You KNEW That Was Gonna Leave A Mark

But it's not too bad of a mark considering how things started out.

This is all that's left so far of Farrah's Big Adventure:

I especially like how the new hair growing in where the vet had to clip her is darker than the rest of her sun-bleached coat.

Because the original wound went deep into the muscle, there's still some discomfort in the area. A friend who's an Equissage certified therapist will go over her to let me know what to to to help with that.

It should still tighten down some more, and become less obvious over time.

Guns In Restaurants!

On Sunday evening, two people carrying loaded firearms were observed at a local Outback Steakhouse. The woman was 5'4" tall, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and the man was 6'4" tall, wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt. They ordered dinner, did not sit in the bar, did not consume alcoholic beverages, and left without incident.

No shots were fired. Nothing happened.

Apparently the guns they carried were defective, because the proximity to alcohol in bottles and glasses in the restaurant did not immediately cause them to commit mass carnage.

Nor did the presence of alcohol in the restaurant cause the man to drive recklessly after leaving.

Vanishing Act

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Cool.

Priorities

As much as I'd like to take Signal 88's Civilian Rifle Fighting class on July 11 (it's even during National Training Week), I think my disposable income will be going elsewhere for a while.

Meet Sarge.

Sergeant Sweetie
General Jolie (TB) x Stink's Skipper (AQHA)

He's a half-brother to one of my Thoroughbreds, same Thoroughbred sire but his dam was an American Quarter Horse, making him Appendix-registered. Just turned three years old on June 1. He looks so much like his now-deceased dad it isn't even funny, except for that Quarter Horse butt. I'm such a sucker.

He was going to be put down before his life had really even begun, due to an injury he got at four months of age. It never healed properly, and never will heal without prolonged treatment.

The economy and the horse market being what they are, his owner didn't have the funds to fix him, and even then there's no guarantee he'll ever be rideable. The only buyers there are at horse sales for unrideable horses are buying for slaughter.

My vet's willing to give me a break on the surgery, and feels the prognosis is good. Will things hold together well enough for Sarge to eventually be ridden? Maybe, with extra precautions. If not, what's one more pasture potato when I have like three of them already?

Yeah, I actually have one of these:

Fat lot of good it does me.

I Never Would Have Guessed

Going through the manuals that came with some of my guns, I found this gem in a care-and-feeding booklet from Kimber:

Gee, ya think?

Role Model

I hope I'm half as good as Rachel when I'm her age.

Our youth-worshipping society has promulgated the idea that everyone inevitably turns into a pile of crap as they get older. I don't buy that for a minute.

Broadening My Interests

Except for some, ah, notable exceptions, my taste in music runs heavily toward head-banger metal. However, things like this:

And this:

Make it painfully obvious that I need to pay A LOT MORE attention to Country.

Learning Curve

The adventure of learning the snubby continues. Before I even picked up the gun from the dealer, I got a copy of Ed Lovette's book, "The Snubby Revolver: The ECQ, Backup, and Concealed Carry Standard" as a general reference. The book was invaluable in preparing me to approach this new tool from an informed perspective.

I got a Hogue Monogrip for the gun, and keep swapping between it and the factory grips. There's no question the Monogrip is easier to shoot, but the factory grips are much easier to conceal. Even tucked in a jeans pocket, the gun just disappears. I'm thinking I'll start out shooting the Monogrip and then switch back to the factory grips as I become more proficient.

I still can't seem to find a hold that feels natural and secure. I shoot high-thumb on semiautos, and obviously that can't work on a wheelgun. At least my hands are small enough to keep my thumbs away from the cylinder gap when habit takes over.

Experimenting around the house with an empty gun and an Ace bandage, I've found the alternative carry positions possible with little guns aren't as impractical as they seemed. With the right pants, ankle carry is perfectly doable using Massad Ayoob's big-drop-step-off-the-X draw. That method works so well that I wonder why anyone still says you have to take a knee or stand on one leg like a flamingo to draw a gun on your ankle. I don't wear dresses or skirts unless absolutely unavoidable, but discovered I could do a thigh rig if I had to. Worn not too far above the knee, it's acceptably comfortable and accessible, and sure beats not having a gun at all.

Several people have suggested Crimson Trace Lasergrips, either for defensive use or as a training aid. I have Lasergrips to fit my Hi-Powers and shelved them after using them for something over a year. Strange as it sounds, I found they slowed my shooting. I try to train for unconscious competence and anything that disrupts conditioned behavior chains tends to slow them down by breaking the pattern. I have a multi-caliber laser boresighter that is placed in the chamber, and will see if I can get a .38 Special adapter for it.

The trigger job smoothed things out beautifully while not significantly lightening the pull, so repeated dry practice is like physical therapy for my damaged trigger finger.

All in all, with the snubby, the journey is proving as valuable as the destination.

Protest Is Low-Level Terrorism

According to the Department of Defense.

