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Thoughts on the Day

  • Today I got to work with a chainsaw and a splitting mawl.  That alone made it a good day.
  • All of the odd sized pieces of firewood have been cut down to size, and that which needed it have been split.  Looks like we have about 1/4 of a cord, which means I’ll be calling my wood man for a cord.  After deer season is completely over, I’ve been invited out to a friend’s property help clear out oak and cherry trees that have fallen over in the wind.  A couple truckloads of that will round us out until at least the end of winter.
  • Irish Woman started decorating the house for Christmas today.  So begins the madness.
  • Irish Woman bought herself a bicycle today.  As you can see, no-one will be able to say they didn’t see her.

https://i0.wp.com/25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_medufulWk01ryte2vo1_1280.jpg

  • After procuring a velociped for the wife, I took the opportunity to check out one of my gun stores.  I looked at a lot of things, but ended up buying 200 rounds of Federal .223 FMJ.  It was running 46 cents a round, which is pretty close to what I spent at Walmart the other week.  Unfortunately, I can’t shoot out of the ammo can of Federal XM855 I got until I have time to go out to Knob Creek.  My indoor range is picky about using ammunition with a steel penetrator.
  • Pad thai for dinner is always a good idea.
    • I wasn’t paying attention to prices for .223/5.56 until a few weeks ago.  Anyone know how this stacks up to pre-election, both 2008 and 2012, prices?
  • I have a batch of cranberry bread in the oven, a double batch of snickerdoodles in the fridge for baking tomorrow, and the fixings to make brownies and pumpkin bread.  The house is going to smell good for days.
  • Thanks to a Facebook friend, I’m enjoying one of these tonight.  It’s really good, but I think next time I make them I’ll substitute the brown sugar with graham cracker or ginger snap crumbs.

Pop Quiz

You’re a mother of two small children.  Your husband is away on business.  In the middle of the night, you hear someone in your home, and when you investigate, you are attacked by a man armed with a pipe and a knife.  He lands a couple of blows on you, but you’re still on your feet.

What do you do?

If you’re Yael Matzpun, who lives in a small community a few kilometers from the border with Gaza, you fight through your injuries, lay a beating on your attacker, lock him in a bathroom, and call the police after you get you and your kids to safety.

This tough-as-nails woman was physically harmed, but knew that if she didn’t fight, she and her kids were dead, so she defended herself, her family, and her home with her bare hands.   Unfortunately for Mr. Piece-of-crap-murderer, he chose to attack someone who is trained in hand-to-hand combat.  He was, however, able to crawl out a window and be shot down like the jackal he was by the police when he refused to drop his weapons.

I will say this: Mrs. Matzpun is to be commended for her actions, and I’m glad that her injuries weren’t worse and that her children were unharmed.  But she is a person with an uncommon skill set, and even with that, she got lucky.  The first blows with that knife could have been lethal, or at least debilitating.  Bringing your fists to a knife fight doesn’t work very well most of the time.  Heck, bringing a knife to a knife fight usually means you’re getting cut up as much as the other guy, even if you win.

Unless I have no other choice, I’m forcing the other guy to bring his knife to a gun fight.  I don’t trust my own unarmed combat skills to be able to knock someone back enough that my family and I could escape, and I’m not trusting our safety to my ability to corral someone long enough for us to get out of the house.  I don’t know Krav Maga, ju-jitsu, or anything else, but I do know trigger control and good sight picture.

Congratulations to Mrs. Matzpun.  Let those murdering slimes think twice before they try to work out their warrior fantasies on sleeping innocent women and children.

30 Days of Generals and Admirals – Day 27

I want to write to officers who are in command and senior enlisted who have people working for them, rather than send everything to everybody all the time. It needs to get the command “spin.” That’s important. I have a consistent message I want to get out to the Navy. I’m going to use every means to do that. At the same time, I want to get the important, “What I expect you to do” messages out through the chain of command, because I intend to hold the chain of command responsible and accountable for what their people do. — Jeremy Michael Boorda

My Take – Keep your people informed, but make sure that you don’t short-cut the people who work for you when you want information to go to their people.  You may not always be able to go directly to everyone.  By getting people used to the idea that information will flow from their leadership, they learn to listen to them and pay attention when they speak.

Blogs Roundup

  • Brigid tells of how simple things can remind you of wonderful times and loving people.  
  • Peter brings us a beautiful song that brings back the memory of an old friend.  I can understand how he feels. There’s a reason I get all misty when I listen to “The Closing of the Year”.
  • Yankee Born talks about her first experience in canning and why she kept at it.  My first attempt at strawberry jam produced 8 quarts of chunky strawberry syrup instead of jam.
  • AGirl does an excellent job discussing some of the myths of self defense.  My personal favorite is “I’m a big guy.  Why should I carry a gun when no-one will want to mess with me?”
  • JayG points out that “Thriller” is 30 years old.  I won’t spend too much time hoping that the pedophile who created that dreck is enjoying being slow-roasted in Hades, but Jay has a point.  “Born in the U.S.A” is as distant to Boo the Andrews Sisters and Glenn Miller were to me when I was 4.
  • When I read this article by Lotta Joy, the thing that keeps going through my mind is “FIND ANOTHER DOCTOR!”.

Today’s Earworm

Thought for the Day

If you want to lose the sin of pride, especially if you are prideful about your mad housekeeping skillz, just clean your hardwood floors with a power scrubber. The funk that thing finds will deflate even the biggest ego.

Also, why all these animals aren’t bald by now is beyond me. I could have knit a playmate for Moonshine from all the fuzz I swept, vacuumed, dusted, and scrubbed up this morning.

30 Days of Generals and Admirals – Day 26

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.  — James Mattis

My Take – Always have a “go to hell” plan.  This is your plan for what you will do if the sky falls on you.  It might be your families plan on where to meet if you have to get out of the house in a fire, or where you and your spouse will meet if going home isn’t an option at the end of the day.  It might even be your planned escape routes from your workplace in the event that some nutjob starts using your office as a personal shooting range.  But have that plan, and keep it to yourself.  No sense in looking like a paranoid because you take the time to think about that which others refuse to consider.

Quote of the Day

“Like and equal are not the same thing at all!”
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

30 Days of Generals and Admirals – Day 25

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood. — George Patton

My Take – Proper practice prevents piss poor performance.  Work on developing skills and good habits and then ingrain them into your default method so that you do them without thinking about them.  Take the time now, when nothing is an emergency, to make sure you have what you need and what you have is in good working order.  Learning, practicing, and preparing can make even the hardest tasks a lot easier.

Today’s Earworm