More Grandkid Pictures

Here are some pics of four of the grandkids from Memorial Day. The top pic is William, the next one down is Josiah. We were a couple weeks early for Karson. Stephanie looks as if she is shoplifting a watermelon, though. She called this morning and she is seventy percent efaced, a term that will make sense to my female readers. She is due in the next week or ten days.

The next pic down is our only granddaughter, Alexandra, the bottom pic is Michael Junior.

The Graduate

Our Grandson, William, graduated from preschool. From the look of things he won't have much trouble finding a girlfriend as he gets older, six girls to two boys in his class.

Running As Fast As I Can To Stay In The Same Place

I'm running at full speed to stay in the same place. This is medical week. Yesterday my monthly bout with the dermatologist, only two more months of these mass murderer, I promise not to get pregnant pills.

Today was my last visit with the Doc that cut that skin cancer out of my face. He seems to be proud of himself, says my face is healing fine, all the cancer is out and so, until the next one, I'm done. I'm wearing my big hat outside.

Now I'm done 'til next week, two more Doc appointments, then a visit with my cardiologist. Maybe I should've died young and left a good lookin' corpse.

Sooner or later I'll post the pictures from Memorial Day, we had our twins in one house, plus their kids, plus more. Although I complain a lot about having to drive forever just to get to the store, and way past forever for anything else, our little house out in the country means we don't have kids all over, we go see them.

Anyhow, I won't be posting a lot for a while. I'm building up to this rotator cuff surgery, then I will have my right arm immobilized for some weeks.

The Marlin 1894

Seeing as how I can't hardly shoot for a while I'll write about a shootin' iron I have that I haven't written much here. I have a little Marlin lever action. It's the .357 Magnum, the 1984C. Marlin made several models in this frame size including several built specifically for Cowboy Action Shooting. These have heavier octagon barrels.

This little gun was first designed back in 1894 to compete with the '92 Winchester. It was loaded in the same cartridges, .32-20, .38-40, .44-40 and later, .25-20. It was a good seller up until the great depression. Then after the .44 Magnum got popular they brought it back. Soon after they put it around the .357.

Anyhow, mine is the plain vanilla 1894C the only difference is that I put a Williams Receiver Sight on it and, since that is taller than the standard rear sight, a slightly taller front sight. The Standard 1894 model also came in .44 Mag, .45 Colt and a very few in .41 Mag, plus, for a while, .32-20 aka .32WCF.

These little carbines are nifty little guns. Mine is 36 inches long and weighs six pounds. In other words, light and handy. They are a great companion to the revolvers in the same cartridges. Back when I was chronographing everything in town I did some work with this carbine and the revolver that went with it. As near as I could calculate the carbine puts a bullet out that hits as hard as the revolver does at the muzzle. In other words the extra length of the barrel gives the bullet enough extra velocity that it is going as fast at a hundred yards as the revolver is going as it exits the barrel.

The main advantage though, is accuracy. It is just flat easier to shoot a rifle accurately than a handgun. It is no great trick to get a five shot group at a hundred yards of two inches. This means that if the rifle is sighted to hit at that range, every shot will hit within an inch if the aiming point.

With all that, what is this thing FOR? Mine rode in the trunk of a county cruiser for a lot of years. In the country a carbine can be a lot handier than a shotgun. Most of us don't wear kevlar to work, though and most of those who do no longer carry .357s on the belt. There are very few carbines in the autoloading pistol cartridges. The Marlin Camp Carbine didn't last long. I am not sure why the Camp Carbine is no longer with us. It had some trouble with rust and I heard that they weren't overly accurate. LEOs that need a long gun are carrying AR-15s.

Why should a civilian bother with these little carbines? Well, it is a nice little small game, varmint and even deer rifle. Well, I don't know much about those fabled three hundred pound Yankee monster bucks but our smaller southern whitetails drop to a .357 like somebody yelled "GRENADE!" This is a great little woods rifle.

With the right handload it is possible to get nearly 2,000 feet per second out of this gun with a 158 grain bullet. This is right up there close to a .30-30 factory load. I have actually beat that velocity although it was at pressures higher than SAAMI specs. Most people know that some years back they lowered the maximum allowable pressure. That is probably a good idea with all these little five shot revolvers out. I backed it down for fear I might accidentally get one into my Ruger SP101 five shooter. I don't think it would have blown up the Ruger, just my hand.

Of course back when the .357 was a brand new cartridge Doug Wesson took one of those new revolvers out and swatted moose, grizzly bear and elk with it. Don't. None of us are Doug Wesson. Plus, back then they'd write about the great kills and slink off quietly from the critters who escaped, wounded. Now I haven't been hunting in a while but last I was in the big woods there were no emergency rooms for wounded critters.

Someone interested in small game can load the .38 special. A lot more smack than the .22 lr and if one chooses the bullet wisely, very little meat destruction. Then with the lighter jacketed hollowpoint bullets this little carbine is a death ray for coyotes and other varmints.

Up until very recently it was illegal to carry a loaded handgun in the passenger compartment of a car here in Texas. It was not illegal to pack one of these (or any other) long guns. The Marlin Carbine is just the gun for those who live where handguns are difficult or impossible to own. There are also those who just cannot shoot a full power handgun for one reason or another. As my tremors get worse I will be one of them. So with two hands and a shoulder and cheek all canceling the shakes I will still be able to defend my home.

There have been several changes in the 1894 series since Marlin reintroduced the rifle. When they first brought it back on the market they all had the Microgroove barrels. This barrel has many very shallow grooves to spin the bullet. There are several advantages and disadvantages to this barrel. The bullet is distorted less and this can mean slightly better accuracy. The downside of the Microgroove is that it does not work particularly well with fairly soft cast bullets. Now it's fine with very hard cast bullets but, as we know, hard bullets won't expand. Now, in the larger calibers this doesn't matter so much. Of course, at the time the thinking was that cast bullets were a thing of the past. Wrong-o. So now the Marlin 1894s all have have the old Ballard style deep cur rifling.

Another change is a push button safety on the receiver. This is an idiot modification put on in response to Washington, DC. This is what we get when lawyers get involved. The gun already has a half cock safety. which is all the safety anyone really needs.

