Blogorado is up and running…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

The gathering has begun…


1981 miles and I made it, only to get stopped 10 miles short of here by a State Trooper, and honestly, he had me cold…

Luckily he was a nice guy, and knows Farm Girl, so I got a stiff warning (after we spent about 15 minutes talking guns and shooting)… It didn’t hurt that AeJim and he both knew people in common.

Since we were the first to roll in, Farm Dad and Farm Mom put us to work from the git go; prepping the brisket and pork butts for dinner, but since we were cutting we also had to taste test 🙂

DAYUM, that was some good brisket, pork, and ham and beans, and cornbread, and some mild salsa, and cheesecake brownies. By the time dinner rolled around, I was already full…

Farm Girl and Snarky got back first, closely followed by Christina LMT, Gay Cynic, Alan, the Atomic Nerds, and Breda. Christian and Gay Cynic won for the longest drive (20+ hours) so far. And the nerds brought beer, which naturally had to be taste tested!

We were all pretty tired, but everybody settled in the garage and the snark started flying. It was funny that at one point at least 6-7 people were in the chat while simultaneously talking in the real world, and pictures were being taken, and food being eaten, and Farm Gram was saying I have a perfectly good house in there… 🙂

More people will be arriving tomorrow, and today will be the horse riding for those who choose, a museum tour, and some of us get to go put the range together…

And to add insult to injury, we all just got banned from the Gun Blogger Chat as bots, since there were five of us signed on from the same IP addy at the hotel… Just lovely….

More later…

Sadly, the events at Ft. Hood are front and center on the news today- Please keep those folks in your thoughts and prayers.

Uh oh…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Looks like President Unicorn is slipping…


He went up to New Joisey four or five times, and campaigned for Corzine and called on ‘his’ supporters to come out a re-elect his Partner Corzine (A Dem Governor who was in serious trouble, because of taxes and corruption)… Guess what, it didn’t work!!!

The Blacks didn’t show up, the young didn’t show up, and the independents who fell for his lines last November didn’t bite this time; even the dead voters in NJ weren’t enough to put Corzine over the top. This was even after an “unknown” group funded robocalls for Daggett hoping to siphon off enough votes to kill Christie’s chances.

In Virginia, the Unicorn did a couple of campaign stops in Northern VA, but after Deeds refused to be identified as an “Obama” Democrat, the unicorn and his minions threw Deeds under the bus…

Hmmm, not a lot of support there; wonder if that was a message to the rest of the crowd, either toe the line or you’re history…

McDonell won BIG in VA, along with Republicans taking both the LT Governor and AG posts. How? Jobs, taxes and transportation- ALL problems in VA, when all Deeds was proposing more taxes…

Oh yeah, ya just gotta love Gibbsy’s out and out lie that the Unicorn didn’t even care about or watch the election results!!! IF that ‘really’ was the truth, it is yet again another demonstration of his ineptness in office. He continues to show that he cannot govern, only knows how to play “Chicago” politics and shift blame for failure…

It was interesting to note yesterday as I was driving cross country and flipping through stations that the Dems prostitutes like Beckel were out early and often saying these elections meant nothing, nope, not a thing; move along, nothing to see here; just local issues…

And this was BEFORE the votes were even counted!!!

But they DID win one- NY 23, after the “Republican” in the race was in third place behind a completely unknown conservative, dropped out and endorsed the Democrat!

Of course THAT one is a “historic” change, first time in 100+ years a dem, yada, yada, yada…

And now Axelrod is out there spouting about NY 23 and spinning/ignoring everything else.

Now what?

I think President Unicorn is gonna beat Pelosi and Reid like stepchildren to get Cap and Trade and “Health” care rammed though as soon as they can and anyone that crosses them will be thrown under the bus in 2010, because they are now seeing the handwriting on the wall.

