The probability that you will have car trouble when trying to leave for work is directly related to the temperature outside.  This phenomenon is enhanced with a direct relationship between how dirty your engine block is and how nicely you dressed for work.

When the time comes for me to finally get rid of this mini-van, I’m not going to trade it in.  I’m taking it out to the range, filling it with tannerite targets, and shooting at it with my 91/30 until it is a puddle of burning metal.

There are few feelings better than when a bureaucrat admits that you are more stubborn than they are and quits resisting your efforts at efficiency.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

H/T to Merlin on this one:

Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.  Do the following:

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
2. Leave it there.
3. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
4. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Substitute BMW for F-150, and you’ve got my take on it.   Of course, he forgot the mention the twelfth lesson:  Look forward to the day you look in the mirror while shaving and realize you have as much gray hair as you remember your father having.

I’m armed and I’m proud!

Finished listening to the latest BB & Guns podcast.  The lovely Breda and JayG discussed how they approach letting people know that they are gunnies.  The callers added in their own two cents, and I have to say that I agreed with everyone for the most part.

I’m not a gun nut.  I’m certainly not a collector.  I can count the number of guns I own on both hands, barely.  I stack the ammunition deep because I’m a cheap bastard and buy in bulk as much as I can, not because I’m getting ready for the revolution.  I don’t lust after the newest hotness from Ruger, KelTec, or the sundry AR-15 vendors.  I do admire the craftsmanship of a well turned out firearm, especially antiques, but I doubt I’ll ever have enough disposable income to invest in collector grade firearms.

But I am a shooter.  Luckily for me, my work environment has a lot of shooters in it.  One of my shooting buddies is my manager, and there are at least 10 hunters and recreational shooters within a stones throw of my cubicle.  Kentucky in general seems to be pretty OK with people owning and legally carrying guns.  One of the benefits of living in fly-over country, I guess.

Outside of work, Irish Woman’s Indiana family is definitely pro-gun.  At the annual Hoosier Roundup, almost all of the campers and trucks have at least one NRA sticker on them.  We spend the late summer talking about prospects for hunting, and the Christmas party is heavily leavened with hunting stories from the deer season.  One brother-in-law in particular has introduced me to several of the gun stores in Indiana, and when he can make the long drive down he joins us at Knob Creek.

The other side of Irish Woman’s family, on the other hand, is much more mixed when it comes to guns.  With the exception of one brother, the rest of the family is thoroughly steeped in the left-wing doctrine of the “Only Ones,” where only the police and military need access to firearms.  When Irish Woman let slip that I had purchased a shotgun, there were actually members of her family who advised her to get out of our home for her own safety.  Amazingly enough, I’ve never told these relatives that I have, on occasion, come to their homes either with a gun in my pocket, or at least a gun in the glove compartment.  Heaven forfend that they should learn that I am taking my daughter to the range so she can learn to be a responsible gun owner and shooter.

I guess the point of all of this boils down to situational awareness and discretion.  When I’m among friends, we openly talk about guns, including what each of us is carrying if it’s an environment where we can carry.  When I’m not among other gunnies, I try very hard to not be “The Guy with the GUN”.  I’ve heard this called “Don’t scare the white people”.  Even though it’s perfectly legal in Kentucky, I have only open carried a couple of times in Kentucky, and then only when I’m away from Louisville.

If someone asks me my hobbies, I’m honest and list shooting and hunting along with reading.  If I’m carrying and someone I know isn’t very cool with firearms asks me, I’m honest and tell them that that I’m carrying.  I’ve put out a general invitation to my friends to go to the range with me, and a couple have made soft commitments to go once the weather gets better.   I just don’t make it an issue that will cause problems in a social or work environment.

But I don’t hide my hobby.  I don’t lie when asked about it, and if someone wants to honestly discuss guns, hunting, or gun rights with me, even if they are diametrically opposed to it, I engage with them.  I probably won’t convince them, but I will at least give them something to think about.  Who knows, if I keep talking to them, they may take me up on the range trip, and if they enjoy themselves they may become shooters themselves.

So what do y’all do?  I’m especially curious how people in countries that are definitely anti-gun tell people about the hobby, or how people who travel to a lot of different anti-gun areas discuss it with the locals.

A gentleman who runs a center for wayward animals has decided the best way to raise awareness of his facility and to possibly raise money is to live for 30 days with two lions in their enclosure.

He plans to eat with them and sleep near them.

I hope everything works out for him.  Nothing can go wrong here, right?

