Beer-Bait-n-Ammo

SHE RUNS

2011-01-13T22:04:00.003-06:00

And she sounds PISSED

Finally, nearly six years to the day since her 455 last shook my neighbors' windows, the Toronado is running again.

The last few months saw a flurry of activity-- re-re-assembling the engine after finding out I had messed up my piston ring installation, a full brake and suspension upgrade, and squaring away the wiring. Yet to be done are completing the interior (in the immediate run all that are going back in are the front seat and dash,) and welding up the rust holes the vinyl top "donated" to the quarter pillars. The Landau top will stay off, and everything above the hood is getting a touchup. The rust holes and the dings on the decklid and quarters are going to be history.

First stop on the road: Mobile Memorial Gardens. Dad needs to hear this thing. The Funeral director might get a little pissed at me for opening up the throttle in the middle of a cemetery and waking the dead. Maybe I'll be responsible for the Zombie Apocalypse, this thing has a throaty exhaust note that can definitely wake the dead!

Goings-on

2010-10-04T21:10:00.004-06:00

Longest hiatus yet

When the shit hits the fan in my life this is the first thing to go. I'm more accustomed to using Facebook for posting purposes, since I haven't felt nearly as long-winded or as willing to waste time with Blogger's clunky, slow HTML interface. That said, here's a rundown of where I've been since February:

1) Spring semester sucked ass. Or more correctly, I sucked ass and did very bad things to my GPA. Digging out of that hole now.

2) Work on the Toronado ground to a halt for ~6 months. Back on it. Engine rebuilt and ready to drop in, prepping the car to take it now. Pictures below.

3) Alienated quite a few people in my life. I miss some of them dearly, but there are many others I wouldn't cross the street to help if they were lying on it in a bloody heap within an inch of death. You know who you are, so feel free to play a game of Hide and Go Fuck Yourselves.

That said, how about some gratuitous car porn?

In addition to the engine build, a total suspension and brake rework is in the offing, once I find a little more time. The interior is completely stripped. New carpet on the way, a new headliner as well, and the seats and panels are cleaned. New weatherstrip laid up today. Hoping to have her running before the end of the month and fully kitted out before Christmas.

Operation "High-Toned Son of a Bitch*" is a go

2010-02-08T15:16:00.013-06:00

My carbon footprint is bigger than yours

A recent ~~scratch-off~~ windfall gave me the money to get back to work on the Toronado for the first time in two years. The interior is shot, but I don't care. I'm going to get the engine up, the powertrain serviceable and the suspension squared away. Then I'll worry about how she looks.

Here's the little bastard that started this whole mess. #7 piston, burned down through the ring lands:

The two compression rings went with the metal, and only a sliver of the third (oil scraper) ring remained. Hell of it is, even with such catastrophic damage, she'd crank up and run until I started dismantling the engine. She'd go through oil like Captain Hazelwood on the Bligh Reef but she still ran.

#8 was pitted so badly I sent her to the machine shop to bore the cylinders .030" over, increasing the engine's displacement to 461 cubic inches with the stock crank and rods. Because a fool and his money are soon parted, I had the crank reground .010" under and fitted it up over the weekend. Oddly enough they put the Jager away long enough to give me a nice, tight rotating assembly.

Main Caps in place:

Crankshaft in, dial-gauging crankshaft end play and runout:

I don't want to bollocks this job up, so I verified the plastigage readings with a micrometer:

Here's the crankshaft in place and torqued down, now I'm waiting for the shop to press the pins into the new pistons so I can start installing them tomorrow evening:

I suck at video editing, but I ran this up on short notice:

* In Stephen King's The Dark Half, the protagonist's psychotic, straight-razor wielding alter ego drove a 1966 Olds Toronado with a bumper sticker reading "HIGH TONED SON OF A BITCH."

Groundhog Day

2010-02-02T22:04:00.003-06:00

It feels as if I've spent the last year or so spinning my wheels. The days run together as if in repetition. I just don't have the stones to commit a spectacular and highly visible suicide a la Bill Murray in Groundhog Day to test the theory.

On the other hand, in the last week I've finally made headway toward getting other wheels spinning! The Toronado's engine is out of the machine shop and I've gathered the necessary parts to rebuild it. Also on order are the components to convert its unholy, utterly useless "Fade-o-Matic" front drum brakes to a disc setup cannibalized from a 1977 Toronado. Pictures and details to follow; I'll cobble together a post and the latest pictures after I get butchered by a pair of exams tomorrow.

The Long Slog

2009-10-01T17:23:00.004-06:00

It's my brain that's turned to mush, not what's underfoot...

Going through one of my old Calvin and Hobbes books the other day I stumbled upon this:

It always amazes me how Bill Watterson could encapsulate so much of the human condition in a comic following a hyperactive, overimaginative kid and make it relevant to me and my life from the time I was 7 or 8 until today.

My current routine is Work. School. Fuckton of homework. Pitifully inadequate sleep. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I know I have a problem since I dream I'm falling asleep while plugging away on a CAD project at work, only to snap myself awake and notice that I'm in bed and my alarm will be going off within 5 minutes. My dreams are far too literal. I can't even escape work or class in them anymore. Haven't set a paddle to water since May, haven't fired a round in about as long either. I haven't even been good and drunk in a long time. Extracurricular opportunities are far too thin on the ground at the moment. This absolutely blows.

Still standing

2009-07-19T12:56:00.004-06:00

Between a colossal case of Writer's Block, the new job and the time-compressed summer class schedule it's hard out here to write a post once in a while. The high points of the summer:

New job

I am know a shop tech/ CAD draftsman at LA Research and Engineering. That's LA as in Lower Alabama, not the massive smog/smug maelstrom on the west coast.

This is a small firm which generally picks up small one-off projects. The pay blows but it abounds with wonderful opportunities and learning experiences. A fair number of engineering students pick up summer co-ops with large companies and better pay, to end up as go-fers or copy bitches. All in all I'm happy to wrap my mind around projects ranging from re-configuring the x-rays at my school's new Health Sciences building to developing machinery for pet supply manufacturers. All sorts of weird shit comes down the pike but at the end of the day I get to cut my CAD teeth, and then go back to the machine shop and build the job from scratch. In the process I've become a decent welder and a semi-competent machinist; life is good.

New Classes

Taking two classes over the summer is a PITA; I'm glad the GI Bill considers 7 semester hours over the summer to be a full-time schedule. I've made up for the spring CAL II debacle, and wrapped up my last gen-ed requirement with a microeconomics class. This week will bring about finals and a much-needed respite from the morning and night classes that bracket my workday.

New Place

In the middle of all this, I somehow found a way to move all my shit into an apartment five minutes' walk from three decent bars and a corner grocery, to say nothing of a ten minute walk from campus. If I didn't have the 45-minute commute to work each day I wouldn't need to drive at all.

That's about it so far. I've relented on kicking around the Obamatard now that the kool-aid has worn off and more people have finally seen that ass-clown for what he is, as his idiotic economic measures fail and his polls plummet.

More to follow.

Recipe #2: Nuclear Jambalaya

2009-05-22T21:55:00.004-06:00

Hans Brix? Oh No!

If I made this jambalaya any hotter, Hans Blix would start nipping at my ankles and I'd need a concrete and steel containment shield for my kitchen.

To get there:

1 lb. chicken breast
1 lb. shrimp
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 onion, 1 tomato, 1 bell pepper, 1 clove garlic (all diced)
3 cups rice
5 cups water
3 tbsp. paprika
2 tbsp. Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning
2 tbsp. Dale's

Rex's shrimp and crawfish boil and ground cayenne pepper to taste. Here you have 3 options depending on how badly you want to scorch your palate:

Alpha: 1 tbsp. cayenne, 2 tbsp. Rex's.

Beta: 3 tbsp. cayenne, 6 tbsp. Rex's.

Gamma: Empty your cayenne jar, add 1/4 cup Rex's, and wait for the IAEA to turn up and demand inspections. Tell them to pack sand. The UN will be angry with you, and they will write a letter expressing their anger.

Directions:

Sautee the onion and garlic in your pan. add the chicken, shrimp, pepper, tomato, and spices. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add rice and water, return to boil, and add some more Rex's if you're feeling ballsy. If the fumes from the simmering critical mass in your pan make eyes tear up across the room, you have it right. Reduce heat to low and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. Serves four generously, eight as a side.

Good luck, and don't come crying to me if you fry your esophagus. In addition, you might find yourself suddenly popular with Iranians and North Koreans.

Rubber-stamp politics

2009-05-19T20:34:00.002-06:00

This is what happens when the dime-store solons we retarded voters keep sending to office vote on legislation without bothering to read the bills they approve sight unseen. Remember the fiasco that the stimulus vote in February turned into? Pelosi and Reid trying to force the bills to cloture without permitting anyone in the house or senate time to read them before sending us deeper into debt? The same thing is at play here.

Bobby Jindal, rightly suspicious of the strings attached to 98 million in stimulus money allotted to Louisiana unemployment programs, rejected the funds to forestall a state tax increase to pick up the program's fiscal slack when the federal money inevitably runs out.

A democratic legislator snuck a small rider into a bill dealing with workers' compensation yesterday which effectively overrode Jindal's refusal.

Here's the money quote from the article:

The House adopted the amendment without questions and then quickly approved the bill, sending it to the Senate for debate with a 99-0 vote. During the final vote, House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, was heard asking an aide, "What does the amendment do?" The aide responded that she didn't know.

These fucking idiots didn't even read the amendment, much less the bill, before shipping it off to the state Senate. They all need to be recalled and horsewhipped, Democrat and Republican alike.

More Islamic Buggery

2009-05-19T20:30:00.002-06:00

Imam at Tampa Mosque Charged With Sexual Battery of 13-Year-Old Boy

Maybe he was recruiting a new homicide bomber.

Sundance channel sure knows how to pick 'em

2009-04-16T20:03:00.004-06:00

I question the timing

Two years ago today maladjusted little shit and all-around loser Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. It was the worst mass killing by one shooter in U.S. History.

What does this have to do with the Sundance Channel and their indie-film programming? In the wee hours this morning, Sundance was running Oldboy, a film Cho supposedly enjoyed and imitated. One of the pictures in the bizarre manifesto Cho sent to NBC was his pose in apparent imitation of one of the film's posters.

Good timing, geniuses.

Out of morbid curiosity I watched the film. What a twisted crapfest. If Cho liked that movie enough to identify with it, he really was fucked in the head.

Burn in hell, Cho.

Home invader shot in Vermont

2009-04-15T11:50:00.003-06:00

Dispatcher: WTF?

Meet Jerry Lee Jones, Jr. He's achieved room temperature since breaking into a Vermont home and being shot by the homeowner. Apparently Jones was extremely drunk and had been booted out of a friend's car after trying to pick a fight with him. He attempted to break into the Hoover home by tossing a wrought-iron chair through a window.

Mr. Hoover's wife was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher when the shots were fired; the recording is at the link. After listening to it, I have a bone to pick with the Botetourt County 911 dispatchers.

After the shots were fired, Mrs. Hoover told the dispatcher that Jones had been shot but was still moving. The dispatcher told her to have her husband put his gun down. Uhh, WRONG.