It is writ large that the American public DOES NOT care for the current direction of the country, nor the policies the administration is trying to ram down our throats, but the administration doesn’t seem to care…

I wonder if President Unicorn has now realized he’s going to be a one term president and is just going to push his agenda to the detriment of the US, both internally and externally…

Sigh…

Somebody PLEASE tell me I’m wrong…

On the bright side, I’m on the way to Blogorado to shoot things, see old friends, make new ones, and kick back for a few days!!! 🙂

The Ant and the Grasshopper, new version…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

A valid comparison??? Maybe so…

OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’ Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the GovernmentGreenCzar.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in (which just happens to be the ant’s old house), crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is later found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

Ghosties, Goblins and other strange sightings…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

We all hear about haunted houses, church yards, and various other things, but how often have you heard of an ENTIRE building being haunted???


Now granted, the Japanese look at ancestors and ‘spirits’ a little differently than we do, BUT…

There is an entire housing tower on this particular base that the Japanese categorically refuse to enter at any time, day or night!

They swear it is built on ground where a number of Okinawans were killed in WWII and they supposedly inhabit the building (and dislike the Japanese intensely). Since the Japanese won’t clean it, it can’t be occupied; plus there are supposedly a number of stories surrounding things that occurred in that building, like heating and cooling turning on/off on it’s own, raining in some rooms, lights turning on/off, etc…

The second is a house known as the Samurai house- This is another location where the housing office cannot put any family to live. It appears this house is ‘haunted’ by a band of 13th century Samurai, who have parties on occasion, including horses, sword fights, etc… Apparently the APs have made numerous responses to this house over the years based on calls.

The story (with pictures of the damage) is also told of a group of Airmen who were going to make the house a haunted house for Halloween one year. After decorating the house, they left on a Thursday night, intending to return Saturday night. Friday night the APs were called to a reported “brawl” at the house, only to find it locked, no lights, nothing…

Upon entry, they discovered massive damage to ALL the props, etc. for the haunted house, and the pictures indicated much of the damage was made with long sharp objects based on the cuts and slices… One four inch post was sliced completely through at a 45 deg angle…

In other sightings, going to work yesterday I passed the Marine bicycle race team on the perimeter road. As I passed, I realized ‘something’ didn’t look right… Sure enough, in the middle of the group was a Japanese sitting upright, riding a Schwinn single speed wearing a Steel Pot!

Yesterday afternoon I ran into the Master Gunny at the barracks and asked him about it, turns out the Japanese Officer is the liaison officer for the squadron, and decided he wanted to participate, but didn’t have a bike or bike helmet, so he ‘borrowed’ a maintenance bike and grabbed his pot out of his car! The Master Gunny said he kept up for almost 5 miles, and they slowed down so as not to embarrass him!

In other news- Packout is done, most of the team is gone/going today; and I’m outta here tomorrow! Good timing since there is ANOTHER @#^&* typhoon on the way… sigh…


Can’t find the damn cats…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Okay already… enough with the #^&( typhoons… sigh…

We’ve had one count ’em ONE day of sunshine since we’ve been here; NOW we’ve got THIS screwing up my schedule, so I’ve actually got a couple of hours off…

Oh yeah, this is Typhoon Lupit…

On a lighter note- in the last post I posted a bunch of car and truck model names. Well, I’ve done some more ‘investigation’ of this (read I went as asked somebody).

According to Haruji-san, it’s different versions of the SAME model…

He took me down to the local Toyota dealer, and (now understand I don’t speak Japanese, the dealer didn’t speak English, and Haruji’s translations are “close”) this is what I came away with….

As an oh by the way, car dealers over here dress JUST like their US counterparts… perfectly coiffed helmet hair (never moves in the wind at all), long sleeve dress shirts with French cuffs, obnoxious cufflinks, obnoxious ties, expensive shoes, etc…

In the US, we have, for example a Ford Taurus, it may be a Taurus, Taurus L, Taurus XL, or Taurus XLE; so four models total…

Over here, that could be as many as TWELVE different models with different names, based on interior trim level (the more “expensive” the name, the higher the level), engine/drivetrain package, and/or exterior trim levels.

There is even a baby SUV called “Terios Kid”, named after a popular VIDEO GAME!!!

