What else, other than wasting money, is not new in my life. I stopped by the supermarket to pick up a bag of Hazel Nuts (an afterthought), some Power Ball tickets (main mission) and a few other lottery tickets too. While I was filling out the Power Ball numbers, the lady behind the counter asks some guy if he bought any. He said "I'm not wasting my money". She said likewise back at him and he then repeated himself, in an exaggerated and drawn out manner, this time his voice directed toward me from the sound of it. All I could think was: 'Fine arsehat, you spend your money how you want, but if you say it again and get any louder and closer to my ear, I am going to give you a face full of Ballseye'.
As it turned out, I completed filling in my numbers, paid for my tickets, checked to make sure they were the right selections and started to leave when suddenly I realized I had an extra Power Ball ticket for which I did not ask nor pay. I let the lady behind the counter know about it and she looked puzzled but only for a moment and then she told me that you get one free play if you buy $10 worth of tickets (5 tickets). She could have just grabbed it from me and said sorry about that and maybe would have had the winning ticket in her pocket. It was nice to see she was honest right back at me. I am pretty sure that many people would have just thought they had gotten away with an extra ticket for which they had not paid, that is, if they, like me, did not know about the free game.
I would be more than satisfied to hit the second prize but have to admit that the first prize of $500 million dollars would be one heck of a wonderful thing. I figure that the prize would be doled out in the amount of about $225 to $250 after taxes in a lump sum. What to do with that much money. I think I would secure the family coffers first, buy some land (because only volcanoes and God make more of it and I have not seen God making an lately), have fun with a lot of it, and give a very large amount of money to a charity or three of our choosing. Then again, maybe we would buy a small country somewhere and call it Ballseyevania wherein the right to keep and bear arms (including possess, buy, manufacture, shoot, defend yourself with, overthrow a tyranny with) would be sacred over all others.
Now back to reality. I wish any of you who bought a ticket or more all the best of luck just as I hope you wish me the same. Money may not buy happiness but it sure goes a long way toward allowing you to enjoy things that might make you happy. Of course, it can also be a pain in the arse but oh what a joyous pain to have so much of it as to be uncertain how to spend it. If nothing else, it could certainly make life interesting.
All the best,
Glenn B
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Getting My Money Out of the Federal Government
I have decided, with my wife's concurrence, to withdraw all of our savings from my Thrift Savings Account with the federal government. Fiscal cliff being imminent or not, the chances are that the tax rates will soon rise and we do not want to be taxed at a higher rate in the future. Now granted, we may be taxed at a much higher rate, by withdrawing it all at once this year, than by withdrawing it over a few to several years if tax rates do not increase markedly, but that is where trust in government - or lack of that trust - comes into play. I no longer trust my money will remain 100% secure if I keep it in the hands of the government. I do not mean that my money will disappear because the government might steal it; my concern along those lines is that the government may wind up going belly up, unable to pay its financial obligations and then my money may disappear. Perhaps the same effect as it being stolen, just much more likely than someone actually stealing it.
I felt that way before I retired last year but was not sound enough, with the cancer treatments, to sit down, really give it the required thought, and decide to do it or not. Yet, I was pretty sure that is what I would wind up doing before this year was over. Today, I found out that it takes 2 to 3 weeks from the day I send my forms into them until I get the money in my hand. I still have enough time to get it this year. If taxes go up, then I will have known I did the right thing. If they do not go up, then I will wonder if I will have done the right thing but regardless, we will have whatever we have after taxes.
We do not have a heck o a lot of money in the TSP, so a big tax bite is going to reduce it significantly. With the TSP withdrawal added to my pension, my part-time job salary and Linda's two part-time job salaries - I think the tax bit will be substantial. Let me just say, my TSP balance is in the tens of thousands, not in the hundreds of thousands, of dollars that most others have contributed to said plan. I paid off my house early and thus we had little to put into the TSP over the several years that I contributed. I should have contributed sooner, just never saw the need. I see now that my whole roof, not just the shingles but the roof structure, may need to be replaced and it is sounding more and more like the insurance company will be paying less than I had expected.
Oh well, another one of those days with having to make: 'Decisions, Decisions, Decisions'! I have decided that either tomorrow or Friday, I'll be sending in the withdrawal form.
All the best,
Glenn B
I felt that way before I retired last year but was not sound enough, with the cancer treatments, to sit down, really give it the required thought, and decide to do it or not. Yet, I was pretty sure that is what I would wind up doing before this year was over. Today, I found out that it takes 2 to 3 weeks from the day I send my forms into them until I get the money in my hand. I still have enough time to get it this year. If taxes go up, then I will have known I did the right thing. If they do not go up, then I will wonder if I will have done the right thing but regardless, we will have whatever we have after taxes.
We do not have a heck o a lot of money in the TSP, so a big tax bite is going to reduce it significantly. With the TSP withdrawal added to my pension, my part-time job salary and Linda's two part-time job salaries - I think the tax bit will be substantial. Let me just say, my TSP balance is in the tens of thousands, not in the hundreds of thousands, of dollars that most others have contributed to said plan. I paid off my house early and thus we had little to put into the TSP over the several years that I contributed. I should have contributed sooner, just never saw the need. I see now that my whole roof, not just the shingles but the roof structure, may need to be replaced and it is sounding more and more like the insurance company will be paying less than I had expected.
Oh well, another one of those days with having to make: 'Decisions, Decisions, Decisions'! I have decided that either tomorrow or Friday, I'll be sending in the withdrawal form.
All the best,
Glenn B
Monday, November 26, 2012
A Scolding From Pravda To American Commie & Socialist Wanna Be's (aka: Hippies and Other Ultra Liberals)
I am still amazed that President Obama was reelected. I will wonder, for years, just how stupid the American voter can be to have voted him into office once again. Sure, the U.S. economy will get better but certainly not because Obama built anything to make it better, and definitely not because he rolled up his sleeves to look tough to the sissies who would buy that as being tough, and most assuredly not because of additional government control that he has implemented and absolutely not because of additional debt into which he placed us as a nation. It will get better because all wounds heal with time and our economy will also heal because businesses will make it so and the government will have little to do with that - just look at Ford for an idea of how it will work.
Obama will have had little to do with our economy healing although he will claim all the credit, just wait and see. What he will have had a lot to do with will be the next major economic disaster in the USA whenever it comes. That is because we will be paying off the money we earned (he certainly did nothing to earn the money he plans to bilk from us to support his nonstop government spending of our money), as a country, for decades if not for the whole next century. That means the debt is no so much ours as it is that of our children, their children and their grandchildren. Anyone with half of a bran should have been able to see that had they just read up on a little economic history. Guys who spend like did George W. Bush (let's not forget his ultra liberal government spending policy) and Barack H. Obama, are out and out failures at economics and it is our economy that is failing because of them.
It's not just me nor even all of the other millions of Americans who opposed Obama who think like that but people overseas in countries that are doing fairly well economically think like that too. Certainly, yo must realize I do not mean the Greeks, The Irish, The English, the French, the Spanish, the Italians or any of those in the Balkan nations because their economies suck. The people I mean are those of another world power, those in a place that for years had its economy ruined by communist and socialist principles. I am speaking of folks in Mother Russia herself! My bet would be that most of he hippies and moonbats in this country would not believe that anyone in Russia would think like that but in a moment I will quote an entire article (apparently okay by what I read at the bottom of source page as long as I supply the hyperlink) so you can read it yourself. The link is to an article appearing in Pravda (used to be the official media outlet of the U.S.S.R and is still in business in Moscow) makes me long for the days of Reaganomics.
Click on the link, read the article, pay close attention to what the current president Vladimir Putin is doing and what he plans to do to spur on the Russian economy and tell me - are you missing Ronald W. Reagan right about now. I sure miss him.
Obama will have had little to do with our economy healing although he will claim all the credit, just wait and see. What he will have had a lot to do with will be the next major economic disaster in the USA whenever it comes. That is because we will be paying off the money we earned (he certainly did nothing to earn the money he plans to bilk from us to support his nonstop government spending of our money), as a country, for decades if not for the whole next century. That means the debt is no so much ours as it is that of our children, their children and their grandchildren. Anyone with half of a bran should have been able to see that had they just read up on a little economic history. Guys who spend like did George W. Bush (let's not forget his ultra liberal government spending policy) and Barack H. Obama, are out and out failures at economics and it is our economy that is failing because of them.
It's not just me nor even all of the other millions of Americans who opposed Obama who think like that but people overseas in countries that are doing fairly well economically think like that too. Certainly, yo must realize I do not mean the Greeks, The Irish, The English, the French, the Spanish, the Italians or any of those in the Balkan nations because their economies suck. The people I mean are those of another world power, those in a place that for years had its economy ruined by communist and socialist principles. I am speaking of folks in Mother Russia herself! My bet would be that most of he hippies and moonbats in this country would not believe that anyone in Russia would think like that but in a moment I will quote an entire article (apparently okay by what I read at the bottom of source page as long as I supply the hyperlink) so you can read it yourself. The link is to an article appearing in Pravda (used to be the official media outlet of the U.S.S.R and is still in business in Moscow) makes me long for the days of Reaganomics.
Click on the link, read the article, pay close attention to what the current president Vladimir Putin is doing and what he plans to do to spur on the Russian economy and tell me - are you missing Ronald W. Reagan right about now. I sure miss him.
Obama's Soviet Mistake
Shotgun Gauges Explained - From A Woman's Perspective
I don't visit YouTube all that often. Enough to watch videos now and then and enough to find some fun videos to embed here on the blog and, of course, whenever I upload one of my own videos to it. When I do visit to view videos it is mostly videos that someone else has sent me in an email or to view gun videos I seek out. Almost every time I visit YouTube to to search for a gun video, I come up with results that include videos of Heather Lacroix having shooting fun.
Today was no exception, I typed Winchester Model 37 into my browser and came up with a link list including a link to a YouTube video about that model. Among the other videos, linked to on the page on which that video showed up, was the one I have embedded here. It shows her shooting .410, 20, 12 and 10 gauge shotguns. All I can say is that it sure looks and sounds as if she is having lots of fun regardless of the sore shoulder she suffers.
While the men will enjoy looking at Heather, the women, at least the married ones, should enjoy her commentary on the uses for each gauge shotgun (note the .410 designation is actually a bore size and not a gauge size as in other shotguns).
