TBT…

Back in the day… Men carried real watches…

Pocket watches

The one on the left is my grandfather’s Elgin pocket watch from the 1890s when he was a railroad engineer for Union Pacific. He carried that watch for over 60 years.

The one on the right is a Hamilton pocket watch that was presented to my dad in 1958 for 30 years of service with Interstate and Esso pipeline. They both still keep excellent time, but sadly we no longer have watch pockets to carry them in.

I used to carry them occasionally for ‘dress’ occasions when pants still had watch pockets or I had a vest on. Not so much anymore…

Today it seems like the bigger/bulkier/uglier the watch is, the more popular. I’ve seen kids wearing WRIST watches that are bigger than these pocket watches.  OBTW, these you actually have to wind! No batteries, no fancy solar cells, just quality watchmaker’s art…

Posted in TBT

Wonder how the left will ‘spin’ this???

CCW permits for women up 270% since 2007!

And if one actually studies the FBI crime stats, there IS a proven decrease in violent crimes against people and murders when CCW is put in place…

The article by Matt Vespa, HERE, is a good one!

And some facts from the Lott/Whitley/Riley paper…

  • The number of concealed handgun permits is increasing at an ever- increasing rate. Over the past year, 1.7 million additional new permits have been issued – a 15.4% increase in just one single year. This is the largest ever single-year increase in the number of concealed handgun permits.
  • 5.2% of the total adult population has a permit.
  • Five states now have more than 10% of their adult population withconcealed handgun permits.
  • In ten states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the state. This is a major reason why legal carrying handguns is growing somuch faster than the number of permits.
  • Since 2007, permits for women has increased by 270% and for men by 156%.
  • Some evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites.
  • Between 2007 and 2014, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 (preliminary estimates) per 100,000. This represents a 25% drop in the murder rate at the same time that the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 178%. Overall violent crime also fell by 25 percent over that period of time.

You can download the entire report HERE.

Good news, as far as I’m concerned… Now if we could just get reciprocity…

And this graphic was stolen borrowed from The Miller

infograph

Meh…

It looks like I only had three missing books from the ones I sent out last week. If you were expecting a copy of TGM- Changes and haven’t seen it yet, please shoot me an email. It seems like I inevitably have a couple go missing every time I ship…

The first reviews are trending positive, and the book is selling faster than both earlier ones did.  There for a few days, I was up in the 19,000 range, sadly I’m now back in the bottom of the barrel… BUT

recommended books

I think I’m in pretty damn good company… Page 2 of the customers who bought pages was Marko’s books, and Larry’s books! 🙂

Once again, thanks to the Alpha and Beta readers, and my ‘technical consultants’… Without y’all and outstanding covers, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

And I’m working on #4, but I’m going to do my best to get it right! I don’t want to rush and put a bad book out there. Too many of y’all would hunt me down and kick my ass!!!

Stir crazy…

So… After sitting in the house for 2 1/2 days, resting my twisted knee, I NEEDED some human interaction…

I called up Tina, who’s my go to for my book covers, and said can I come buy y’all lunch… I don’t think she believed me at first…

So yesterday morning I’m up and out the door shooting for a noon arrival (plus possibly an hour depending on I-95…) I actually made it only 15 minutes late…

We went to what is supposedly the oldest continuously family owned italian restaurant in the USA, it’s been there since 1900, called Ralph’s (Named for the baby boy apparently)… And in the same location since 1915! It’s in a little enclave of ‘Italian’ shops, groceries, and a former Italian neighborhood…

Neapolitan fare, and it was EXCELLENT!!! And way too much food… sigh

Also, Tina gifted me a loaf of homemade pesto bread…

Pesto bread

If you follow their blog, you know she loves to cook, and it’s GOOD! Much like Brigid, if I were married to either one of them, I’d weigh 400 lbs…

Pardon me, I’ll be in the kitchen making toast…

I got a package!!!

So I come home to find a nice little box in the mail…

spiderco box

I wonder it could be, then remembered a conversation I’d had with John Shirley about his ‘new’ knife that he had developed and worked to get picked up by Spyderco…

Yep!  That’s what was in the box. That’s a quarter to show relative size.

spyderco sheath

And a close up of the bare blade. John designed this knife with Sam Olsen as a ‘always ready knife’, one that could be carried all the time, even in the showers to protect the folks downrange.spyderco ARK

At a little over 2 oz, it’s almost not even noticeable on it’s neck chain, and is designed to be grippable even if your hands are wet and/or soapy. For a little knife, it’s got a lot of blade, and well pointed for either stabbing or slicing as needed. From my conversation with John, he’s given quite a few of these or the prototypes to the ladies he served with downrange.  More power to him!!!

This one will get added to the go to collection, especially if I’m in a situation where I can’t CCW.

Thank you for your persistence John, this is truly a quality product, and you done good my friend!

 

Iranian deal???

