House Toads

Given the past year's weather, incredibly damp, then hot,  the local toad population has exploded.  All summer we would see the little buggers hopping between the flowerbeds and the sidewalk.  It got to the point you'd have to watch out where you stepped to avoid scushing them.  By July,  I had  to watch for them while mowing certain areas,  otherwise the Scag was pulling double duty as a toad Cuisinart. (Toads, being personable and easygoing creatures,  I didn't like mowing them)

Anyhow,  that bit of back story sets up the rest...    For the past few weeks,  there's been this one big, fat toad that hangs out on our porch at night, directly under the light.  How he gets up there is impressive,  as I've never seen a toad (even one motivated to escape certain death by lawnmower)  jump that high.  He's managed to avoid being trampled or chomped by 3 large dogs in that time,  and has gotten quite fat as a result.


Camera shy toad:

One clever bastard,  that toad.  He knows where the easy meal is.  (notice the distinct lack of dead bugs on the ground :)

It's here.

Big yellow moon rising over the woods, crickets making more racket than the local speedway, and the smell of cottonwood leaves and grass chopped up by the lawnmower on a cool breeze?  Yep,  Fall has come to the Buckeye.

This is why I love this state.  Add colored leaves and it's just perfect.

NC2 AAR

A week later,  and I'm just now getting around to a recap...   As a "for the record"  for you folks, my lovely Wife   Blogs as well, and outposts me in quality and quantity,  so go there for Northcoast blogshoot stuff.  She's the one responsible for at least half,  probably more of the prep involved for this shindig,  to give credit where it's due. 

First off on the list of thanks is to Breda (and her mom!) ,  without her organization and cooking of delicious food, this wouldn't have been nearly as much fun as it was.   Mike also rocks,  for a dude that steps right up to help,  I never have to look far.  Thanks man. (and blog more, you lazy bastard,  you write good stuff!)

Special thanks also go out to Mr. and Mrs. Newbius .  The pizza was out of this world,  and the house still smells faintly of pizza parlor,  which is a glorious smell!  Thanks for going to all of the trouble to drag the fixins across several states to make us those delicacies, not to mention helping set everything up. I have no doubt you'll go far with pies that good :D

On the hostile stuffed animal front,  Bending Spoons  Had us covered.  Also gets credit for funniest blog meme.

I'd also like to point out how completely awesome Tannerite is as a business.  Newbius floated the idea of having Tannerite targets for the shoot on the Sunday night prior to the shoot.  I managed to not order them on Monday, which would've been the cutoff for getting them shipped from the west coast.  So, on Tuesday afternoon,  I had Amanda start calling the local distributors, only to find out that case price was close to double that from Tannerite proper.  Long story short,  Amanda called Tannerite,  explained the situation,  and they had 4 cases on our doorstep THE NEXT DAY,  for a whopping $15 extra charge.  Damned impressive customer service.  They didn't know us from adam, and still turned things upside down to get us the stuff in time for the shoot.   I can't give a company higher marks, and that's saying a lot.  And that doesn't even begin to cover how much fun the stuff is... 

A big thanks to those of you who threw in to cover the Tannerite cost as well.  It wasn't necessary, but very much appreciated.  The same goes to whoever helped out and didn't tell me.  You know who you are,  Thank you.


 Last, and certainly not least,  thanks to Old NFO.  You sir, are the man.  Thanks for all the help and sharing your toys.  I think you made Dad's day :)  

That's all I've got right this moment.  It was a fun weekend, and I hope everyone had as good a time as we did. 

See y'all next year!

PS-  We didn't get a chance to take pics, so if anyone has stuff hosted or wants to send us some, that would be great.




FTC disclaimer on the Tannerite part;  Do the letters F and O mean anything to y'all? 

North Coast Blogshoot / Meet 2

Holy shit, where did the summer go.  There's a whole 3 days left until the shoot!  Sorry it's taken so long to update this,  I've just had entirely too much to do, none of which included blogging.  Luckily, Breda  
has things well in hand.