All the best,
Glenn B
Today was no exception, I typed Winchester Model 37 into my browser and came up with a link list including a link to a YouTube video about that model. Among the other videos, linked to on the page on which that video showed up, was the one I have embedded here. It shows her shooting .410, 20, 12 and 10 gauge shotguns. All I can say is that it sure looks and sounds as if she is having lots of fun regardless of the sore shoulder she suffers.
While the men will enjoy looking at Heather, the women, at least the married ones, should enjoy her commentary on the uses for each gauge shotgun (note the .410 designation is actually a bore size and not a gauge size as in other shotguns).
All the best,
Glenn B
Whoops - I Missed National Ammo Day...
...and all I can think is "So What". In fact, I missed out on buying g any ammunition during all of National Ammo Week; it was extended to a week so that anyone not being able to make a purchase on the actual day would have a chance to join in). National Ammo Day has a purpose: to show support for out right to keep and bear arms and to support ammunition manufacturers, distributors and dealers (in addition to just maybe expanding your ammo cache or getting you to go out and shoot).
National Ammo Day is called a buycot. Supporters of the second Amendment are urged to go out and make an ammunition purchase of at least 100 rounds (per person) from local gun shops, sporting good stores and the like. Note the importance of the word 'local' in that previous sentence. This day was intended, I believe, to show support for local, smaller sized, dealers - the mom & pop gun store. If I remember right, it was initiated, by Kim Du Toit, in the spirit of helping out the mom and pop type dealers as opposed to supporting places like Walmart (many of which sell firearms and ammunition). I rarely shop Walmart for ammunition but do shop there for it sometimes (not my local Walmart as they do not stock guns & ammo). Walmart has extremely competitive ammo prices but usually has a very limited variety of any given caliber of it. I would actually prefer to support my local gun stores and the people who work i them and run them but there is a problem that makes doing so unfeasible for me.
Many if not all of the gun shops I have visited in my area, in my opinion, are pretty much thieves disguised as legitimate businesses. In them, I have seen ammo with a selling price of from 1 1/2 to 3 times the price (and maybe even higher) than I would pay elsewhere, a limited stock of different brands in like calibers, a shortage or total lack of ammo in calibers which I need, long waits for special order ammo, an uppity attitude expressed by most of the shop workers (this seems to be a common gun store employee's affliction) and almost never do they sell bulk ammo. So, the places I usually shop are: from home and the convenience of my laptop by shopping online, at large sporting goods stores or at gun shows.
I realize that smaller shops often have a higher overhead to profit ratio and have to sell at higher prices to stay in business. I would not mind paying a bit of a premium, say maybe 10% higher than where I normally shop, to a local dealer but I do not pity any businessman enough by the balderdash that he has to pay for stock, rent, salaries, insurance premiums, electricity, taxes and therefore has to charge exorbitant prices to stay afloat, all the while complaining how tough it is to make a dime.
When a twenty round box of Remington brand, CoreLokt, 200 grain, soft point ammo goes for right around $25 online, at Walmart or at a gun show, then why would anyone (in their right mind) pay a local dealer $35 to $55 for that same box of ammo?
Really now, why would you consider buying from a small local shop with prices being that much higher? For me it is no brainer especially in light of how much ammo I buy annually, I look for the best bargains I can find. Now my idea of the best bargain is not all about price - as I said above I would pay a higher price at local gun shops considering all things. My idea of a good bargain includes very competitive pricing, shipping costs, reliability of the dealer to have what I want or to be able to get it, ease of the purchase process, the courtesy of the salespeople and excellent customer service. I find that the best deals therefor are those I find online with certain online ammo dealers. Prices available online usually either cannot or will not be matched by small local dealers.
Yes, that includes with shipping. Now, if you are at all familiar with online ammo purchases then you realize that shipping can add a lot to the price of a single box of rounds. For example, as I write this article, that box of .35 Remington I described above, is available from CheaperThanDirt for exactly $25.11 but shipping adds another $12.68 bringing the total to $37.79. It looks as if my local mom and pop gun stores, at least the one selling it for about $35 a box, may even have a somewhat better price but let's not forget local sales tax of .0865%. That would make their lowest price a total of $38.03. Wow, they actually come in with a slightly better price than the big online dealer, at least the one local dealer who has it at that price. Maybe you are wondering why I usually still do not buy from the local gun store.
You see, each box of that ammo that I buy from the local guy, goes for the same price. When I buy 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 boxes of that ammo, I can just times that price buy however many boxes I buy from a local dealer. The same thing sort of happens at Cheaper than Dirt, they too charge buy multiples of how many individual boxes I buy. Yet, there is a difference, a big one in terms of overall price. The shipping, from CheaperThanDirt and many other online dealers is for a complete order and not based upon whatever was the multiple of boxes you decided to purchase. Yes it can go up, as you order more, but it is usually based upon the whole order price and based on from which warehouse they are shipping (they have a number of warehouses). So, while shipping costs $12.68 for that lone box of ammo, it costs he exact same amount if I decide to buy 3 boxes or 5 boxes of it. That means, if I buy three boxes of the Remington CoreLokt, in .35 Remington caliber, at a local gun store, it is going to cost me $114.08 in total. The same purchase fro an online dealer like Cheaper than Dirt will cost, in total, $88.01. I think the wait of from a few days, to a week, to receive the ammo from Cheaper Than Dir is well worth the wait. After all, I will have saved $26.07 on that purchase from the local to the online dealer. That is more than enough to get another box of the same ammo, from CheaperThanDirt, with .96 cents left over (because the shipping for even 4 boxes remains at $12.68).
That kind of price difference, combined with a wide variety of available ammo, a pretty good attitude on the part of CTD's customer service department and reliable shipping from them assures that CheaperThanDirt will get much more f my business than a local dealer. Now, if by some chance, I was only going to buy a single box of ammo, or if I needed a box of ammo right away, I might buy it at a small mom and pop gun shop. The thing is, when it comes to me buying ammunition, I rarely buy just a single box of it and I tend to plan ahead with ammo purchases and thus do not usually need it very quickly. Besides that, I cannot stand the stuff they tell me at a gun store if I mention how high the price seems: gasoline prices are up and thus shipping ammo has gone up and was added to the price, they cannot come down at all on price if I buy multiple boxes of ammo (yet they add a premium for shipping onto each and every box even though they are not charged a flat rate shipping per box), how tough it is to make a profit while the store owner is driving a $50,000 plus automobile.
I have made sure, in past years, to buy ammo almost every time National Ammo Day (or week) came around. I forgot about it this year and to tell the truth, considering where I live and the ammo prices at my local dealers, it was not all that bad of a thing to have missed buying 100 rounds or more on that day. I have nothing against the concept of helping out small business owners, I am all for it if they are honest, courteous, hard working and offer reasonable prices. It is just that, I cannot see supporting local price gouging opportunists. I guess my search, for a mom and pop gun shop within 5 miles of home and that has reasonable prices, will have to continue. There has got to be one out there.
As far as National Ammo Day goes, I will probably participate again next year to support the concept if not so much as to support localcrooks gun and ammo dealers.
All the best,
Glenn B
National Ammo Day is called a buycot. Supporters of the second Amendment are urged to go out and make an ammunition purchase of at least 100 rounds (per person) from local gun shops, sporting good stores and the like. Note the importance of the word 'local' in that previous sentence. This day was intended, I believe, to show support for local, smaller sized, dealers - the mom & pop gun store. If I remember right, it was initiated, by Kim Du Toit, in the spirit of helping out the mom and pop type dealers as opposed to supporting places like Walmart (many of which sell firearms and ammunition). I rarely shop Walmart for ammunition but do shop there for it sometimes (not my local Walmart as they do not stock guns & ammo). Walmart has extremely competitive ammo prices but usually has a very limited variety of any given caliber of it. I would actually prefer to support my local gun stores and the people who work i them and run them but there is a problem that makes doing so unfeasible for me.
Many if not all of the gun shops I have visited in my area, in my opinion, are pretty much thieves disguised as legitimate businesses. In them, I have seen ammo with a selling price of from 1 1/2 to 3 times the price (and maybe even higher) than I would pay elsewhere, a limited stock of different brands in like calibers, a shortage or total lack of ammo in calibers which I need, long waits for special order ammo, an uppity attitude expressed by most of the shop workers (this seems to be a common gun store employee's affliction) and almost never do they sell bulk ammo. So, the places I usually shop are: from home and the convenience of my laptop by shopping online, at large sporting goods stores or at gun shows.
I realize that smaller shops often have a higher overhead to profit ratio and have to sell at higher prices to stay in business. I would not mind paying a bit of a premium, say maybe 10% higher than where I normally shop, to a local dealer but I do not pity any businessman enough by the balderdash that he has to pay for stock, rent, salaries, insurance premiums, electricity, taxes and therefore has to charge exorbitant prices to stay afloat, all the while complaining how tough it is to make a dime.
When a twenty round box of Remington brand, CoreLokt, 200 grain, soft point ammo goes for right around $25 online, at Walmart or at a gun show, then why would anyone (in their right mind) pay a local dealer $35 to $55 for that same box of ammo?
Really now, why would you consider buying from a small local shop with prices being that much higher? For me it is no brainer especially in light of how much ammo I buy annually, I look for the best bargains I can find. Now my idea of the best bargain is not all about price - as I said above I would pay a higher price at local gun shops considering all things. My idea of a good bargain includes very competitive pricing, shipping costs, reliability of the dealer to have what I want or to be able to get it, ease of the purchase process, the courtesy of the salespeople and excellent customer service. I find that the best deals therefor are those I find online with certain online ammo dealers. Prices available online usually either cannot or will not be matched by small local dealers.
Yes, that includes with shipping. Now, if you are at all familiar with online ammo purchases then you realize that shipping can add a lot to the price of a single box of rounds. For example, as I write this article, that box of .35 Remington I described above, is available from CheaperThanDirt for exactly $25.11 but shipping adds another $12.68 bringing the total to $37.79. It looks as if my local mom and pop gun stores, at least the one selling it for about $35 a box, may even have a somewhat better price but let's not forget local sales tax of .0865%. That would make their lowest price a total of $38.03. Wow, they actually come in with a slightly better price than the big online dealer, at least the one local dealer who has it at that price. Maybe you are wondering why I usually still do not buy from the local gun store.