If you're the subject of a home invasion and shoot an intruder, do not put your weapon down until the police arrive. Especially if the per's still moving. A wounded intruder can still be a threat, and he may have accomplices either outside or undetected in the house. Don't assume that you have the all-clear. Do not fuck around with your family's safety.

Cooking for the single guy

2009-04-11T18:58:00.007-06:00

When ramen's lost its fun

IPD (Improvised Poultry Device:)

When you want a semi-decent chicken dinner for one and don't want to waste hours in the chicken, you can run this up in about 5 minutes, bung it into the oven and go back to watching the race/game/scrambled porn:

Bring it!

1 9X9 casserole dish
1 cornish Hen
8 slices of wheat bread
2 eggs
1 half-onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 TBSP butter
1 TBSP Lawry's seasoned salt
Spices to taste or availability (I used a generous pinch of sage)

Wash your hands first unless you like the runs. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place the bread slices in a blender and chop to fine crumbs. Pour the crumbs into the casserole dish, and follow them up with the chopped onions and celery. Add your spices and then fold the two eggs into the mix. Get your hands in there and make sure the mix is evenly wetted. Wash again.

Rinse off the hen and then salt it generously inside and out. Place it in the center of the dish after clearing a hole in the stuffing mix. Pour the melted butter over the hen and rub in to ensure it's distributed evenly.

Then, cover the whole mess in foil and chuck it in the oven. Allow to cook for 90 minutes. When it comes out, you have two good meals ahead of you unless you're a fat bastard. If you are, this'll barely qualify as an appetizer.

Voilá!: Improvised Poultry Device. Serve with beer and veggie of your choice.

So this is how they do it:

2009-03-26T22:07:00.001-06:00

Sadly, this methodology makes more sense than anything to come out of Treasury in the past few years:

Enviro-nuts get it wrong. Again.

2009-03-26T13:18:00.004-06:00

Unwilling to research

California to reduce carbon emissions by... banning black cars?!

This is beyond idiotic. These legislators obviously did not bother to research automitive climate controls before going off half-cocked and riding the wave of environmentalist sentiment.

The flawed premise here is that the climate controls on darker-colored cars have to work harder to keep them cool than those in lighter-colored cars. The only difference between a car painted black and a car painted white is the paint itself. Sure, the darker car will absorb more heat. Problem is, both cars have identical air conditioning systems that work the same way, put the same load on their engines, and have the same effect on power output and fuel economy. A dark car will take more time to cool, but its air conditioner will function at the same rate as that in a lighter car.

Allow me to explain: With a car's air conditioner on, a compressor circulates refrigerant through the system. In the passenger compartment there is a condenser, where high-pressure liquefied refrigerant is expanded to a gas. This expansion dissipates heat, causing rapid cooling in the evaporator. Air is blown through the condenser box, and water vapor condenses on the evaporator coils. this air is sent through a valve that mixes air from the evaporator box with ambient air or air from a separate heater core (the temperature control on your dash controls the setting of this valve. Regardless of your temp setting, the evaporator functions at its maximum capacity as long as the air conditioner is on and the compressor is loading the engine.

The upshot of this is that if you think that reducing your temp setting but still receiving some cooling benefit will save you gas, you are mistaken. The only way to improve fuel economy is not to run your air conditioner at all-- try that in a traffic jam in July!

Yet you still hear radio ads and see TV spots advising you to "turn down" your air conditioner to save fuel. These dumbasses never bothered to check their premises before going on the air and wasting money on uninformed advertising.

Don't suffer needlessly- If you need air conditioning, set it for your own comfort. A thermostat set to 65 degrees in a car will put just as much of a load on an engine as an AC set to 80 degrees.

It's even more important not to suffer the idiocy of an uninformed, petulant nanny-state. If you live in California, call your representatives and lean on them to shoot down this travesty of a bill.

Oratory the right way

2009-03-25T15:46:00.003-06:00

Look Ma! No Teleprompter!

Dan Hannan, MEP, Speaking to the EU Parliament. Watch! This requires no further explaining or amplification on my part.

Another day, another Mouch directive

2009-03-23T21:21:00.004-06:00

Life imitating stupid

The ~~Mouch~~ Obama administration isn't content to cap the pay of companies accepting TARP funds, it seems to think it's entitled to shackle the entire private sector with regulations.

This is more political opportunism, riding the wave of the hypocritical effort they've undertaken to whip up populist outrage after AIG decided to stick to a bonus plan they stuck to with full government knowledge and consent.

Do these fucking toolbags expect money to magically appear in their coffers by fiat?

Bureaucrats seem to have long forgotten that money is made and earned, not miracled into being by directive. It's made by people who work and produce with some reasonable expectation of retaining the product of their labor. If you saddle them with regulations and salary caps, their incentive to produce goes down the tubes. They don't make any more money, and Uncle Sam's little redistribution schemes fail.

Keep on prolonging the suffering, assholes. I'm looking forward to voting your asses out of office.

Namaste, Bitches.

"What now, bitches?"

2009-03-19T22:40:00.002-06:00

If you're a calculus geek, this is worth a chuckle:

Which gaffe is bigger?

2009-03-19T22:23:00.002-06:00

Saying Geithner's doing an "outstanding job," or likening his bowling game to a Special Olympics performance?

Discuss.

Congressional demagoguery rings hollow

2009-03-19T21:07:00.004-06:00

CYA

Ok, the economy tanks because of an unsustainable credit and real estate bubble pushed along with the full knowledge and cooperation of Congress. Said Congress votes to subsidize the breathtakingly poor decisions made my many powerful banks and investment firms.

Shocker of shockers, to prevent a massive exodus of brainpower and talent out of AIG, American International Group offered hefty retention bonuses to several of its exectives, with the full knowledge of the Secretary of the Treasury, renowned tax cheat Tim Geithner.

The American public catches wind of the rotten mess and is righteously outraged.

Congress, in the most blatant example of cover-ass I've seen this side of an aircraft carrier the morning after a port call in Bangkok, begins howling for the executions or honor-suicides of the AIG execs who were slated to receive retention bonuses.

In an even more breathtaking act of hypocrisy, they voted on Charles Rangel's HR 1686, a bill to tax the bonuses at 90%, passing it 328-93. The whole affair reeks of an unconstitutional ex post facto law, a violation of Article I, Section 9 specifically. On the other hand, it's been a long time since our Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches gave a shit about the Constitution their oath of office charges them with upholding.

This act of utter hypocrisy was passed by the same House that in October voted 263-171 to give these blundering firms 1.3 trillion dollars in citizens' expropriated money. Pardon me for not being as pissed off at the executives at AIG as I am at the Parliament of Whores on Capitol hill.

More backfires

2009-03-19T19:09:00.008-06:00

No sport in it anymore

The economy is blowing itself to hell as fast as everyone can arrange it. The government agencies that are supposed to be ameliorating the problems are blaming each other, politicians are making death threats against corporate bonus recipients using money THEY voted to give them, and the "most brilliant administration ever" is showing itself to be functionally retarded.

Now is a perfect chance for Barack Obama to man up, grow a pair of balls, take the helm of his administration, and fix the unforced errors that come out of 1600 Pennsylvania every day.

Instead he is on Leno tonight. He's wasting time on empty publicity, filling out his NCAA bracket picks while his Treasury Department is still unstaffed save Geithner.

Mr. No Talent Ass Clown even dicked up his Leno appearance tonight, insulting the handicapped:

Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he's gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

He bowled a 129, the president said.

"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.

It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.

When asked about the remark, the White House had no comment.

I'm getting tired of finding reasons to kick this guy around. It's a fucking disgrace! He's pointing the ship of state at the rocks and has no bloody clue what the line of breakers ahead means. No wonder the rest of the world perceives us as weak now when this is the sort of clown we elevate to elected office!

AFTERTHOUGHT: Any bets on whether the bowling questions get edited out of the Tonight Show at airtime?

Afterthought the Second: Spotted at Perfunction: "Obama Throws Self Under the Short Bus."

Obama Backpedals. Again.

2009-03-18T15:11:00.005-06:00

Full speed astern!

I'm pretty underwhelmed by what was touted as this guy's "breathtaking political genius" during the campaign. So far it seems all he's accomplished has been to ride the wave of a Stalinist cult of personality to the top, aided and abetted by suckers who bought his message of Hope and Change.

At issue this week was his abhorrent proposal to compel disabled veterans currently cared for by the VA to seek private health care. He wanted them to bear the costs for their own care, for wounds and injuries received during the course of voluntary military service. After being roundly castigated by right and left, he finally backpedaled after three days.

Is Obama doing lines of blow on the desk in the Oval Office? are Emmanuel and Pelosi slipping him roofies at these weekly White House parties we keep hearing about? What the fuck is wrong with this guy? He's alienating foreign leaders whose support and goodwill we must count on, proposing a series of policies that reek of social engineering and will choke any economic recovery the instant it will start, and elevating hordes of tax cheats to cabinet positions.

He's either a blithering idiot or actively and maliciously trying to dismantle institutions that ensure our citizens' freedoms. Personally I subscribe to blithering idiocy, since the guy can't string together extemporaneous sentences on his own. He has the power cord to his TelePrompter wrapped around his neck and his handlers seem to be treating him like a mushroom: Keeping him in the dark and shoveling him bullshit.

Magnolia River 17 MAR 09

2009-03-17T19:25:00.004-06:00

Spring kayaking begins

Finally. Taking advantage of spring break to get some kayaking in, since my truck broke down (killkillkill) and I couldn't spend the week at St. Stephens (killkillkillkillkill.)

I'm pretty much stuck between Mobile and Baldwin counties. Not too much of a problem, since the weather is finally spring-like, and the trackless waters of the bay beckon. Today I headed over to Weeks Bay and the Magnolia River for the first time in two years.

Not a cloud in the sky. Last time I made this run, we got run out of the water by an afternoon thunderstorm that seemingly popped up out of nowhere.

6.77 miles, not a bad way to spend two hours on a mild spring afternoon.

Treating a parkerized 1911

2009-03-16T12:07:00.008-06:00

Seasoning

The phosphate (Parkerized) finish on a military weapon is a durable coating and an excellent corrosion preventive. On World War II weapons it was an effective and inexpensive way to treat components churned out in the factories by the millions.

The phosphate coating is generally dark-grey in color, but won't prevent rust on its own. It has to be seasoned, like a cast-iron skillet. This means slathering every parkerized part of a firearm in grease and baking the finish in for several hours. After reading about the process on Xavier's blog I decided to do it to my Springfield Armory USGI .45 .

I've never detail-stripped a 1911 before, so I proceeded carefully. It's easy to lose these small components, especially with several small springs in the mix that can send parts skittering off into the ether. The good thing is that the 1911 was designed to be completely disassembled with tools available to the soldier-- a screwdriver, a punch, and the weapon's own firing pin. I plunked myself down at the kitchen table and I was off to the races!

First and foremost: All Weapons are Loaded. Treat them as such. Complacency in safe handling kills.

