Depressed

This was e-mailed to me.

Think you are depressed?...
Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel ,
"Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead
You to the Promised Land."

Nearly 75 years ago, (when Welfare was introduced) Roosevelt said, "Lay
Down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the
Promised Land."

Today, Congress has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the
Price of Camels and mortgaged the Promised Land!

I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the
Economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement
Funds, etc . . . I called a Suicide Hotline.

I had to press 1 for English.

I was connected to a call center in Pakistan . I told them I was
Suicidal. They got excited and asked if I could drive a truck...

Stupidity

I find it somewhat amusing that the guy most responsible for our present financial (deficit & debt) hole is now campaigning on the premise of cleaning up the mess he helped create. I suppose we have a whole country that fails to realize this. Stupidity is alive and well.

Generally Rude

2 days ago I had a phone message from a head hunter (recruiter). The next day I returned the call and left a message because he was apparently not at his desk. I left him a number where he could contact me during working hours. Today he called the house, not the number I left, and left me another message.

I realize that these guys get paid by the employer, but do they really have to treat the potential employee like a piece of meat? Some are just plain rude. I generally refuse to deal with those pricks.

Lost Dog

The lady at the gun shop called with news about my Charter Bulldog 44 yesterday. When I talked to her last weekend she admitted to have forgotten that I left it with her to ship back to Charter almost 4 months ago. It was shipped but not received. Charter now claims to have shipped it back 3 months ago, but the shop has no record of ever receiving it. All claim to be tracing it through the shipping documents.

I wonder if someone else is the proud owner of a newly repaired Bulldog 44.

No Way

Thursday I received a phone message and an e-mail from a company recruiter headquartered in Mass. Can you immagine a gun person like me moving to Mass?

I politely declined the interest in hiring me. Too bad. It would've been a good opportunity.

Knowledge And Skills Come in Handy

When you're a gun person, it's also convenient to be a mechanical engineering professional with a few manual skills. That combination has allowed me to make a few improvements to various firearms without having to pay a gunsmith. Careful application of a buffing wheel on a dremmel tool has polished many a feed ramp to improve reliability and the chambering of hollow point ammunition. And with care I created a feed ramp on an inexpensive 1911.

I polished the feed ramp on my Hi-Power and shortened the trigger travel. The Hi-Power has a long trigger throw for a single action because of the magazine disconnect feature. In case you don't know there is a spring loaded shoe that must ride (slide) on the magazine or trigger movement has no effect. This results in the long trigger throw and a gritty feel. Both are not desirable. If the shoe is removed, the gritty feel goes away but the long throw remains. To shorten the throw I blocked the trigger so it wouldn't move back to it's original position. This was done by applying epoxy to a machined out section of the frame. Now the throw is acceptable.

An instructor in the gun shop I visited Saturday thought this was not safe. My modified Hi-Power is just as safe as the original, but he didn't have the knowledge to know this. Most, if not all instructors have little or no knowledge of how a firearm actually works.

Comforting

One of the best things about going into a gun shop is that just about everyone has a gun on their hip. For some this is disturbing. For me it's rather comforting for more than one reason. It's nice to be among like minded people, and any bad guy would have to be the village idiot to try anything there.

Sore

Friday the internal network went down at work. That meant no telephone and I couldn't access my files to work on any of my assigned tasks. To keep from just sitting on my butt, I decided to help the maintenance guys install a 2 stage vacuum pump. It's been a couple of years since this old desk jockey did anything close to manual labor. I'm damn sore today.

Food & More Food

I think it's great that the church women have been dropping by with food each and every day. The bad thing is that we're both putting on weight.

Bulldog 44

Today I left the truck for an oil change and transmission flush. While waiting a walked to the local indoor range and shop to window shop. I sometimes think we gun people are worse than women. While there I asked about my Charter Bulldog 44. I left it there almost 4 months ago for shipment back to the manufacturer to be repaired. The forcing cone cracked. Based on my personal experience, I'd stay away from Charter Arms products. I've experienced poor reliability and terrible customer service. Although basing a conclusion on a sample of 1 is not a good statistical practice.