That thing has chrome everything, wings, nav system, mag wheels, and a cloth interior that replicates the game characters. It’s marketed to the young male population, and I about fell out when Haruji called a “pimp car”… J

Now Haruji is a character himself- He’s about 5’2”, either 75 or 76, and survived the Battle of Okinawa as a child by walking the length of the island with his family. I asked him one time about his education, and he held up his hands and said, “these are my education…

He owns four businesses, three of which are run by his sons. His other business is providing port services to the Navy and others that use the military port at Naha. He is also a car nut, and has a hot-rodded 20 year old Nissan Skyline with twin turbos that he built himself (and claims he has never been beaten, after riding with him init, I BELIEVE him).

He is also pretty well connected over here- We needed a 100 ton crane on a Japanese holiday weekend on short notice, two hours later it showed up, driven by the President of the crane company! I am NOT about to get Haruji mad at me…

Now back to your regularly scheduled BS…

The cats are winning…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Quickie… Now in the 10th day in a row of rain… I think I’m growing webs between my toes…


Commuting in Japan is just ‘such’ fun…

Driving on the wrong side (with apologies to Julie), trying to juggle the windshield wipers, turn signals and NOT get run over by the Kamikaze motorcyclists is enough to make me want to drink a beer or a dozen…

Add to that the stop lights, which also have arrows, so you can literally have a red light, with a through arrow, so legally you are driving THROUGH a red light… sigh…

And here is a partial list of vehicle models I’ve seen in my commutes for your viewing pleasure… Make up your own sentences like I get to do depending on what order I see the vehicles…

Little trucks-

That’s
Life
Naked
Scrum

Big trucks-

Canter
Fighter

Vans-

Box
Cube
Move
Custom
California
WagonR
Palette
Rasheed

Cars-


Note
Crown
Majesta
Voxy
Grande
Royal
Sylphy
Diana
Platz

Back to the rat race… Y’all have a good weekend…

My apologies…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Due to the press of work (read cat herding) and trying to keep track of things going on in three different locations, while finding out TODAY that my assistant is now not showing up, I’m gonna be running around with my hair on fire for the next couple of weeks…

So, posting will be non-existant, blog reading and comments won’t be happening, email ‘may’ get answered and maybe not…

I ‘should’ resurface at the end of the month, God willing and the creek don’t rise…

YGTBSM…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

So I had finally gotten to where I was supposed to be for work, and am stuck staying on an Air Force base out here…

There I was, enjoying an adult beverage or three in the O club last night in the stag bar, deep in conversation with some Marine F-18 drivers; when all of a sudden somebody called TEN-HUT!

That immediately stopped all the conversations and everybody started looking around to see who had walked in. Then one of the folks at the bar yelled, “Hey, y’all gotta see this s**t, you’re not gonna believe what just happened!”

There was a mass movement toward the TV over the corner of the bar, and suddenly all the TVs were changing to CNN, and there it was…

Obama wins Nobel Prize for Peace…

I honestly have NEVER seen a bar get quieter in my life than then…

And as CNN started putting out the details; nominated in February (with a total of 2 weeks in office), and absolutely NOTHING in the way of actual accomplishments, but oh, how great this was for the Lightbringer, and he’s going to stop the war in Iraq, and stop the war in Afghanistan, etc. etc…

I can honestly say the general sentiment in the club was alternating between WTF and YGTBSM, coupled with howstupidarethesepeople. People were literally stunned and looking at each other with glazed expressions of those who just could not process what had just happened.
Some desultory conversations started back up, but most were just shaking their heads and wondering what this will bode for their futures (and many don’t think it bodes well)…

I finished my drink and headed back to billeting, interested to see what else was being said, only to find out that Fox News is NOT an available channel on the base AFRTS. CNN and HLN are up all the time, so I switched over to the Pentagon channel, only to find the Fox program that was supposed to be on was not available…

So, I go jump on the wireless to see what is being said, and lo and behold; all usenet, newsnet, rss feeds, and blogs are BLOCKED!