The chamber is clear. Now disassembly can begin in earnest:

This is the field-stripped 1911. Normally this is as far as disassembly needs to go for cleaning. Every once in a while, perhaps every thousand rounds or so, it's good to do a detail strip and clean several parts that can accumulate gunk and oil in hard to reach spots. It's also wise to inspect the parts and make sure nothing's cracked, bent, or worn (especially the sear and the hammer.)

Slide components: Firing pin, spring, extractor and firing pin stop. The extractor is caked in carbon deposits.

Almost done with the frame. Just have to nudge out the pins holding the hammer, sear and disconnector in place.

Stripped frame and slide after a generous dose of carburetor cleaner.

With a pile of tiny, easy-to-lose parts, a magnetic tool tray comes in exceptionally handy.

With the disassembly done, I slathered every part in Hoppe's gun grease and bunged the whole lot in an old toaster oven:
Satan's EZ Bake

I kept it low, about 250 degrees for three hours. Once all was done and cooled this was the end result, a hard coating of grease soaked into the finish:

Now it's all carbon and copper-free, properly lubricated and treated for deep south humidity. This baked in finish also gives it the patina of a vintage 1911, greased up and stored for years in an armory instead of fresh from the case at the gunshop.

Madoff faces 150 years in prison

2009-03-12T10:31:00.002-06:00

You're not going to white collar resort prison, you're going to Federal "pound me in the ass" prison

Bernard Madoff Will Plead Guilty to 11 Charges in Financial Fraud Case, Faces 150 Years in Prison

150 years? He'll have plenty of time to lift weights and convert to Islam.

The No Shit! Files, vol. 3,998,762

2009-03-03T22:06:00.003-06:00

Durr

Men's Sex Lives May Suffer as Waistlines Expand

If you're so fat you can't see your pecker, no worries. It won't do you a lot of good anyway.

More taxpayer-funded studies telling us what we already know. Cripes.

McCain finally found his balls

2009-03-03T18:52:00.004-06:00

A year too late

Making a stand and proposing an amendment to strip 32 billion dollars from the omnibus budget bill that the Senate rubber-stamped recently, John McCain is showing a set of conservative cojones he lost back in 02 when he co-sponsored McCain-Feingold.

Sadly, the bill was shot down like a one-winged duck, 63-32. I'm pissed because the (usually) fiscally responsible senators representing Alabama, Sessions and Shelby, voted Nay and abstained, respectively. Way to inspire confidence in your base, assholes.

Desperation

2009-02-04T12:06:00.002-06:00

Buggery in the desert

Al Qaeda, never a repository of moral value or uprightness, may have hit yet another low: Al-Qaeda accused of using male rape to 'create' suicide bombers

AQ is using rape and the threat of rape to coerce young men into becoming homicide bombers. If that doesn't proclaim that Al Qaeda is broken, nothing does. What's the matter? did they run out of virgins?

Heh. They bitch at us for waterboarding...

Hat tip: Hot Air

You Fail At Life

2009-02-03T14:29:00.007-06:00

Lowered expectations

One of the more onerous and tedious things I have to do this semester is a three-hour Physics lab on Tuesday afternoons. It's not as if the material is challenging, but the process of collecting and analyzing data, and then putting it all into a handwritten lab report is about as fun as watching linoleum peel.

It gets worse when your classmates and lab partners fail at life. Today's lab was ridiculously simple: Determine the density of an object and determine what substance it was based on a table of known densities of metals. This meant weighing the objects, and then measuring their dimensions to determine volume. A third-grader could have handled it.

I had to take a few minutes to help some of the other students figure out how to read a vernier caliper and a micrometer; then I spent a moment showing another how to set up the statistics package on his TI-89 calculator. Just helping out, not cutting into my own data analysis, everything was copacetic.

Until one fella at my table couldn't figure out how to read a ruler.

Take a moment and let that sink in. Could. Not. Read. A. Metric. Ruler.

This is a lab for a Calculus-based Physics course.

I might as well tell you all now that the rest of this post will be a semi-coherent rant. I'm seeing red and on a roll now.

How the hell does a kid make it through Elementary School unable to take a simple measurement? How many brain cells does it take to put a ruler against the object one's measuring, figure out the proper number of centimeters and millimeters, and keep going?

Semi-literate illegal immigrant construction workers can read a yardstick or tape measure, and use those measurements to frame a house perfectly! But an American college student can't? I am just so thrilled at the epic failure this presents on so many levels.

1) This ass-hair's parents were allowed to reproduce in the first place.

2) He grew up in a public school system more concerned with inculcating a morally relative worldview in him than teaching him critical life skills. He can show all kinds of concern for the environment and people different than him, he can tell you Bush is Evil and 9/11 was an inside job, but he can't take the sort of measurements that would allow him to build his own home or provide for himself doing anything but asking "paper or plastic."

3) The college lowered its standards to the point where someone so lacking in basic comprehension and skill could get in. Higher education no longer requires active, seeking minds; it only needs warm bodies that can score Stafford Loans to continue to prop up the schools' bloated budgets and sustain the tenure of some of their useless, entitled faculty.

I am sick of being held up, of classes' progress being continually slowed, by slow weak and uncomprehending little shits who only got into college because Mommy and Daddy wanted them to, and waste time and brain on suds and bong resin. Parents are losing so much on the investment in their kids' education now.

This is part of why I chose Mechanical Engineering as a major. It's supposed to be a rigorous, challenging academic discipline, one that weeds out the also-rans and requires academic talent and hard work. It's not some limp-wrist soft option like Sociology, which leads only back into the classroom. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

The problem is that I'm still on the lower rungs of the curriculum, in the calculus and physics classes that weed out many of those who aren't up to the academic rigors of engineering. These classes are tough, but they're only made tougher by the lack of progress occasioned when weaker students have to have the concepts explained and re-explained repeatedly.

Then you get idiots who shouldn't be in college in the first place. Not everyone can be an astronaut.

WWBOD?

2009-01-29T21:49:00.003-06:00

Orwell is spinning

Can you believe this shit?

I mean, shades of "Big Brother is Watching You." His cult of personality has descended to the point where they want to install him as Big Brother. What a bunch of got-damn sheep. In the words of Sam Adams,

"May your chains rest lightly upon you, and may Posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

If you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen

2009-01-23T09:44:00.007-06:00

First rule of Hopenchange: You don't ask questions!

When a reporter in the WH Press Corps asked a question of BHO on a surprise visit he paid to the press room last night, We saw an example of Obama's arrogant contempt for accountability. The Obama's nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense, William J. Lynn III, has served as a lobbyist for Raytheon.

The Anointed One was called on this contradiction with his avowed policy of not employing any current or former lobbyists in his administration, and promptly threw a bitch fit.

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here."

Oh. My. GOD. We Can't have the press asking The One any substantial questions, can we?

That wasn't a grilling, it was a legitimate question. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Welcome to the Oval Office, fuckstick.

BWAHAHAHA! Shivering Al Gore ice sculpture

2009-01-21T09:29:00.003-06:00

Reality flexes its pimp hand

From the Fairbanks, Alaska Daily News-Miner:

Fairbanks — Al Gore can thank the Nobel Committee for honoring him with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

He can also thank Fairbanks businessman Craig Compeau for what could be the farthest-north likeness of the former vice president: A 5-ton ice sculpture of a “shivering” Gore, created during a recent spell of bitterly cold weather in Alaska and aimed at confronting global-warming theories.

Compeau described himself as a moderate skeptic of those who “rabidly” believe man-made emissions are contributing to a rise in global temperatures. Gore won his Nobel for raising awareness of global warming as one of the greatest challenges facing mankind.

“Be skeptical. Or not. But research it yourself,” Compeau told the roughly three dozen onlookers and reporters gathered at the corner of Airport Way and Cushman Street at 10 a.m. Monday under gray skies. “There’s a lot on both sides.”

Compeau, who manages an outdoor recreation sporting goods store, is coupling the unveiling with a fundraiser to benefit the Presbyterian Hospitality House, a local nonprofit. Anyone — skeptic or not — can play by guessing whether this winter will be warmer or colder, and by how much, than was the winter of 1947-1948. Gore was born on March 31, 1948.

Compeau unveiled the sculpture — created by a local artist Steve Dean — near the downtown Thrifty Liquor store, where he said it will stay through March or “until it melts.”

The 8 1/2-foot-tall sculpture dominated the corner from its perch on the back of a flatbed truck.

Compeau said he hatched the idea for the carving when talking to another businessman two weeks ago, when much of Alaska was suffering from one of the coldest snaps in recent memory. By the time Dean was done with the carving, however, the temperature had warmed to record-breaking highs in the upper 40s. Thermometers had settled in-between by Monday morning, reading around 20 degrees.

Climate change scientists say Alaska has warmed by 3 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 50 years. Many say the planet will keep warming, at least partly because of man-made emissions.

Compeau used Monday’s unveiling to publicly invite the Nobel-winner to visit Interior Alaska — specifically, Tetlin Junction, where reports indicated temperatures earlier this month bottomed out at close to 80 degrees below zero — and explain, first-hand, global warming theories. He even offered specifics — if Gore travels by electric car and speaks exactly one year after then temperature there hit bottom — on Jan. 8, 2010 — Compeau and others will cover his room and board.

An e-mail message from the Daily News-Miner sent to Gore’s official Web site is unreturned as of Monday evening.

Benefits from the contest will go to the nonprofit Presbyterian Hospitality House, which operates seven residential treatment homes for troubled kids, Compeau said.

Drenda Tigner, the nonprofit’s executive director, said her organization isn’t interested in the organizers’ views on global warming. She said she’s happy that a “fun wintertime event” can benefit Presbyterian Hospitality House both financially and through increased public awareness of its activities.

“A lot of people don’t even know we exist, even though we’ve been here since 1967,” she said.

The Hospitality House is dropping off decorated collection cans at the 10 companies handing out entry forms for the climate-guessing contest. A list of the participating companies can be found on a Web site set up by Compeau (www.frozengore.com).

Suck It, Hippies.

Inauguration Day thoughts

2009-01-20T16:41:00.005-06:00

Panem et Circenses

Juvenal's Satires were written nearly two thousand years ago, yet his description of early Rome applies wholesale to the United States today:

ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses.

Rendered in English:

Now that no one earns our votes, the public has long since shrugged off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things--Bread and Circuses.

This is exactly what we get after years of a somnolent public not holding its elected officials accountable. Hacks (Harry Reid,) whores (Nancy Pelosi,) and demagogues (Chicago Corruptocrat Extraordinaire Barack Hussein Obama.) Real leaders, men and women of substance and talent, won't muddy themselves with politics.

I don't want to hear another word of the "We are one" rhetoric. Today it rang hollow, especially after the divisiveness of the inauguration crowd. Shouting "Na na na na, na na na na, hey heeeyy, Goodbye" at the top of your lungs as the outgoing President steps into the limelight for the last time isn't exactly unifying. Nice attempt at Unity and "Reaching Out."

