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I hate it when family fights

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is holding its annual SHOT Show next week.  Basically, it allows outdoor sports media and companies that deal in guns, gear, and all the rest of things that make life fun to get together for a few days, discuss new products and services, and hobknob.  It’s invite only, as opposed to the NRA Annual Meeting, which allows the general public to come in and look at products and talk to industry representatives.

For the past few years, more and more people from new media, such as gunblogs, have been invited to attend SHOT.  Recently NSSF put out a very gracious welcome to non-traditional media on their blog.  They seem to be very open to including gunbloggers into the fold.

A growing contingent at the SHOT Show is our Internet media. In fact, more than 600 Internet media representatives — bloggers, forum leaders and website producers — will be at the show this year. When we first started registering Internet media four years ago, that number was under 100.

Apparently, some of the more established ‘journalists’ have an issue with that.  Here’s the comment that started the kerfluffle:

Now the question is when you are going to start qualifying internet media?   We have to crawl over nobodies who can install wordpress and have nobody reading anything they write, It isn’t so hard to qualify internet media using Alexa.com and Compete.com.  Why do you waste the manufacturers’ time and make the real internet media have to deal with wish I were internet journalists who are just using your stamp of approve to solicit review guns and accessories?  You’ve created this giant gorilla in the room and we all have to deal with it, and you may think the industry takes your numbers seriously, but everyone sees things for what they are.  If you are serious about bringing value to your exhibitors, you need to vet the press list. — Paul, Helinski, GunsAmerica

What are my qualifications?  Well, I’m a gunowner and shooter.  I’m not Tony Tactical or Allen Quatermain, but  I enjoy the technology of guns, the fun of shooting, hunting, and fishing.  I’m an everyman.  I’m a suburban father, gun enthusiast, and news junkie.  My perspectives on these subjects reflect that, and people like me are a rising voice that more and more people are listening to.

Look, I’m not a professional journalist, and I never claimed to be.   I don’t do this to get free stuff or make money.  I don’t consider myself a hardcore gunblogger.  I don’t compare to Tam, Uncle, or Jay.  On a typical day, I get a few hundred unique visitors and pageviews.  Posts about guns and gun rights make up between 1/4 and 1/3 of what I do.  When I do reviews, it’s almost always on stuff I bought with my own money.  I’ve gotten very few freebies.  Once I got some ammunition from Lucky Gunner, I went to their blogshoot, and I’ve recently gotten some clothing from an outfitter company, which I’m currently evaluating and will have a review for in the next few weeks.  If manufacturers or resellers want to send me stuff, I’ll take it if it’s something I’m interested in, do an honest review where I make sure I’m up front about someone providing the blogfodder, and then get on with goofy humor and ranting.

Are there gunbloggers who are in it for potential money and free stuff?  Yep, just like there are journalists in traditional media who are too.  We call those people “jerks”, and they tend to be shunned pretty quickly.  I’m not attending SHOT, and honestly, I doubt I will.  I will probably go to the NRAAM this year, and if invited to attend as media, I will take the opportunity.  Will I be intruding on traditional media?  Maybe, but I do try to not step on toes.  If gunbloggers and other Internet media types are making it hard for others to do their job, then NRA and NSSF will deal with the problem.  All it takes is one year where issues with us unwashed heathens make NSSF or NRA look bad or not get the press they want, and we’ll be shown the door.  If we’re doing good work, even if we’re getting in the way a bit, then that will be recognized.

We’re all in this together.  Excluding people like me, the everyday guy who is interested in guns and telling people about it, is counterproductive.  If I’m acting like a jerk and making it hard for you to do your job, ask me to leave.  But don’t exclude a new, dynamic part of the gun culture because they don’t do it for a living or they don’t act like you do.  We’re closer to the consumers of the gun industries products and services than most journalists, because we are consumers.  Our perspectives on new guns, clothing, and gear will reflect that.