From a written exam, given as part of Department of Defense employees’ routine training:

"Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”

— Attacking the Pentagon

— IEDs

— Hate crimes against racial groups

— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, is "Protests."

Hey, why not? After all, the Missouri Information Analysis Center and FBI already consider Constitutional conservatives, returning combat veterans, Ron Paul supporters, and gun-rights advocates to be "right-wing extremists" and potential domestic terrorists.

Wasn't Missouri the state where sheriffs and prosecutors were joining Obama "truth squads" to squelch dissenting campaign ads before the monumenetal eff-up 2008 presidential election?

Time to vote 'em all out, all right.

"We The People Are Coming"

Kevin Baker points us to Arizona resident Janet Contreras's open letter to our elected representatives:

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

Ms. Contreras's words to Glenn Beck in the transcript of his radio show:

Well, I don't want this. I don't want this fight, Glenn. I don't have the time or the energy or the financial resources for it, but that no longer matters. It no longer matters that I'm able or that I want this fight. I have to take it on. It's not a matter of choice anymore, which is why I wrote the letter.

As it must now be for us all.

READ THE WHOLE THING. And decide if you will let apathy and narcissistic entitlement hand this country over to criminals and thieves.

Are We Surprised?

Especially in light of the previous post.

95% Geek
Only 95%? Maybe there's still hope.

Cool New Toys

No, not guns this time.

This is our new 22 TB fully redundant EMC Avamar enterprise backup. Once it's fully implemented and data replication is complete, one of the racks will be moved to our DR site.

Now THIS is what I call cable management!


Sigh.

Oh well, it's a geek thing. You wouldn't understand.

Freedom!

Farrah and Max are no longer confined to quarters. Surface injuries on horses can get to be kinda like radioactive decay: lots of progress at first, then it feels like the last little bit will never heal up. The vet finally said it was okay to kick 'em out of the barn. All concerned, horses and humans, were mightily relieved.

Thoroughbreds who have been cooped up for any length of time lose what few milligrams of common sense they ever had when finally turned loose, so they have to start out in a small area. Only after they demonstrate they are not going to go up like ten pounds of Tannerite at Boomershoot, they can start to be turned out in progressively larger areas.

Farrah actually behaving herself

It further complicated matters that going out on lush spring grass after being kept in on dry hay, alfalfa cubes, and Triple Crown has to be managed carefully as well. Fortunately, there's a mare with a new foal and a recently-gelded Welsh pony in pretty much the same boat. They will all be gradually acclimated to the pasture together before going back out in the herd.

Max(L) and Farrah(R)

Wishful thinking.

Presenting Reality Effectively

Eric S. Raymond, who's given us A Brief History Of Firearms Policy Fraud and Ethics From The Barrel Of A Gun, hits another one out of the park:

I listened to the others on the channel offer polite, reasoned, factually correct counterarguments to this guy, and get nowhere. And suddenly…suddenly, I understood why. It was because the beliefs the ignoramus was spouting were only surface structure; refuting them one-by-one could do no good without directly confronting the substructure, the emotional underpinnings that made ignoramus unable to consider or evaluate counter-evidence.

The need, here, was to undermine that substructure. And I saw the way to do it. This is what I said:

“You speak, but I hear only the bleating of a sheep. Your fear gives power to your enemies.”

Ignoramus typed another sentence of historical ignorance. My reply was “Baa! Baa! Baaaaa!”

And another. My reply was more sheep noises, more deliberate mockery. And you know what? A few rounds of this actually worked. Ignoramus protested that he wasn’t a sheep. At which point I asked him “Then why are you disarmed?”

*CRACK*

The conversation afterwards was completely different, and ended up with ignoramus speculating about meeting with one of our regulars in his area to do things with firearms.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

More Embarrassing Music

In lieu of, like, actual content which requires a functional brain, I will join the "Five Most Embarrassing Albums" meme along with Marko, Tam, Sebastian, Uncle, Squeaky, and Joe:

1. Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Album They had some good music on that show.
2. C.W. McCall's Greatest Hits I used to live in the southwest-Iowa area he wrote into many of his songs. The Shelby County Tribune, the Nishnabotna River, the railroad tracks of Persia, all real.
3. Popstars: Eden's Crush Remember Popstars, the show we have to thank for the whole "American Idol" genre?
4. ABBA: The Album Hey, I like harmony sometimes, okay?
5. Lard: The Last Temptation Of Reid Got it for that all-time classic, "They're Coming To Take Me Away."

I don't consider them embarrassing, but I do also have the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's timeless holiday albums, "A Very Scary Solstice" and "An Even Scarier Solstice." Who can resist carols like "I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog Sothoth," "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-Men," and "Harley Got Devoured by the Undead," especially when they sound exactly like their conventional counterparts . . . except for the lyrics. Slip those into the mix at your next Christmas party and watch the fun.

I have to apologize in advance to anyone crazy enough to do a road trip with me. They have to bring their own tunes or they're stuck listening to my usual run of Black Sabbath, Van Halen, and Rob Zombie.