne died
I found myself on the continental divide
Tell me where do I go from here
Think I'll ride into Leadville and have a few beers
I think of "Red River" or "Liberty Valance"
Can't believe the old man's gone

Chorus:
But now he's incommunicado
Leavin' such a hole in a world that believed
That a life with such bravado
Was takin' the right way home

It's strange: I never met or trained with Todd Green, but news of his passing has me all down.

I dunno.

I guess I'll hit the range.

Then I'll hit up Rampage For The Cure!

Fer Pete's Sake

So, Tamara has this song she wrote, a pastiche on "A Few Of My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. Tamara's is commonly referred to as "The Fun Show Song", and it's about the joys of going to gun shows.

Ambulance Driver and Squeaky made a music video of it as a Christmas Present for Tamara, which she posted here.

The notorious plagiarists at a certain site noteworthy for their unintentionally ironic use of the word "truth" in the title posted it without attribution; Bobbi has some details at Stop, Thief!. Be it noted that I have no idea about the whole Dead Hooker magazine thing, but since Tamara makes a living as a writer, and a writer owns copyright on the words she puts into certain order, and Dan Zimmerman and that website have infringed copyright before, I think we can certainly state that Dan Zimmerman is an intellectual property thief.

Look, it's all too easy to embed an image or video without attribution. When the copyright holder says "Hey, I own that" you should either replace the embedded code with a link, or (at least) add the proper attribution.

Linoge has a history of the infringements at the truth about the truth about guns and robert farago | walls of the city.

W00t!

Conga Rats to the Barnetts!

Interesting...

JBLM* hosts Indian Army troops | The Seattle Times

I can't help but ponder the fact that the US military is said to be forming closer relations with the Indian Army even while the CINC seems to be bound and determined to piss off all nations that are, have been, and should be friends and allies.

(I note that US-Indian relations showed great improvement under His Imperial Majesty Barack Hussein Obama's predecessor...)

(Daniel Hannan has pointed out that, having thrown off the Yoke of Perfidious Albion and dabbled in a form of Marxism, that India has been gradually moving closer to the Anglosphere.)

Also, check out this photo:

 

The Color Guard is armed with an M4... with some sort of optic sight attached...

Also wondering if the Indians will have an opportunity to have a meet and greet with the local  Indian community.

*JBLM=Joint Base Lewis-McChord, FKA Ft Lewis and McChord AFB, the local example of the fad to merge certain administrative and logistic functions of military installations that are in close proximity. I don't have a problem with that, but the naming convention is ugly and cumbersome.

Happy Birthday...

Bill