You see, each box of that ammo that I buy from the local guy, goes for the same price. When I buy 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 boxes of that ammo, I can just times that price buy however many boxes I buy from a local dealer. The same thing sort of happens at Cheaper than Dirt, they too charge buy multiples of how many individual boxes I buy. Yet, there is a difference, a big one in terms of overall price. The shipping, from CheaperThanDirt and many other online dealers is for a complete order and not based upon whatever was the multiple of boxes you decided to purchase. Yes it can go up, as you order more, but it is usually based upon the whole order price and based on from which warehouse they are shipping (they have a number of warehouses). So, while shipping costs $12.68 for that lone box of ammo, it costs he exact same amount if I decide to buy 3 boxes or 5 boxes of it. That means, if I buy three boxes of the Remington CoreLokt, in .35 Remington caliber, at a local gun store, it is going to cost me $114.08 in total. The same purchase fro an online dealer like Cheaper than Dirt will cost, in total, $88.01. I think the wait of from a few days, to a week, to receive the ammo from Cheaper Than Dir is well worth the wait. After all, I will have saved $26.07 on that purchase from the local to the online dealer. That is more than enough to get another box of the same ammo, from CheaperThanDirt, with .96 cents left over (because the shipping for even 4 boxes remains at $12.68).
That kind of price difference, combined with a wide variety of available ammo, a pretty good attitude on the part of CTD's customer service department and reliable shipping from them assures that CheaperThanDirt will get much more f my business than a local dealer. Now, if by some chance, I was only going to buy a single box of ammo, or if I needed a box of ammo right away, I might buy it at a small mom and pop gun shop. The thing is, when it comes to me buying ammunition, I rarely buy just a single box of it and I tend to plan ahead with ammo purchases and thus do not usually need it very quickly. Besides that, I cannot stand the stuff they tell me at a gun store if I mention how high the price seems: gasoline prices are up and thus shipping ammo has gone up and was added to the price, they cannot come down at all on price if I buy multiple boxes of ammo (yet they add a premium for shipping onto each and every box even though they are not charged a flat rate shipping per box), how tough it is to make a profit while the store owner is driving a $50,000 plus automobile.
I have made sure, in past years, to buy ammo almost every time National Ammo Day (or week) came around. I forgot about it this year and to tell the truth, considering where I live and the ammo prices at my local dealers, it was not all that bad of a thing to have missed buying 100 rounds or more on that day. I have nothing against the concept of helping out small business owners, I am all for it if they are honest, courteous, hard working and offer reasonable prices. It is just that, I cannot see supporting local price gouging opportunists. I guess my search, for a mom and pop gun shop within 5 miles of home and that has reasonable prices, will have to continue. There has got to be one out there.
As far as National Ammo Day goes, I will probably participate again next year to support the concept if not so much as to support local
All the best,
Glenn B
Friday, November 23, 2012
What Next - Now That The Browning Citori Lightning Has Sold?
As I said before in a recent blog post, the Browning sold. What I can say now is that every penny of the cash, I got for it, has already been spent. I used some on hunting stuff and my hunting trip but more on gasoline for the car, food shopping, candles, batteries, daily expenses and some ammo too. The selling price made up, with a small amount left over, for the money I spent on the Browning in the first place. Well, maybe not if I consider gas and tolls and motel charge for my trip to the auction house where I bought it, maybe I broke even, just about. So, a new gun is not going to see a penny of that money being spent on itself.
Now that the Browning is out of the way, I am thinking of selling something else. I do not know which one yet but am guessing it either will be the High Standard Duramatic M101 pistol or one of my single shot shotguns. I have two of those and certainly do not need more than one. These decisions having to be made are rattling me almost as much a hunter trying to rattle up a nice buck.
All the best,
Glenn B
Now that the Browning is out of the way, I am thinking of selling something else. I do not know which one yet but am guessing it either will be the High Standard Duramatic M101 pistol or one of my single shot shotguns. I have two of those and certainly do not need more than one. These decisions having to be made are rattling me almost as much a hunter trying to rattle up a nice buck.
All the best,
Glenn B
Thursday, November 22, 2012
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving and that your day is filled with family, fine food, and excellent spirits. Don't forget to give thanks for what you have.
I have plenty for which to be thankful, today and every day: My family, friends, my readers, my job, good health (much better than last year anyway), a home that was not ravaged too badly by the storm (as of yesterday, over $11,000 worth of damage, just to the roof and gutters, that we know about so far, and some other minor damage to our property but far better than losing our house or our lives) and that I have off until Tuesday so will probably get in some hunting tomorrow or Saturday! There is a good dinner cooking in the oven, my chores are done for the day and I am finally eating breakfast - 2 slices of pepperoni pizza reheated in the microwave (the turkey is in the oven) and I am enjoying a very early bier. Life is good when you can enjoy living it - for that I am very thankful.
I am also thankful for that which I do not have - cancer. It has been over one year now, as of November 9, 2011, since treatments stopped.
All the best,
Glenn B
I have plenty for which to be thankful, today and every day: My family, friends, my readers, my job, good health (much better than last year anyway), a home that was not ravaged too badly by the storm (as of yesterday, over $11,000 worth of damage, just to the roof and gutters, that we know about so far, and some other minor damage to our property but far better than losing our house or our lives) and that I have off until Tuesday so will probably get in some hunting tomorrow or Saturday! There is a good dinner cooking in the oven, my chores are done for the day and I am finally eating breakfast - 2 slices of pepperoni pizza reheated in the microwave (the turkey is in the oven) and I am enjoying a very early bier. Life is good when you can enjoy living it - for that I am very thankful.
I am also thankful for that which I do not have - cancer. It has been over one year now, as of November 9, 2011, since treatments stopped.
All the best,
Glenn B
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Request For Long Term Use Reviews of Gun, Hunting & Survival Gear
If your into shooting, hunting, survival/prepping, you realize there is a lot of gear out there that goes with your interests. You also probably know that just about every Tom, Dick and Harry of the outdoor sporting magazine media or of the Blogosphere is out there ready to write up a review of this that or the other thing.
The typical review that one finds today is one by which the reviewer gives the manufacturer's specifications of the item in question and then goes on to perform a 'field test' and usually concludes with the reviewers findings and opinion about the item being reviewed. The idea of the field test is that it will allow you to get an idea of how well or how poorly the items functions for its intended use. Other reviews give just the specifications and or the author's opinion of the thing under review. Both of those types of reviews are, in essence, comfort food for the mind of the consumer. They give you a sort burst interest in the item much as sugary foods give you a short burst of energy, then they placate you into a sense of being at ease either as to your consideration of buying that item (with a good review) or the same sense of ease in turning it down (one with a bad review) just as those comforting sugary foods lull you into eased and restful state after the initial high. What reviews hardly ever do is give you the lowdown on how well an item has stood up after years of intended use and beyond. I say "and beyond" because many pieces of gear used for activities like shooting, survival, hunting and so on often are used for purposes other than initially intended by the manufacturer.
There are good reasons that almost all reviews are done on a short term basis rather than after years of use of an item. First of all, trying to do reviews of many items over the long term would be cost prohibitive for any commercial, like an outdoor magazine, that does reviews. They would need to hire someone for the long terms to do the reviews and almost nothing else. The short term review can be done and over with in a day or two and the reviewer can then easily move onto other aspects of his job. In addition, people want to buy items that are in stock now and those are the things about which they want reviewers information now. Doing a review of an item over the course of a few years of use or even after a single year of use of it means that the item being reviewed will very likely have been replaced by another model or version of the model being tested. Even if not replaced and if the same item is produced for years, the raw materials used may be of different quality, manufacturing techniques may change, quality control may use new standards and so forth. Thus the review would be outdated by the time it had been published. So it would seem that long term reviews might be a waste of time - not so much in that the item was used over the long haul but that anyone bothered to take the effort to review and report on it.
Yet, there is a good use for reviews over the long term. Those types of reviews allow one to know the reliability of an item over time and after intended and possibly unitended use (at least unintended by the things manufacturer). By knowing how well a product or products have held up over time, from any given manufacturer or of any given design, one can make a prediction as to ho well other products made by the same manufacturer of similar design will hold up in the future. Note I said predict, I did not say know with certainty, there are just too many variables to be able to know in advance, by way of review of a manufacturers previously made product, how well the same or similar newly manufactured item will fare. But you certainly will be able to gauge, with a higher degree of knowledge, how well a product could be expected to perform based upon reviews of the same or similar items previously made by the same company. A perfect example of using long term reviews can be seen in Consumer Reports when they rate automobiles. In their annual automobile issue, for models with enough history, they show how well a car has stood the test of time based on owners' reviews and they give their predicted reliability for the current model.
What these long term reviews do, other than letting you know about the specific product, is that they give you a idea of the reputation of the manufacturer. Are they known for making junk or do they have a reputation of manufacturing high quality, long lasting products. While predictions you make, based on long term reviews, may not always figure it correctly - those types of reviews are an added tool in trying to determine if you are headed in the right direction with the purchase you are planning to make.
I wish we had more of them available so that I could make those predictions when adding to my collection of gun, self-defense, hunting and survival gear. I am willing to bet that others could use that same information. So,I am planning on doing some long term reviews of gear that I used, and often put to tough use, over the years. The thing is that my resources have been limited and I have not used, and thus will be unable to review, a high quantity of various items along those lines. My reviews therefore will be limited to those few things with which I have personal experience. Bearing that in mid, I am going to do something I have not done on this blog before. No, I am not going to put up a tip jar icon to ask for donations so I can buy more gear to test although I do admit having more gear to test would be nice. Neither am I gong to solicit gear donations from various manufacturers. What I am going t do is this: Ask you, my readers, for your reviews of gear that you have used over the years (if it lasted that long) or your reviews of items that should have lasted years and failed. I will even accept reviews of items of a more ephemeral nature, such as those meant only for one time use, but then would hope you could offer a review of repeated use of the same product as having been bought new again and thus used again over a few to several years (say for instance - reviews of the same brand, model and caliber of ammunition).