So lets try my favorite gun forums- nope; Remington- nope; Glock- nope; Brady bunch- Yep! Facebook- Yep; YouTube- Yep…

WTF???

So I go over to Billeting and ask what is going on. The answer? “Oh, command policy to limit the amount of bandwidth used.” Huh???

Sigh…

You may be asking, well how are you posting now? I drove down to the Marine Base, that’s how 🙂

And the Nobel prize is STILL the subject of discussion at breakfast, with no different comments than those heard last night…

Oh yeah, Crucis, this ISN’T your Air Force anymore…

Well THAT was interesting…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Nothing like getting awakened at 0300 by “something” scratching at my window…

Only problem, I was on the third floor! Typhoon Malor obviously didn’t read it’s own press release, so it just hauled ass up the Japanese Islands; it wasn’t supposed to get here until late this evening…

Oh yeah, the scratching? Well, there was a tree about 10 feet from the window, it was being bent that far by the winds (est. 70 mph) and branches were scratching the window. Then it started raining… Sideways…

Supposedly 6 inches of rain in an hour, winds blowing like hell, about 0500 it got perfectly calm. I walked outside and there were NO clouds, the sun was coming up and it was really nice (for about an hour); then we got the back side of the typhoon!

More rain (sideways again) winds steady at 35-40mph, gusting to 50mph. Believe me, it gives a whole new meaning to that “windblown” look…

It’s now 1700, beautiful sunny afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, winds are down to 5-10mph. Hard to believe the change in just a little over 12 hours!

Since most of this occurred in the middle of the night (so to speak) I don’t have any pics.

So I’ll throw a random picture in from the range shoot a few weeks ago…

I had a hitchhiker on my Model 70; and no I didn’t shoot until it was gone, so there 🙂
I have absolutely NO idea where that dragonfly came from, or why he liked the barrel so much…

In other news, there is a little bit bigger “round” in development that is now out in public domain…

It’s called the MOP, The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, and is a 30,000-pound bomb that would dive deeper than any previous bomb, and could be strapped to B-2 or B-52 bombers in the near future.

The GBU-24 bunker buster is tiny in comparison to the new MOP. The MOP is 20 feet long and can penetrate bunkers a ‘long’ way before exploding. At 15 tons, the MOP is a third heavier than the previous “mother of all bombs”, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, which was only 10.5 tons. The MOP also packs a whopping 5,300 lbs of explosives, which is 10 times the amount its predecessor bunker-buster, the BLU-109, carried.

Basically, all you need to clean up afterwards will be a mop, cause there isn’t going to be anything left…

The new Tsars…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

TO HELP YOU KEEP TRACK of The White House Tzars, here is the latest list; read it and weep…

Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke- Ultra liberal anti gun former Gov.of New Mexico . Pro Abortion and legal drug use.

AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley Homosexual. A Gay Rights activist. Believes in Gay Marriage and Special Status, including free health care for gays.

Auto recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery- Black radical anti business activist. Affirmative Action and Job Preference for blacks. Univ of Maryland Business School Dean teaches US business has caused world poverty. ACORN board member. Communist DuBois Club member.

Border Czar: Alan Bersin- former failed superintendent of San Diego . Ultra Liberal friend of Hilary Clinton. Served as Border Czar under Janet Reno – to keep borders open to illegals

California Water Czar: David J. Hayes Sr. Fellow of radical environmentalist group, “Progress Policy”. No training or experience in water management.

Car Czar: Ron Bloom- Auto Union worker. Anti business & anti nuclear. Has worked hard to force US auto makers out of business. Sits on the Board of Chrysler which is now Auto Union owned. How did this happen?

Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross- Believes US policy has caused Mid East wars. Obama apologist to the world. Anti gun and pro abortion.

Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal- Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Vicious anti male feminist. Supported male castration.

Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske- devoted lobbyist for every restrictive gun law proposal, Former Chief of Police in Liberal Seattle. Believes no American should own a firearm. Supports legalization of drugs.