He’s just going to be unconscious next to two apex predators, and try to eat the same food they do for a month.  Of course, he fails to recognize the fact that he himself is made of meat.  But come on, he knows these animals.  They’d never decide that he might make a good appetizer or late night snack.  He’s never seen the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom film of lions pimp slapping each other over a zebra carcass, has he?

Good luck.  For the sake of the lions, I hope nothing happens.  I’d hate for an animal to be destroyed because some jackass decided to forget that they’re not German Shepherds with a weird haircut and got himself eaten.

That’s why I can never understand people who have animals that are normally wild predators as pets.  They are trying to impose a standard of conduct we place on animals that are a product of thousands of generations of breeding towards suitability for being a pet on animals that are maybe two generations away from “Nature, red of tooth and claw”.

Yes, that wolf or coyote cub you found out in the wild makes a wonderful lap dog, until it realizes that it doesn’t have 10,000 years of selective breeding for docility and subservience and decides your neighbor’s kid tastes like chicken. 

I’m really impressed by the folks who put a lion or Bengal tiger on a leash and take them for walks.  Nothing says Mal Hombre like a guy whose pet considers him an emergency food supply that can’t run very fast and doesn’t have sharp teeth or claws.

Don’t even get me started on the guy who has the 12 foot python in the bathtub and feeds them whole rabbits in an effort to keep Fluffy from dining on his wife’s Labradoodle. 

Look people, your pet is for companionship, labor, or burglar alarm.  You want a canine that impresses me?  Get one that will take itself outside and not snore while sleeping in the middle of my living room.  Think a big cat will improve my opinion of you?  How about you figure out how to make a housecat fetch?  And the snake guy?  Just have a couple of hits of NyQuil and climb in the cage with Scaly the WonderBoa.  Consider it a present to me. 

Og, of Neanderpundit fame, has opened a new blog, Made in America.  He plans to review and promote products that are made here, as opposed to a Chinese slave labor prison.

I’ve added him to my ever-growing list-o-stuff in the RSS reader, and it’s on the blog roll.  Enjoy!

Raindogblue illustrates why the safety of you and your family is primarily your responsibility.

Due to budget cuts, the sheriff has eliminated all shifts, but one. Starting January 1st, the ten remaining road deputies with be working  3 PM to 3 AM, seven days a week. There will be no coverage in the county from 3 AM to 3 PM.

Police are dedicated, self-sacrificing individuals.  The good ones could be working a lot less for a lot more money if they chose to.  But they can’t work for free, and they can’t be everywhere at once.

It would  be interesting to find out what besides police coverage the county he’s talking about cut to save money.  It would be fascinating to see what they chose to not cut in favor of the sheriff’s budget.

This has been a very interesting year.

My oldest has graduated high school and is off to college.  So far so good on that front.

The day job continues apace.  Some changes, but still the same basic job.  There are enough people out of a job nowadays that I won’t complain.

Irish Woman’s job has been chaotic, but things are evening out.  She still labors at making doctors happy with technology, which is still the most thankless job I’ve ever seen in IT.  She also labors with the madness that is life with me and my hellions, so she has more steel in her soul than most.

Girlie Bear is starting to show symptoms of teenagerhood.  She continues to enjoy doing stuff with her old dad, but frilly dresses, lip gloss, and boys are creeping in.  She’s discovered science fiction and is reading it as fast as I acquire it for her.

Little Bear is doing very well in school, and has started looking forward to high school.  In 4 years, I’ll be halfway through getting my kids through school.

BooBoo has firmly ensconced himself as the apple of his mother’s eye, and his dad thinks a lot of him too.  Parenting is becoming easier as I learn to understand what he says.

The other pets are still crazy.  We have gone an entire year without gaining any mammals in the household, which is pretty amazing considering our track record.

Over the last year I’ve met a lot of good folks through the #GBC, and I hope that this year I will actually meet them in meatspace.  I plan on going to a bloggershoot or two, and am trying to figure out finances to make it to the NRA convention in Pittsburg this May so I can meet the cool kids.

I hope this year has been as good for everyone else.  I really appreciate the feedback y’all give me in exchange for my brain droppings.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year!

There appears to be a direct relationship between how bad I feel when I’m sick and how many cats cuddle up with me while I try to get some sleep.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Well, the yearly global period of madness is almost over.  My faith in humanity is returning.  We at Case de Oso had a good Christmas, but I was reminded again why my ancestors spent the winter huddled around a fire drinking. 