Well Said

And with good insight. Click and go read.

Belch - Burp

For the last 3 days in a row, folks from the Boss's church have shown up with enough food to feed an army. It has overflowed the refrigerator in the kitchen into the old frig we keep in the basement. I'm not sure we can eat it all before it goes bad. It'a all good stuff I'm happy to say. My spare tire has no chance of going flat.

Blah-Blah-Blah

There's no way, other than to get re-elected, that Big Government Obama wants to cut government spending below the present 40% of the economy. I don't care what he says, everything that he and his leftward cronies wants to do has just one goal, government control of us all and European style socialism.

Back Home

The Boss is back home, and as I write this she's asleep in the recliner about 6 feet away. We learned that morphine has absolutely no pain reducing effect on her. For me it was my best friend after hip replacemeny surgery.

I;ve been avoiding the news today, other than to hear that they finally came to some sort of agreement regards another temporary budget for the rest of the fiscal year. I saw enough of the coverage yesterday to last a lifetime. As a country we've become so polarized that maybe we are actually 2 countries.

A Day at The Hospital

The Boss had her back surgery today. We got up this morning at 5:30 and arrived at the hospital 10 minutes early for our assigned check in time of 7:30. We were informed of this arrival time, and surgery at about 10:00, verbally from the Doc's office and by letter from the hospital. The woman behind the desk said that we were not supposed to be there until 10:00. I think I said something about scheduling incompetence, politely but firmly.

When the surgeon's PA met with us I again had something to say about their scheduling. This resulted in a bunch of hollow explanations and several apologies.

Anyway, she disappeared into the bowels of the hospital at around 11:30 and reappeared around 2:30. I was told it went well and the repairs are such that the problem should not return. He removed some bone from the lumbar area of the spine, trimmed several bulging disks, boney growths and soft tissue that were pressing onto the nerve bundle.

I sat in the hospital for 12 hours. When I left she had taken 2 doses of morphine and percoset before the pain was tolerable. I think she's somewhat immune to that stuff because it didn't even make her sleepy.

Anticipating that there would be no gun signs plastered on the doors, I didn't wear my usual 1911 45 or even the little Kahr PM9. I wore lose fitting jeans with the tiny Keltac 380 in a pocket holster in my front pocket. I was near hospital security several times, and if they noticed, I didn't notice any of them notice.

Yeah I violated local law, as illegal as that law may be. Why do hospitals always seem to be located in the bad part of towns?

Gun Walker

Or in other words ATF operation "Fast and Furious". Chuck has a decent summary. The memo said, "ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week in an effort to preempt some negative reporting, or at a minimum lessen the coverage of ("Fast and Furious") in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about the ATF." It's going to take a lot more than that to cleanse this stain. In the meantime, proponents of gun control – including the White House – should focus on bringing U.S. government agencies into compliance with our existing laws before pushing new restrictions on the rest of us

So What??

The Buckeye State legislature has passed a bill that requires all voters to show a government issued ID at the polls. I find it amazing to hear all the complaints. What's the big deal about wanting voters in the state to actually be who they say they are?

Conspired Against

I cleaned and lubed all my paintball guns and gear, had my cammies on and was ready to leave when the Boss spoke. "It rained last night and it's going to be muddy on the paintball field', or something similar. Normally that wouldn't bother me one-little-bit this time of year. I'm chomping at the bit to play, especially since last year was a wipe-out and most of the year before. I'm anxious to go shoot somebody and test the repaired hip, but that word MUD got stuck in my little pea brain. Mud is slippery. Having my replaced hip contorted because I lost my footing could be a disaster since I'm not exactly fully recovered. And I'm needed to care for the Boss the next few weeks. She's having back surgery Friday. It would be a disaster for both of us to be stuck in a chair. I stayed home. There must be a conspiracy.