Now the Marlin 1894 is drilled and tapped for scope mounts. I don't quite know why a shooter would want to put a scope on one of these, those little pistol cartridge carbines. By about 200 yards those short bullets lose enough velocity to be out of it. In the .357 a hundred and fifty is a pretty long poke, I wouldn't take a shot at an unwounded deer at much past 100 yards unless it was standing motionless. And at that range I don't need glass on top of the gun. To each his own, though. If one wants the scope it's not hard. I like the weight and balance of the unscoped carbine.

Anyhow, this is one of my favorite guns. Nine shots of a reasonably powerful cartridge. With a bit of practice one can shoot this gun as fast as one can recover from recoil and get an aimed shot out of a semiauto. An ideal woods deer hunting rifle, excellent for small game and great for a walkabout rifle. Not to mention, nearly perfect for defense. It's a great little gun to put ahint the door of a rural house to keep coyotes out of the chicken coop or discourage tractor thieves.

Eddie's Birthday Party

Eddie T. Dog enjoyed his birthday party. As has become the custom I made a batch of bacon-cheese corn muffins for a birthday cake. Since it had been raining a couple of days before we had it inside instead of outside although there was only a little mud left.

Doggie birthday parties never last long. Dogs aren't real big on singing and even when we leave the computer on line they never go and shop for presents. Thirty seconds or so to eat their "birthday cakes" and they're ready for naptime. Dogs do not savor. Nor are they big on sharing. Well, C.A.P. tries to share Eddie's. The big Bozo is still afraid of Ming.

Doggie birthday cakes are easy to make. Fry four slices of bacon. Fry it kind of soft for we will then bake them. Mix up a box of corn muffin mix, I use Jiffy. Now add a big batch of shredded cheese. This time I used sharp cheddar, sometimes I use colby-jack. The exact amount isn't critical, I use about a cup. Now, if you have kitchen shears, cut the bacon into one inch pieces, if you have no shears, tear it. Stir in all up, put it into baking cups and bake as directed. Let them cool a bit and then it's time to serve.

Blogpappy Harv asked if I'd ever tasted them the last time I wrote of this. At the time I had not. This time I ate one. I think they would be a great midmorning snack if you work in an office. Perhaps something to pack for a driving vacation. Or, given what is served on airplanes these days, a bag of them would go nicely. Especially if a bunch of wandering Muslims start screeching some kind of Alley Oop or whatever it is they say. Alley Ackbear? I wonder if those clowns up in Minnesota would have shut up if someone had jammed a bacon cheese muffin down their throats or points south.

Anyhow, they're pretty tasty. I won't be making them for the dogs again until Ming's birthday although if they bite a burglar or save us from a rampaging pack of wolves or something I'll make an exception.

Black Bean Chili

I had a couple of pounds of black beans laying around and decided to make chili using a pound of those instead of my usual kidney beans, red beans or pinto beans. Of course when I'm in a hurry I use Ranch Style canned beans.

Speaking of Ranch Style beans I used to buy the cans and they all had this dorky lookin' guy and the logo "husband pleasin'" on the logo. Sometime back they changed the logo to "appetite pleasin'". Can't go around pleasing husbands these days.

Anyhow I soaked the beans and then boiled them with a big onion and some spices and then made a batch of chili, mixed it up and have been eating it for a few days. I declare this as a successful experiment. Now I don't think that I will only make chili with black beans forever but it will be part of the rotation.

Now the next time I make a batch of chili I think I'll hearken back to the time I thought I was going to go to the University. Back then there was an itty-bitty hole in the wall restaurant near the University of Texas in Austin. It was called Shanghai Jimmy's Chili Rice. Just a little bowl of rice with a big dollop of chili over it with a dab of grated cheese.

It was a good cheap meal. Of course, thanks to the Democrats, rice is another endangered species. And Shanghai is gone, has another name now. Shanhai Jimmy is long gone as is his little restaurant. Jimmy was one of those old China Fleet sailors, long retired by then, of course. After the Boxer Rebellion there were a few dozen gunboats running up and down the big rivers of China and some Destroyers and Cruisers around the coasts. There were other "treaty powers", too. The Brits, the Japanese, the Italians, the Germans up until after WW1. I have met a few China sailors and China Marines, there were a few still in Service in 1964.

The main requirement for a China Marine of Sailor seems to be a big case of insanity. By my day the surviving China Sailors and Marines were senior NCOs and Petty Officers. I'm sure there were officers, too but I never had much truck with them. Anyhow, every China Marine or Sailor I ever met was a stud bull goose looney. Back in the day a Sailor or Marine got something extra for volunteering for the China Fleet, something like extra retirement or some such. At any rate the "conventional" Navy and Corps had a dislike for them. The ships, submarines and gunboats left in late 1940 or early 1941, IIRC, and there was an Army Regiment involved, too. Dunno the Regiment's number. The China Marines were mostly lost in the Philippine Island when Roosevelt backed out of his promise to send reinforcements after Pearl Harbor. MacArthur gave everyone but the Fourth Marines a Distinguished Unit Citation. His reasoning? The Marines have enough medals. Very few men of the Fourth survived the fight and then the captivity.

What's this got to do with Chili? Nothing. It's too bad I can't think of anything political to say. Those Senate idiots have the oil company execs in front of them again. Seems like it should be the other way around. It isn't the oil companies causing these skyrocketing prices.

So, Teddy Kennedy has cancer in the brain. I wonder if he is going to go up to Canada and use that free medical care he wants us to suffer through. Oh well, if I can't say anything nice

Dear Republican National Committee

Perhaps you haven't noticed but your Congressional elections have been going very poorly lately. I know that you are all real smart and have figured out that you can win elections without those blasted Christians and infernal conservatives and so you threw us all out of the house before the '06 elections. Remind me again how that went.

Perhaps you haven't noticed but big business is now giving more money to Democrats than to you. This means that you don't have the Christians, you don't have big business and you don't have very many conservatives left.

I know, conservatives want less spending and less government and you have less power that way. Tell me, how much power does an ex-Congressman have? Have you noticed that you have lost two seats in special elections that have been "safe" Republican seats for decades?

Remember when we were winning? Did Reagan run as Democrat-lite? Did he send the Christians around to the servant's entrance? As I recall he did rather well. The 80s are over, you say. Well it wasn't long after Reagan that the '94 elections came. Suddenly a cow college history prof turned congressman had an idea. Let us all run as conservatives. We will make a list of things and bring them all up for a vote within the next three months or so, if we win. Remember? Seems to me we did rather well, again.