If you would like to submit a long term gear review (one in which you have used the reviewed product for at least one year), you must be 18 years old or older to submit one to me and your submission of a review is your legally binding acknowledgement that you are 18 years old or older. If you submit a review, you grant me permission and license me to use that review on this blog (www.Ballseyesboomers.blogpot.com) in any manner I see fit (in other words I may edit it or merely use excerpts from it but never with the intent of changing its meaning) and for as long or as briefly as I want. If I publish your review on my blog, you also give me permission to link to the review in any fashion I choose, such as by supplying links to the review in things like online gun forums. You have to supply me with your complete name with the review, and by doing so grant me permission to publish your name with the review, so that I can credit you with authorship, with your submission. I will not use your review for commercial purposes or profit. For any reviews submitted to me and published on this blog, I will attribute authorship to the person who submitted it as author of it; your submission of a review is your claim to authorship. Therefor, all reviews must be original material with proper citations and references and must not contain any copyright or trademark violation(s). I will not knowingly accept plagiarized articles or those that contain copyright or trademark infringements. You agree, by way of a review submission, to hold me harmless and indemnify me, relative to any claims made against me that are in any way related to your review (directly or indirectly) and to information found within or implied from your review. You agree, by way of your submission of a review to me, that I may at my discretion remove any review, submitted by you, against which a claim is made that: the review violates a copyright or a trademark or has libeled a product manufacturer. I will not accept any blatantly libelous material. Also note, I may or may not publish said reviews on this blog at my discretion. I will not knowingly publish spam or any commercial reviews. Note that I offer absolutely no compensation for any reviews you submit. Also note that the copyright, for your review, other than as mentioned above, will remain with you. Unlike others, I will not magically claim to own the copyright(s) on something someone else has written. Reviews must be related to firearms, firearms accessories and related gear, hunting gear, hiking/camping gear, survival gear (which literally could cover items from Spam (the food item) to All Terrain Vehicles and beyond). Your submission of a review to me is your acknowledgement of these terms and your agreement with them.
The review should contain, at the minimum: the product name, make and model, (and caliber if a firearm); the manufacturer's name; the manufacturers specs; and the review itself with info about how well the product performed and held up during the time you have used it, a description or example of how when and where you used it. You can also include your opinion as to its reliability (make sure to label it as you opinion) and make your recommendation for or against it. Any additional pertinent information you care to include is also welcome.
If you have something to submit, and agree to all of the above terms, visit my profile, click on my email link and send me the review in MS Word format.
All the best,
Glenn B
The typical review that one finds today is one by which the reviewer gives the manufacturer's specifications of the item in question and then goes on to perform a 'field test' and usually concludes with the reviewers findings and opinion about the item being reviewed. The idea of the field test is that it will allow you to get an idea of how well or how poorly the items functions for its intended use. Other reviews give just the specifications and or the author's opinion of the thing under review. Both of those types of reviews are, in essence, comfort food for the mind of the consumer. They give you a sort burst interest in the item much as sugary foods give you a short burst of energy, then they placate you into a sense of being at ease either as to your consideration of buying that item (with a good review) or the same sense of ease in turning it down (one with a bad review) just as those comforting sugary foods lull you into eased and restful state after the initial high. What reviews hardly ever do is give you the lowdown on how well an item has stood up after years of intended use and beyond. I say "and beyond" because many pieces of gear used for activities like shooting, survival, hunting and so on often are used for purposes other than initially intended by the manufacturer.
There are good reasons that almost all reviews are done on a short term basis rather than after years of use of an item. First of all, trying to do reviews of many items over the long term would be cost prohibitive for any commercial, like an outdoor magazine, that does reviews. They would need to hire someone for the long terms to do the reviews and almost nothing else. The short term review can be done and over with in a day or two and the reviewer can then easily move onto other aspects of his job. In addition, people want to buy items that are in stock now and those are the things about which they want reviewers information now. Doing a review of an item over the course of a few years of use or even after a single year of use of it means that the item being reviewed will very likely have been replaced by another model or version of the model being tested. Even if not replaced and if the same item is produced for years, the raw materials used may be of different quality, manufacturing techniques may change, quality control may use new standards and so forth. Thus the review would be outdated by the time it had been published. So it would seem that long term reviews might be a waste of time - not so much in that the item was used over the long haul but that anyone bothered to take the effort to review and report on it.
Yet, there is a good use for reviews over the long term. Those types of reviews allow one to know the reliability of an item over time and after intended and possibly unitended use (at least unintended by the things manufacturer). By knowing how well a product or products have held up over time, from any given manufacturer or of any given design, one can make a prediction as to ho well other products made by the same manufacturer of similar design will hold up in the future. Note I said predict, I did not say know with certainty, there are just too many variables to be able to know in advance, by way of review of a manufacturers previously made product, how well the same or similar newly manufactured item will fare. But you certainly will be able to gauge, with a higher degree of knowledge, how well a product could be expected to perform based upon reviews of the same or similar items previously made by the same company. A perfect example of using long term reviews can be seen in Consumer Reports when they rate automobiles. In their annual automobile issue, for models with enough history, they show how well a car has stood the test of time based on owners' reviews and they give their predicted reliability for the current model.
What these long term reviews do, other than letting you know about the specific product, is that they give you a idea of the reputation of the manufacturer. Are they known for making junk or do they have a reputation of manufacturing high quality, long lasting products. While predictions you make, based on long term reviews, may not always figure it correctly - those types of reviews are an added tool in trying to determine if you are headed in the right direction with the purchase you are planning to make.
I wish we had more of them available so that I could make those predictions when adding to my collection of gun, self-defense, hunting and survival gear. I am willing to bet that others could use that same information. So,I am planning on doing some long term reviews of gear that I used, and often put to tough use, over the years. The thing is that my resources have been limited and I have not used, and thus will be unable to review, a high quantity of various items along those lines. My reviews therefore will be limited to those few things with which I have personal experience. Bearing that in mid, I am going to do something I have not done on this blog before. No, I am not going to put up a tip jar icon to ask for donations so I can buy more gear to test although I do admit having more gear to test would be nice. Neither am I gong to solicit gear donations from various manufacturers. What I am going t do is this: Ask you, my readers, for your reviews of gear that you have used over the years (if it lasted that long) or your reviews of items that should have lasted years and failed. I will even accept reviews of items of a more ephemeral nature, such as those meant only for one time use, but then would hope you could offer a review of repeated use of the same product as having been bought new again and thus used again over a few to several years (say for instance - reviews of the same brand, model and caliber of ammunition).
If you would like to submit a long term gear review (one in which you have used the reviewed product for at least one year), you must be 18 years old or older to submit one to me and your submission of a review is your legally binding acknowledgement that you are 18 years old or older. If you submit a review, you grant me permission and license me to use that review on this blog (www.Ballseyesboomers.blogpot.com) in any manner I see fit (in other words I may edit it or merely use excerpts from it but never with the intent of changing its meaning) and for as long or as briefly as I want. If I publish your review on my blog, you also give me permission to link to the review in any fashion I choose, such as by supplying links to the review in things like online gun forums. You have to supply me with your complete name with the review, and by doing so grant me permission to publish your name with the review, so that I can credit you with authorship, with your submission. I will not use your review for commercial purposes or profit. For any reviews submitted to me and published on this blog, I will attribute authorship to the person who submitted it as author of it; your submission of a review is your claim to authorship. Therefor, all reviews must be original material with proper citations and references and must not contain any copyright or trademark violation(s). I will not knowingly accept plagiarized articles or those that contain copyright or trademark infringements. You agree, by way of a review submission, to hold me harmless and indemnify me, relative to any claims made against me that are in any way related to your review (directly or indirectly) and to information found within or implied from your review. You agree, by way of your submission of a review to me, that I may at my discretion remove any review, submitted by you, against which a claim is made that: the review violates a copyright or a trademark or has libeled a product manufacturer. I will not accept any blatantly libelous material. Also note, I may or may not publish said reviews on this blog at my discretion. I will not knowingly publish spam or any commercial reviews. Note that I offer absolutely no compensation for any reviews you submit. Also note that the copyright, for your review, other than as mentioned above, will remain with you. Unlike others, I will not magically claim to own the copyright(s) on something someone else has written. Reviews must be related to firearms, firearms accessories and related gear, hunting gear, hiking/camping gear, survival gear (which literally could cover items from Spam (the food item) to All Terrain Vehicles and beyond). Your submission of a review to me is your acknowledgement of these terms and your agreement with them.
The review should contain, at the minimum: the product name, make and model, (and caliber if a firearm); the manufacturer's name; the manufacturers specs; and the review itself with info about how well the product performed and held up during the time you have used it, a description or example of how when and where you used it. You can also include your opinion as to its reliability (make sure to label it as you opinion) and make your recommendation for or against it. Any additional pertinent information you care to include is also welcome.
If you have something to submit, and agree to all of the above terms, visit my profile, click on my email link and send me the review in MS Word format.
All the best,
Glenn B
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Better Luck Sunday Than Saturday But Still Not Bringing Home The Venison
Just a synopsis of my hunt Sunday and on Monday. Sat on my stand near a lot of rubs and an active scrape. Did not see bubkis. At about 0930, I decided to still hunt. At about 10 or maybe 1015, I was walking under some big pine trees, kind of in the shadows, and I happened to step on a branch and oh heck was the cracking noise loud. Of well, I figured a goof is a goof and just took another step or two before stopping to wait a bit. I had been pretty quiet up until then, except for using the doe bleat or buck grunt, every now and again. I figure the occasional cracking twig noise or whatever does not matter all hat much as long as you are walking a few steps and pausing for several seconds to a half minute or so before proceeding a few to several steps mores in repetition sort of as a deer does. The calling now and then while doing so works. I have spotted an awful lot of does that way, in fact I have walked up on does many more than once doing that with the doe bleat call. Once I had two big does and a fawn walk right up to within about 10 to 15 feet of me as I had been walking a trail through the woods of my uncle's once upon a time farm. I digress, back to Sunday.
Well, within a couple of seconds of me breaking that branch, a buck, head down, went running by me at about 50 yards off. He was between me and the road and the road was only about 100 yards from me As he ran by, I also noticed another hunter whom I thought was stationary. I figured he must have seen me but got behind a tree just in case he decided to start blasting. I did not even consider shooting. Under other circumstances I might have tried a running deer shot but the road was too darned close and that other hunter was also in that direction. Yeah, the deer had passed him but the road was still just too close and cars passed every now and again. After a half a minute, with no shots from the other guy, I took a peek around the tree after waving an orange vest a bit. I could not see him. I looked around from the other side of the tree. He was not there. When I thought about it, it sure had looked as if I had seen his back - he had - by my guess - been leaving the woods. Maybe he is what spooked the buck, not me stepping on that branch. That thought gave me a moment's pause and I thought about what to do. I scanned the area, saw no sign of the buck, knelt down and waited about 10 minutes. Then I grunted with the buck grunt call. I did it two or three times and waited. Sure enough, that buck came back into view now headed in the opposite direction than the one he had run before. In other words, he was now headed in the same direction I had been traveling. That made me think too. There was a good chance he had been coming to check me out, thinking I was another deer, when the other hunter spooked him. That guy had been in open hardwoods, I was under the shadows of the pines and it was really hard to see into them from where the deer had been standing (I checked a bit later).