Details:

Saturday:

  Breda has sent everyone the schedule,  so I won't reiterate.  Folks camping out are welcome to show up early and make camp,  though there will be plenty of time after the shoot to pitch a tent.  Anyone else that gets here early will be put to work ;)



Sunday:

Breakfast- For anyone staying close,  there's a few decent diners and a Bob Evans,  or I can cook up something here.  We'll figure that out Saturday.  

For those of you who haven't been here,  plug the address to the Sooper Secret Location into gmaps, and when once you've turned on to our road, look for an old John Deere 50* tractor out in the yard.  I park that there for an easy landmark.

We've got most of the bases covered for "stuff",  but any extras are always a boon.

Bug spray.  (biting bastards are out in force this week.)
Coolers
Camp chairs

Bottled water will be provided,  BYO soft drinks and booze.

That covers all I can think of.  Any questions or suggestions, just let me know.

H

This is what a JD model 50 looks like:

Oh look, it's August..

Summer is hard on blogs around here (Not to mention our  WoW commitments),  we pretty much unplug from internet based stuff til the weather turns to shit for the winter.  That said, I find myself looking at only a few weeks left here before shipping out,  a county fair, and a blogmeet all showing up in the same time frame.  Looks like it's time to get back to work on the intertubes.  Look for a blogmeet update here shortly!

Stupid Party fails again.

Republicans take the French option

[blockquote]McConnell said Republicans would "do the responsible thing" to avoid default, suggesting that a deal on the debt ceiling could be reached without a "real" deficit reduction package.  [/blockquote]

Here's a thought...  GROW A FUCKING SPINE,  and oppose the bloody Socialists.  Is this so hard? Really?
Let the children hold their breath till they turn blue,  we're the adults here.  (And if Senior Citizens have to pick between food and fuel,  more the better.  The roads would be 10 times safer)

I personally look forward to watching all these entitlement programs crash and burn,  I'm tired of feeding the poorly prepared and lazy.

Weekend Filler

First chance we've had all summer to fix up the yard.  The wife and I have edged, weeded and mulched the whole property.  20 ish yards of mulch later,  I've got nothing for the interwebz, but Amanda found something to entertain y'all.

Ok,  I guess it's only funny if you're a WoW addict,  but I like lol'd

Independence Day

I wish I could post something happy and meaningful about celebrating freedom today,  but given that launching fireworks,  having a bonfire*, and modifying the diesel on my truck are all illegal,  I'm just not feeling it.

Laws be damned anyhow,  and I'll do all of those,  the 4th is a fine day to celebrate in the Wookie suit.  



* How fucked up is that?  The .gov goes out of their way to regulate a tool that did as much to put us on the top of the food chain as the damned wheel.  Bastards.

We're back.

 Nearly 2000 miles later,  we're back.  (And in time for fireworks!)    AAR later,  just so y'all don't think we've died/ and are ignoring this place.

Have a great Independence Day,  remember why we celebrate it,  and hopefully we'll all be able to count 10 with both hands,  fingers intact.

Led Zeppelin- Stairway to Heaven - Violin, flute, acoustic guitar

I wrote a decent little piece on the Battle of Belleau Wood,  but my homespun Magic Elf Box is heat sensitive and crashed,  taking with it all my unsaved work.  So here's a cool music video instead.

I like Stairway to Heaven,  even if it's horrifically overplayed.  This is a worthy cover.

In lieu of content..

Warrior Dash 2011

This  Looks way too damned cool.  I'm so doing it.

Guns and air travel

I've read up on how this works,  seems pretty straight forward,  even on the TSA website.  The only ticklish thing I can find is transporting 2 pistols into a state that doesn't offer CCW reciprocity with Ohio (Texas).  Is there anything other that observing local firearm transport laws that I should know?  I pretty much go by the "forgiveness before permission"  rule when it comes to self defense, but I like to at least know what I'm [i]supposed[/i] to be doing legally.

Thoughts?

Saturday nifty link

Instead of thinking up content,  go look at these nifty pictures instead.