Of course, that didn't last. The Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) were enraged and they all declared war on Newt as well as Tom DeLay. You, RNC, let them have both. I think, perhaps, that you thought if we just gave them Newt and Tom they'd be happy. How is that working out? Well, let's see. We are going to lose Larry Craig's seat in the Senate. That Democrat that had a gay prostitution ring being run from his basement, though, he will be reelected.

We lost that seat in Mississippi the other week because the Donks accused that guy of being in cahoots with the Klu Klux Klan. Oddly, there is an (ex?)Klansman who is the "dean of the Senate". How does that work? How is it that you allow the Democrats, the Party of Slavery, the Party of the Klan, the Party of Jim Crow accuse our guys of racism? Why are you not buying time with excerpts of Democrat speeches. Perhaps that famous speech about having Old Glory tramped in the dirt, never to rise again from Byrd? How about Segregation Now, Segregation Forever from Wallace. Maybe some juicy quotes from Orville Faubus? How about telling everyone just which Democrat who, on assuming the Presidency in 1913, fired or demoted so many Black Americans in government service and re-segregated Washington DC?

There are better ways to regain power, RNC, than throwing your biggest two voting blocs off the bus. Perhaps instead of hating conservatives and Christians you might remind people that it was Ike who sent the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to enforce the law and integrate the schools. Yes, Ike. The guy the press called an amiable dunce. Funny how that happens. How come Republicans are always stupid and abject failures like Jack Kennedy and Jimmy Carter are always so smart? Sorry, some Republicans aren't stupid, some are crooks. So, Nixon was a crook, the Kennedy brothers were geniuses. Nixon hounded out of office for illegal surveillance. The Kennedy brothers wiretapped Martin Luther King. The Clintons had five hundred FBI files, illegally. Bush is taking our freedoms away.

The press and the Democrats will never love us, RNC. Yet we can beat them. We will always be stupid, crooks or both, to the Dems and the press. Yet we beat them every time we run as proud conservatives. So, why do you swerve away from what works?

I'm Done Shooting For Most Of This Summer

I went back to the Orthopedist today and got the verdict. My rotator cuff is torn and the surgery in on the tenth of June. I'll be six weeks with my arm first immobilized and then in a sling, then comes the sessions with the physical terrorist. That will probably last until mid-August.

Thank heaven for my medical insurance. Further thanks for no nationalized health care. In less than two weeks I've had my visit with my family practice Doc, an X-Ray, a visit with the orthopod, an MRI and returned to the orthopod and my surgery is scheduled and will be done in a month, total. In Canada I would be on a waiting list for my MRI, scheduled for several months from now. Or would I even get an MRI?

I wonder how many people in Great Britain die of old age with torn rotator cuffs that have hurt them for years?

Don't Forget Eddie's Birthday!

Today, 5/15/08 was the last day Eddie T. Dog would ever be one year old. Tomorrow after I get back from seeing the orthopedist we are having his birthday party. This is your last chance to get to the party and have cornbread muffins a la dog. Don't be late!

So, Where Are The Grownups?

This post has been swirling around my head lately, I hope I can make sense of it. I'm wondering where the grownups are and what happened to them. We have a bazillion people all up in arms over glow bull worming, for which there is no evidence. If anything, the evidence is that the last warming trend is over and we are in the beginning of a cooling trend.

The trouble is not that weather changes, it tends to do that. The problem is these people who say that the climate change is due to something we are doing and that we must change, fast, or we are all going to DIE!!!!11!!! The changes we must make are killing people right now and this will only get worse but we must do this or the Polar Bears will be extinct.

Trouble is, these glow bull worming fools do not have an explanation for how Greenland had vineyards and farms that are now under deep sheets of ice. Now were these ice fields formed because the medieval types quit using SUVs and coal fired power plants? How did the Polar Bears survive when Greenland had shirtsleeve weather?

I could go on, a short drive will take me to a patch of desert where I can dig up ancient seashells. What caused that, dinosaurs driving Caddys? Somehow I doubt that. Yet our political leaders are converting vast amounts of grain for fuel. While they are doing this they are screeching about the lack of water. Yet it takes a lot of water to grow that corn, even more to make that corn into ethanol.

How can grownups fall for this nonsense? A grownup is supposed to know a little history. Someone who knows a little history would know that climate is constantly changing. The ice age was not caused by humans. The warming trends were likewise not caused by humans. The likely causes? Solar cycles which we do not yet fully understand.

There is lots more to ask "where are the grownups?" about. More than half the electorate is screeching about why we are in Iraq. Um, the time to argue about why was in 2002. You know, when most of the electorate was screeching about why we weren't in Iraq. Ladies and gentlemen, the mistakes of 2002, 2003 and 2004 do not matter now. We are in Iraq. We seem to be finally winning. Well, as much as can be won over there, anyway. Perhaps there were lots of things we could have, or should have done. I believe there were several things we should have done, starting with doubling or tripling the size of our military forces. I believe that we should have taken the next step right after the invasion was over and the Saddam military forces were crushed, we should have gone into Syria or Iran or even Saudi Arabia. To me the whole idea of the focus of the Islamist evil is in one country is fatuous. And we know the Democrats will not let us solve the problem. So, the Democrats must be defeated. Yet no one ever tried. We have had entire departments of the executive branch of the government fighting the chief executive since January of 2001 and no one did anything. Where are the grownups?

There is a significant percentage of the billion and a half Muslims in this world who want to kill my grandchildren. Not only will more than half the government not fight them but no one even bothers to give us an honest count of the Muslims who want to kill us versus those who want to mind their own business. Where are the grownups?

So, our business and government "leaders" are playing childlike games but that isn't the worst of it. The worst of it is that far to many of us are letting them get away with it. And it isn't just business and government. The natural thing is that we spend our childhood and then we mostly get married. Sure there have always been a few old maids and lifelong bachelors, and a few same sex "friends" sharing a house but the vast majority got, and stayed, married. Now I look out and see troops of women that are full grown and single. Women who, in a sane world, would have had a lot of proposals. Explain to me why LaShawn Barber is single, or the lovely Baldilocks. The wise-ass Jooette, and, for the tall, Tammi? That's just a few I know through blogging, four nice looking, smart, courageous women who should have dates lined up through a week from three years from now. Where are the grownups?

