Book two is out for beta read now, having been through the first editing pass…
Here is what was chosen as the cover.
Thanks to my VERY GOOD graphics artist Tina Garceau. She can take my off the wall ideas and turn them into something that is attractive and matches the ‘tone’ of the book to a ‘T’…
Thank you lady!
Looking at late September/early Oct publishing date. More information as the final steps get done.
What you’re liable to find when you’re looking for something else…
One ‘old’ box of .45 ammo…
I think it was made around 1953… and it’s a full box! 🙂
And another piece of personal history…
I bought this thing back in 1973 or 74 to use on the airplane. It’s the ‘mini’ version and fit perfectly into the old blue flight manual books we carried. It was a lot quicker to do the math on this than to try to do it on a notebook in a bouncing airplane…
And no, I never did find what I was looking for… sigh…
The ‘mantra’ in the gun world is that one is none…
And two is one…
So I guess I’ve got one Model 1917… 🙂
I had to go to an offsite, it was raining so I left early to beat the traffic. Got to the meeting but had time to kill, so I stopped in a little place that sells fishing gear and has a little (maybe 6 foot) gun counter…
I’m casually looking and see something down on the bottom shelf (actually two somethings)…
I asked the kid to pull them out, turns out it’s a 1917 Colt and a 1917 S&W. Some old guy (his words) had come in and put them on consignment…
The Colt turns out to be all original, including the original grips and lanyard ring!!!
It’s not perfect by a long shot, but the bore is good with sharp lands/grooves and I’m going to shoot it anyway…
You can see there is a little chip out of the left hand grip in the picture below…
And a quick run through the serial number checker shows it was made in 1918, so now I have two…er… ONE, yeah, yeah, that’s it, one Colt made in 1918… 🙂
It won’t be a safe queen, and I’m hoping to get to the range soon with it. Since I already have moon clips, at least I don’t have to go hunt them down again…
The S&W was probably in a bit better shape, but I just didn’t have the $$ for both… And it didn’t have original grips…
So we have something over 1000 boots on the ground in Iraq, but SOFA???
So what happens if they have to defend themselves???
Are they now liable under Iraqi law? With no SOFA, I think they are!
NOT a good situation!!!
But is the administration doing anything to fix this? Nothing that I can find… Anybody know different?
Another one for the home front. This one features Admiral Bull Halsey. This is the picture that started it…
This is another one by John Phillip Falter, who came in the Navy as an artist during WWII. Interesting to me, he moved the binoculars up to a ‘ready’ position…
And I also found this one, which ‘may’ be either a work up for the one above, or a separate motivator for the Navy… or…
Hope y’all are enjoying these…
Spent the morning at the dealer getting stuff done on the truck…
Ended up sitting next to an Army Major (Ranger/Airborne), just back from downrange. We got into a rather in-depth conversation about what is going on in the Army. He’s just back from downrange, was the G-2 on a Batt staff…
This was his SIXTH deployment! He’d had both platoon and company commands downrange, and admitted he was promoted out of zone (early) and has his first in zone look at LTCOL this year. He said he was in ‘limbo’ right now, trying to find out if he was going to be retained. Of his four friends from college days, he said he was the only one left. One had been killed, one got out as a captain and the other two were both RIFed in the last six months (as majors). He’s pretty worried as they have three kids, the youngest a 6 month old little girl. He said at this point he’s just hoping to hang on for 3 more years to get to 15 years, “In case it all goes south.” But in any case, his wife has already gone back to work as a translator since they are both fluent in Spanish, and he said they are putting every dollar they can aside… He also said that he really doesn’t want to go back to El Paso right now, with all the crap going on down there. Either his parents or hers have a store, and they’ve been robbed multiple times in the last year by ‘gang’ members (he thinks probably MS-13).
I feel for he and his family, and I think the way they are being treated just plain SUCKS!!!
They deserve a hell of a lot better than they are getting!!!
As we get ‘older’ we start aging out…
Which means we start losing friends, relatives, and family in some cases. It also forces us to confront our own mortality…
I’ve had two friends die this week, one expected and one not.
The expected one was a release from a lot of pain, he’d dealt with pancreatic cancer for almost six months, lost something over 100lbs, and at the end didn’t want anyone to visit. He passed Monday in Hospice, and I’m glad he’s out of pain.
The other, Tuesday was a friend and former co-worker, in his mid-50s that died in bed. Cause unknown, and his wife was the one that found him. He was a little fireplug, retired sonar chief, and one of those folks that was a self-starter. If you gave him a task, you didn’t have to worry about it. He lived life to the fullest, always had a joke or a smart ass remark, and we were supposed to get together in a few weeks…
Now… He’s gone too… leaving a wife, a brand new college grad daughter, and a hole in a lot of our hearts.