Don’t exclude us because we’re a bunch of dorks and amateurs.  That’s what gives us a powerful voice, even if individually we don’t speak to thousands of people at a time.

by daddybear71 on January 14, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on January 14, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/14/i-hate-it-when-family-fights/

News Roundup

  • From the “Father of the Year”  Department – A Louisville man was arrested after his three children told their teachers that their father gave them baggies of stuff to carry to school and the teacher discovered that the baggies contained drugs.  The man came to the school before he found out his little ruse was unravelling and asked to speak to his kids alone.  My guess is he wanted to be able to get out of the house clean and pick up his amateur pharmaceutical supplies from his unwitting mules.  Just goes to show that you don’t need to prove you know how to be a good parent before you start hatching children.
  • From the “Reinforcing Stereotypes” Department – Authorities in Sweden report that levels of some drugs went up in the water of a river during a reggae festival.  It is believed that the increased levels of drugs such as ibuprofen come from revelers using the bushes instead of portapotties and the runoff ending up in the river.  This tells me that Swedish scientists aren’t testing for the right drugs, because I have a hard time believing that reggae festival goers used ibuprofen as their favorite pharmaceutical.  Although, if you’ve ever listened to reggae for more than an hour or so, you can understand why they needed pain relievers.
  • From the “Practically Chicken” Department – A man in Orlando is under arrest after authorities saw him try to strangle a swan and carried the bird around by the neck.  I have it on good authority that swans are quite tasty, so I can understand why the gentleman wanted to catch his own fresh, organic poultry. However, doing it at a public pond usually gets the neighbors talking.
  • From the “Pissing in the Wind” Department – A video showing several U.S. Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Afghani insurgents is making the rounds and has drawn condemnation from both the Afghan and American governments.  If the term “HEADDESK” just went through your mind, congratulations.  Rule number one gentlemen:  Don’t be F***ING stupid.  One question:  Where was the leadership?  Why didn’t an NCO see what these guys were doing, make them stop using the most direct physical and verbal intervention strategies available, then make sure that no-one in the unit did something just as dumb, like post video of it to the bloody internet?
  • From the “Holes in the Shield” Department – A security research firm has announced that a piece of Chinese malware has been used to try to gain access to military networks through the smart cards used as part of the identification process on those networks.  No reports yet on whether or not the trojan attack was successful, but that sound you just heard was General Keith Alexander’s soul screaming loud enough to set off the fire alarm.
  • From the “Brilliant!” Department – Mercedes Benz is apologizing for using an image of Che Guavera during a presentation at CES in Las Vegas.  Apparently using the image of a mass murdering Communist didn’t trip any editorial trigger when the presentation was created, reviewed, practiced, re-reviewed, and finally approved by legal and marketing.  Coming soon:  Pictures of Chairman Mao to sell ice cream, a new campaign showing Stalin holding a tablet computer, and now that we are starting planning for grilling season, a campaign showing Idi Amin eating a hot dog.
  • From the “Medical Mishaps” Department – A crew of medics transporting a heart to a hospital in Mexico City for transplant had a heart stopping moment when one of them tripped and dropped the organ onto the street.  Doctors were still able to use the heart, and the patient is reported as doing well.  And some good will come of this: It might help to keep the recipient well grounded.  No matter how far up he or she goes in society, their heart will still be in the street.
by daddybear71 on January 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in news

Posted by daddybear71 on January 13, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/13/news-roundup-36/

30 Days of Reagan – Day 11

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

My take:  This is one of the reasons I favor veterans when it comes to voting.  Someone who has never had to do funeral detail has no idea the human cost of going to war, even if it’s justified.  They also sometimes don’t see the military as a group of human beings, but as more of a monolithic “other”.  Not saying that there are no good non-veteran politicians or that all politicians who are veterans are good leaders, but I just have a recognized bias towards someone who has that experience.

Update – OK, that was a mangling.  I’ve corrected my horrendous paragraph a bit.

by daddybear71 on January 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Reagan

Posted by daddybear71 on January 13, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/13/30-days-of-reagan-day-11/

Product Review – LG Tone Wireless Headset

A couple of months ago, I destroyed my third set of Apple headphones for my iPhone.  I like the soft rubber sort of noise isolation kind rather than the cheaper ear buds, so that means I’ve spent about $200 on headphones.  Yeah, I’m an idiot.  The main thing that would happen was that I would either lose the soft earbuds, which Apple does not seem to sell replacements for and 3rd party replacements didn’t fit quite right, or cut/break the wire when working on something.  BTW, if you ever want to hear good, honest to God American cussing, take a recording of my rant when I cut through the cord of $75 earphones with a hedge trimmer.