Sergey Larenkov  makes some really awesome art from merging WW2 pictures with modern ones of the same location.

If you haven't seen these yet, very cool,  and if you have,  worth looking at again for new content.

Road trip!

 Finally found The Mrs. . a new truck, and it's all the way the hell down in Texas!  Shipping it is an option,  but for the cost it would be infinitely more fun to fly down and drive it back. so.... Road trip!

We've not taken a break in the past 2 years,  so this is going to double for a vacation.  Neither of us has really traveled the Southeast,  so we're looking to drive from Houston over to Panama City Beach ( Or somewhere thereabouts), and then head back north. 

All that's left to do is find stuff to do along the way.   I'm thinking at least one beach day,  Stone Mountain on the way through GA,  and whatever else Google thinks will be interesting to see.

fun stuff.

Added thought-  if anyone has a  "Go see THIS"  or "Stay the fuck away from THERE!",  drop me an email or comment.

Northcoast Blogshoot., 2011.

It's closing in on that time of year again,  Time for a get together of shooty goodness, great food and even better company.  It's the 2nd annual North Coast Blogger shoot! 

Given that the Northeast Blogger Shoot   is going to be  on the first weekend of August,  We'd like to get this one in between then and Columbus day weekend  (Weekend of Oct 9th),  which is Yellow Footprint day for me.  I'm thinking Labor day weekend.  It's not in concrete yet,  but a 3 day weekend would be ideal for a 2 day shoot.. 

Thoughts?  Let Breda, know ( Keeping things simple,  and she's really good at organizing stuff),  we'd love to have ya.

*Added,  Anyone who wants may camp out here,  we'll have latrine and showers available,  and there's always the motel in town for those who don't want to rough it.

The police will protect us...

4 killed in drugstore robbery  .

Tell that to these folks.  I never want to come off as grave dancing (unless the surname is Kennedy,  then I'm not above it...)  But this is a prime example of why I preach carrying a concealed weapon. 

Who knows how this may have went if the victims had been able to defend themselves.

As Breda says,   "Carry your gun,  it's a lighter burden than regret"

Impeach the bastard

I found this gem on Fox earlier:

"Despite objections from Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers, president decides he does not need congressional approval for the U.S. military campaign in Libya because it does not constitute as 'hostilities.' "

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/18/obama-sided-against-2-top-administration-lawyers-in-libya-debate/

This is the equivalent of sticking his tongue out and like a 5 year old and saying "DOESN'T COUNT!!"

Does he really believe the nonsense he spouts?  How the fuck does one wage a military campaign without "hostilities"?

The man is either completely incompetent or lying through his teeth.  Both are unacceptable.   Impeach the smug bastard.

Movie night!

A good flick tonight,  that my wife picked.  Happy wife, happy life and all that...

We get to watch Liam Neeson Kills everyone!

Good stuff.

Weiner therapy

The current political scandal is just too damned funny,  what with the nature of the the issue and the name of the jackwagon in question.   Apparently, after a thorough grilling,  our good friend Rep Wiener (huh huh, huh huh)  is now headed to "therapy".  You know,  as opposed to doing the honorable thing and stepping down, as one so unworthy of the office and public trust should. 

I'd pay good money to know what sort of "treatment"  cures one of being a pathological lying piece of shit.  And then dump it in the municipal water supply of Washington D.C.

An introduction...

To the woman of my life.  The Yin to my Yang,  as Jay puts it.  A fine woman that I'm most honored to call my wife,  the one person that I've pledged to annoy til death do us part  ;)

I  AM  truly a lucky man.

without further adieu,

Chasing Freedom 

Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing (Live)

Why I love Youtube

Because it allows me to randomly stumble on to things that are just made of pure awesome.  I've always enjoyed Dire Straits,  but never really took it past "Sultans of Swing",  and only the studio version at that.  Imagine my joy and stumbling upon this tonight:


(See above,  I can't figure out how to properly embed this,  and am too lazy to figure out how tonight.)