Well, he came into and out of view for the next 15 minutes, as he slowly made his way in the direction I had been traveling (north), then he started to make an arch to his right (east) to get downwind of me. I had my scope lined up on him three times. Twice all I could get the cross hairs on was his rump. Then I had it on his neck but it was through so much brush that I decided not to hoot and wait for a better shot since as he had been walking he had remained broadside to me. Well, after a few more minutes, during which I grunted once (man did that peak his curiosity) he looked right at me, did not see me, and kept trying to get an eyeball on me. Kneeling down had been the right thing to do. doing the right thing did not matter much. He just kept going and disappeared to the north. I waited a half hour during which I called and rattled. I did not see hide nor hair of him again. Maybe he scented me, maybe a doe walked by. Maybe he thought I was to big to tangle with - buck-wise. Whatever, he was gone and I am still deerless.
After waiting that 30 minutes, I followed up on the direction he went. About 100 yards north of where I last saw him there was a big steaming pile of deer pellets and an active scrape. About 4 deer trails ran through the area of the scrape so, I st down there for an hour and a half hoping, if not to see that same buck, then to see another or some does. Dd not happen. I moved on and did some more still hunting and wound up back at my stand from early in the morning. I spent my last hour on that stand.
Monday was another day. It also was another nice day, at least later in the morning once it warmed up a bit. Warm is not always good for a deer hunt but it was not bad as far as I was concerned. I got out to hunt at about 1000 instead of 0530 like on the first two days. That was okay too. I saw one deer at around 1430, about midway up the hill in a fairly clear area - lots of brush and some small trees and only a few bigger ones in that spot. When I took off my pack, to grab a seat on a downfall, with another dead tree as my seat back, a deer, probably a young buck, took off in high gear and waving its tail at me from 30 yards away. That is pretty much all I got to see of it. Oh well.
I am going out to hunt again and will give it another shot this weekend. This time it will be much closer to home - maybe 100 miles away instead of 190 miles. The area to which I will go this time is one for which I have a doe permit which increases the chances of me putting some venison on the table or so I am hoping.
All the best,
Glenn B
Well, within a couple of seconds of me breaking that branch, a buck, head down, went running by me at about 50 yards off. He was between me and the road and the road was only about 100 yards from me As he ran by, I also noticed another hunter whom I thought was stationary. I figured he must have seen me but got behind a tree just in case he decided to start blasting. I did not even consider shooting. Under other circumstances I might have tried a running deer shot but the road was too darned close and that other hunter was also in that direction. Yeah, the deer had passed him but the road was still just too close and cars passed every now and again. After a half a minute, with no shots from the other guy, I took a peek around the tree after waving an orange vest a bit. I could not see him. I looked around from the other side of the tree. He was not there. When I thought about it, it sure had looked as if I had seen his back - he had - by my guess - been leaving the woods. Maybe he is what spooked the buck, not me stepping on that branch. That thought gave me a moment's pause and I thought about what to do. I scanned the area, saw no sign of the buck, knelt down and waited about 10 minutes. Then I grunted with the buck grunt call. I did it two or three times and waited. Sure enough, that buck came back into view now headed in the opposite direction than the one he had run before. In other words, he was now headed in the same direction I had been traveling. That made me think too. There was a good chance he had been coming to check me out, thinking I was another deer, when the other hunter spooked him. That guy had been in open hardwoods, I was under the shadows of the pines and it was really hard to see into them from where the deer had been standing (I checked a bit later).
Well, he came into and out of view for the next 15 minutes, as he slowly made his way in the direction I had been traveling (north), then he started to make an arch to his right (east) to get downwind of me. I had my scope lined up on him three times. Twice all I could get the cross hairs on was his rump. Then I had it on his neck but it was through so much brush that I decided not to hoot and wait for a better shot since as he had been walking he had remained broadside to me. Well, after a few more minutes, during which I grunted once (man did that peak his curiosity) he looked right at me, did not see me, and kept trying to get an eyeball on me. Kneeling down had been the right thing to do. doing the right thing did not matter much. He just kept going and disappeared to the north. I waited a half hour during which I called and rattled. I did not see hide nor hair of him again. Maybe he scented me, maybe a doe walked by. Maybe he thought I was to big to tangle with - buck-wise. Whatever, he was gone and I am still deerless.
After waiting that 30 minutes, I followed up on the direction he went. About 100 yards north of where I last saw him there was a big steaming pile of deer pellets and an active scrape. About 4 deer trails ran through the area of the scrape so, I st down there for an hour and a half hoping, if not to see that same buck, then to see another or some does. Dd not happen. I moved on and did some more still hunting and wound up back at my stand from early in the morning. I spent my last hour on that stand.
Monday was another day. It also was another nice day, at least later in the morning once it warmed up a bit. Warm is not always good for a deer hunt but it was not bad as far as I was concerned. I got out to hunt at about 1000 instead of 0530 like on the first two days. That was okay too. I saw one deer at around 1430, about midway up the hill in a fairly clear area - lots of brush and some small trees and only a few bigger ones in that spot. When I took off my pack, to grab a seat on a downfall, with another dead tree as my seat back, a deer, probably a young buck, took off in high gear and waving its tail at me from 30 yards away. That is pretty much all I got to see of it. Oh well.
I am going out to hunt again and will give it another shot this weekend. This time it will be much closer to home - maybe 100 miles away instead of 190 miles. The area to which I will go this time is one for which I have a doe permit which increases the chances of me putting some venison on the table or so I am hoping.
All the best,
Glenn B
Fuck The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International ...
... that is involved in the Twinkies (Hostess) debacle. Even the mighty Teamsters Union agreed to terms with Hostess but this, in my opinion, piss ant union of bakers and the like decided that what was good enough for the leading union in the nation was not good enough for them. If we lose Twinkies because of these assholes, anything baked by union members, of that union, will taste like shit from now on. See:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/19/hostess-union-hopes-buyer-will-put-employees-back-to-work/?test=latestnews
Lucky for me, I got a fix of Twinkies just about 2 weeks ago. Should last me a bit before I go berserk, on a zombie killing spree, due to lack of them. Hopefully all this mess will be resolved before then although it would be just my luck that lack of Twinkies is what will somehow trigger the zombie apocalypse.
All the best,
Glenn B
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/19/hostess-union-hopes-buyer-will-put-employees-back-to-work/?test=latestnews
Lucky for me, I got a fix of Twinkies just about 2 weeks ago. Should last me a bit before I go berserk, on a zombie killing spree, due to lack of them. Hopefully all this mess will be resolved before then although it would be just my luck that lack of Twinkies is what will somehow trigger the zombie apocalypse.
All the best,
Glenn B
Jagex Ltd. and RuneScape Annoyance
I keep getting annoying emails from someone claiming to be in the legal department of Jagex Ltd. on the part of RuneScape, a free online game of some sort. Either a phishing scam (which I strongly suspect) or a legitimate email that is accusing me of wrongdoing (which I strongly doubt):
"Dear Player,
We have collected convincing evidence that you tried to trade your RuneScape account or sell your virtual items outside of the game environment.
Such real-world trading is destroying the economy of RuneScape and is in violation with our policies. Therefore any player that continues to engage in the illegal activity has no place in our community.
All of your accounts are now on our watch-list and will be automatically monitored for real-world trading. Regardless of who you are or how long you've been with us, if you continue to real-world trade we will have no hesitation in: (1) permanently banning your account from our community in order to protect the game, and (2) naming you as a defendant in Jagex Limited vs you, which is a lawsuit based on antitrust law violations that is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Civ. Action No. SANC-V13-00342-CGH).
If you decide to ignore this email and instead continue Real-World Trading, we (Jagex Ltd) reserve our rights to pursue statutory damages against you for between $200 to $2,500 per act of past, present, and/or future real-world trading in accordance with 19 U.S.C. 1307(c)(3).
In addition, we have temporarily changed your RuneScape account's status.
Please fill in the following security form to monitor your account's status or to appeal the infractions you have received: (Link removed to protect the innocent.)
Please note: Due to recent technical problems with our automated detection systems, some accounts have been unfairly punished. Most of the void infractions should have been removed. Please visit the appeal section to appeal any unjustified infractions received due to system errors.
Sincerely,
Mod Mark.
© 2012 Jagex Ltd. Jagex® and RuneScape® are registered trademarks of Jagex Ltd in the United Kingdom and trademarks used in other countries of the world.
View our Privacy Policy, Terms And Conditions: (Link removed to protect the innocent.)
St. John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB5 1WS, England."
I don't even remember ever hearing of the game before receiving those emails although I may have signed up before and don't recall. If I did sign up, the game must have sucked, otherwise I would still be playing it, but it really does not ring a bell in my memory cells. Took care of the problem, added the sender of those annoying emails to my blocked list.
Anyone else ever get any of them?
All the best,
Glenn B
"Dear Player,
We have collected convincing evidence that you tried to trade your RuneScape account or sell your virtual items outside of the game environment.
Such real-world trading is destroying the economy of RuneScape and is in violation with our policies. Therefore any player that continues to engage in the illegal activity has no place in our community.
All of your accounts are now on our watch-list and will be automatically monitored for real-world trading. Regardless of who you are or how long you've been with us, if you continue to real-world trade we will have no hesitation in: (1) permanently banning your account from our community in order to protect the game, and (2) naming you as a defendant in Jagex Limited vs you, which is a lawsuit based on antitrust law violations that is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Civ. Action No. SANC-V13-00342-CGH).
If you decide to ignore this email and instead continue Real-World Trading, we (Jagex Ltd) reserve our rights to pursue statutory damages against you for between $200 to $2,500 per act of past, present, and/or future real-world trading in accordance with 19 U.S.C. 1307(c)(3).
In addition, we have temporarily changed your RuneScape account's status.
Please fill in the following security form to monitor your account's status or to appeal the infractions you have received: (Link removed to protect the innocent.)
Please note: Due to recent technical problems with our automated detection systems, some accounts have been unfairly punished. Most of the void infractions should have been removed. Please visit the appeal section to appeal any unjustified infractions received due to system errors.
Sincerely,
Mod Mark.
© 2012 Jagex Ltd. Jagex® and RuneScape® are registered trademarks of Jagex Ltd in the United Kingdom and trademarks used in other countries of the world.
View our Privacy Policy, Terms And Conditions: (Link removed to protect the innocent.)
St. John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB5 1WS, England."