There is something seriously wrong, folks. There are some grownups, our kids grew up and are all raising families of their own, too many aren't. Far too many are just going around doing what? How many black Americans are in jail on on probation or parole because of drugs? Meanwhile saying it's all a trap. Well, it's not a very good trap then, because there are more white people stepping in it, it's just that there are so many more of us. And yet what is happening to black women is happening to white women now, too. When I was of college age men outnumbered women is just about all colleges and universities. Now the opposite is true. Yet women refuse to marry below their education range. Even though a skilled machinist will outearn a middle manager and it takes more years for a skilled machinist to learn his trade than it takes to earn a BA.

Our social structure is falling apart and aged children are running far too much of America. I don't know what to do about it. Two thirds of the Dems in Congress and half the Republicans need a good spanking and to be sent to bed without supper. Hollywood needs a long timeout. Where are the grownups?

Open MRI And Other Adventures

I drove to town and got my MRI today. I was lucky, I only had to drive to Rowlett instead of Dallas. I also needed some blood work for two other doctors, one was supposed to be fasting. The thing that really made me grumpy was that the two docs had me go to two different labs. The one blood test is a standing order from my cardiologist. The other from that dermatologist that is taking care of my juvenile acne. I, being sixty-one years old, am kinda tired of of it. I could have the knees or other joints of a teenager or another body part that should not be named in a family blog, no, I get the pimples. Anyhow I have a couple of months left on this med that is supposed to cure them forever. I had to sign an agreement to not donate blood or get pregnant and to report the desire to mass murder people. That is difficult given this coming election.

So anyhow I got an open MRI this time. Instead of putting me in a big white sewer pipe where JRR Tolkien's Dwarves stood outside and beat it with sledgehammers and pickaxes, it was a larger, more open area. The noises were not as loud, either. Of course it still took a long time, some forty minutes and, naturally, as soon as it started and I couldn't move, my nose started itching. The good news was I didn't have to beg for my choice of music. The last MRI I went through the person running the show acted put out when I told her I wasn't going to lay in that sewer pipe listening to rap.

So I finish my MRI and both lab offices are closed for lunch, since one of these blood tests is fasting I sit in the car, waiting. I got blood drawn, one stick in each arm, dropped the MRI films off at the Orthopod's and home I went. Of course, since the pain meds make me sleepy I was without those until I drove home. Fortunately I'm still tougher than woodpecker lips and only cried half the drive.

I got home, ready to eat the spills on the linoleum, made a couple of tuna sammiches and ate them with my favorite health food, Cheetos. I shared the sandwhiches with the Pugs. CAP was in the back yard and I didn't have the whatittook to take her a sammich butt. Then I took a pain pill and a nearly four hour nap.

Friday I go back to the Doc and we decide what to do with this shoulder. Here's hoping it only will take muscle relaxant. Tomorrow I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to stay home and cook liver and onions. Linda Lou hates liver and so I'm going to stink up the house and laugh. Actually I don't know that any smell of liver and onions will get past the noses of the dogs.

Every day a new adventure. Meanwhile Washington, DC is coming up with calling Polar Bears a threatened species, even though there are more Polar Bears than ever. Damned shame that nobody in the town cares about people.

Pretty Quiet Here.

I've been kind of busy with medical stuff the last couple of weeks. Nothing real serious, I've something wrong with my right shoulder. I believe it's the rotator cuff. This is, of course, compounded by the absolute inability of a doctor to listen to the patient. So I go to my family practice Doc and she, after having me
point out the problem, orders X-Rays. Now I have never claimed to be a medico, although once upon a time the girls could get me to play doctor, but even I know that muscles do not show up on an X-Ray. So I go to the X-Ray, then I go to the Orthopedic clinic. They, of course, don't have the X-Rays, my family practice nurse called me and said I have some arthritis in that shoulder but that would not cause that pain. I, as diplomatically as I was able told her that I told them when they ordered the X-Ray that it was a muscle problem and, oh, by the way, of COURSE I have arthritis, I'm old.

So the Orthopedist is sending me to get an MRI and then return. It's a sixty-odd mile round trip and I'm having to drive enough to start wanting to nag other people about their carbon footprint. I would, too, of only I could make these trips in a private jet.

Meanwhile I tell the Doc that what I need is a muscle relaxant, I've had these pains before. So, being such a good listener, he prescribes pain meds. Lord, I wanna hit him in the face with a sockful of sh, er um, sand. And aren't Orthopedists specialists in bones? This is a muscle problem.

Oh well. I'm going to be busy this week. It's not too late to get here for Eddie T. Dog's birthday party. I'm serving my famous bacon-cheese cornbread muffins. The dogs love them. Blogdaddy Harvey asked that I see how they taste to humans. Anyhow, Friday afternoon, Eddie will be two years old. It was day before yesterday that we brought him home at six weeks old. Now he's Momma's baby and Daddy's big boy.

Tea And Teapots

My Doctors have been nagging me about coffee lately. It isn't enough that I haven't had a drink of alcohol in almost twenty-three years and that I quit smoking three years ago this August, no, they are still complaining.

Oddly, they say I can get my caffeine from tea, though. So I've been experimenting with tea. Green tea beminds me of that time I faceplanted from a dead run into thick grass (don't ask) and ended up with a mouthful of grass and dirt.

I do like the black tea blends, though. I've been drinking plain ol' Lipton's as well as some Irish Breakfast, and English Teatime from Twinings and Bigelow's English Breakfast. I bought some Earl Gray tea, I'm not very excited about that. Now I've always drunk my coffee black, no sugar but it seems I like tea with a little milk and sugar. Note: Earl Gray tea is awful with milk, the tea is flavored with Bergamot, some kind of citrus fruit I'd never heard of. Anyhow, milk is awful with that.

I knew nothing about tea. My family drank coffee right up until it was time for beer. So I'm studying tea a little bit. It seems the Irish drink their tea stronger than most other folks, the saying is "thick enough that a mouse can walk across" while the Brits like it a little milder. Perhaps because of a lifetime of strong coffee I prefer the Irish way.