To the condescending assholes of the From 52 to 48 persuasion: Fuck Off. I stood by silently and patiently through eight years of "Fuck Bush" "US out of Iraq Now" "Move On" "You're in the military, all you know is how to kill," and God knows how many other slurs. Effective immediately you all reap what you've sown. Do you think you can wish away years of hate and discontent with smug condescension and feigned smiles?

No. Reach out to me and I can guarantee you one thing: You will draw back a bloody, mangled stump. I've seen your idea of Unity and Hope and Change. It stinks to high heaven, and numbers do not make it right.

Airbus ditches in the Hudson

2009-01-15T17:19:00.004-06:00

ring ring ring, ring ring ring

US Airways Plane Crashes in New York City's Hudson River, Everyone Survives

I have to echo Neal Boortz's comments on Hannity's show today. That Pilot and FO earned every single penny they're ever going to make for the rest of their lives in a few short minutes.

Their quick thinking saved who knows how many lives! Not only the crew and passengers, but also any number of bystanders in Manhattan and across the bridges and tunnels who could have had 125,000 pounds of Jet-A and aluminum dropped on their heads.

It was ballsy of them to line that plane up on the freezing waters of the Hudson, and skillful to keep the wings perfectly level with the waterline to prevent cartwheeling, all without power or boosted flight controls. For those of you unfamiliar with the way large aircraft work, the flight control surfaces (flaps, ailerons, elevators, and rudder) must all be actuated by hydraulic servos. When the engines die, there's no hydraulic pressure.

The hydraulic pumps are powered by generators that are driven by the engines; without boost, it takes a herculean effort to manipulate the flight controls. The pilots who dead-sticked Air Transat Flight 236 into Lajes AB in the Azores in August 2001 could tell you that.

That was another Airbus, which had a misdiagnosed fuel leak. The leak left the aircraft in the middle of the Atlantic with two flamed out engines, and the pilots' efforts to get the plane down safely at Lajes was impressive, even if their handling of the leak diagnosis was almost Darwin Award-worthy.

Apparently the passengers on USA 1549 kept their cool and encouraged each other as well. There was no panicky struggle to reach the exits.

If you meet that pilot and FO, don't leave their bar tabs unpaid. Provided they're not flying the next day.

Back in business

2009-01-15T11:51:00.002-06:00

And it's back to school I go. I have some challenging classes (CAL II, Physics, Engineering Graphic Design, and my LAST. CORE. LIBERAL. ARTS. COURSE. EVER.) My maniacal exercise routine continues unabated; I've run 34 miles in the last two weeks. Hopefully when the weather warms a bit and we recover some cloud cover I'll be back in the kayak. It's been almost a month since I've been out on the water.

Ok, it's a new calendar year. BFD.

2009-01-02T00:46:00.007-06:00

And the great Arbitrary Change of Calendar Day has passed. I didn't get in the water last night. The wind was up, kicking up a light chop. In the dark that chop can be a bitch to handle, so rather than pose a late-night problem for the Coast Guard I packed it in and found a stool at one of my favorite watering holes. I didn't get drunk; I simply had a couple of beers and packed it in right after midnight.

I've never understood the impulse to drink heavily and make an ass of one's self on a night remarkable only because it's the arbitrary date the Gregorian calendar rolls over. Hearing anyone and everyone talk about their resolutions makes me want to permanently sterilize them. Why make a bunch of asinine promises to yourself that you aren't going to keep, and will barely remember when you sober up at 3 pm January 2nd?

I don't make resolutions. Resolutions are, on a deeper level, an acknowledgement of deep dissatisfaction with life and the way you live it. They're an admission of defeat. I'm perfectly satisfied with the course of my life and the actions I'm already taking to make it better. I don't need to make half-assed promises to myself to do better. I'm already on it.

So while you-all lick your balls and recover from your new year's hangovers, I'm kicking off tomorrow with another early-morning five-mile run. Seeya.

Sore as hell

2008-12-30T23:23:00.003-06:00

But not huffing and puffing

The holidays are almost over (thank God) and all the gluttony is over. I've been a silent fella for the last week, but there's been a method to the madness.

It was an active Christmas, more family at the table than there has been in five years. Considering that five years ago on Christmas Eve my father died, and consequently Christmas is a shitty time for the family, it was quite an accomplishment. At least there weren't as many leftovers to gorge on as usual.

In light of all the gluttony, my inter-semester and inter-job idleness, and the restlessness that always gets to me this time of year, I've begun a ruthless exercise program. I've been running and bicycling ridiculous mileages to keep the weight down (since I quit smoking it's been a royal pain in the ass.) It's also good prep for the marathon kayak paddle I'm still conspiring to commit. I just hope those who are in it with me are as into the preparation as I am, or I am going to be towing a lot of those sonsabitches home.

After a couple of months of this I will be more than capable of doing so. In the last three days I've biked 15 miles one day, biked 10 miles the next, and run five on the third. Great, considering I haven't set a foot to a pedal since September and haven't run since August, which was the first time I had run in three months back then.

There's been a lot of pent-up energy unexpended in me lately, and I'm still not out of the mental woods since the breakup. That's been driving me pretty hard lately. God knows why.

Either way, the end of the year is upon us, and I'm marking tomorrow and its plummeting temperatures (here) with a paddle trip over in Fairhope to watch the fireworks at the pier, like I did on July 4th a couple of years ago.

Gun Safety

2008-12-24T09:38:00.002-06:00

Plaxico Knows Best

I'm just trying to help the kids...

Still here

2008-12-24T09:14:00.004-06:00

I've been in and out of Mobile over the last two weeks. Got my grades for last semester, a nice 3.69 to get back into the swing of things. I also spent a few days out of town.

You get three guesses what I've been doing since, and the first two don't count:

This was out on Big Creek Lake with an acquaintance from Mississippi who had never been on this side of the state line in his boat yet. My next trip will likely be over on the Mississippi side.

I don't know what to call this one.

2008-12-10T17:33:00.002-06:00

You! Out of the gene pool! Now!

Courtesy of BBC:

"A drink-driver who killed a father and son in a motorway crash was performing a sex act on himself minutes before the collision, a court heard."

Yes, you read right. Imran Hussain was drunk, driving 120 mph, and rubbing one out when he hit another car, killing a father and son and seriously injuring the mother.

Once again we have a candidate for idiot of the year. It seems this guy had an argument with his wife and then went drinking. After threatening a convenience store clerk, he was out driving drunk and trying to dial up a hooker. When that didn't work, he whipped it out anyway. Behind the wheel, no less. Bystanders at the wreck said he was "standing at attention" as he clambered out of his car's wreckage and tried to run away.

I have one question: Why didn't the bystanders castrate the motherfucker on the spot?

Hussain was sentenced to two eight-year prison terms. The Beeb went one step further in reporting the sentence, giving us our Stupid Quote of the Day:

"Hussain, a car dealer and father-of-four, was also banned from driving for 15 years."

Hmm... Ya think?

Fowl River 9 DEC 08

2008-12-09T21:48:00.004-06:00

Icy Hot is my friend

I've been paddling these waters for over 2 years now, but haven't once tried out Fowl River. This is a unique little river. About a mile and a half inland it forks north and south. The southern branch, known as West Fowl River, runs nine miles south and west to empty into Mississippi Sound. The northern branch just trails off toward Tillman's Corner, but it's a nice run. In four hours today I covered 15 miles, still working up to the planned 27-miler. I feel great! Kicking up the paddle trips a notch, in addition to some minor dietary changes (practically eliminating caffeine and sugar) have me feeling great. Not to mention, finals are over, so I can take it easy for a short while.

Launch: Fowl River Marina
Route: Upriver past Bellingrath Gardens, then north to Fowl River Rd. bridge, and back.
Time: 4 hours, distance 15 miles.
Weather: Overcast and warm with intermittent heavy rain.

This is Fowl River, so here are some pictures of foul weather and waterfowl:

Whoppers? Who cares?

2008-12-09T09:41:00.003-06:00

"Whopper Virgins" for a reason

Burger King's "Whopper Virgins" ad campaign

America is obese enough already, and now BK is trying to peddle their awful shit to the rest of the world as an advertising gimmick. Come on! Hmong tribesmen and Romanian farmers don't need that shit.

And isn't there an overtone of condescension in the ads too? "Oh, you're just a backwater rube, try this because you've never had it this good."

Taste is one thing, but ingesting all that fat that normally isn't in their diets? Fuck. I'd rather sell them machine guns than the ability to turn themselves into Mississippi- and Alabama-style lardasses. I can't even stomach fast food anymore.

BK has been bad enough since they resurrected the Burger King and his creepy plastic pedo-smile. Now this?

This is a case of marketing run amok. Advertising has gone too far for years. If you had anything to do with this project and are reading this, go kill yourself. Now. Spare the world the trouble.

Timing is Everything, Part II

2008-12-05T18:11:00.006-06:00

Who the hell was in charge?

This second story has to be one of the most epic failures to observe basic firearms safety I have ever read, on so many levels:

Gun Club, Police Chief Indicted in Boy's Uzi Death

Read the article. I'll still be here.

Done? Okay, let's carry on.

What the fuck were they doing putting an automatic weapon in the hands of an eight-year-old boy? I've seen adults who can't handle submachine guns. One indoor range in this area actually rents automatic weapons for use on their 25-yard range. There are no experience requirements; any yahoo who's willing to fork over the money for the rental fee and is willing to pay for a few hundred rounds of ammo can take one on the range with minimal supervision. It always pisses me off to no end. There I am, firing slowly but steadily, always sure of my target, and some asshole saunters up to a firing point and goes rock and roll in a 25-yard long, 10-yard-wide indoor space. Recoil on these light weapons forces the muzzle up, then the shooters damage the target carriages and punch holes in the ceiling 3 yards from the firing points. I don't even know if the ceiling is armored in case these jagoffs miss so widely.

Maintaining control of a weapon in automatic fire means firing in short bursts of 4 to 6 rounds. Someone who's never handled one before will panic and keep the finger on the trigger, letting the gun run away until the magazine is empty, walking the rounds from the target up to the ceiling. In the case of this poor young kid, he lost total control and the muzzle ended up pointed at his head while he still had the trigger depressed.

From a supervisory standpoint, why were they allowing anyone under 21 to handle an automatic weapon? When the organizers decided to let a bunch of got-dam kids handle M60s and MG42s, why did they not consult Massachusetts law, which is pretty stringent about firearms in general? Where were the supposed safety observers and instructors? Why the hell was the kid entrusted to the supervision of a fifteen-year-old?

There's enough aversion to firearms here in the U.S. already. This does nothing but add to it. Teaching a child how to safely and responsibly handle guns is tough enough without taking them to a full-auto shootex. Shit, I never received anything beyond the four safety rules until I was 14 myself, and even then I only learned the rudiments of marksmanship with air rifles on my high school's JROTC rifle team. Learning with air rifles is a good start but no substitute for actual firearms. It wasn't until I was under the tutelage of the PMIs and Drill Instructors on Parris Island that I received the sort of in-depth instruction on safety and fireams handling that I needed.

