Not for the faint of heart…

This one is NOT pretty at the end- but it does end well for the LEOs involved (they all get to go home in one piece).

Team work at it’s finest- and score one for the good guys! The helo pilot most probably saved the officer’s life by telling him NOT to follow the bad guy into the back yard.

This video also shows what our LEOs face on a daily and nightly basis when pursuing bad guys on foot.

Take a minute and say a little prayer for these men and women that are the thin blue line…

Scribbler Award…

RT has done a super-nice thing and bestowed upon me the Superior Scribbler Award. For once I didn’t get told NO you can’t publish that because (fill in the blank)….

Thanks RT!
The best part about this award is that I get to nominate five other bloggers!

I give this award to:

Earl for his humorous look at the world and the work he does helping people

Murph for the reminders that every cloud had a silver lining somewhere, when we were in the military

JPG doesn’t post often, but when he does, it is though provolking and worth the read

Breda for her well thought out posts and female perspective on shooting

And last but not least Brigid she cooks, she shoots, she is one hellva writer!

Hell, as far as that goes, everybody on my sidebar deserves one!


Now, according to the rules….
Every Superior Scribbler will name 5 other Super Scribblers.If you are named you must link to the author & the name of the blog that gave you the award. Then you must display the adorable award and link to
THIS POST, which explains the award. The same post also allows you to add your link. Then they will have a record of all the people who are Super Scribblers!

Trigger Time!!!!

Taking a ‘few’ people’s advice, and actually having a weekend day where I could do something, I went to the local range and spent some quality time shooting on Sunday.

I know, I know, this is Tuesday, but I’ve had a battle with my little old camera, that poor thing is on it’s last leg, singular. So it’s been two falls out of three trying to both take pictures, and get pictures out of the damn thing… sigh…

Anyhoo, I decided this was going to be revolver day, so dug out the Pythons and the S&W 637 and went at it.

Here is a pic of all three on the lane, and the leftovers from a box of ammo. 150 rounds and I’ll tell you, my wrist and thumb are STILL telling me about it!

These are the returns from the Pythons only (suffice to say, if I’m INSIDE the barn with the 637, I can hit the barn 4 out of 5)…

And I drug one other thing to the range- and I don’t have a good picture, but it’s a 1943 HRA M-1 Rifle. It’s a new rifle for me, purchased from CMP and I was shooting some 1965 30.06 LC Match 173 gr through it.

I’m EXTREMELY happy with the rifle, as it gauges very well and shoots even better! Now I will admit I cheated on these, and shot off a bean bag rest, but I’ll take this for accuracy at 100 yards!

Here’s a close up of an 8 round clip, about 2 inches with open sights! YES!!! πŸ™‚

From another point of view…

One of the better presentations for it’s skewed perspective on gun control…

I finally got back from my little WESTPAC “vacation” so I’m playing catch up on the news…

One thing is for sure- CNN worldwide is BIASED!!!! All of the presidential coverage was slanted pro-Obama; never saw a positive story on McCain the entire week and a half. This was both CNNj (Japan) and CNNs (Spanish, which came on at midnight), were rooting for Obama and his “positive” impact on the world.

Most of the Sailors and Marines I talked to are worried, about their jobs, and more so about the level of committment to the military Obama has.

Oh yeah, it was actually nice NOT to have internet access for a few days πŸ™‚ Amazing how relaxing that is…

A must read…

Go read Voodoo Medicine Man’s post on the entitlement mentality

He got it in one, and said it MUCH better than I can.

Herding cats time…

Last night was one of those you had to be there situations…

A group of us went out to dinner at a Japanese (local not tourist) restaurant. They had the plastic presento food in the front window, with Kanji and prices only. The menu came, only Kanji, no English, no pictures…

So everybody either orders off their best guess or price (from the front window). Most of us ordered what are called sets (like prix fixe) but two guys got creative…

Soooo

The wait staff starts bringing out dishes, sets one in front of one of the ladies with 8 little plates, and motions around the table (can we say appetizer?), so she takes a little plate, one piece and around the table we go… The last guy, a PHD, says, “hey, this kinda looks like what I ordered for dinner”. Next they bring out a few bowls of rice, which get placed around the table and some of the group take them…

Again the last guy is left out… Now they bring out the rest of the meals, he now has nothing sitting in front of him, and he mumbles something about thinking he ordered a bowl of rice…