So, next payday I'm investing in a teapot. I know nothing about those either. The little bit of internet sleuthing I've done says that a teapot works better than making it in the microwave in a measuring cup or in the Mr. Coffee. Anybody know anything about teapots? From what I've read there is a teapot called the Brown Betty, made of some special clay found only in Cornwall. Cornwall is someplace on the British part of the world but that's about all I know. They have oppressed nations over on that side of the pond that are smaller than a lot of Texas counties. That Brown Betty teapot is supposed to make the best tea, dunno why, persactly. They are fairly inexpensive.

At any rate I can drink all the tea I want and still sleep and it doesn't make me shake as bad as the coffee. So I'm going to mess around with that, some. A Brit that hangs out in a Cowboy Action website tells me that the favorite tea in Britain is Tetley. They sell that in Krogers.

So, anybody know anything about tea, teapots or, as fat as I'm getting, artificial sweetener? What will happen to me if I don't stick my pinkie finger out while drinking? And will mobs of upper crust types form if I keep using my mugs and not dainty little cups? I hope I won't have to sit with my shotgun in my lap, eh, the upper crust can't find their way to Lake Tawakoni. If they could the dust would keep them off our roads.

Update: I finally decided to Google where those Brown Betty teapots are made, a place called Staffordshire in a town called Stoke on Trent. This has nothing to do with Cornwall. The maps I've looked at don't show a scale of miles but Staffordshire is just a little west of the middle of the island, Cornwall is a big peninsula at the extreme southwest of the island. Well, big for over there.

I Forgot My Blogiversary.

My Blogiversary was in late last month and I forgot all about it. Oh well, I don't know what the gift is for a third Blogiversary anyhow. I could use a hundred pounds of lead to melt into bullets or a couple thousand-bricks of primers. The last time I bought birdshot to load my shotgun shells it was less than twenty-five dollars a bag. The lowest price I've seen lately is forty bucks a bag and that is only if I buy two at once. At that, the price is getting lower it was up to sixty. I guess the Chicoms really needed that lead for the children's toys they were sending over.

I'm really noticing prices lately. We really thought we'd be able to do some traveling once Linda Lou started getting her social security. We did everything right, we thought. We paid off the house and land, paid off the car and got completely out of debt before she retired. I guess that really annoyed the Democrats because they got heavily involved in the war against the working class about then. When Linda Lou retired gas was well under two bucks, mostly in the $1.55-$1.62 range around here. Milk was $1.79 a gallon when it wasn't on sale.

Does anybody but me remember the Donks' promise to lower energy costs if they won Congress in 2006? How's that working out for everyone? So far the only idea the Donks have had is to not allow any more production and to threaten the oil companies and auto companies. Let me get this straight in my head, the Donks think that if only they threaten the stockholders of these outfits with the loss of any possible profits the stockholders will keep their money in those companies and not pull it out and kill those companies.

And Democrats like to run around saying that we conservatives are stupid. Excuse me, Mrs. Clinton but I quit working for free when I got my discharge. My lord, you Democrats are just dumber than a bucket of lug nuts. Memo to Democrats: We cannot conserve our way out of this energy problem! Our population is growing. This means that even if we each use a little less energy we will still need more than we have. That idiotic crook Harry Reid saying that if we started drilling in ANWAR now it would be ten years before we had any oil. Well, yeah, Harry it would take time. The trouble is, Harry, that Bill Clinton vetoed ANWAR. We would have that oil now if it weren't for you stinkin' Donks.

Owl Gore will not be turning his thermostat up to 80 this summer. Harry Reid will not be skipping his vacation. Nancy Pelosi will be riding those jets and evey one of them will be telling US to conserve. Most of us will, we'll have to. We'll be watching you, though, as you flit around on our dime.

It's too bad, Democrats. If only you weren't a pack of morons you'd be a shoo in this November.

If Only I Were Smart Enough To Understand

Let me get this straight. The Reverend Wright claims that Africans are right brained, Europeans are left brained and so they do not learn the same way or the same things. Do I have that right?

So, Wright seems to be awfully light for African.I am not particularly interested in how that came about, whether voluntarily or through a slave-owner relationship, if relationship is the right word. Anyway, the mixed ancestry is pretty clear. So, how does that work? Is Wright left brained on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and right brained Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with both halves working together in a mighty engine of thought every Sunday? Or is it a little piece of each half all the time?

Since many, perhaps most, of the people in America are made up of various mixes of racial backgrounds I am really curious as to how this works. Obama, for instance, is pretty mch fifty-fifty. Is his right brain-left brain mix different from Michelle's, who seems to have a smaller percentage of European heritage?

Or is Wright just blowing smoke. The more I try to think of this, the more I need a couple of aspirin. Maybe Wright just isn't in his right mind.

A Nice Day Off.

I managed to make it to my first Cowboy Action Shoot since late last spring. It was a local shoot, six stages. For those that don't know a stage is a shooting scenario. It consists of ten (or more) shots from the revolver(s), nine or ten (or more) shots from a pistol caliber rifle and four or more shots from a shotgun. We shoot at steel targets, usually pretty close. As a matter of fact we had the shotgun targets too close at the first half of the shoot and people were getting peppered with birdshot bouncing back.

Once we moved those targets back another five yards the bounceback was more tolerable. Once lead shot bounces from steel it is ballistically identical to a ping pong ball. Up close it is fast but it loses speed like a bowling ball thrown straight up. By a weakling.

Anyhow I shot in the Frontier Cartridge class with my black powder loads in .45 Colt and 12 gauge hammer double shotgun. I missed one target in the first stage and then my shootin' irons became death rays and I didn't miss a target again the rest of the match. Well, a very slow death ray.

I made the mistake of buying all my gear before I ever went to a shoot or talked to any competitors and so I bought all the big cartridges. Then I started shooting and discovered that the winners all shoot light recoiling guns, mostly .38s and a few .32s. If I had the budget I'd replace my Cowboy Action handguns and rifle with that grand old .32-20. Ah well, I'll never win a match but with the black powder I can make a lot of noise, stink, more smoke and a whole lot of fun.

The interesting thing about black powder in cartridge guns is that the noise and perceived recoil makes most folks think that the loads are real hot. Shotshells are still rated in "drams equivalent" meaning that smokeless shells are rated as to how fast the shot would go if pushed by that many drams of black powder. I usually shoot two and a half drams or two and three quarters of real black, light twelve gauge loads are three drams. A Dram is 27.3 grains. A grain is 7,000th of a pound. Black powder is so inefficient that half of the mass of powder goes out as solid matter, adding to the recoil. So the smokeless load would be something like twenty-twenty five grains with very little staying solid to add to the recoil.