When I have children, I'm not going to leave them in the same informational and safety void I was left in thanks to a gun-averse dad. It's not enough to tell children that guns are bad and to avoid them. They have to be taught to safely handle guns. The four cardinal safety rules, checking to ensure weapons are unloaded, knowing how to operate the safeties on any guns they may handle, and above all that they are not fucking toys. The carnival atmosphere at that Springfield shoot may have contributed to everyone's complacency. Now a young boy is dead because the adults around him wouldn't or couldn't act like adults.

Timing is everything

2008-12-05T17:42:00.005-06:00

Idiots with guns, and tragic consequences

Wow, did I time this right or what? No sooner do I start posting range reports than two cases of extreme stupidity while handling firearms come to light. I'll deal with the first one here; the other one will take up a follow-on post of its own.

This tale comes from the UK's Sun magazine. The headline shows the UK's sublime ignorance vis-a-vis firearms: We were having sex, it went off"

Story goes, some idiot in Dayton, Ohio was getting it on with his wife and tried to "pick up something from the bedside table." The Sun's account is pretty muddy. In one sentence the guy is picking up something from the nightstand. He instead gets the trigger of the pistol and somehow applies enough pressure to fire it. and later they have the idiot hubby's statement that "I picked it up and put it to the side. We were having sex and it went off." Long story short, Timothy Havens' wife is in the hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest.

Muddying the waters even further, the Dayton Daily News added a few details. Señor Havens was apparently under a protection order from his wife, and had recently spent two months in jail for violating the order and assaulting her a month after it was filed. He was under an additional court order to attend anger management classes. Havens is currently in jail pending charges for the protection order violation.

I smell a rat here. Something's not right. "It just went off?" Guns don't work that way, hoss. A round has to be in the chamber and the trigger has to be squeezed enough to fire that round. Even if the pistol fell to the floor, it would take more than the shock of the impact to set it off. Here's a guy who already shouldn't be packing heat. Protection orders are supposed to bar individuals from owning firearms. Just goes to show, as Lawdog has pointed out many times, pieces of paper make shitty armor. On the other hand, if it was Carolyn Havens' pistol, and a guy who had beaten her up and was under a court order to stay the hell away was in her house, why didn't she shoot him? Was this really a domestic assault/rape gone wrong?

Only she knows and apparently she's in no condition to tell her side of the story.

Range Days- 3 and 4 Dec.

2008-12-04T21:37:00.013-06:00

Blasting my way to the poorhouse

...Because .45 ACP isn't cheap. I haven't been to the range in a couple of months, so the last two days I have been playing a bit of catch-up and trying to improve my speed and accuracy a bit. Normally, I take my time between rounds, slowing down, setting the safety, taking a few breaths, realigning the sights and firming up the sight picture, and shooting again. The groupings are usually great this way, even out to 25 or more yards.

But 25-yard slow fire has no bearing on any shooting I may do if the fit hits the proverbial shan. There may be only seconds to get well-aimed rounds downrange. That's why I spent the last two days rehashing some rapid fire exercises I used to do on USMC pistol ranges. There was a lot of ammo involved. In fact, I negated my National Ammo Day (Nov. 19) ammunition purchases in a 200-round orgy of burning powder and recoil.

I had cause to jump for joy yesterday: For the first time in nearly four years, there's an outdoor rifle range within a half-hour drive of my house. This one just opened on Highway 98, about a mile over the Mississippi state line:

Happy Days Are Here Again

The three berms on the rifle line are set at 50, 100, and 250 yards. For these little excursions, here's the piece:

A Springfield Armory GI .45, bought in 2006 after I came back from Okinawa. I have put more than 1500 rounds through this pistol and can only remember 3 stoppages or misfeeds. This is a simple, no-frills, bare-bones weapon, perfect for me. Spare me the lights, laser sights, the bells and whistles. Except for some minor gunsmithing work (lighter trigger pull, tighter barrel bushing and better sights,) I am happy with it. How did we do?

Today I went to an indoor range ten minutes from my house. I set up shop and and fired 5 rounds of slow-fire at 10 yards to warm up: The two strays out of the x-ring were shots 3 and 4. God knows why. After I had warmed up a bit, I began some speed drills. Two Magazines, total of five rounds in 10 seconds, with a magazine change (3 rounds, mag change, 2 rounds). This made my shot groups a wee bit ragged,
but that's why I'm doing drills like this. I'm improving my firing speed; the more I practice the tighter the groups will become.

Here are a few more pictures. The first is a 3 round group I shot about 40 rounds into the 100 I shot today:
Note: When firing a GI .45 indoors on a dimly-lit range, you can't see the shitty mil-spec sights for anything. It's a great way to train for shooting in the dark and to learn to instinctively line up he weapon on target. For anything more precise than punching paper, though, it absolutely blows. All I want for Christmas is a set of Novak Sights. I also got a line on a receiver and Barrel from an M1 Garand. If I snap it up, I just need to scrounge parts and home-build myself a new M1 to replace the one I was stupid enough to sell years ago.

Still, it's been a great way to spend a pair of afternoons. Finals are here, and shooting is a perfect break from the monotony of studying. Especially since circumstances have kept me out of the kayak this week.

Big Creek Lake 25 Nov 08

2008-11-25T18:25:00.008-06:00

I haven't been to Big Creek Lake in 11 months, so today I cinched the kayak to the top of the truck and went down to the end of Howell's Ferry Road. When you're too cheap to invest in a rack for the top of your beater pickup, you have to be creative when you strap a kayak to the top of it. It took a few tries to come up with an arrangement that provided a secure tie-down without bending the hull of the boat or denting the roof. Resting the kayak on the aft edge of the truck's roofline bottom-up works. The foam block on the roof rests right over the watertight bulkhead behind the kayak's seat, so the keel won't be squashed by the tiedown straps. The forward bulkhead rests on a foam block on the truck's tailgate, and is held down by a strap hooked to the rear bumper. This provides a rock-solid tiedown with minimal strain that stays put even on the interstate at 80 mph.
Today's trip was a hard paddle to the north end of the lake. The last time I took this route was February 2007. Since the water levels are back up again, I was able to go all the way up past Highway 98 and then a further mile north into Big Creek itself, past a rail bridge that hasn't been accessible by water for several years. This is also the longest trip I've taken in months, clocking in at 12.3 miles. For the immediate future there's going to be a greater emphasis on distance in my paddle trips. There's a method to the madness, a 27-mile method: I'm conspring with my friend Dan to take a day and paddle a marathon distance. Conveniently, paddling the Tensaw River from the Lower Bryant Landing to the Mobile Bay Causeway covers 27 miles.

Hopefully we'll make this run in the late winter or early spring, but before I reach that point I need to engage in some more conditioning. I covered 12 miles today without much trouble, and I intend to add two miles to every successive paddle trip from here on out.

Picture roundup:

One-stop shopping?

2008-11-22T17:23:00.005-06:00

WTF?

Words fail me.

On the Go

2008-11-20T21:51:00.003-06:00

Notes from the week

I've been re-imposing some semblance of order on my life since I'm no longer moving. With finals rapidly approaching, I've been getting the ducks in a row for next term.

As of today I am officially a student of the College of Mechanical Engineering here at USA. With the exception of an economics course next semester, my core courses are complete. No more liberal arts classes to consume my time; from here on out it's all mathematics, physics, and the engineering curriculum. I'm essentially going to be living under a desk in the Engineering Lab building with the glow of a laptop monitor to keep me company. It's nice to have a sense of direction again, instead of facing a host of bloody unknowns.

The financial aid I pulled the plug on to go to UAB has been reinstated already. I never thought that the school bureaucracy would move that quickly, but even broken clocks are right twice a day. Once I have a class schedule rattled down I'm going to start work in a VA work-study program. The pay blows but I'll have time to finish all my studying, which is not a luxury I had deep in the bowels of retail hell this time a year ago. I'm pissed because I missed the Oct. 31 cutoff for a GS-5 slot with the Army Corps of Engineers, a job that would have paid me a semi-decent rate in addition to covering my tuition (instead of bowing and scraping for Pell Grants.)

Additionally, my barber is now fired. after asking for a high fade the other day, the cut got bollixed up to the point where I had her take it up to a high and tight. I haven't had a H&T in 9 years! Even in the Marine Corps I drank the medium-reg Kool-Aid years ago. I look like a fucking boot PFC now. Damnit.

Art History 102

2008-11-14T20:13:00.010-06:00

Step into my gallery

Somebody needs to take the CD-ROM out of my art history book cover before I do this again. I can't stop myself. Seriously.

Most people think that mind-altering drugs have only been available in the last few centuries. Wrong. As evidence, here's a scene from Botticelli; everyone appears to be having an awfully good time considering they're out in the sticks. Every last one of them is high:
Sandro Botticelli, Tripping Balls, c. 1482. Tempera on wood with oil glazes. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

They're not the only ones. Fur Traders on the Mississippi and Missouri needed a way to pass the long days on the river:George Caleb Bingham, We Are So Baked, 1845. Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Next up, did this guy take a spill or is it an attempt at "interspecies erotica" gone wrong? You decide.
Caravaggio, Bad Night in Tijuana, c. 1601. Oil on Canvas. Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

Far from being noble, loyal servants, General Officers' staffs in the British Army would steal anything not nailed down or closely watched:Benjamin West, Dibs on His Watch!, 1770. Oil on canvas, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Picture round-up

2008-11-14T18:19:00.006-06:00

Odds and Sods

Chickasaw Creek and Dauphin Island from trips over the summer and fall:

Chickasaw Creek 12 Nov 08

2008-11-13T16:54:00.005-06:00

Creek water for the soul

I normally prefer to kayak on gray, overcast days. The glare of sunlight reflecting off the water can give me headaches from squinting, even with sunglasses. In the summer I typically wait until late in the day to go out, as conditions cool and the sun sinks to the horizon.

Rain doesn't bother me much; I carry excellent rain gear on paddle trips, and wet weather imposes a stillness and silence on my surroundings that I find to be extremely soothing. Sometimes I just set my paddle down and float idly as the rain comes down, unwilling to disturb the rain-calmed water or interrupt the silence.

Wednesday afternoon was my first time out in a few weeks. The skies had threatened rain for most of the day, so I strapped the boat to the top of my truck and headed up to the creek, hoping to relax and enjoy a bit of light rain along the way. There are few better feelings to me than paddling on calm, still water on a fall afternoon. Whatever stressors are affecting me at the moment feel as though they're channeled down my arms to the paddle, grounded and dissipated in the water.

Rainfall was sporadic and light. At least it was light until I cinched down the last strap when I loaded up to go back home. The skies opened up right as it got dark. I like rain, but I wasn't in the mood for a downpour at dusk. Anyhow, not pictured are a few small pockets of light fog that formed at tight bends in the creek, where cool air settled and the light breeze couldn't reach. A beautiful, quiet afternoon out. All told I covered about five miles, paddling around aimlessly with no set mileage goal, just killing time.

Kayak Round-Up

2008-11-13T00:19:00.010-06:00

Down the Memory Card

Over the last several months, I've taken a handful of trips and not had the gumption to post pictures or summaries. With summer long gone, I think it's fitting to reminisce on some of the trips I took, and remember some scorching hot days on the water as I freeze my ass off now.