Economic Czar: Paul Volcker -Head of Fed Reserve under Jimmy Carter when US economy nearly failed. Obama appointed head of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board which engineered the Obama economic disaster to US economy. Member of anti business “Progressive Policy” organization.

Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Brower- Political Radical -Former head of EPA — known for anti-business activism. Strong anti-gun ownership.

Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois Political Black activist-Degree in Black Nationalism. Anti gun ownership lobyist.

Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis- Chicago radical anti business environmentalist. Blames George Bush for “Poisoning the water that minorities have to drink.” No experience or training in water management. Former ACORN Board member

Green Jobs Czar: Van Jones- (since resigned). Black activist Member of American communist Party and San Francisco Communist Party who said Geo Bush caused the 911 attack and wanted Bush investigated by the World Court for war crimes. Black activist with strong anti-white views.

Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried -Rights activist for Foreign Terrorists. Believes America has caused the war on terrorism.

Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle. Former head of Medicare / Medicaid. Strong Health Care Rationing proponent. She is married to a reporter for The New York Times

Information Czar: Vivek Kundra- born in New Delhi , India . Controls all public information, including labels and news releases. Monitors all private Internet emails.

International Climate Czar: Todd Stern- Anti business former White House chief of Staff- Strong supportrer of the Kyoto Accord. Pushing hard for Cap and Trade. Blames US business for Global warming.

Intelligence Czar: Dennis Blair- Ret Navy. Stopped US guided missile program as “provocative”. Chair of ultra liberal “Council on Foreign Relations” which blames American organizations for regional wars.

Mideast Peace Czar: George Mitchell Fmr. Sen from Maine- Left wing radical. Has said Israel should be split up into “2 or 3 ” smaller more manageable plots”. Anti-nuclear anti-gun & pro homosexual.

Pay Czar: Kenneth Feinberg- Chief of Staff to TED KENNEDY. Lawyer who got rich off the 911 victims payoffs.

Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein- Liberal activist judge-believes free speech needs to be limited for the “common good”. Rules against personal freedoms many times -like private gun ownership.

Science Czar: John Holdren- Fierce ideological environmentalist, Sierra Club, Anti business activist. Claims US business has caused world poverty. No Science training.

Stimulus Accountability Czar: Earl Devaney- spent career trying to take guns away from American citizens.. Believes in Open Borders to Mexico . Author of statement blaming US gun stores for drug war in Mexico .

Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration- Native of Democratic Republic of Congo <> . Believes US does little to help Third World countries. Council of foreign relations, asking for higher US taxes to support United Nations.

TARP Czar: Herb Allison- Fannie May CEO responsible for the US recession by using real estate mortgages to back up the US stock market. Caused millions of people to lose their life savings.

Terrorism Czar: John Brennan- Anti CIA activist. No training in diplomatic or gov. affairs. Believes Open Borders to Mexico and a dialog with terrorists and has suggested Obama disband US military.

Technology Czar: Aneesh Chopra- No Technology training. Worked for the Advisory Board Company, a health care think tank for hospitals. Anti doctor activist. Supports Obama Health care Rationing and salaried doctors working exclusively for the Gov. health care plan.

Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.- Puerto Rican. Anti American activist and leftist group member in Latin America . Millionaire “slum lord” of the Bronx , NY. Owns many lavish homes and condos which he got from “sweetheart” deals with labor unions. Wants higher taxes to pay for minority housing and health care.

Weapons Czar: Ashton Carter- Leftist. Wants all private weapons in US destroyed. Supports UN ban on firearms ownership in America . No Other “policy”

WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore- Former US Communist. Wants US to destroy all WMD unilaterally as a show of good faith. Has no other “policy”. //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/democratic_republic_of_congo>


It should come as no surprise to anyone which direction this administration is trying to drive this country; but this pretty much lays it out agency by agency…

It’s also looking like the Dollar is imploding against foreign countries money, which doesn’t bode well for us… Against the Yen, the dollar is down 10% in the last 90 days, to the lowest I’ve seen it in recent memory… it’s 87Y=$1