That video,  and a trip to Wikipedia,  and I'm learning all kinds of random trivia about Mark Knopfler.  Such as he wrote the score for "The Princess Bride", which I'm currently watching with the  Mrs.

Small friggin' world.

Atlantikwall

(apologies,  it's late and my google foo is weak on finding good pics from the Nazi perspective) 



69 years ago Hitler started construction of what would become the most impressive coastal defenses of all time.  This was in response to a successful British ampihib raid on St.. Nazaire . (A very cool read,  go clicky).  So,  YEARS to prepare,  millions of tons of concrete into pillboxes and walls prepared specifically to repel EXACTLY what the Allies were going to throw at them.  No one at the time would've thought an assault anything but suicide..

2 years later The greatest landing force of all time kicked the door in  and started a new front,  that combined with Soviets efforts in the east (which far outclassed ours,  in the amount of blood and slaughter),  ended in Berlin.  Without geeking out too much on the history,  it was the close of a chapter that started in 1914.

Truly the Greatest Generation.  Remember them,  read the history,  and appreciate what they did.

"Why'd it have to be snakes.?"

Ohio isn't really know for it's abundance of reptiles.  We have a few snakes,  mostly in the southern half of the state, and the majority of them harmless.  Up here, it's the occasional garter snake, when you see them at all.  There ARE a few venomous ones,  Copperheads, Cottonmouths, and couple species of Rattler, but unless you go looking for them in specific habitat, you don't see them.

So,  Monday night after I came home from PT, it was hotter than balls out.  We don't have central air, and I hadn't gotten around to putting the window unit in.  I got the frame put in the bedroom window, and went to the basement to get the AC unit.  Imagine my surprise when I went to catch up the power cord, and it suddenly moves and hisses at me!  What I had assumed was one of my wife's fancy curtain tieback ropes was now animated, coiled up and pissed off.

I texted my Sgt (who raises pythons,  as that was what I thought this was), and most calmly stated OMGTHERESAHUGEMOTHERFUCKINGSNAKEINMYFUCKINGBASEMENTHOLYSHITITTRIEDTO KILLME.  He couldn't identify it from the cell phone pic, but advised me to "Stop being a woman and grab the fucker".  Easy for him to say,  safely miles away.  At this point Dear Wife had come home, and held the flashlight while I corralled the slithering beasty  in an old fish tank.

Long story short,  Wikipedia provided an exact pic and description of our intruder,  an Eastern Milk Snake  
An otherwise harmless,  beneficial critter to have around.  I was actually kinda bummed.  Had he been venomous,  I'd have skinned him out and shipped his carcass to Dennis.  (Look no further for most excellent dead reptile trimmed holsters!)  It was really tempting to ship him out to Dennis and just skip the skinning part altogether,  but I figured Mr. Snake had had a rough enough night and turned him loose out in the woods. 

If I ever see another damned snake in my basement, I'm taking Jay's advise and getting a friggin Judge :P


Bugger was just shy of 4 feet long.

Remember

Some gave all...

We don't say "Happy Memorial day",  damnit.  The only words appropriate are "Thank you". 

Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

I've been a big fan of Larry Correia's stuff since his first self printing of Monster Hunter International (MHI).

I recently downloaded the audio book of Hard Magic,  and I dare say Larry has outdone himself yet again.  MHI was my favorite,  but this narrowly passed it up.  I'll not do a lengthy review,  but if you're not interested in an alternate history that involves magical power influencing prominent figures and history itself...  You're wrong.  Full stop,  end of story.  How Larry comes up with this stuff, I have no idea,  but the mingling of history and his fanstasy are nothing short of excellent.  Hard magic is a Steampunk alternate history chock full of Zeppelins,  Browning weapons, and awesome.  I've not seen it's equal.  Harry Turtledove has nothing on Correia.  I like Turtledove's stuff, but this is in a league of it's own.  Very much Gunny- centric.