In August and September I took some time to paddle around Dauphin Island, specifically after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Gustav barely caused any local damage, save for accelerated erosion on Dauphin Island; it severed Sand Island from the mainland (for the first time in a year) and made it possible to pass from one side of the fishing pier to the other without a 7-mile circumnavigation of Sand Island. Ike was a different story.

Although Ike bored in on Galveston, its effects were felt all along the Gulf coast. Waves churned up by a storm 300 miles offshore still succeeded in washing out and closing the road to Dauphin Island for a day or two, and churned up massive amounts of sand. This effectively filled in the 6-foot-deep moat around Fort Gaines and undid years of beach restoration:

This picture was taken on a spot where 5 acres of sand eight feet above the high-tide mark once sat:

Also, I have finally taken some pictures of dolphins at the surface. For the last two years the little buggers have had a knack for submerging just as I set off the shutter on the camera:
Click on the picture to zoom in and look in the upper left corner.

Fin shot in the middle left. You didn't think the bastards were going to strike poses, did you?

Later I'll catch up on a bevy of trips I've taken to Chickasaw Creek. Since drought conditions here have effectively ended, the water levels there have risen to a point where I can paddle over logjams that stopped me short earlier, opening up miles of water previously inaccessible to me.

Update

2008-11-12T19:17:00.004-06:00

I am no longer engaged. No longer moving to Birmingham in a couple of months, either. I may still apply for admission to UAB and move up there on my own hook next fall, but for now there's no impetus to drag my ass upstate anymore. Better a two-month engagement than a two-month marriage, anyway.

That said, sympathy comments will be deleted. As will any invective against Stephanie. We have parted on good terms; we simply faced some insurmountable issues with incompatibility.

Sympathy rests neatly between Shit and Syphilis in Merriam-Webster's, and I have no interest in it. I am moving forward with my life and getting back down to brass tacks here. Time to salvage a 4.0 semester if I can. To say nothing of catching up on the ol' blog and resuming my infamous relationship with the kayak and the local waters.

Pictures and a brief rundown coming up.

Happy Birthday, Marines

2008-11-10T14:48:00.006-06:00

Hale and Hearty at 233

Every year on November 10, current and former Marines gather and celebrate the Corps. Among the customs are the reading of messages posted by the current Commandant each year, and General John A. Lejeune's 1921 birthday message. Take it away, General Lejeune:

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of the Continental Congress. Since that date, many thousand men have borne the name Marine. In memory of them, it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the Birthday of our Corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

The record of our Corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of it's existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the nations foes. From the battle of Trenton to the Argonne. Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home. Generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our Corps Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term Marine has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the Corps. With it we also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our Corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.

This year the address was given by General James T. Conway, 34th Commandant of the Marine Corps. My apologies for the block caps; I pulled this off the CMC website, ALMAR 042/08:

DURING THE SUMMER OF 1982, IN THE WAKE OF A PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE, MARINES WENT ASHORE AT BEIRUT, LEBANON. FIFTEEN MONTHS LATER, ON 23 OCTOBER 1983, EXTREMISTS STRUCK THE FIRST MAJOR BLOW AGAINST AMERICAN FORCES - STARTING THIS LONG WAR ON TERRORISM. ON THAT SUNDAY MORNING, A SUICIDE BOMBER DROVE AN EXPLOSIVE-LADEN TRUCK INTO THE HEADQUARTERS OF BATTALION LANDING TEAM 1/8, DESTROYING THE BUILDING AND KILLING 241 MARINES AND CORPSMEN.

EXTREMISTS HAVE ATTACKED OUR NATION, AT HOME AND ABROAD,
NUMEROUS TIMES SINCE THAT FATEFUL DAY IN BEIRUT. THEIR AIM HAS
ALWAYS BEEN THE SAME - TO KILL AS MANY INNOCENT AMERICANS AS
POSSIBLE. THE ATTACKS OF 11 SEPTEMBER 2001 CHANGED OUR NATION
FOREVER, AND OUR PRESIDENT HAS RESOLVED THAT THIS NATION WILL NOT
STAND IDLE WHILE MURDEROUS TERRORISTS PLOT THEIR NEXT STRIKE.
MARINES WILL CONTINUE TO TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE ENEMY - HITTING THEM
ON THEIR OWN TURF, CRUSHING THEM WHEN THEY SHOW THEMSELVES, AND
FINDING THEM WHERE THEY HIDE.

ONLY A FEW AMERICANS CHOOSE THE DANGEROUS, BUT NECESSARY, WORK
OF FIGHTING OUR NATION'S ENEMIES. WHEN OUR CHAPTER OF HISTORY IS
WRITTEN, IT WILL BE A SAGA OF A SELFLESS GENERATION OF MARINES WHO
WERE WILLING TO STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR OUR NATION; TO DEFEND THOSE
WHO COULD NOT DEFEND THEMSELVES; TO THRIVE ON THE HARDSHIP AND
SACRIFICE EXPECTED OF AN ELITE WARRIOR CLASS; TO MARCH TO THE SOUND
OF THE GUNS; AND TO ABLY SHOULDER THE LEGACY OF THOSE MARINES WHO
HAVE GONE BEFORE.

ON OUR 233RD BIRTHDAY, FIRST REMEMBER THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED AND
THOSE "ANGELS" WHO HAVE FALLEN - OUR REPUTATION WAS BUILT ON THEIR
SACRIFICES. REMEMBER OUR FAMILIES; THEY ARE THE UNSUNG HEROES WHOSE
SUPPORT AND DEDICATION ALLOW US TO ANSWER OUR NATION'S CALL.
FINALLY, TO ALL MARINES AND SAILORS, KNOW THAT I AM PROUD OF YOU AND
WHAT YOU DO. YOUR SUCCESSES ON THE BATTLEFIELD HAVE ONLY ADDED TO
OUR ILLUSTRIOUS HISTORY. GENERAL VICTOR H. "BRUTE" KRULAK SAID IT
BEST WHEN HE WROTE, "... THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT NEED A MARINE
CORPS ... THE UNITED STATES WANTS A MARINE CORPS." YOUR ACTIONS, IN
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN, AND ACROSS THE GLOBE, ARE AT THE CORE OF WHY
AMERICA LOVES HER MARINES.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARINES AND SEMPER FIDELIS!

JAMES T. CONWAY,

GENERAL, U.S. MARINE CORPS,

COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

Happy Birthday, my brothers.

233 Reasons to Love the Corps (slightly revised from the Marine Corps Times edition:

1. Cpl. Jason Dunham. First Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since Vietnam. If jumping on a grenade to save a buddy isn’t worth the top of the list, nothing is.

2. Civilians have to find time to go to the gym. Marines get paid to go.

3. The National Museum of the Marine Corps. It’s like a Smithsonian of Leatherneck.

4. There’s no such thing as an “ex” Marine. (Except Jack Murtha, D-PA -R.)
5. Re-enlistment rates are higher IN the war zone.

6. Stink-proof socks. Well, almost. Systems Command is working on them.

7. Jalapeño cheese.

8. “Every Marine Into the Fight.”

9. Lump-sum re-enlistment bonuses up to $80,000. Many of you would consider doing it for free.

10. New uniforms #1. Pixel-pattern cammies? Yeah, the Corps came up with that.

11. “Doc.”

12. Flexed arm hang is harder than it looks. I tried it.

13. Barracks parties on non-payday weekends.

14. Marine Gunners.

15. The Wounded Warrior Regiment.

16. MarAdmin 266/07: Letting 18-year-old Marines drink on base at the Birthday Ball…

17. No receipt necessary for travel claim expenses less than $75.

18. The Lance Corporal underground.

19. Fallujah II.

21. Archibald Henderson’s couch, re-upholstered, is still in the Commandant’s living room.

22. “No better friend, no worse enemy.”

23. Typhoons approaching Okinawa often spark islandwide beer runs.

24. Waivers.

25. Gen. James Jones, who followed his tour as Commandant with appointment as “supreme intergalactic overlord” (OK, it was Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, but close).

26. 10 rounds from the 500-yard line, 50 points.

27. Per diem.

28. To civilians, every Marine is recon.

29. Recruiting in Texas is like hunting at the zoo.

30. The “boat cloak.” Because every super hero needs a cape.

31. Bags of shoreline, boxes of grid squares, ceiling buffers, and asbestos suits for the battalion flame thrower operator. Ya gotta love “boots”.

32. The wallet in your sock.

33. Motivating television commercials.

34. The “horseshoe” haircut, gone but not forgotten.

35. Major Gene Duncan and Capt. Tom Moore and their collections of Sea Stories.

36. Running cadences that mention napalm and Eskimos no-no parts.

37. Stories that begin with, “So there I was …” and “Now this ain’t no shit…”

38. Modified parade rest.

39. The transformation. Who you are when you join is not nearly as important as who you become.

40. Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis getting a fourth star.

41. If you’ve been on liberty in Twentynine Palms, you’ve been on liberty in Yuma and Barstow, too.

42. Grooming standards. Not only can you not act like a thug, you cannot look like a thug.

43. It’s not the Army.

44. Women in Manhattan have all seen the Fleet Week episode of “Sex and the City.”

45. Combat shotguns.

46. Combat Action Ribbons. IEDs count now, and should have counted all along. Duh.

47. The occasional free beer. Wear your blues into a bar and see what happens.

48. Sand fleas, the DI’s discipline bugs.

49. The Corps’ doesn’t call its officers, commissioned or not, “petty.”

50. Cpl. Gareth Hawkins, lying on a stretcher after an IED shattered his leg, demanded re-enlistment before medical evacuation. And got it.

51. Whereas Army, Navy and Air Force jokes are funny, Marine jokes are potentially dangerous.

52. The occasional friendly debate. Refer to a Marine staff NCO simply as “Sergeant,” and see what happens.

53. That troublesome “10 percent,” making good Marines look great since 1775.

54. Everyone at a high school reunion is obliged to justify his last 10 years, except the guy wearing alphas.

55. As if ranks that include the words “Master” and “Gunnery” aren’t intimidating enough on their own, the Corps uses them both. At once.

56. Soldiers have Hooah Bars. Marines have Ka-Bars. The second will generally get you the first.

57. The dress code. You can wear your cammies to meet the Commandant or repair a tank.

58. From “Aliens” to “Doom,” the future vision of warfare almost always includes Space Marines.

59. The Corps was formed in a bar.

60. Marines predicted the WWII campaigns in the Pacific years earlier and prepared for the inevitable. So when a Marine says, “Hey, I’ve been thinking…” perhaps you should take notes.

61. Give a Marine some free time, and he’ll rip down your dictator’s statue.

62. If it ain’t raining, we ain’t training.

64. Duty station garden spots: Jacksonville, N.C.; Yuma, Ariz.; Bridgeport, Calif.; Twentynine Palms, Calif., Diego Garcia. (Yes, we’re kidding.)

65. Making morning PT on time. And the bastard in front of you whose sweat smells like tequila. Or is that your sweat? Either way you’ll make the run.