Ah, nobody cares about that, just remember if you see a whole lot of smoke then the powder level usually isn't up to the noise. My .45 loads probably leave the barrel of my revolvers at around 700 feet per second or a bit less. In a strong revolver I could get that same bullet up to 1350 fps with smokeless while with black the best I could do would be about 900 or a little more. Not that I would advise standing in front of a .45 slug at black powder velocities. Or a muzzle loading rifle, either. The butcher's bill of the War of Yankee Aggression shows what those old smoke poles could do. Ah well, I'd rather shoot the steel rustlers and train robbers.

The day started off nice and clear with a temperature in the mid sixties. As the day progressed it clouded up and never got to eighty.

The only drawback was that I'm getting too old to tote those big steel targets off and back on the trailer. Lord I ached this morning.

The top and bottom pictures are me. If ou enbiggen that pic you will see the cloud of smoke forming. When it is real humid and the wind is still a black powder shooter has to do some fancy duckin' and dodgin' to see the targets. The third picture from the bottom is a Pard loading up his replica of a Winchester Model 87, that old lever action shotgun. If you always wondered what to get me for a present...

McCain, How Dare You?

I was gradually becoming willing to vote for John McCain. Then he just had to attack the North Carolina Republican Party. The North Carolina Republicans are out of touch? How dare you, sir?

Have you looked at how it is only your campaign and the national Republican Party that cannot raise money? Do you have any idea at all of what you are doing? Dedicated Democrats will vote for their eventual nominee. You, sir, will not get those votes. Running against your own Party will not win the general election. For every independent you gain you lose a Republican.

I was just about ready to hold my nose and vote for you, McCain. Unfortunately the state of the art does not permit that strong a clothspin.,

No Hat, Some Cattle.

There is a saying here in the west: "All hat, no cattle." It refers to a person who goes beyond wearing "casual western" clothes and goes overboard acting like a rancher or cowboy. Well there's no cattle herd on the Poorfarm but my dogs have two cows, and a zebra and a Tigger, a leopard and a sheep. Oh, and a new rooster.

Ming and Eddie don't play with the stuffies much but CAP does. Of course Eddie wants to get involved when Miss Priss has a stuffy.

Ming just mostly lays around. Her arthritis isn't getting any better. We had a nice big thunderstorm last night, though, and that got her moving. Every thunderclap brought a blizzard of barking and chasing around. The picture of her, the third from the bottom, is her laying exhausted after chasing the thunder off to Arkansas. It worked, too. Army Wife, Toddler Mom reported rain this morning.

It will soon be time to take the dogs to the lake, I think the water is still a tad cold but it's getting there. CAP needs to go to the lake and get a bath.

So, What Is This Arugula Stuff, Anyhow?

I must not get out enough. I don't know what this Arugula is or why it costs so much at Whole Foods. I suspect it is a vegetable, dunno why turnip greens isn't good enough for them.

Spring is well underway down here. Not many guys seem to be answering their spam e-mails as too many are wearing shorts outside. If those spam advertisements worked there would be a lot more guys wearing long pants.

So, Obambi is still ahead on delegates. I really don't understand the Donk's game. So, Hillary won Texas but Obambi got more delegates. How does that work, exactly?I just don't get it. Obambi hasn't won any of the battleground states and few of the solid blue states. He has won in some of the states where a Donk has the same odds of winning as I have of winning the next Mr. Universe contest. Oh well, I guess I don't need to understand them to vote against them. Hillary and Obambi are the only reason I'd vote McCain.

There is something really wrong with Yankees. Are northern Universities so hard up for talent that this William Ayers creature is on the faculty of Northwestern? It is sort of funny. There was some kind of misconduct so Ayers walked. In the kind of government he craves he would have got a pistol bullet through the head and an unmarked grave.

I don't remember ever showing pictures of the gun Linda Lou clings to, when she isn't praying. It's a simple S&W Model 60 LadySmith. Except for a little action smoothing and a Hogue Monogrip it is box stock. It was built after S&W's unfortunate dalliance with that Brit outfit, Banger Puta or whatever the name was, that cozied up to the Clintons.

We really wanted the Model 65LS, that six shot .357 with the three inch barrel, instead of the five shot .38 Special PlusP with the two inch tube. Unfortunately, although they were advertised all over, I still have yet to see one. Too bad, the 65 LS would be easier to shoot, being a little heavier, with a longer sight radius.

We waver on what we feed it. Sometimes the Cor Bon 125 grain PlusP JHPs, sometimes the Winchester PlusP 158 grain lead hollowpoint and lately, the Speer Plus P 135 grain Gold Dot Hollowpoint. We don't often mess with those Cor Bon loads, they kick like an angry Missouri mule. The most common is the Winchester. The holster is a Galco, inside the pants clip on.

Oh well, it's almost bedtime. AWTM has some more rain coming, it is pouring here and the dogs are doing their best to scare the thunder off with insane barking. It might be working, the weather is headed towards Arkansas.

Scattershooting, While Wondering About Aces And Eights.

Some years back there was a columnist for a Dallas Newspaper who wrote the occasional column call "Scattershooting While Wondering About...." I just bemembered his name, Blackie Sherrod.

Anyhow he would use that title when all he had was snippets, each not worth a whole column. That is where I am today so, thanks, Blackie.

Someone please explain how this Paris Hilton got so famous.She has no particular talent, she isn't very pretty as far as her face, she has the hips of a boy and no butt, combined with those huge plastic-filled hooters. Just what's up with that? If this is a sex symbol, no wonder the abortion rate is so high. It's a wonder the population hasn't entered monasteries and nunneries.

I am having a lot of trouble understanding how the "housing crisis" is Bush's fault. Let me get this straight in my head. The Democrats forced lenders to loan money to people with poor credit and spotty job histories because not lending lots of money to people was raaaacist and sexxxxxist and probably fattening. Then these folks didn't pay the money back. Meanwhile other folks kept getting home equity loads and spending the money on silly stuff. So, how is this Bush's fault?

When my Momma died we paid off the house and land before we did anything else. A lot of folks thought we were silly in doing so. My sister's husband bought some electronics stocks and they lost their shirts. Well, not quite but a few years later that money would have been real handy so they could escape California.