Since most of us are retired military, we chose to remember the good times, all the little ‘experiences’ he had, both in and out of the service…
But I think all of us went home Tuesday night with heavy hearts, and took a good look at our own families… And either gave them hugs, or called them…
RIP Ken and Tom, RIP guys…
Y’all both burned the candle at both ends and in the middle…
Rest in Peace… You may be gone, but you’re not forgotten…
This was out in Honolulu a couple of months ago, I just forget to actually post it… sigh…
Anyhoo, one of our carriers pulled in and the air wing flew off, landing at Hickham (which shares runways with Honolulu International)…
These guys had just landed on the ‘short’ runway (A helluva lot longer than the 425 feet on a carrier) and were taxiing over to park at Hickam, the United bird had just started taxiing to takeoff, everybody came to a halt…
Now normally airliners fight to get immediate taxi clearance, and don’t want to wait at all…
But in this case…. Not so much… No, no, you to right ahead, I’ll wait… 🙂
And in the ‘little things’ category…
I’ve been staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for now going on 30 years, and never noticed the end caps on the roof of the central shopping pavilion… I guess I’d never been in the ‘right’ room to view them…
But it’s a pretty neat end cap, not a gargoyle, but it does spit water when it rains!!!
Sigh… One of these days I’ve got to learn to go back and check for draft posts…
We are, I believe, getting closer and closer to the ‘tipping point’ everyone keeps talking about. Attitudes are getting worse and worse, people are less and less accommodating, and more people are disconnected than ever before.
The divisions are hardening, politically and racially especially among the younger generations. We’re seeing the attack groups pressing harder and harder to force their agendas down our throats, either through legal means or PC enforcement.
Industries like coal and oil/gas are coming under political fire from the EPA, since Cap and Trade couldn’t be legislated, now it’s being regulated…
Water regulations are rising again, especially with the drought issues out west and the lack of water for California, Las Vegas, and other locations. Law suits are on the rise, and thefts of water are increasing almost daily, even from fire stations!
Pushback is starting especially from the farmers, ranchers and in some cases homeowners over the high handed actions by .gov and others.
Kids are more and more isolated, relying on their computer games, texts, earbuds and gangs of kids to avoid interacting with adults/other than ‘their’ groups. In most cases totally oblivious to the world around them…
Two instances this week- A kid on a bicycle, trucking down the street earbuds in jiving to whatever he was listening to; major intersection, runs the light and almost gets nailed by a bus. All he did was flip the driver off and pedal away. Second instance, a gang of about 8-10 kids tied up a crosswalk for probably two light cycles by basically blocking both sides of the 4 lane divided street, challenging drivers, flipping them off, and screaming obscenities at cars. They didn’t leave until a cop car turned and headed toward the intersection…
My office manager brought up an interesting point too, and that was that people CAN be categorized by the bumper stickers…
She said she only got worried around cars with Obama bumper stickers, as they tended to do what they wanted, changing lanes without signal, cutting people off, running lights, etc.
I noticed that one in my own parking garage the other morning, I park on the 4th level, so have to wind down to the exit. I was coming down and a car started to back out, saw me and pulled back in- Bumper stickers, Romney and NRA. One level down, same situation, different car, this one backed out and blocked me, ‘almost’ hit the front of my truck, then hauled ass (supposedly 5 MPH in the garage)- Bumper sticker, Obama…
The other thing brought to my attention by a co-worker is the stridency of the arguments now. It’s not about facts, it’s all about emotions…
I really wonder if this November WILL be the tipping point? Or am I just being paranoid???
Are people finally getting fed up with the politicians??? With the PC crap going on??? The over-regulation???
I just don’t know…
It appears Bloomie and his MAIG, et al groups failed once again…
He dumped money into a LOCAL sheriff’s race in Wisconsin against Sheriff Clark, who told people to arm themselves…
The race took on national tones just last week when Mr. Bloomberg — who helps head the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group and who has taken up a personal crusade to scale back Second Amendment rights — threw in $150,000 to defeat Sheriff Clarke. That amount was more than what Sheriff Clarke and his opponent, Chris Moews, spent on their entire campaigns, The Post reported.
Definitely a win for our side! 🙂 Also funny to note that no cries of racism occurred when whitey dumped $$ into a race against a black man… But I guess its all good when the left does it…
And here’s the media release from the NRA who DID help Sheriff Clark.
On behalf of the NRA’s five million members, we would like to congratulate Sheriff David A. Clarke on his hard fought victory in yesterday’s Primary election for Milwaukee County Sheriff. Sheriff Clarke’s outspoken commitment to the Second Amendment earned him the admiration of NRA members and gun owners nationwide. His dedication to freedom and the Constitution also earned him the wrath of gun control elitist Michael Bloomberg and his allies, who spent over half a million dollars (more money than both candidates in this race combined) trying to defeat Sheriff Clarke. But in the end, Bloomberg’s money could not buy the hearts and minds of the voters.
NRA-