66. Recruiters who promise everything EXCEPT a rose garden.

67. Mustangs #1. It’s easier to take crap from a CO who went to boot camp.

69. Gen. Peter Pace, the first Marine Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He left his four-star insignia with his fallen comrades at the Vietnam Wall when he retired. Classy move.

70. The people zapper. Using microwave energy to disperse a crowd sounds like fun. Semper fry, Gunny.

71. Nothing says “Good morning” like a mouthful of Copenhagen and freeze-dried coffee.

72. Nothing says “I love you” like a welcome home sheet hanging on a chain-link fence.

73. Bill Barnes. In June 2007, the former Marine beat the crap out of a 27-year-old pickpocket who tried to make off with his dough. Oh yeah, he’s 72.

74. The Seabag Drag.

75. EOD. If you don’t know why this is on the list , defuse the next IED yourself.

76. Tax-free combat pay. Doing what you signed up for and not having to give Uncle Sam a dime back.

77. Making it to the top of Mount Motherfucker.

78. Front toward enemy. It’s not just a visual reference on a Claymore mine, it’s a Marine Corps way of life.

79. Mustangs #2. You know at least three Marines who drive them. It’s like a Ford dealership exploded on base.

80. Fred Smith, founder of FedEx. Only a former Marine could truly appreciate the value of getting your mail on time.

81. Alternate Fighting Position. Army definition; a position to fall back to when faced with an overwhelming enemy attack. Marine definition; the rear wall of your fighting hole.

82. Spit shining boots. OK, so that’s Old Corps I know, but damn, nothing says “Marine” like a pair of black cadillacs you can stare up a skirt with.

83. “Did you go to boot camp or San Diego?”

84. The Crucible.

85. 1/9, 2/9 and 3/9. Welcome back, fellas.

86. Old Salts.

88. The Old Corps, when the ships were made of wood and the men were made of steel. Coincidently it ended the day before your boot ass first stepped off the bus and onto the grinder.

89. MRAPs. Trucks straight out of Mad Max. We still love a good Humvee, but we loved jeeps, too. Things change.

90. Arty guys who do civil affairs. They blow it up, then they fix it. Circle of life.

91. Service Charlies. They look so good, the Navy’s copying ’em.

92. Fake Marines. No one eats ’em up faster than real Marines.

93. John Lovell. A 71-year-old former Marine is sitting in a Subway restaurant when two armed men try to rob the place. Lovell grabs his .45, kills one and wounds the other. No word on how Lovell’s sandwich fared.

94. 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. Six Navy Crosses so far. Six.

95. Staff Sgt. Lawrence Dean II, aka the “BadAss Marine.” He recites a poem. He gets uploaded to YouTube. Thousands get motivated.

96. Gen. James Conway takes over as the new commandant . Among his demands: a new PT uniform, new tattoo regs, a plan to add dress blues to the seabag, a change-up in medals and 22,000 more Marines. Someone’s been thinking about taking over for a while, huh?

97. The Marlboro Marine.

98. Former active duty Marines Being allowed to wear the uniform one more time at the Birthday Ball.

99. The Stumps. The Rock. The Sandbox. Oh, the places you’ll serve.

101. Tattoos #2. Getting a fallen friend’s name tattooed on your other forearm, and knowing the same will be done for you.

102. Mess Nights.

103. Marine Expeditionary Units: MedFloats ad WESTPAC’s. The cheapest cruises you’ll ever take.

104. Camp Lejeune: The closest interstate and the nearest good shopping mall are both at least an hour away. But the Driftwood Lounge is within crawling distance from the main gate.

105. Camp Pendleton: There are roads and malls, but try affording a house near the main gate.

106. Tattoos #3. Meat tags. Getting your blood type and other info inked on your ribcage isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

107. Brown baggers.

109. 30 days’ paid vacation, plus federal holidays off, is obscene by civilian standards.

110. Maj. Gen. Marion E. Carl, the Corps’ first fighter ace. First Marine to fly a helicopter. Two Navy Crosses, five Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Air Medals. In 1998, the 82-year-old was killed during a home break-in when he jumped in front of a shotgun blast aimed at his longtime wife, Edna.

111. Marine weddings and the brides “welcome” to the Corps, courtesy of a Marine saber across her ass.

113. Guaranteed pay raises.

114. Marine Security Guard #1. Duty in the Bahamas.

115. Having a WWII Marine say he’s proud of you.

116. Drew Carey used to be in the Marine Corps Reserve. Now, he’s the host of “The Price is Right.”

117. Combatant diver pins. No more of that Navy crap.

118. A Red Stripe is a beer, mon. A Blood Stripe is a symbol of pride.

119. “Most people go through their whole lives wondering if they made a difference. Marines don’t have that problem.” - Ronald Reagan.

120. You watched “300,” and it reminded you of your unit.

121. The “Det One” .45 pistol. Designed by Marines, for Marines.

122. Combat marksmanship. You are creeping death. And you get graded on it.

123. Never lost six nukes on a plane.

124. CamelBaks. Water tastes like water again.

125. Grudge fucks. If you don’t know, don’t ask, trust me.

126. Go to YouTube. Type in “bored Marines.” Enjoy.

127. When the President gets on a helicopter, it’s not called “Army One.”

128. The opposite of the Peace Corps.

129. Camouflage. You can camouflage anything and make it cool.

130. No Fear #1. Marines aren’t scared of anything. Except gunny’s.

131. Combat optics on M16s. Leave the iron sights, just in case.

132. “Combat loss” amnesty for missing gear. It’s like pleading the fifth.

133. Riding a chartered Continental Airlines flight home from the war zone with assault weapons stuffed in all the overhead compartments.

134. In combat, the division band becomes a heavy-machine-gun platoon.

135. What do headaches, broken bones, infectious diseases, missing limbs and hurt feelings all have in common? Motrin. Thanks, Doc.

137. Global instability equals job security.

138. “The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!” - Eleanor Roosevelt. And she didn’t like us much either.

139. Bayonets. Marines are still issued them. And they still use them.

140. Gunnery Sergeants. Don’t know the answer? Ask the gunny. Need something? Ask the gunny. In trouble? Avoid the gunny.

141. Because Gunny said so.

142. The line to get “tazed” at a military gear expo. Marines will do anything for a free T-shirt.

143. Deployment reunions. Like reliving your wedding night. Sweet!

144. Gig lines. Even in khakis and a polo shirt.

145. Eight-point covers. Even the uniform stands at attention.

146. Marine Security Guards #2. They’re not cute and cuddly, but when they greet you at the hatch, it’s like getting a great big hug from the United States of America, no matter where you are.

147. The Mameluke sword. Distinctive.

148. The NCO sword. Earned, never given.

149. The World Famous Mud Run. Thousands of people pay good money to run through 10 clicks of muck every year at Camp Pendleton.

150. John Philip Sousa. A Marine, the nation’s March King and composer of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Ooh-rah.

151. MRE crackers. Hard as Milk Bones but much tastier. You can almost feel your teeth getting cleaner as you eat ’em. And they have 140 holes in them. Don’t ask me why I know, just don’t.

152. Jane Wayne Day. She’ll never ask about work again.

153. Shirt stays. Or garters. Whatever you call them, they’re a triple whammy, keeping your shirt tucked, your socks up and removing all that unwanted leg hair.

154. The slogans: “The Few, The Proud, The Marines.” “We’re Looking For a Few Good Men,” “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” “Tell that to the Marines.” If they could only purchase the rights to Hallmark’s “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best.”

155. Bulkheads. Those lovely vertical structures that keep you from meeting the deck when you are “counseled” by the gunny.

157. Real duty station garden spots you can go an entire career without being assigned to: Southern California; Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii ; Okinawa, Japan.

158. Rear-party Marines. God bless them. Whatever reason they stay behind; injury, impending retirement or being volun-told, they are indispensable. They deserve medals for what they have to deal with while a unit is deployed.

159. While field-grade officers are at the company office, company-grade officers are in the field.

160. Colonels who can take a joke.

161. Free flu shots. And smallpox shots and anthrax shots …

162. Former Sgt. Chris Everhart. While camping with his three sons in June 2007, a bear snatched their cooler and made a play for his 6-year-old. Everhart threw an 18-inch log at the bear’s head, cracking its skull before it could attack and killing it instantly. Then, the park ranger gave him a ticket for leaving the cooler where the bear could get it.

163. Standards. The Corps doesn’t lower the bar when recruiting gets tough.

164. Jim Nabors. “Gomer Pyle” becomes an honorary Marine in 2001 and makes Lance Corporal. It takes him six years to pin on corporal. Talk about art imitating life.

165. Vincent D’Onofrio. The other “Private Pyle” is doing pretty well on “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.” He’s still weird, though.

166. If you ambush Capt. Brian Chontosh’s boys, he’s going to take off his Navy Cross and kill you with it. Then, he’s going to pick up your rifle and kill your buddies. Then, he’s going to pick up your buddy’s rifle and kill your buddy’s buddies. Then, he’s going to pick up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher …

167. Speaking of the Navy Cross, a combat award second only to the Medal of Honor, as of November 10th 2007, Marines have earned 15 in Iraq, plus one in Afghanistan. Of the six awarded to sailors for those combat zones, five went to SEALs, and one went to a corpsman who exposed himself repeatedly to enemy fire to evacuate and treat wounded Marines. Along with Chontosh, the other recipients include:

168. Gunnery Sgt. Justin D. Lehew.

169. Lance Cpl. Joseph B. Perez.

170. Sgt. Scott C. Montoya.

171. Cpl. Marco A. Martinez.

172. Sgt. Willie L. Copeland.

173. Capt. Brent Morel (posthumous).

174. Sgt. Anthony L. Viggiani.

175. 1st Sgt. Bradley A. Kasal.

176. Cpl. Robert J. Mitchell.

177. Cpl. Dominic Esquibel.

178. Sgt. Jarrett A. Kraft.

179. Cpl. Jeremiah W. Workman.

180. Cpl. Todd Corbin.

181. Sgt. Aubrey L. McDade Jr.

182. Pfc. Christopher Adlesperger (posthumous).

183. Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Louis E. Fonseca.

184. Iwo Jima. Japan might have changed the name to Iwo To, but that doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge it.

185. Col. John Ripley. Received the Navy Cross for the destruction of the Dong Ha bridge in Vietnam. The Corps takes care of its own. In 2002, with Ripley near death, doctors finally found a donated liver for his much-needed transplant. So the Marine Corps sent helicopters and Marines to Philadelphia to retrieve it, and they personally rushed it back to Washington in time to save his life.

186. The amnesty box.

188. Gatorade bottle spit cups wrapped in green, 100 mph tape so as not to offend the sailors in the room.

189. Camaraderie. Marines will hook you up with their sisters, then punch you in the mouth for doing what they knew would happen the whole time.

190. Ingenuity. MRE bombs, 101 uses for cleaning rods and iPods wired into field radio speakers.

191. Getting off the ship.

192. Getting back on the ship.

193. No beach? No problem. Marines inserted 400 miles into landlocked Afghanistan and created Camp Rhino using CH-53 Sea Stallions. Imagine what you can invade with the Osprey.