I don't even remember ever hearing of the game before receiving those emails although I may have signed up before and don't recall. If I did sign up, the game must have sucked, otherwise I would still be playing it, but it really does not ring a bell in my memory cells. Took care of the problem, added the sender of those annoying emails to my blocked list.
Anyone else ever get any of them?
All the best,
Glenn B
Friday, November 16, 2012
Tonight, I've Been Doing Something That Is Usually Unacceptable
It's something not tolerated by polite society, you would not likely see it being done on a buffet line at a decent restaurant, is highly frowned upon at parties from high society mega-events all the way down to a football party, even those with drug induced munchies discourage others from doing it, parents abhor it when they see their children doing it but I love it and have been doing it for a good part of a bag of tortilla chips and a very large jar of medium hot salsa. I have been double, triple and even quadruple dipping and loving every delicious bite of it.
And, yes, I am going hunting tomorrow, on the opening day of firearms deer season. Every year, I do exactly what a hunter is supposed to do. Scout out an area, get my license, sight in my rifle or shotgun, minimize human and other household and car scents on my clothing, wash with scent killing soap and go as far as to make sure I eat a pretty non-spicy diet for a few days prior to the hunt so the deer won't smell any spices coming through my pores or being passed in a windy way way on the days of the hunt. This year, I have already done most of what I am supposed to do but I said screw it tonight and went for the chips, salsa and Woodchuck Amber Hard Cider (the deer would like that, I am sure).
I figure I'm not going to see any deer anyway, so why not let them have a whiff of garlic, onions and the spices that are in the salsa. They might like that too! I sure like it, in fact, it is my dinner tonight. Yep, not necessarily health food but it sure comfort food, is doing my mental state good, and tastes great too. Add to that the fact that I am doing multiple dips with the same chip and it seems to make it taste even better.
I just realized something though, should have settled on a smaller bag of chips. I grabbed the biggest one they had but with the multiple dipping, I have eaten almost half of a 24 ounce jar of salsa and only about 1/4 a bag of chips. Oh well, more salsa may be in order by tomorrow night or the next night.
All the best,
Glenn B
And, yes, I am going hunting tomorrow, on the opening day of firearms deer season. Every year, I do exactly what a hunter is supposed to do. Scout out an area, get my license, sight in my rifle or shotgun, minimize human and other household and car scents on my clothing, wash with scent killing soap and go as far as to make sure I eat a pretty non-spicy diet for a few days prior to the hunt so the deer won't smell any spices coming through my pores or being passed in a windy way way on the days of the hunt. This year, I have already done most of what I am supposed to do but I said screw it tonight and went for the chips, salsa and Woodchuck Amber Hard Cider (the deer would like that, I am sure).
I figure I'm not going to see any deer anyway, so why not let them have a whiff of garlic, onions and the spices that are in the salsa. They might like that too! I sure like it, in fact, it is my dinner tonight. Yep, not necessarily health food but it sure comfort food, is doing my mental state good, and tastes great too. Add to that the fact that I am doing multiple dips with the same chip and it seems to make it taste even better.
I just realized something though, should have settled on a smaller bag of chips. I grabbed the biggest one they had but with the multiple dipping, I have eaten almost half of a 24 ounce jar of salsa and only about 1/4 a bag of chips. Oh well, more salsa may be in order by tomorrow night or the next night.
All the best,
Glenn B
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
The New Medicine Cabinet - Not Installed Because...
...it is broken. The door is pushed in, in fact so far in and twisted just enough, to have me slightly amazed that the mirror did not break. I contacted Home Depot via email, about an hour ago and they have already replied (wow that was very fast) saying I can return it at a store or via UPS. Going to the store will likely be easier so, this evening, after dinner, I am off to Homer's to return this one, get a refund and look for a suitable replacement in store. They have a very small selection of junk in the store, but even at a higher price than most in the store this one was obviously junk too. I wish I knew where to get a well made one for a couple of hundred, to maybe $300. I have seen many made of real wood but starting for around $750 but sure am not going to pay that for a small medicine cabinet. I would be better off making one myself and if I knew how to make a mirrored door I certainly would give it a try. Oh well, off to Homer's soon to see what I can get so it is installed before Thanksgiving. Otherwise, I will be in the doghouse for sure.
All the best,
Glenn B
All the best,
Glenn B
NY Deer Hunting Season...
...as I write, is only about 2 1/2 days and a wake-up (plus about 2 or three hours after I wake up) away. I am not ready for it by a longshot! I do have some things ready. For example, my Marlin 336 is sighted in. I have ammo for it. My Remington 870 is also ready to go and I have ammo for that one too. In addition, I have few bottles of deer lure around somewhere. I bought them within the past couple of months. The car is ready I suppose, just got an oil change a couple or few weeks ago, tires are good, car running okay (knock on wood). We, Brendan and I, both have our hunting license. I may or may not have a hunting partner in Brendan this year. He just got a new job working at Macy's Department Store and he is unsure if he can get away at all on the days I have off. It will be my loneliest hunting season in years. Other than the above, nothing else is ready
Our hunting gear, most of it, is kept in the shed. It tends to get a bit damp in the shed but the clothing and other gear are in big plastic tubs with lids. Still, they need a good washing out and drying (with unscented dryer sheets). I only have time to do that today as I am working tomorrow, then leaving for upstate right after work, or such is my plan. I need to make sure I will have everything packed and ready to be loaded into the car sometime today. Everything will include clothing like: hunting hat, hunting jacket, hunting pants, hunting shirt, hunting sweater or fleece, hunting boots, hunting gloves, socks, skivvies, and some regular clothes for when not hunting. Other hunting items I will include will be: guns, ammo, gun case, gun cleaning kit, hunting license, hunting license back tag holder, foam hot seat, knives (at least two but probably three - one on belt, one in pocket, one in backpack), compass, emergency kit (things like wind/waterproof matches, candles for firestarter, flashlight, first aid kit, food bars), first aid kit, day pack, rattling antlers, doe bleat call, deer pee lure and scent pads, binoculars and the list goes on. I also have to find and pack some toiletries. I already have a case of water in the trunk of the car. I'll buy food when I get up near my hunting spot. That usually consists of Smucker's peanut butter and Red Raspberry preserves but this year I may try something else other than the PB.
I suppose I had best get started. I have those things to find, the hunting clothes to wash, the car to pack, and other chores to be done (or the wife will not be quite as happy about getting rid of me for 4 days). I need to clean up the back room of our basement (a seemingly never ending task), hang a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, do the regular laundry, do the dishes (already done), have a few biers (not yet but later for sure), get some grocery shopping done, clean the other half of the basement, set up a new aquarium, clean all the critter;s enclosures (bearded dragons, red earred slider, large tortoises, small tortoises, crested geckos, fish tank, and other turtle tank.
If I get it all done early enough, I may run over to Dick's Sporting goods and pick up a set of rings for that scope I got a couple of weeks back, attach the scope and rings to the Marlin XS7 rifle I bought and bring it to the range. If I somehow do manage to get the rings today yet don't get a chance to go to the range tonight, then there is a slim chance I could go tomorrow morning before work. I am only working 1-5 but will have plenty of stuff to still get ready for the hunting trip - if know myself at all. Well, no more dallying, I have got to get cracking.
(Update #1: 1257 - Breakfast dishes done. The back of the basement now looks organanizized, at last. Finally had a cup of coffee, still on the first of the day.)
All the best,
Glenn B
Our hunting gear, most of it, is kept in the shed. It tends to get a bit damp in the shed but the clothing and other gear are in big plastic tubs with lids. Still, they need a good washing out and drying (with unscented dryer sheets). I only have time to do that today as I am working tomorrow, then leaving for upstate right after work, or such is my plan. I need to make sure I will have everything packed and ready to be loaded into the car sometime today. Everything will include clothing like: hunting hat, hunting jacket, hunting pants, hunting shirt, hunting sweater or fleece, hunting boots, hunting gloves, socks, skivvies, and some regular clothes for when not hunting. Other hunting items I will include will be: guns, ammo, gun case, gun cleaning kit, hunting license, hunting license back tag holder, foam hot seat, knives (at least two but probably three - one on belt, one in pocket, one in backpack), compass, emergency kit (things like wind/waterproof matches, candles for firestarter, flashlight, first aid kit, food bars), first aid kit, day pack, rattling antlers, doe bleat call, deer pee lure and scent pads, binoculars and the list goes on. I also have to find and pack some toiletries. I already have a case of water in the trunk of the car. I'll buy food when I get up near my hunting spot. That usually consists of Smucker's peanut butter and Red Raspberry preserves but this year I may try something else other than the PB.
I suppose I had best get started. I have those things to find, the hunting clothes to wash, the car to pack, and other chores to be done (or the wife will not be quite as happy about getting rid of me for 4 days). I need to clean up the back room of our basement (a seemingly never ending task), hang a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, do the regular laundry, do the dishes (already done), have a few biers (not yet but later for sure), get some grocery shopping done, clean the other half of the basement, set up a new aquarium, clean all the critter;s enclosures (bearded dragons, red earred slider, large tortoises, small tortoises, crested geckos, fish tank, and other turtle tank.
If I get it all done early enough, I may run over to Dick's Sporting goods and pick up a set of rings for that scope I got a couple of weeks back, attach the scope and rings to the Marlin XS7 rifle I bought and bring it to the range. If I somehow do manage to get the rings today yet don't get a chance to go to the range tonight, then there is a slim chance I could go tomorrow morning before work. I am only working 1-5 but will have plenty of stuff to still get ready for the hunting trip - if know myself at all. Well, no more dallying, I have got to get cracking.
(Update #1: 1257 - Breakfast dishes done. The back of the basement now looks organanizized, at last. Finally had a cup of coffee, still on the first of the day.)
All the best,
Glenn B
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
All The Stuff Of A Classic Spy Thriller...
...or so it looks to me. It seemingly has the potential to become the biggest spying scandal of the decade, if not of the century, if in fact CIA Director Petareus or General Allen or the unnamed FBI agent gave out classified info to either woman.
All the best,
Glenn B
All the best,
Glenn B
A Gun Blogger In Need
I would have posted about this sooner but only found out about this yesterday. Tamara, of View From The Porch, has been diagnosed with basal cell skin cancer. She reportedly does not have health insurance and thus could use some help to pay her medical expenses relative to the cancer treatments. Along those lines, an organized fund raiser, of sorts, has commenced with the goal of raising enough cash for her not to have to worry about how those bills will be paid. You can donate to her on her blog via her 'tip jar'.
