What makes your heart pump, baby?

I have been thinking about firearms, getting older and shaky. So I have been getting ready to move on to area weapons - Demolitions! Demo! Fire in the Hole! say it three times and light that fuse. I have an aversion to electrical detonators from personal experience and blood shed, of course I was younger then and I can handle it now - but don't have to like it.

Something great about making the Earth move, read all about the wonder. And if you get real good, the implosion booms are waiting... to hire you.

Turn off the electronics and enjoy the silence...

Okay, the neighbor is cutting the grass and there isn't any silence. But I should turn off the electronics - too distracting from my real life day, living virtually. I did find time today, in the beauty of the sunshine and warm to stop and shoot a little bit, strictly for familiarization. The range had run out of 9mm by two in the afternoon, but I brought a box with me, used forty-two to figure out that I am not exactly deadly at seven yards, but next time I will get my money's worth and go to the twenty yard line and shoot all my pistols.

The new one is too slim, too short, too DA, and wonderfully reliable so far and I don't see any trouble in the future with it, either. Remembering that this is something that I am not competing with, I am not taking to war, that I am going to wear and forget about mostly until the next time I go to practice. Well, time to clean up after a busy day and take my wife out to dinner, my son and daughter-in-law's treat and my pleasure.

Nice thing about being dangerous is...

Not too much. I think babies have it right, the first line of defense is a smile, the second is the loud red faced crying to gather helpful adult attention. I did grow out of the baby thing, and took to being me - fighting wasn't automatically a sin in a boy growing up - so I fought for fun, dominance or fright. I often wished I was still working on that smile, but other boys don't tolerate boys smiling at them... but they respected me when I could take my lumps or dish them out in return. I started carrying knives somewhere along the Cub Scout Boy Scout period, by junior high and high school there was no doubt that I would have a folding knife in my pocket, even owned a switchblade once, but never carried it - that was against the law.

I did get cast out of my second family's home for almost a year, because someone said I had used my knife in a fight or scuffle - I hadn't, and I don't really remember a fight or a scuffle with the people that said I had been there and had pulled a knife. When I was growing up a knife was something a Mexican would use in a fight, and like kicking (before Martial Arts boom) wasn't a MANLY way of fighting. The truth came out and I was re-invited to my second family's home again - which was always wonderful for me.

As an Airborne Artillery First Sergeant I allowed my paratroopers to carry knives and drape them on their combat gear. For three years we never had difficulty doing rigging nor de-rigging our equipment for or on airborne operations. Of course there would be excesses in size of the blades, cost of the blades, numbers of the blades - but I never had a problem with the blades being used in anger or assault of another paratrooper. Two First Sergeants after me didn't change the knife situation, but finally a good First Sergeant showed up and in six months he had them back to a proper size, and number of blades for real work instead of posing as some really bad airborne dudes.

In Hawaii, when my mother wanted to peel an apple she asked for my knife, my brother wondered how I had gotten a knife through the airport security, and I wondered how my mother knew I would have a knife to borrow. Some things are probably certain about some people, and I will have a blade or a reasonable replacement - I have been watching inmates with their house key, what they can cut through is almost amazing... technique not edged. Rogue Gunner has a nice blade and story I think worth the time.

So now in the days of the Second Amendment, and the contest between the gun lobby and the anti-gun gaggles (yes, I am allowed to chose the terms I label them with - they will do it to me) I am still encouraging responsible knife ownership and use. You see, I know about cutting flesh and blood flow - do it every time I really get to sharpening my blades, and I also know that one must get close and personal to fight with a knife - Jim Bowie is one of my heroes, he was great with the blade. The problem I see with pistols, in today's age, is that most people haven't gone to that level where they understand death done with guns, bullets striking flesh and breaking bones, and such -- too much Hollywood, and not enough time in the field taking down animals in the hunt (then picking them up and gutting them or butchering them for food). Somethings just don't happen as cleanly nor as ugly as film has made it.

But to be really dangerous one should know how dead a human will be when shot properly - they won't come back in next week's episode, or the next blockbuster hit - they will be waiting for you when you go to sleep and dream, as you start to accept them being there -- then you will be dangerous.

Old Dogs and new Tricks...

My program manager sent a new master time sheet for keeping the records of the hours we are open and instructions, along with a sample that she doesn't really want me to follow exactly but close. So I try to save a copy of the master with the new title, and the computer tells me that the form is protected unless I have the password to modify it. Ah, I don't have the password, and when I report to the person that sent the form I can't use I get silence. It doesn't matter, if I can't do my job because I don't have the essentials then I do the best I can after I notify the boss. I started one that I could modify, but not based on the one she insisted.

I also find that I no longer have motorcycle insurance, and I was sure I paid that online two weeks ago with my credit card. When I check the insurer has no such record but I am talking to a computer which sounds pretty smart, but wasn't that the same computer that I paid? I check the credit card company and get a live person (hurrah!) and find no record of the payment I thought I had made, must have only happened in my dreams. Okay, today I go find a real person and buy real motorcycle insurance this morning. I will pay by check and then go visit my Credit Union to record the new insurance, before the State comes after my tags. Real money and real people are so much better than this virtual stuff sent across the cyberspace. But I was already moving away from trusting the computers to be friendly to me, locked me out of my online service - for my own protection, from me and my old man mistakes.

I have often said things about not carrying a pistol since my life has been mostly fightin' free. But my wife went to her child care duties yesterday and found the parents of one of her favorite babies (they all become favorites quickly), murdered - some left over romantic possessive jealousy rotted into death for the betterment of the stupid murderous person... and it isn't going to get better, but the baby is lucky in that she is too young to remember the missing parents. Not enough hand to hand fighting going on? Would have been better for all involved if they had just punched and kicked on each other until they got tired and then gone and washed up. It didn't happen that way and I don't get all I ever wanted anyway. I had best go learn those new tricks before the computer messes me up some more.