The amateurs (Kerry et al) who gave them everything they want kinda remind me of these quotes…

“I think I’ll march my 17th, 18th, and 19th Legions through Teutoburg Forest to wipe out those barbarians and teach those Germanic tribes a lesson they’ll never forget” – General Publius Quinctilius Varus

“Hey look, the Greeks left a present for us.”  – Unnamed Trojan General

“I think I’ll just take my army all the way to Moscow this fall, I hear they have the best caviar in that city.”  –  Napoleon

“We got the Germans exactly where we can keep an eye on them – completely surrounding us.”  British Expeditionary Force General John Vereker at Dunkirk

“Don’t be foolish, there are no icebergs this far south this time of yea..”  –  Captain of the Titanic

“Hmmmm, I wonder what will happen if I turn this valve.”  –  Janitor at Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, India

“Where’d all them f#ckin Injuns come from!?!?!?”  –  General Custer

Why do I have NO doubt this is going to come back and bite us in the ass?

Terrorism…

Thoughts and prayers for the Marines who died in Chattanooga, and those who were injured.

Flag at half mastIt’s time to STOP making bases and other facilities ‘soft’ targets for shooters…

The only GOOD point is the SOB that shot them is dead! Too bad the CPD didn’t get him before he got there.

Semper Fi Marines!

There is a We the People petition now online HERE to get rid of the stupid directive put in place by Bill Clinton in 1992 that prevents the military from protecting themselves…

We petition an immediate and full revocation of Department of Defense Directive 5210.66 and all pursuant military service regulations restricting the rights of DoD / Military personnel in regards to firearms.

DoD Directive 5210.66 restricts all DoD personnel from exercising the right to bear arms while on a DoD installation unless it is expressly written into their job duties. This Directive (and pursuant service regulations) effectively prohibit service members from carrying a concealed firearm for self defense.

DoD Directive 5210.66 restricts our highly trained service members from access to their firearms when it is most needed. In its place a new directive should be authored allowing a “Shall Issue” concealed carry weapon permit system to be established for all DoD personnel.

TBT…

Who remembers when this was the cat’s meow…

56k modem

I’m an old fart, my first modem was a 300 baud one… sigh… ARPNET/Compuserve… And BBS…

And the first computer I ‘owned’ was a hand me down IBM XT, upgraded with a ‘Lightning’ processor load (and TWO floppies)…

Posted in TBT

In the non-PC days…

Who Says We Can’t Deport Millions of Illegals? Ike Did

Dwight D Eisenhower was the first president who had to deal with illegal immigration.  A study in Texas found that in areas where there were lots of illegals, the pay was half of what fruit and vegetable pickers received in the rest of the state.  He knew that as long as they were willing to take less money farmers would continue to use them in greater numbers.  Since he was the president of the United States and not Mexico, he took firm and immediate action.

The first thing he did was to seal the border.  It is interesting to note he was able to do it with only 1,075 border patrol agents.  That’s less than 10% of what we have today.  I realize that technology has evolved, but it evolved for both sides.  The operation is still well known for it’s efficiency throughout the Border Control agency.

Now, he had to face the 3 million illegals that were in the country.  Never was amnesty a possibility.  No one felt white guilt and no one accused Eisenhower of being a racist and even if they would have, Eisenhower wouldn’t care.  He fought and defeated nazis once and he knew he could do it again.  .  Eisenhower saw only one solution.  Send them back to Mexico and other countries.  Eisenhower was also aware that farmers making huge profits by using illegal labor had the kind of money to buy politicians (Comcast, Microsoft and Google?)  They were loathe to give up their profits.  Eisenhower did not pander to the farmers for huge campaign contribution:

Ike appointed a former West Point classmate and soldier, Joseph “Jumping Joe” Swing to head the INS.  Lyndon Johnson and Pat McCarran, democrat senators were for open borders and they had allies in strategic offices in the INS.  Swing lived up to his name and jumped right out of the chute and he transferred all of Johnson’s cronies away from the border and into jobs where they couldn’t influence policy.

Then in June of 1954, the INS began project “Operation Wetback.”  In the first two months of the project, they gathered up 50,000 illegal immigrants during raids on farms known to use illegals.  And that was only in Arizona and California.  And better yet, it is estimated that 488,000 illegals fearing arrest left the country.  They then expanded the operation and by September 80,000 illegals were arrested in Texas and another 500,000 fled the country.  Problem solved…

You can read the whole story HERE on The PCgraveyard.com.

Of course this is also in a time where the administration CARED about America and maintaining the USA as a preeminent world power, and didn’t worry about offending illegals…

Not like today…

If I were king for a day, I’d cut ALL federal funding to any ‘sanctuary’ city. Period. End of subject.

Sigh…

h/t JP

There IS more than one way…

To end a boring meeting…

fart

It wasn’t me, but ‘somebody’ did… And literally emptied the room! 🙂

I hope that somebody is in the next long meeting and feels free to fart again…LOL