A bunch of other bloggers have donated prizes that can be won dependent upon the amount one donates. Those efforts were individual ventures all with the same aim but now have been organized into a single endeavor as explained by Jay over at MA-rooned. If you would like an explanation of how the prize system works, click on this link: http://www.ma-rooned.com/2012/11/snark-mistress-fundraiser-update-and.html.
Whether or not you are interested in any of the prizes that are being offered, it certainly would be nice of yo to make a donation to Tamara to help her KICK CANCERS ASS!
All the best,
Glenn B
A bunch of other bloggers have donated prizes that can be won dependent upon the amount one donates. Those efforts were individual ventures all with the same aim but now have been organized into a single endeavor as explained by Jay over at MA-rooned. If you would like an explanation of how the prize system works, click on this link: http://www.ma-rooned.com/2012/11/snark-mistress-fundraiser-update-and.html.
Whether or not you are interested in any of the prizes that are being offered, it certainly would be nice of yo to make a donation to Tamara to help her KICK CANCERS ASS!
All the best,
Glenn B
Monday, November 12, 2012
My Last Two Blog Posts - Did my solutions to my laptop problems...
...make any sense, to any of you who understand computers? Just curious as I am pretty much a computer peckerwood who cannot tell a program from an application.
All the best,
Glenn B
All the best,
Glenn B
I Almost Said Screw Norton 360...
...after I had run system restore and fixed whatever problem i was that had been slowing down my computer on a select few applications. Why? Well, because after running System Restore and restarting my computer, I realized Norton360 was not working. When I clicked on the Norton Icon, not the Norton 360 icon but the Norton Anti-Virus icon for the trial version that came with my system (I had a Norton 3600 account previously and had installed it on my current laptop after its initial Norton AV trial ran out but after running System Restore only the Norton Trial Icon came up) nothing happened. Ouch, I realized my laptop was without protection, as in rubberless in a world of AIDS computer viruses! So, I went to my Norton account and tried to download Norton 360 again but there was a problem and it did not work. Happily, Norton indicated that I could try again after I first had manually uninstalled any Norton products from my PC. I did that, I uninstalled Norton. Then I reinstalled the Norton 360. Even though my account had showed I had already done so with all 3 of my subscriptions (from a single purchase for three computers) it allowed me to download it again; I guess it can determine that the PC to which one is downloading is one to which it has been downloaded before. That is good. Once I did that; all was again excellent in the land of virtual reality, at least for me, for now!
All the virtual best,
Glenn B
All the virtual best,
Glenn B
System Restore - A Good Thing - Thank You Bill Gates (or thanks to the tech who thought it up)
Lucky for me that I decided to try to run System Restore tonight, on my pretty new laptop, instead of waiting any longer. I was able to find a restore point that I was sure had been set before a problem started with my computer and that was the only one, of which I was certain, that had been set before the computer started acting up.
My computer was acting kind of slow, but only on certain programs. When bringing up my blog it was really at a snail's pace and, when opening MS Word, it was slower than normal. In addition, sometimes, when I opened my blog it would just keep opening new windows of my blog one after the other nonstop, like 20 or 30 times, before I could stop it by shutting it down.
It also ran the blog very slowly. For instance, when I would be typing a blog post, it would suddenly stop. Since I do not touch type and look at the keys when typing, I often did not notice until after writing several sentences and then when I looked up, it was frozen and all I had typed for the last several seconds, to maybe a minute, was not there. I would have to do it again. Sometimes I would have to wait up to half a minute for it to work again. It would happen repeatedly, often several times within a a couple of minutes. I also would often get a message asking if I wanted to turn off the script that was taking too long.
I just ran System Restore, going as far back as I could to October 25th. Right now, the computer seems to be working okay. There are no slowdowns. The blog came right up, almost instantaneously. So did MS Word. As I typed this post, there was not one delay nor one message asking if I wanted to stop running a script that was taking to long.
I had tried running Norton Anti-Virus and I also ran CCleaner both to no avail to fix this problem, whatever it was that was screwing up. I was about to start screaming, and maybe shooting (at the computer) but a cooler head prevailed and I decided to run System Restore first. It seems to have worked.
All the best,
Glenn B
My computer was acting kind of slow, but only on certain programs. When bringing up my blog it was really at a snail's pace and, when opening MS Word, it was slower than normal. In addition, sometimes, when I opened my blog it would just keep opening new windows of my blog one after the other nonstop, like 20 or 30 times, before I could stop it by shutting it down.
It also ran the blog very slowly. For instance, when I would be typing a blog post, it would suddenly stop. Since I do not touch type and look at the keys when typing, I often did not notice until after writing several sentences and then when I looked up, it was frozen and all I had typed for the last several seconds, to maybe a minute, was not there. I would have to do it again. Sometimes I would have to wait up to half a minute for it to work again. It would happen repeatedly, often several times within a a couple of minutes. I also would often get a message asking if I wanted to turn off the script that was taking too long.
I just ran System Restore, going as far back as I could to October 25th. Right now, the computer seems to be working okay. There are no slowdowns. The blog came right up, almost instantaneously. So did MS Word. As I typed this post, there was not one delay nor one message asking if I wanted to stop running a script that was taking to long.
I had tried running Norton Anti-Virus and I also ran CCleaner both to no avail to fix this problem, whatever it was that was screwing up. I was about to start screaming, and maybe shooting (at the computer) but a cooler head prevailed and I decided to run System Restore first. It seems to have worked.
All the best,
Glenn B
Some Native Americans And Their Seeming Hypocrtical Sensitivity
So, Victoria's Secret, that way overpriced, in my opinion,
lingerie outfit has a lingerie show. One of the models is dressed what looks
like native American headdress, jewelry and other bits of clothing. Now some Indians are supposedly extremely offended along the lines of 'how dare they
misappropriate Native American attire' . I wonder if that was only used in the
article or if some yahoo of a wanna be savage said that??? Victoria's Secret
apologized to them. What a shame, as I see it, because I think it is about time
that some native Americans stop riding the 'race' horse.
Who is kidding whom here. I have been out west a good numbers of times, I have seen a lot of so called native you get to see a fair number of Indians in places like New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Wyoming, Montana Washington and Oregon. I have also seen a fair number of them in New York, Connecticut, South Dakota and Florida. When you see them, you sometimes get to see what they do, how they act, what work they have, what clothing they wear, how they talk and so on. Reading up on history and watching educational television shows also clued me into their history and some of their cultural aspects. Talking to many of them also gave me further insight.
In all of my encounters with so called Native Americans, speaking with them, working with them (yes I have worked with a few), being a customer in some of their businesses (no not to buy smokes), interviewing them a few times in my career, arresting them (yes I did that too) and many other types of interactions, I came to realize there are basically two types of Indians. There are those who have adapted to the fact that Europeans came to this land in 1492 and kicked their asses and took their lands and changed their lives forever (which is in essence they did) and that life is different now and they can and should work for a living and try to get along with European, African, Asian, and Australian Americans. Then there are those who have not adapted to the hundreds of years old reality and who insist on being on the warpath all of the time.
It is that second type usually, who take or claim to take high offense whenever they say someone has slighted the Indians. They howl with hypersensitivity if a high school or college football team has a logo that represents an Indian or a name of a tribe, yet many have European names. They are highly offended if a film is made that shows anything about them with which they disagree yet they portray other Americans negatively quite often. They also frown upon anyone claiming to have Indian blood who in essence cannot prove their lineage or have not been DNA tested, yet seemingly push for they hoot and holler hurray when a whole tribe of, what are, I think, little more than Fauxahontises is established to beat the tax man out of tax dollars or when someone with 1/16th (or whatever amount is now required) of Indian blood is made a tribal member to skew the political and economic balance in their favor. They go out on what could almost be considered a rampage over anyone who dons Indian apparel, like the Victoria’s Secret model and apparently said that this is seen as misuse and theft of their heritage yet they stroll around in Levi’s Jeans, while wearing cowboy boots, and Stetsons. Or how about those waitresses, at some Indian owned establishments, dressed in cowboy hats and boots with hot-pants wedged right up their cracks - as I see it, much attired along the lines of the model at the lingerie show. Then, what about those casinos! They are against development of sacred Native American lands until it is they themselves who are building a casino or cigarette shop on it. They oppose big business but are more than happy to take your money from you at those casinos and tobacco stores. They are against things like Indians working off of the reservations yet claim to be against reservations saying they own the whole continent. They are against things like Indians working or living off of the reservations yet claim to be against reservations. They oppose others hunting or fishing certain animals, then claim to have been one with nature and say they still commune with nature more so than others, but yet they still hunt and fish for endangered species and call it their right (all the time saying they have rights that others do not and forgetting that all men are created equal and share rights alike). They claim reservations are dumps yet it is they who trash them (I have seen it firsthand several times.) They claim America is not fair to them but step right up in line, hands out, for the dole.
I could go on and on about these contradictions, this hypocrisy, this bogus over sensitivity, but you should know what I am writing about, you should be pretty familiar with it by now. Well, that is if you have half a brain and pay just a wee bit of attention to current events now and again and maybe read a newspaper (or online news articles) or watch educational TV now and again.
Now let me ask you a few things about Native Americans. Didn't they migrate from Asia, so aren't they immigrants too! Could or should other Americans take offense at them using the term native American since there was no America, so to speak, until it was named after Amerigo Vespucci (aka: Americus) by Europeans. Should I feel offended because they could be said to have misappropriated cultural identity. Should I come out and say they have misappropriated cultural attire when I see them dressed in cowboy clothing or in a tuxedo or in a police officer's uniform or one of the uniforms of the United States military services? Should I be ever so sensitive if they call me a white man because I am supposedly not to call them red men.
I have two words for the type of Indian who is supposedly super-sensitive and offended by things like that Victoria's Secret outfit, or by a sports team portraying a native American in its logo, while all along being a racist hypocrite: Get real.
All the best,
Glenn B
Who is kidding whom here. I have been out west a good numbers of times, I have seen a lot of so called native you get to see a fair number of Indians in places like New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Wyoming, Montana Washington and Oregon. I have also seen a fair number of them in New York, Connecticut, South Dakota and Florida. When you see them, you sometimes get to see what they do, how they act, what work they have, what clothing they wear, how they talk and so on. Reading up on history and watching educational television shows also clued me into their history and some of their cultural aspects. Talking to many of them also gave me further insight.