I decided to try a wireless headphone this time.  I needed them to be relatively light, stereo, and with good audio and range. 

A little research led me to the LG Tone HBS-700 BlueTooth headset, which gave me everything I need for less than another wired set from Apple. 

The Tone is different from any of the other BlueTooth headsets I tried out.  The set hangs across the back of the neck, with wired earphones that go up to the ears. This means they’re a lot more comfortable to wear than the other stereo BlueTooth headsets I looked at, which tended to be the over the ear type with more of the weight of the set being put on the ears.  When not in use, the back of each earpiece clips magnetically to the front of the set. 

Audio quality is pretty good.  It’s not as good as the high end Bose sets I looked at, but it costs 1/3 as much.  The sound quality is definitely better than most of the over the ear sets I looked at.  The noise isolation works as well as any other non-noise cancelling set that has the rubber inserts but not the noise cancelling electronics.

Controls are pretty intuitive.  One side has the on/off switch, volume control, and the button for answering the phone and initiating voice commands on your phone.  The other side has a stop/start button and the reverse/fast forward button. 

The set latched onto my iPhone and laptop pretty easily.  One quibble I have with the set is that once I mated it with my laptop after using it for a while with my phone, it didn’t want to go back to working with the iPhone again.  I eventually had to shut down the laptop entirely, then go through several rounds of the link-up procedure to get it to work. 

Battery life on the set is pretty good.  It’s advertised as having 10 hours of talk time with 15 days of idle time.  My experience is that I can listen to music and make phone calls for between 6 and 8 hours before the annoying “Charge me” beep starts to go off.  Recharging is done through a wall wart transformer that connects to a small port on the inside of the right wing of the set.  Recharging is advertised as taking 2.5 hours, which is pretty much my experience.  One downside on this is that while recharging, the headset turns itself off, so using it while recharging doesn’t happen. 

LG lists the range on the Tone as being 33 feet, and while I’ve never done a measured straightline test, that sounds about right for unobstructed connection.  I can easily leave the phone on the table in the living room and go pretty much anywhere on the same floor and still have a good connection.  I did have some issues with range when I kept my phone in an OtterBox case, but when I changed to another case, the issue went away. 

The Tone seems to be pretty rugged.  I’ve used it while working outside and while exercising, and it holds up to dirt and sweat pretty well.  I haven’t gotten them totally drenched in water, but they are advertised as being water resistant, not water proof.  The problem of the rubber earbuds falling off with the Apple headphones hasn’t cropped up, probably because I’m not pulling them loose by tripping of a wire and ripping them out of my ears on a regular basis.

Overall, I’d say that the HBS-700 is a good value. It’s comfortable, has good sound quality and range, pretty good battery life, and doesn’t fall apart through normal use.

Disclaimer:  I received nothing for doing this review.  I purchased the product with my own money.

by daddybear71 on January 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Review

Posted by daddybear71 on January 13, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/13/product-review-lg-tone-wireless-headset/

Today’s Earworm

Louisville is in the midst of its first real snowfall this winter.  The local weather critters are hyperventilating about how bad this could get, and school closed two hours early today so that the students could get through their three hours of busride (no joke) before it gets dark.

Here’s my take on it, with apologies to SSG Barry Sadler.

Fluffy snowflakes from the sky
Kentucky people whine and cry
Half an inch will fall today
Tomorrow morning, I’ll shovel the driveway

Woolen cap upon my head
I’d rather be sleeping back in bed
School is closed, at home I’ll stay
Right after I shovel the damn driveway

Kroger looks like a bomb has hit
The food is gone, every bit
Eggs, milk, and bread are their mainstay
A french toast emergency on a snowy day

Back at home, my laptop waits
I can’t leave my customers to their fates
Email, WebEx, IM, and cell
Working remotely during the White Hell

Shovel the driveway, I tell my kid
But Dad, she says, I already did!
Half an inch more will fall today
Tomorrow morning, I’ll shovel the driveway

by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Earworm, silliness

Posted by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/12/todays-earworm-68/

Movie Review – The Smurfs

OH GOD MAKE IT STOP!  THE PAIN!  THE BAD ACTING!  THE OVERPLAYED CLICHES!  GET THAT BLOODY LA-LA-LA SONG OUT OF MY HEAD!  KILL IT!  KILL IT WITH FIRE!