It's going to be a good year for Larry's books.  If you haven't read MHI or MHV yet,  I strongly recommend them.  This year,  we get Hard Magic,  Monster Hunter Alpha,  AND  Dead 6 ( Which was awesome in it's first form,  as a collaboration with Mike Kupari on the old THR board).  Can't wait to see the revised version in print. 

Go forth and get a copy!


PS-  Not that it matters,  but I still think the cover art looks like Delilah is holding a glowing dog turd.. 

Steven Camp, RIP

Quite sad news. 59 is way too young to punch out of this mortal coil.  He was always a courteous, helpful guy on THR.  He will be missed.

I sincerely hope someone will archive his site,  it's a wealth of info. http://hipowers-handguns.blogspot.com/

My condolences to his family.

Down the road I go.

Most day's I spend about 8-12 hours listening to audiobooks in the truck.  Audible.com is an excellent source for these, despite being sorta pricey.  Woot.com provided the player,  in the form of a cheap Sanza clip 4 gig  (for a whole 12 bucks!),  and given that I've run mine through the wash and it still works,  I'm pleased.

So I spend all day listening to random podcasts and books,  and if you bother to apply yourself,  the potential to learn PILES of random interesting info is there. 

So the past week I've been working on "The Last Lion,  visions of glory,  Winston Spencer Churchill 1874-1932"

Churchill is one of my favorite characters from history.  He's easily on that imaginary list of " Who would you want to have dinner and drinks with from history?"   He's not perfect by any means,  but I have the greatest respect for a man that can hold a view,  have it rubbed in his face as incorrect,  and not only learn from, it,  but form a better thought, supported by the new facts.

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." WSC

I could write y'all piles of interesting stuff here about that man,  but it's been done.  One of the things that did stick out to me,  was the India crisis.  The book covers both that and the Ireland home rule kerfuffle... While completely interesting as a background of Why Things Are The Way They Are,  one weird thing stuck out to me...  


How do you manage to take a sub continent,  overfill it with hungry people and a plethora of "sacred" cows,  and then stick them with a goofy religion that forbids eating of said surplus of bovines?  


The gods have a twisted sense of humor.

Ouch.

4 miles of hills at a roughly 7 min mile is painful.  I'm REALLY out of shape.  Gotta do a lot more of this before boot so I don't die,  and it doesn't help things that at the end of this run,  my local Eagles Aerie is a mere 900 yards off... 

Not a complete waste though,  Got my running buddy signed up to join the aerie.  Still trying to [s] sucker [/s]  talk him into filling a reservist slot in the Corps. 

Tomorrow's gonna hurt.

Let me tell you of the days of high adventure...

Dear wife has hit the sack early.  I've got  a Long Island ( Fixins for several,  actually)  ,  MW2, and Conan the Barbarian.  It's hard to beat a flick that has the Governator getting high and punching a camel in the face.

I plan to drink good booze,  crush my enemies, see them driven before me,  and hear the lamentations of teh noobs.  And make potato skins..

It WILL be a good night.

Spring finally

Or,  why I can't seem to find time to post here or play wow.  The blog gets neglected and the guild bitches.   Too much stuff to get done outside.

NRA Con wrapup

I had planned on another post about the convention,  but everyone else covered it,  and anything I'd have to say would be redundant at this point. 

I do want to post up a few thank you's from the convention,  even if they are a little after the fact.

Iain at Crimson Trace.  The location might have sucked,  but the company was excellent.  (And you'll never hear me complain about free drinks or chow).  Watching him lick Jay's bald head was completely worth having to leave MOST of our guns in the car.  Also,  if anyone here isn't familiar with CT's stuff,  Don't be put off by the cost,  their lasergrips for a J frame work flawlessly.

  Breda for putting together such fun blogger shindig, and to Alan Gottlieb at the Second Amendment Foundation. , for the fine repast and informative evening.

Dennis , at Dragon Leatherworks.  Love the holster man,  I will wear it proudly.  Thank you.

Old NFO , For stepping up and doing what you did.  That was really decent of you.  Thanks for the nicest evening we've had in a long time.