Yet, because the Donks forced lenders to give money to people who couldn't pay it back it is not just Bush's fault it is my dutyd yours, to rescue them.

I notice that The left is still mad about their mssiah being asked questions. I thought they were complaing about be silenced, now they demand that all questions must be approved by them in advance. Funny, though. Isn't McCain still getting flack from the left about Rev. Hagee?

I wonder why everyone thinks that Wild Bill Hickock had aces and eights in his hand when Jack McCall shot him through the back of the head. MCall was using an S&W .45 Schofield, I believe. The usual load was 28 grains of black powder and a 230 grain soft lead bullet. This bullet went through Hickock's head and lodged in the leg of a player 'cross the table. Hickock went down hard, breaking the flimsy table, the other playes dropped their cards and the rest of the deck was scattered. So, how did anyone know what cards Hickock was holding?

The only one who could have seen those cards was Hickock and he wasn't talking, being dead and all. Oh well, I'll just cling to a gun and pray some. Oh, the Jehovah's Witnesses dropped by this morning, I didn't talk to them, though, because Ming The Merciless was having hysterics. Or was it that I was too bitter? I forget.

The Leftosphere Goes Insane

I had the good sense not to watch the little get together between Clinton and Obama. There is nothing either of those two clowns can do to get me to vote for them. Well, maybe twelve million dollars, after taxes. I do live in Texas so it wouldn't mean much if I did vote for one of them. But that is it, 12 mil or no Donk vote. And I still won't listen to them.

I have enjoyed watching the lefty side of the blogosphere go gaga because the moderators actually asked some questions of interest to anyone outside a university campus or coastal large city. One thing that seems to be recurring through the leftosphere is the anger that anyone should question the cultural changes. Now, since there is only one faction of the Democrats pushing these changes, one would think they would be proper fodder for a Democrat debate. And, since it is the Democrats pushing these changes one would think that it would be proper for Republicans to argue against them.

Not so. According to the Stalins of the Leftosphere, only questions agreeable to them should ever be asked. And, since they won't give a detailed list in advance, this means, what, exactly? That no questions should be asked of their latest Messiah?

Another thing that surprises me in the aftermath of this latest "debate" is the attention given to someone called Andrew Sullivan. Ever since I have been reading blogs vast attention has been paid to this person, I do not know why. He seems to be the homosexual version of Paris Hilton, he is extremely famous although nobody knows why. I have never managed to sit through an entire piece of his writing. Anyhow, Andy is very unhappy that people vote in ways he does not approve. Oddly, though, there is nothing on my voter registration card saying that my choices must be approved by Excitable Andy. Perhaps that is a congressional oversight that will be corrected soon. Does a simple law solve the problem or will they need a Constitutional Amendment? Or maybe Andy should pull on his big girl panties and live with the fact that America doesn't agree with him.

Clinging to my guns.

I am trying to make sense of the hooraw over Obambi's talk about small town people clinging to their churches and guns. Well, I have real trouble over Donk's being considered the friends of the poor, anyway.

During the runup to the '92 elections I was voted in as a Republican Precinct Chairman. I had gone to vote in the Primary and had asked to go to the Republican Precinct Convention. The election official said we weren't going to have one, we didn't have a Precinct Chair. Then she asked me if I wanted to be the PC.

I said sure, why not. So she took my name down and asked the next Republican to come along if he, or she, was willing to write me in. Well, someone did. So, I was unanimously elected, one vote for, none against. I was reelected twice and then resigned to move out here to my retirement home.

I have mentioned before that I spent my life working a job where no reasonably honest man grows rich. During this time my wife has always driven the nicer car. Not that she is snobbish, it's just that if one of us gets stranded on the road it would be better that it be me than her.

Now, once I became a Republican Precinct Chairman I started having to go to political get togethers. Many were at wealthy Republican's homes. So I'd drive up in my used and abused old car, the one with the driver's door held shut by a refrigerator hasp and bolt and the kids parking cars would look rather oddly at me. But the wealthy Republicans never did. I'd sit among women wearing a wedding set worth more than my yearly wages, wearing my only "wedding and funeral suit" or, sometimes, blue jeans and a western shirt and my opinion was just as welcome as the words of the guy in the bespoke suit and three hundred dollar shoes.

Oddly, though, when I had to go to some function like the Election Judge training where there were both Republicans and Donks, the Donks never missed a chance to look down on someone less wealthy.

So it is with the people trying to say that Obambi was just talking about small town folks voting "against their economic interests. So, I live between two small towns. These Donks think I'm voting against my economic interests to vote for lower takes and to keep my guns. Oddly, Teddy Kennedy does not give up his trust fund. As a matter of fact the Clintons donated Billy Jeff's old underwear for the tax deductions. I know of no Democrat that pays more in taxes than they absolutely have to, and I suspect that Donks work harder than Republicans to avoid takes. How many Republicans take a tax deduction for used underwear? Or is it that the MSM would hide that to protect the Republican's reputation? Somehow I doubt that.

The reality is that Republicans want to lift people up. Democrats want to keep people dependent on them. The Democrats do not like the poor, they just want to use them.

I must go cling to a gun now.

The Most Important Post Of My Week

I can hardly imagine that anyone who looks in here (aside from the odd relative) doesn't keep up with Army Wife, Toddler Mom. In case you are that unimaginable reader please go here.

So, Did The San Francisco Bozos Scare The Chicoms?

I spent much of today driving around. I heard nothing on the car radio about Tibet being free. I reckon a bunch of poor smelling yahoos did not frighten the Chicoms. Imagine that.

Funny, it seems that the Sadr bunch of loonies is seriously considering putting down their guns. Seems that they have had some trouble staying alive after getting the US and Iraqi military mad at them.

So, what is the score? Good vibes, zero people freed. The military, 50 million. No wonder the good vibes types hate the military.

I had to drive up to North Dallas today, to get the stitches out of my face. Well, the stitches on the surface. The Doc put those stitches that dissolve under the skin for the rest of it. Anyhow I seem to be healing well. Very little pain, that's always nice. I like as little pain as possible.