As I mentioned earlier, Boo had a solid case of the ick, but antibiotics and prescription strength decongestants are kicking strep throat’s butt.  By Christmas Eve at 7 PM, he was ready to take on the world.  By which I mean he was ready to enact flying headbutts to my thighs in order to get me to wrestle with him.

Christmas Eve evening found me starting to not feel well, and by bedtime on Christmas I was well and truly sick.  A quick trip to the doc in the box on Sunday found me with a raging case of strep throat (hooray for parenting a sick kid!) and a sinus infection.   I’m not surprised.  The treatments I get for my arthritis work by suppressing parts of my immune system, so I’m quite susceptible to whatever bugs come down the pike.  Also, having at least one family member sick is a family Christmas tradition.  I’m on a pretty strong antibiotic to kill whatever is at work.  In order to feel human while the immune system does its magic, I decided to get some good cold medicine at the pharmacy.  After going through the criminal background check to get sudafed, I am reminded again why I hate meth.  The paperwork to get Aleve Cold and Sinus pills was almost as onerous as the one I fill out to buy a gun.

Christmas Eve afternoon found Little Bear, Girlie Bear, and me in Walmart doing their Christmas shopping.  Boo was given a talking Woody doll from Toy Story to match the Buzz Lightyear he got for his birthday.  He was also given a Viking combat kit, which consists of a horned helmet, a war axe, and a shield.  He took to that like a duck to water.  It’s good to see that some of the ancestral memories live into the next generation.  The kids picked out a purse for their mom, and found a very nice flannel nightgown for Irish Woman.  Now I don’t normally purchase clothing for any woman.  Finding something that A.  looks nice on them and B fits is too much of a mine field.  But I figured it’s a nightgown, what could happen?

Christmas Eve dinner at our home is traditionally Swedish Meatballs.  Been that way since before I was born.  This year we broke tradition and made pasta and marinara sauce with spicy Italian Sausages.  Why, you might ask?  Well, when one wishes to make Swedish Meatballs and goes to the store to buy groceries for said meal, it is usually a good idea to actually purchase the meat for said meatballs.  But the Italian food was good, and no-one complained. 

That evening, we let the kids open the bulk of their presents.  All of the presents from parents and to each other were opened on Christmas Eve, while stockings and “Santa” gifts were opened on Christmas morning.  The older kids had already been given their big Christmas present, so they mostly got books and clothes.  I gave Little Bear his first Heinlein novel, The Green Hills of Earth, and Girlie Bear got the “Olympians” trilogy, which she squeed over.  Apparently I’m a cool dad for letting her read sci-fi that doesn’t include sparkly vampires.  As a side note, I’d like to thank all of you who made suggestions on what to get a young girl to get her into sci-fi.  It worked.

Irish Woman was very happy with the nightgown the kids bought her.  That is, until she tried to put it on for bed.  Apparently we bought it two sizes too small.  Ooops.  And this children is why DaddyBear doesn’t buy women clothing.  She was a good sport about it, but I could tell she’d rather be wearing a new nightgown rather than the sweats she changed into.

BooBoo, being the only Santa believer in the house, made out like a bandit on toys.  He got himself an easel for arting, oodles of books, both reading and coloring, and a Radio Flyer tricycle.  To say that the trike is a hit would be an understatement. He climbed on it first thing Christmas morning, and had to be coaxed off of it to open his other presents.  I’d like to put a shout out to the engineers at Radio Flyer: Thank you so much for not messing with a good design.  In an age where I budget three hours to put together stuff on Christmas Eve, that little trike went together with a hammer, a crescent wrench, and a screwdriver in less than 20 minutes. 

After taking the two older kids over to their mom’s for the rest of Christmas break, we trundled over a friend’s house for Christmas dinner.  Our friend provided the hall, drinks, sides, and dessert.  We provided Beef Stroganoff.   A good time was had by all, and Irish Woman was able to imbibe since I didn’t feel up to drinking.  She sampled a new product our friends had found, which was Woodford Reserve Maple Finish Bourbon. Basically, Woodford Reserve took several barrels of their single barrel bourbon, and after appropriate aging in oak barrels, let it sit for a few months in a maple barrel.  Irish Woman reported that it had a very snappy finish, and the maple really came out in the end.  I will have to try it next time we’re over.

Yesterday was spent doing not much at all other than cleaning up the inevitable mess of dishes and such.  I did get to take a nap for almost an hour, and that luxury reminds me how precious sleep is.

Today, it’s back to the old grind, but it’s a short week, and I hope to be well enough to have a few drinks to bring in the New Year. 

I hope everyone had themselves a good Christmas!