We end up getting the manager over to the table, and find out that we had, in fact, eaten his dinner AND his rice πŸ™‚ So he orders again…

20 minutes later we are finished, and his second set of food finally gets to the table. We wait for him, then go up to pay. Now this is where it gets interesting…

They don’t speak English, we don’t speak Japanese, there is nothing on the bill indicating the prices, and the Mamasan is getting frustrated. So I go track down the manager and get a menu, we guesstimate how much we owe, and start going back and forth to the front window and pointing out what we had. The Mamasan totals it up, points to the register and that is what we pay…

Last guys gets up, points to his appetizer and rice (times 2), and she rings up about 4 times the value… Last guy gets frustrated (reminder: he’s a PHD and he doesn’t deal well with not getting his way) so I end up in the middle of it, and through pantomime, etc. we figure out she never charged us for any drinks, so tacked it all on his bill… We finally get enough yen together to pay the last part and leave…

We get outside, and of course, to add insult to injury, it is now pouring rain! Last guy decides to wait on a taxi, while the rest of us head back. About 30 minutes later, we’re at the bar having a nightcap or three, when he finally comes in; he walks over and tells us he needs yen to pay for his taxi!!! The idjit called a taxi for what was effectively a 4 block ride, which cost almost $10, and he didn’t even have the money to pay for it, and tried to pay with his credit card!!!!

So collection time again, including trading people dollars for yen to finally collect enough to pay his taxi fare, meanwhile he leaves and goes to bed!!! So I get stuck doing the go min esai dance with the taxi driver…

Note to self: DO NOT bring this guy next time… sigh…

Now that was interesting…

At about 315pm, felt a small earthquake here in Yokosuka, Japan. Chair was vibrating, computer (desk) started shaking, and I ‘finally’ realized what was happening; yep, I’m awake….

About 30 seconds before it hit, I heard a bunch of dogs start barking/howling… Don’t know if this was a bigger one elsewhere, and we got the fringes or what. No aftershocks so far, but the dogs are going nuts again, so I’m gonna take a break and go outside πŸ™‚

Well, 15 minutes later and nothing has happened… I don’t think most people even noticed!

Biggest news over here today is that the Nikkei (Japanese Stock Market) has dropped 9.4% today, along with most of the Asian markets (largest drop Indonesian Market 10.5% before they suspended trading). Toyota was off 10% of their total value today alone! Add this to the London Exchange problems, the Brit buyout, etc. closure of the Russian markets after 10 and 15% losses respectively and yes, the Wall Street problem really has upset markets world wide…

BBC is saying there is now ‘officially’ a world wide panic in progress, thanks to the US!

We decided to do something different for dinner, so we took the train up to Yokohama, went to Chinatown, and ate in a Brazilian restaurant serving Argentinian beef… Talk about Globalization… Burp…


USS Grunion (SS216) Identified…

On October 1, 2008, Commander, Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet, Rear Adm. Douglas McAneny announced that a sunken vessel off the coast of the Aleutian Islands is in fact the World War II submarine USS Grunion (SS 216).

66 years after the fact, and in no small part due to the persisitance of LCDR Abele’s sons; along with a chance input from a Japanese source, closure has been granted to those families.

Details here:

http://www.csp.navy.mil/ww2boats/grunion.htm

and here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081003193648.htm

And here is the site about the search:

http://www.ussgrunion.com/

RIP and go with God Gentlemen; you will always be on Eternal Patrol.

Phried Phunnies…

A little humor for your Friday…

Watch for these consolidations in 2009:

1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2.) PolygramRecords, Warner Bros., and ZestaCrackers join forces and become:
Poly, Warner Cracker.

3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become:
MMMGood.

4. ZippoManufacturing, AudiMotors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become:
ZipAudiDoDa.

5. FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become:
FedUP.

6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become:
Fairwell Honeychild.

7. Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become:
PouponPants.

8. Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become:
Knott NOW!

And finally….

9. Victoria ‘s Secret and Smith & Wesson will merge under the new name:
TittyTittyBangBang


Hey, I don’t come up with em, I just pass em along on recycled electrons…

A little humor…

Everybody else is beating the hell outta the congresscritters and Wall St., so I’m going in a different direction…

Don’t know if this is real or faked, but it IS funny as hell! Tattoo it on your forehead- Don’t piss off little old ladies πŸ™‚

Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the

Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the “family and conscience” of Fannie Mae…

Hmmm… And Pelosi and Reid are gonna fix it???