In all of my encounters with so called Native Americans, speaking with them, working with them (yes I have worked with a few), being a customer in some of their businesses (no not to buy smokes), interviewing them a few times in my career, arresting them (yes I did that too) and many other types of interactions, I came to realize there are basically two types of Indians. There are those who have adapted to the fact that Europeans came to this land in 1492 and kicked their asses and took their lands and changed their lives forever (which is in essence they did) and that life is different now and they can and should work for a living and try to get along with European, African, Asian, and Australian Americans. Then there are those who have not adapted to the hundreds of years old reality and who insist on being on the warpath all of the time.
It is that second type usually, who take or claim to take high offense whenever they say someone has slighted the Indians. They howl with hypersensitivity if a high school or college football team has a logo that represents an Indian or a name of a tribe, yet many have European names. They are highly offended if a film is made that shows anything about them with which they disagree yet they portray other Americans negatively quite often. They also frown upon anyone claiming to have Indian blood who in essence cannot prove their lineage or have not been DNA tested, yet seemingly push for they hoot and holler hurray when a whole tribe of, what are, I think, little more than Fauxahontises is established to beat the tax man out of tax dollars or when someone with 1/16th (or whatever amount is now required) of Indian blood is made a tribal member to skew the political and economic balance in their favor. They go out on what could almost be considered a rampage over anyone who dons Indian apparel, like the Victoria’s Secret model and apparently said that this is seen as misuse and theft of their heritage yet they stroll around in Levi’s Jeans, while wearing cowboy boots, and Stetsons. Or how about those waitresses, at some Indian owned establishments, dressed in cowboy hats and boots with hot-pants wedged right up their cracks - as I see it, much attired along the lines of the model at the lingerie show. Then, what about those casinos! They are against development of sacred Native American lands until it is they themselves who are building a casino or cigarette shop on it. They oppose big business but are more than happy to take your money from you at those casinos and tobacco stores. They are against things like Indians working off of the reservations yet claim to be against reservations saying they own the whole continent. They are against things like Indians working or living off of the reservations yet claim to be against reservations. They oppose others hunting or fishing certain animals, then claim to have been one with nature and say they still commune with nature more so than others, but yet they still hunt and fish for endangered species and call it their right (all the time saying they have rights that others do not and forgetting that all men are created equal and share rights alike). They claim reservations are dumps yet it is they who trash them (I have seen it firsthand several times.) They claim America is not fair to them but step right up in line, hands out, for the dole.
I could go on and on about these contradictions, this hypocrisy, this bogus over sensitivity, but you should know what I am writing about, you should be pretty familiar with it by now. Well, that is if you have half a brain and pay just a wee bit of attention to current events now and again and maybe read a newspaper (or online news articles) or watch educational TV now and again.
Now let me ask you a few things about Native Americans. Didn't they migrate from Asia, so aren't they immigrants too! Could or should other Americans take offense at them using the term native American since there was no America, so to speak, until it was named after Amerigo Vespucci (aka: Americus) by Europeans. Should I feel offended because they could be said to have misappropriated cultural identity. Should I come out and say they have misappropriated cultural attire when I see them dressed in cowboy clothing or in a tuxedo or in a police officer's uniform or one of the uniforms of the United States military services? Should I be ever so sensitive if they call me a white man because I am supposedly not to call them red men.
I have two words for the type of Indian who is supposedly super-sensitive and offended by things like that Victoria's Secret outfit, or by a sports team portraying a native American in its logo, while all along being a racist hypocrite: Get real.
All the best,
Glenn B
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Happy Veterans' Day...
...to all of you who have served our nation in her military
forces. I was never in the military, spent a 32 year career in the federal
civil service in law enforcement (primarily aimed at illegal aliens and
smugglers) but I do realize the sacrifices that our guys and gals in the armed
forces have made for the rest of us and how important they have been relative
to our safety and our freedoms – to our way of life here in the good old USA. I
praise them for it, I thank them for it, I honor them for it and I pray that
each and every one will stay out of Harm’s Way.
To all of you, now serving on foreign soil, or on foreign
waters, or in foreign skies, I wish you all the best for a happy Veterans’ Day
and for a very happy Thanksgiving and hope you will have a speedy and safe
return to your homes and loved ones. To all the rest of you, still here at home,
I wish you all a very safe and happy Veterans’ Day and a very happy
Thanksgiving as well.
All the best,
Glenn B
Saturday, November 10, 2012
White Plains Gun Show Report
I woke up fairly early, at least for me, at 0615 today. I
finally dragged my protesting arse and all of the grumpy rest of me out of bed
at about 0640. I would have had a great night’s sleep if A. B. Normal (more commonly called Abby), our Chihuahua
puppy did not wake me at about 0430 to ply and then finally crawl under my
blankets and go to sleep. Seems my wife had heard her whining and let her and
her sister Chloe (Abby's sister) outside to do their thing. Amazing is how I
see it that the wife and puppies going outside did not awaken me, I must have
really been getting some quality snooze time for a change - it figures though that something had to
ruin it for me. Oh well, I got more sleep than usual anyway.
Once I was up, I hit the shower, got dressed and took off to
meet up with my good friend Pete A.. He gave me a much needed cup of Java and
we hit the road toward White Plains. I had been running about 10-15 minutes
later than I had thought and we hit pretty bad traffic caused by cops stopped
in the left lane on our side of the road checking out, not helping with, a bad
accident on the other side of the road. That ate up another 15 minutes or so.
We still made decent time to the Westchester County center in White Plains and
surprisingly, even though a little after 0900 (the opening time for the gun
show) I found a parking spot around the block on the street and saved a bit by
not having to pay a parking lot fee. It seemed odd that there were an awful lot
of spaces available on the street and stranger still that there were only about
10 people on line ahead of us to get inside. While on the line, Pete told me he
had printed up some dollar off the admission price coupons but had forgotten
them at home. Well, for a change, I remembered them and had one for each of us
and several left over for others on the line and I passed them out to those
behind us. The guy immediately behind me seemed astonished that someone would
do that. Oh well...
I too was pretty much
astonished, that is once we got inside, to see that there were only about 150
folks already inside the gun show. I had thought, for sure, that Pete was going
to get to witness a feeding frenzy of gun and ammo purchases because of the
Obama reelection. We stayed until about noon or maybe 1230 and the place had
filled up by then by nowhere near to the usual crowd size, especially at a fall
show just before hunting season! So, while he did see people buying things - it
was not the buying down to the bare tables that I had expected (at least with
regard to ammo).
While there, I got to see some things that made me salivate.
A Remington 8, in very good to excellent condition in .30 Remington for $450. I
did not have enough to buy it being I am in need of a new roof and all so I had
to really take care on what I would spend. I know I could turn that around for
some profit if I sold it but just could not lay out for it and the ammo I had
gone there to buy. I am not going to write a lot about other guns that had me
drooling like the two Ruger 10/22's converted to Thompson submachine gun
clones, the Marlin 57M Levermatic, a few Stag Arms' AR15's and so on. There was
a good selection of firearms to be had.
The selection of ammo was pretty fair too although not as
good as for that which I had hoped. One guy had 5.56x45mm, 62 grain ammo for
sale in full cases and in 420 round ammo
cans (this on stripper clips). He wanted more than I wanted to spend on a full
case, asking for $385 plus tax. The same was true of the ammo cans holding 420
rounds each but it wound up being a price on which I would have to settle if I
wanted any of it. Another guy had the very same ammo: Federal 5.56x45mm, 62
grain, green tip, penetrator rounds on his table and had about 10 to 15 of those
ammo cans, each holding 420 rounds on stripper clips. He was asking what seemed
like a very low ball price of $150 each or I should say had been asking. He had
a second sign next to the one showing the price, that other sign said "All
Sold". He told me he had sold it all to a dealer on Friday night when they
set up the dealer tables. The he added, maybe I should have held some back for
the customers. He did not even have the decency to pull it off the table but
left it there attracting potential customer after potential customer. I don't
know if he left it there because he was lazy or because he wanted to lure
people to his table to maybe buy other ammo or he was just a peckerwood that
did not mind teasing potential buyers. I wound up buying a can from the guy
selling it for $180 per can. Shush, don't let Brendan know, I think I may give
it to him for his birthday.
I also bought three boxes of Prvi Partisan 8mm Mauser, 194
grain, soft point ammo; two boxes of American Eagle .45 Auto, 230 grain, FMJ
rounds; a box of Federal .45 Auto, 230 grain, hollow point ammo and a box of
Fiocchi .32 Auto, FMJ cartridges. Other than ammunition, I picked up three
packages of cotton swabs (6" long wood handles/sticks), and forgot two or
three other things I had thought I would get when I saw them my first time
around the show like some brass brushes, a bore light and whatever else it was
I had thought of while at the show. Pete also picked up a couple or few small
items. He grabbed the last PP/PPK book off of the stand. It was a book
supposedly showing one how to maintain, field strip, detail strip and
reassemble those pistols. His wife owns one in .380 and he got it for her. He
also bought a couple or a few tape measures, funny thing to see at a gun show.
I think they were a buck each, probably 12 or 15 footers. They had the King
Koil logo on them, funny thing to see on a tape measure. Go figure. He admired
several other things, especially some micro-knives at one display of all
knives. They were truly small scale, maybe an inch and a half long and were
scaled down versions of Bowie Knives with intricate scrimshaw on them picturing
native Americans. If they had asked something I could have afforded I may have
bought one of them but at $1,300.00 the pair - I just moved on after joking I
would take them for $13 the pair. The older lady, behind the counter, had a
good comeback for that: "Take them from someone else selling them for that
price". The young lady with her just smiled.
All in all we had a great time, walking around, looking at
guns, watching other folks, looking at knives, Pete looking at women (only
kidding), shooting the bull and the like. I was pretty unhappy that our mutual
friend Charlie K apparently was unable to make it this time around. I had been
hoping he would be there so we could all go out to lunch together. As it turned
out, Pete suggested that we wait until we get back to near his house for lunch
and that we stop at the Resorts' Casino at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, NY. So
that is what we did. We chowed down on a buffet lunch and I put a big dent in
the huge platter of shrimp they had out along with some other good tasting
things. Nothing fancy but the shrimp made it worthwhile. Pete did likewise as
far as chowing down went. After that we walked around the casino and BS'd about
this and that. I also gambled just a bit, about $25 worth plus the dollar I
found on the floor of the casino. It is all slot or poker or roulette and
similar machines in that casino, no table games. It was the first time I was there
since it opened, maybe two years or so ago. Once out of there, I dropped Pete
off at home and headed home myself.
All the best,
Glenn B
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