by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Review

Posted by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/12/movie-review-the-smurfs/

News Roundup

  • From the “Shocked” Department – The CDC is reporting that murder as a cause of death has fallen off of the top 15 reasons Americans die for the first time since 1965.  No way is this true.  We have been told by our betters that guns cause murder, and the number of guns owned by private citizens has surged to all time highs.  This has to be a huge coverup engineered by the NRA, the NSA, and the NCAA.
  • From the “Real World Example” Department – An “animal rights” group has taken responsibility for the recent torching of several trucks used to haul cattle.  Attention Department of Homeland Security:  This is an example of domestic terrorism.  The guy who’s got a Bible, a gun safe, a bucket of bullets, and some MRE’s is not setting trucks, car dealerships, ski lodges, or housing developments on fire. 
  • From the “Father of the Year” Department – Police were called to the Occupy Washington camp recently because some bluntskull thought it would be a good idea to leave his 13 month old daughter alone, in a onesie, in a tent, in January.  I look forward to this guy being put in the stocks, in a onesie, in January.  See?  I don’t just pick on women.
by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in news

Posted by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/12/news-roundup-37/

A few thoughts on life

I’m not going to go into where this comes from because I truly care about the people who riled me up, and the incident that caused this is far enough back that I’ve had time to chew this over and get most of the bile out.

But here are my musings* on life:

  1. Life is not fair.  The trick is being strong enough and prepared enough to deal with when it’s not fair to you.  Whining is not dealing.
  2. In most of life’s situations, there will be winners and there will be losers.  Real life keeps score.
  3. In order for a human being to live, something else must die.  Maybe it’s a plant, maybe it’s a lamb.  But in order for you to eat, someone is killing something else. Whining to me because I prefer my food to come from something that has legs or fins is annoying.
  4. Not every person who joins the military is Audie Murphy or Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann.  As a matter of fact, most aren’t.  Most are ordinary people doing their job.  They just do it in circumstances and conditions that 99% of our population will never fully understand, and because of that they are exceptional.
  5. Not every veteran has PTSD.  There are a lot of men and women who will bear scars, both internal and external, and we have a debt of honor to provide them with everything we can give them to heal.  But some people are just assholes.  Need to tell the difference?  Let’s try this:  Was the dickhead who beats his wife and kids a dickhead before he deployed?  If so, then it wasn’t the deployment.  Corollary:  Just because someone served, please don’t assume that they’re a ticking time bomb. It’s annoying and insulting.
  6. Every child is a wonderful gift from God.  But not every kid who gets into trouble, or has trouble with math has a learning disability.  Quit looking for a biological excuse for the fact that your kid isn’t the next Stephen Hawking or that you never taught them to obey adults who are placed in authority over them.
  7. Life is hard.  Has been ever since Mother Eve decided to talk to the snake.  You can either deal with that or sit down on the side of the trail and die.  Your choice.  But please choose quickly.  Some of us are trying to deal.
  8. Not everyone needs to go to college.  Remember that kid who didn’t do so well at math or English, no matter how hard they tried?  Putting them in a four year liberal arts or hard science program is nothing but a formula for someone to either bail out of school with a huge student loan debt and no degree or for someone to get a huge student loan debt and a degree that means next to nothing.  There is no shame in learning a skilled trade, and the guys who took shop classes in school and went on to learn a trade when I went to high school are for the most part making at least as much money as I do.
  9. When you get in trouble, you either have mitigating circumstances or you have excuses.  A mitigating circumstance is “I had to steal bread so that I could feed my children”.  An excuse is “My father ran off when I was young and I never got enough hugs”.  Guess which one I have an iota of sympathy for?
  10. No-one owes you anything just because they share a biosphere with you.  Get up, brush your teeth, and earn a living.

*musings, rant, ravings, whatever

by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in rant

Posted by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/12/a-few-thoughts-on-life/

30 Days of Reagan – Day 10

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Reagan

Posted by daddybear71 on January 12, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/12/30-days-of-reagan-day-10/

Thought for the Day

I’ve been working for a company with a lot of trucks and airplanes for over a decade now, and I’ve never seen any of them turn into robots.  I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

by daddybear71 on January 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day

Posted by daddybear71 on January 11, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/01/11/thought-for-the-day-26/

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