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.