I saw some storm damage on my drive, a new portable building in pieces, although I don't think it was fastened down at all. It wasn't there a couple-three weeks ago, then it was sitting in an otherwise empty field last Wednesday and now it is scrap. A school bus shelter torn apart and lots of shingles off some roofs. The radio was talking about five Salvation Army crisis vans out giving coffee and snacks to emergency crews in the DFW area. I saw none of that kind of damage but that's weather. Linda Lou, Captain Fatbob and I drove through Oklahoma City after that last big batch of tornadoes and we saw where it looks as if God's own bulldozer drove through neighborhoods with no damage at all only yards away. That was May of '99. Interstate 35 ran right through it and it is elevated through some of it so we saw it real well.

That was a trip where Linda Lou tried to kill us. On the way north we were just ahead of the storms, all the way to Emporia, Kansas. That is where we stopped for supper. We had never been to a Cracker Barrel Restaurant and store before then. So we ate and then Linda Lou had to look at every single thing in the store while the storms caught up. We drove the rest of the way to Topeka at about thirty miles an hour on the freeway, in blinding rain and constant lightning. It would have been interesting had we been struck by lightning, that was the trip we took to bury her father's ashes next to her mother. Two dead people, a dead dog and another one turned to ashes. We would have made the Weekly World News.

Free Tibet. How?

I'm surfing around and see where the Lefties in the Bay Area are doing an "action" on the Golden Gate Bridge to free Tibet. I'd be interested in knowing how they plan to do this. It's not like any agency but the War Department, and then the Defense Department, ever freed anyone. And they really do everything they can out there to prevent the Defense Department from doing anything.

Tibet is the perfect cause for those clowns. They can point to their desire for a free Tibet while doing everything they can to prevent the young men and women from freeing the people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Suppose we got the Congress to authorize another half dozen divisions in the Army, as well as like increases in the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and used that increase to try to free Tibet. Assuming we had a path to Tibet, which doesn't look easy to get to. How long would it be before "Bush Lied!" No blood for yak butter!"

See You On The Other Side, Chuck.

Chuck Heston is dead. I can't say I ever met him, we exchanged waves at the NRA Convention, once. I think it was in San Antone, although it's been so long I wouldn't bet big money on it being there or someplace else.

Heston was a Democrat back when Democrats were not thrown out of the Party for loving America. Like Ronald Reagan he didn't leave the Democrat Party, the Party left him.

I never cared about The Apes movies, or Moses or Ben Hur, I liked his westerns. Will Penny, Major Dundee.

Heston stayed married to the same woman for sixty-four years. Several folks on the 'net ave mentioned that they'd like to hear the conversation when Heston meets Moses. I just hope he stops on the foot of the Rainbow Bridge and pets the criters what are waiting for us.

I'll see you there, Chuck, maybe we can do some plinking.

Don't Get Into A Knife Fight With A Surgeon.

I had that little outpatient surgery to remove the small skin cancer near my eye Wednesday. It is an interesting procedure that I hope y'all will forgive me for not wanting to do it again real soon. I had thought that the Doc would simply remove surface skin. Nope. I didn't get a great look but he cut out enough to completely submerge a single ought buckshot. Then the nurse's aid bandaged it up and I went back out to the waiting room and read and drank coffee for about an hour and a half.

This was all done under Novocaine. That was what I worried about more than anything, a certified nurse's aid so close to my eyeball with a needle the size of a Zulu spear.

While I was sitting there a lab worker was examining the lump of flesh ripped from my face. Most times the Doc has to cut two or even three times to make sure he gets it all. Since I never did get half as purty as Momma wanted me to be I told him to cut a little extra. Who'd notice a scar on this face?

Sure enough, it worked and he got all the cancerous cells out on the first try. So then he did some fancy sewing, that "thread" that dissolves because it is under the skin and followed that by some extra fine stitching on the skin flap over the hole. I should end up with a very thin and fine scar shaped like a "T" with the more or less vertical part most of an inch long and the crosspiece about half that. With the stitching as tight as it is I doubt anyone will notice in a year or two.

There is a little pain, not bad. I take a Darvocet at night but I don't think I'll need them much longer, I'll switch to Tylenol. It does itch, though. I had some old Cortisone cream for bug bites around, I just spread some on it, we'll see if it works.

Anyhow I am now cancer free. I look like I took a jab in the eye from a young Sonny Liston but it's not the first black eye I ever had. Although at my age one would think I'm done with that.

The Doc that does this surgery does no other kind and he stays quite busy enough doing it. I have no idea what this cost my insurance but I bet it is easily well into four figures, even though it took way under an hour, except for the waiting around. I got there at eight AM and was walking out at noon.

All I can say is wear a hat big enough to shade your face.

Look Who Followed Me Home, Ma! Can I Keep Him?

Eddie has a new pal. The puppy from across the street followed him home and Eddie wants to keep him. During nice weather when we have Cochise' Apache Princess safely in the back yard we like to leave the front door open so Eddie and Ming can go in and out when they please.

There is a problem with that, now. Eddie's new pal is very much like a teenage boy. You parents will bemember how they always head straight to the refrigerator, Well Eddie's pal head straight to the food dishes.

Worse, this puppy is a thief. A stuffy thief. Linda Lou was not paying attention and I went out and found four stuffies out where they aren't supposed to be. Stuffy Thief!

In other canine news CAP has turned into the Mud Monster. That one broken sprinkler head turns that area into a mud hole. The two Pugs avoid the mud, Princess revels in it. She is a very smart girl but she does have a doggie brain, not an adult human brain. This means she does not realise that her Momma won't let her in the house covered in mud. So we don't let her in except about an hour or two before bedtime.

Oh well, payday I'll buy another sprinkler head and beg the plumber neighbor I have to install it. Sirloin steaks were on sale and I put several in the freezer, that might just do the trick.

We're Not Dead!

Nobody here at the Poorfarm is dead, or even sicker than usual. I haven't been posting because our Doctors have decided it's test time. My rat poison levels have been wonky, nobody knows why. My Coumiden/Warfarin that my cardiologist has me taking has been swinging my blood thickness levels all over so I'm driving up to Greenville to have my blood drawn more often, Linda Lou's Doc has a bazillion tests for her and I'm having various tests, too. So, since we live way out past Resume Speed, Texas, I'm spending lots of time staring through the windshield.

Anyhow, so far, so good on the various tests.

It doesn't help that I am way past bored with this election. Just who decided to start this election in 2005 and can we beat them with shoes?