So yeah,  better late than never.  Thanks again y'all,  it was a great weekend.

Fresh air.

It's finally warmed up a bit and stopped raining,  and the garage stinks considerably less now.  The 12 RANK smelling turkey peeps we bought last month are now outside in a pen where they belong.

four more months and the smelly bastards will be in the freezer!

A few more weeks, and we can unplug the brooder and toss the 3 dozen odd new chicks out in the coop.  Got a pretty decent assortment of breeds this year,  New Hampshire Reds,  Bared Rocks, Golden Comets, Buff Orpingtons, and a newish breed native to our state,  the Buckeye.  All are cold hardy, good layers and easy going.  See why we always dump fresh eggs on anyone who stops in?

For the relatively minimal work involved, it's hard to beat keeping poultry for the fresh eggs and meat.

You're in the Marine Corps now...

 I'd hoped to hang on the the Fustache til September,  but the SNCOIC  (highest ranking non commissioned officer in charge) of  our RSS told me yesterday that I wasn't going anywhere near my future base without a squared away,  USMC approved mustache.  Any of you that have met me know that means losing about 70% of my beloved stache. 

Until recently,  I've paid for my stache' with a 100 extra pushups at PT.  The usual is:

Sgt W*: "B,  100 pushups for the beard!"

Me:  "Aye sir!"

Sgt W:  "Dayum you're stubborn."

Me: (Grinning)  "Aye sir!"

Sgt W: "Why won't you just shave that damned thing?"

Me: "Source of my superpowers,  Sir."

Sgt W: (rolls eyes) "On the deck,  push em' out!"

On the bright side,  SSGT T approves of The Fustache, and is jealous that his isn't as awesome.  Such are the deprivations of the Active duty guys.

So,  I'll have to get some before/after pics.  I suspect it's going to look strange,  but this is the only time I've got to go to HQ before boot,  so it shouldn't take long to grow back :P.  Completely shaven will be the truly strange, and I aim to avoid that for as long as possible.

*I'm just going to abbreviate last names here,  seems prudent.

Trucker Pro tips

If you happen to be sitting at a busy intersection merging on to the interstate, yapping on your cell phone utterly oblivious the the world around you....  Don't be at all shocked and offended when I go around you (Illegally, but to hell with it.  YOUR stupidity cost us 2 light cycles).

And the ass end of that big truck is your problem to avoid,  not mine.  Act accordingly, dipshit.  Were it me,  I'd hang up the phone and concentrate on avoiding that  25 ton monster so's not to ugly up that pretty little Saab wagon.

Just another friendly tip from your ornery neighborhood driver.  Be glad it's illegal to run your dumb ass over monster truck style..

5 lbs nacho dip

Ingredients :

2 lbs Velveeta cheese box
1 lbs chorizo mexican sausage
1 lbs ground beef
1 can Rotel  (mild or spicy, to your taste.  The chorizo brings plenty if you don't like it hot)

Cook the meat up,  melt the cheese and add everything together in a crock pot.  Nothing to it. 

This weekend is the FOP steak fry,  and we make this dip, along with a few rings of Chorizo hot sausage while cooking an average of 500-800 T bone steaks.

Dad stumbled on to this gig 9 years ago.  Our family always hits the annual FOP steak fry,  and that particular year the guys supposed to cook the steak had a falling out with the Lodge and left,  right at the beginning of the night.   Dad being who he is stepped up,  and he and another guy saved the night and grilled several hundred steaks.

Every year since then, this has been our gig.  We've even cooked for a few charities.  It's always a good time,  and our pay is free steak and all the beer we can drink (or vodka,  in my case).

No real point to make in this post,  other than Chorizo nacho dip and steak are delicious,  and if your local police department isn't full of dicks,  it's a good thing to support them.  With the times that are coming,  I see the benefits of that being priceless.

Feet still hurt

That was one busy weekend.  Amanda and I went half expecting to find other things to do once we'd seen the convention,  and ended up not having a free moment.  It was a blur of wandering the convention and mingling through the evenings. 

The first night at Chance and Jay G's hotel was fun. It was great seeing everyone again,  and meeting up with new folks that I hadn't yet met in meatspace.  Perfect way to start the weekend out,  and we got a lot of interest for this years Northcoast Blogshoot.

Friday David and ourselves were the only ones early (and lucky)  enough to avoid sitting in traffic for hours, so after getting shiny media IDs we headed to the Woolrich booth for demo Allen was supposed to be giving.  He ended up getting stuck in the same traffic that caught everyone else,  but the demo was still cool,  Woolrich makes some nice stuff.   (an aside,  BoTach has a really good sale right now) 

Highlight of the show that day was Jay G's face when he noticed a Browning Ma Deuce sitting on a tripod.  The rapt look and whistled "Ode To Joy" was priceless,  and the only reason we don't have video proof now is that I was laughing to hard to get the camera into action.

Later on that day,  as we were perusing the booths,  I spotted the Coonan display.  No sooner had I sad "Oh! Sweet!  Coonans!",  than an older gentleman standing in the booth introduces himself as Dan Coonan.   He was kind enough to get pics with us,  and even autographed copies of Shotgun News that featured his famous pistol.  Now I must have one...

 That evening we headed over to the Tilted Kilt,  and those bastards wouldn't let us carry in the restaurant.  Despite that it was a good time.  Much thanks to Crimson Trace for the food and drinks,  and where else does dinner come with a head licking Brit Topshot winner?   A good time was had by all,  except some old fart that was pissed with a bunch of bloggers preventing him from getting his Old Lech on.

Gotta run,  other half to come later.

Payback, Bitch.

Nearly 10 years ago I sat in homeroom U.S. History class and watched two airliners crash into the WTC,  and heard about a 3rd that ended up in a field in PA.  In that room many friends went on to join the fight this asshole brought to us,  and a few never made it back.  Locally,   the reserve unit I recently enlisted with had the worst casualty rate of any single unit to date in the GWOT,  and they've got the scars to prove it.   So forgive me if this sounds like unapologetic grave dancing,  but I hope that piece of shit burns,  and I hope whatever ended him was painful.

Gotcha,  You goat fucking piece of shit. Good riddance.

And to make if perfect,  they should've sent his head to Kaddafi on a platter,  but only if sticking it on a Trident in front of Coronado wasn't an option.

Open Carry

I'm convinced that the NRA Convention was the only thing keeping the Pittsburgh PD at bay,   but damn was that cool.   Who'd have thought that law abiding folks could openly carry in a decent sized city without being taken down by a SWAT team?  Up to and and including places that *gasp!!* serve alcohol!

Makes me seriously bummed out that we can't do that all of the time,  it's so much more convenient than CCW.  That,  and how else am I supposed to showcase Dennis's  fine leather?

2 hour drive

Or why Pittsburgh was a great place for this years NRA convention (despite being home to the much loathed Steelers). 

We were able to sleep in this morning,  get breakfast,  and still be in the driveway by noon.  I feel bad for the rest of you that have a day of travel to look forward to tomorrow :P

Pics and recap to follow.

At the NRA Con

Way too busy to type an AAR for the past couple of days,  but it's been awesome.  Meeting lots of new folks,  and putting faces to blogs.  Good fun.

Gunny Prom in an hour, so time to drive back to Pittsburgh (again,  6th trip of 12 miles).  Next time we're getting a room in town .

An introduction

I've been meaning to start a blog for years,  and now with the NRA convention looming,  I figured I should probably get my crap together and create one.  I've met many good folks that I'm proud to call friends through this crazy gunblogger culture,  so I thought it was time to make one for myself . (All the COOL kids are doing it!)

My name is Heath J,  and I generally don't say much,  but if I think of anything entertaining while driving around,  I'll put it up here. 

As for a "blogparent",  I've gotta give the nod to JayG.  He's a hell of a nice guy and an excellent writer.  Thanks for everything, Bro.

More to come,  and I look forward to seeing y'all at the convention this weekend!