194. Cases and cases of bottled water mean never having to stand behind a water bull.

195. Race as a non issue. The Corps has only one color: green.

196. Every day in the Corps is another reason to celebrate. That’s why they call them working “parties.”

197. Riddick Bowe had what it took to be boxing’s undisputed heavyweight champ. He did not have what it took to be a Marine. (I joined a few months after Bowe ran screaming and crying home like a little bitch. The drill instructors never tired of telling that little tale. -R)

198. The U.S. Army Band is called “Pershing’s Own.” The U.S. Marine Corps Band is called “The President’s Own.”

199. “8th and I.” Ten bucks says you have no idea where the Army chief of staff lives. Commandants don’t hide.

200. MRE “rat boxes.” How grunts trick-or-treat.

201. The poncho liner. It’s a blanket, it’s a tent, it’s a keeper.

202. Combat fit-reps. People say they’re equal to regular fit-reps. People lie.

203. The “E-tool lean.” Sailors don’t know how good they have it.

204. Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno, Medal of Honor recipient. If Marines have a hot line to heaven, Father Capodanno — aka the Grunt Padre — would take the call. His body peppered by shrapnel, his right hand nearly severed, the Navy chaplain and priest crisscrossed a Vietnam battlefield Sept. 4, 1967, to render last rites to his fallen Marines and corpsmen with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, until 27 rounds from an enemy machine gun took his life. Last year, the Vatican declared him a “servant of God.” Next step, sainthood?

206. Amphibious warfare means always being near the beach.

207. No Fear #2. Talk about the AV-8B Harrier’s troubled past all you like, but brave jump jet pilots are flying missions in Iraq.

208. Marine Corps marksmanship. At 200 yards we’re just getting started.

209. Marine air-ground task force. Nothing like controlling the air and the ground.

210. Slapping an Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the back of your car and knowing it’ll get you out of at least one speeding ticket.

211. The Navy wants to put Marines back on warships. It seems that Tomahawk cruise missiles can’t do everything.

212. Liberty in Thailand.

213. Liberty in Australia.

214. Liberty, well, anywhere.

215. The Navy’s mascot is a goat. The Corps’ mascot is a bulldog. You don’t need Michael Vick to tell you who wins that fight. And our mascots have real ranks and service jackets, and colorful names like “Chesty”, “Hummer”, “Klinker”, and “Baron”. Oh, and “Bitch”. She kept getting Article 13′d for biting squids.

216. If you need another occupying land force, you can use the Marine Corps. If you need another rapidly deployable, sea-based, front-door-kicking, air-ground team, you can’t use the Army.

217. Drill Instructors, Drill Instructors, Drill Instructors, and Drill Instructors. And the fucking yellow foot prints.

218. “It’s fun to shoot some people,” said Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis. He says what he thinks.

219. The Beirut Memorial Wall. If you ever forget what you’re fighting for, pay a visit.

221. “Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinburg?

I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.” Jack Nicholson, “A Few Good Men.”

222. Every Marine a Rifleman.

223. Sgt. Rafael Peralta. Like Dunham, he hugged a grenade to save his buddies in Iraq. Navy Cross.

224. Hearing an accidental discharge into the clearing barrel, then waiting for the Lieutenant to walk inside.

225. Call signs like “Spider” and “Assassin,” and these guys were Generals.

227. Buttered noodles for breakfast.

228. “Every Marine should look like a Marine. But a Marine looks like a Marine when he’s got a bayonet stuck in the enemy’s chest.” Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant Commandant.

229. “Infantry” is the easiest job for recruiters to sell.

230. Being the youngest Marine at the ball.

231. Being the oldest Marine at the ball.

232. Chesty Puller. When showed a flame thrower for the first time he asked “Where do you put the bayonet on that sunuvabitch!”. We miss you Chesty.

233. The title United States Marine. It can not be inherited nor can it ever be purchased. Neither you nor anyone alive can buy it for any price. It is impossible to rent and it can not be lent. You alone and our own have earned it with your sweat, blood, and lives.

You own it forever.

Art History 101

2008-10-20T20:30:00.018-06:00

This is why I'll never be tenured

One of my first courses in school was an art history overview. I don't think well enough should be left alone, and I've had a few beers, so enjoy!

Domenico Ghirlandaio, "What's that on your nose, Grampa?" "Don't laugh you little bastard, you're next!", c.1480. Tempera and oil on wood ,The Louvre, Paris.

Here's a scene from Genesis, the expulsion from paradise:

Masaccio, GET THE FUCK OUT!, c. 1427, Fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.

While I'm at it, why not tackle the death of Socrates?

Jacques-Louis David, Goddammit I said shaken, not stirred! Can any of you morons do anything right? 1787, Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Or how about those horndog Arcadian shepherds?

Nicolas Poussin, For a good time, call... Hey, isn't that your number? c.1660. Oil on canvas, The Louvre, Paris.

I hope you've all enjoyed this tour of my twisted little art gallery. There's more to come.

Procrastination: The thief of time

2008-10-10T18:03:00.005-06:00

Hard work pays off after time, but laziness pays off now.

Of course, times have been anything but lazy since you all last heard from me, oh, three months ago. Things have been hectic and blogging has been a low priority. From the top down:

I am now engaged: Stephanie, God knows, why, said yes, and we will likely be getting married next spring or summer, whenever we finish the school year. This means I am going to be moving north and living in Birmingham, taking classes at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Stephanie is getting back into the classroom after a two-year hiatus and will be in a nursing program. We are going to be extremely busy.

Birmingham means I am leaving my well-beloved Gulf Coast (the waters anyway. I despise Mobile and everyone in it.) As a consolation, I will be taming the whitewater and rapids of the state's northern rivers. If I can handle sea kayaking, a little Class III action should be a piece of cake.

Since we will be living on or near some of Stephanie's family's property, she's going to be putting my butt on a horse a bit more often. What does Sheebah think?

Are you fucking kidding me? Fatass.

School has gone well; now that I'm no longer rotting in retail hell, I don't have to study until 2 am anymore and am doing incredibly well. I don't even have to hit the sauce to tolerate calculus anymore. Might even scrape an A. Hopefully I can build my GPA back up from last fall's debacle so that I have a good strong showing to take to the College of Engineering at UAB next spring. I'm going to be moving north right after fall finals, so I'll have just a couple of weeks to get settled in before starting classes again.

Money (or at least the terminal shortage of it) has put a stop to my ambitions with the Toronado again. Going to tow the fucker north and carry on when I can. Hopefully one of my in-laws to be can grant me a bit of garage space to press on.

Let's see how things shake loose. Nice to see y'all again.

R.

What I've been up to

2008-07-10T14:45:00.004-06:00

If I have any readers left

The last two months have been busy. I quit a job I loathed. Correction: I quit a job I liked because the customers were pieces of shit.

After two years of school, I finally hammered out enough student aid to cover the next academic year and not have to work; in fact, I'll be making more money going to school full-time than I did working 40 hours a week. Fucking south Alabama wages.

Been kayaking more often of late. After stopping smoking for good several months back I gained 20 pounds and am struggling to burn them back off.

I also scrounged the money to continue working on the Toronado. Last night I finished stripping the block down, got the pistons out, uncapped the main bearings, and removed the crankshaft. All that's left is a bare block, ready for the machine shop:

More to follow. I'm currently breaking down the cylinder heads. Look up my Jag head rebuild in last July's archives to see what that entails.

Sanity check

2008-05-04T11:10:00.012-06:00

Camping costs less than meds

Last weekend I intimidated convinced the boss to allow me a few days off, loaded up the truck and the Significant Other, and headed off to St. Stephens for the first time in a year and a half. This was a weekend for kayaking, hiking, bleeding off months of work-imposed stress, and a chance to scope out riding trails for Stephanie and her horse.

A brief aside: I've bitten off a little more than I can chew with this girl. An accomplished rider who has been on horseback since she was five, a scotch connoisseur, and a fellow blues lover, Stephanie has successfully kept me in check and relatively sane for the last couple of months.

Stephanie and her mare Sheebah:

Once we got our days off, we loaded up my piece-of-shit truck and pointed it north. It was a beautiful day for the drive up:

This being LA (Lower Alabama), back roads mean passing a large number of abandoned, swaybacked houses that landowners are too lazy to bulldoze. Fertile ground for meth labs and all other sorts of inbred hill-scoggin stupidity.

I fell in love with St. Stephens in winter. In spring it gets better, but the mosquitoes and ticks are beginning to reappear.

This was a decent kayaking trip. The lake up there only covers 100 acres, but you can paddle laps in it and get an excellent workout. Stephanie, in spite of her claustrophobia, took to it really well:

The third day out there dawned cool with a thick fog. It was 5:30 AM but I was up in an instant, eager to head down to the water and get the kayak in. This is how you start a morning:

As the fog burned off severe weather threatened, so we packed it in and headed back, regretting every mile back on the odometer.

Dog River, 8 APR 08

2008-04-10T15:12:00.008-06:00

Bataan Death Paddle

I haven't been out on Dog River since December 2006, when I only went five miles downriver, wimped out, and paddled back. This time I was determined to paddle its entire length from its headwater near Navco Road to Mobile Bay and back. 15 miles in four hours, give or take:

Since I haven't been out in a couple of months, this was especially grueling. Something's wrong with my right shoulder, which continually reminded me that it was pissed off from about mile 6 onward. Still, not a bad way to spend my first off-day in a couple of weeks!

Approaching the yacht club and bridge:

There was a small craft advisory out in the bay, just a bit of a swell running. Got hairy for a few minutes while I went out a short distance past the bridge:

Taken as I turned about and put the bridge in my wake:

Pelican on the wing:

Exhausting. Grueling. I wouldn't change a thing.

Country boys can survive...

2008-04-05T16:36:00.002-06:00

City boys, not so much...

Jersey boy on trip to Colorado resort wanders drunkenly into a blizzard. Goes missing for two months. Is found frozen solid not half a mile from the bar he wandered out of.

Dipshit.

"What the F*** is This?"

2008-03-17T22:27:00.003-06:00

Bored Marines

One of the reasons I miss Mother Green. Pranks like this one. This poor Sergeant's barrack-mates went and stitched new name-tapes on his uniform, Turning poor Sgt. Seibert into Sgt. "Princess". Hidden camera hilarity ensues.

Shocka

2008-03-04T20:24:00.001-06:00

97%ALCOHOLIC

Engine Out

2008-03-02T14:37:00.007-06:00

Now I can accomplish something. After three years of delays (lack of funding, deployments, and plain ol' procrastination) I'm making genuine progress getting the Lead Sled back up and running.

Manifolds and heads off! The bottom end is good and firm, no runout to speak of; I won't have to re-grind the crank, just need to put in fresh bearings. The pistons and cylinder bores are another story.

#7 piston had a nice chunk burned out of its edge, down to the ring lands; it must have just burned away, because there's no scoring or cracking in the cylinder itself:

#8, I have no clue what happened. These deposits also left enough rust pitting on the cylinder wall that I'll probably have to bore it .010 over just to reach smooth metal:
Everything's garaged for the week, until I consult with a machine shop and hammer out a price for all the work that needs doing.

Toronado work progresses

2008-02-29T20:36:00.007-06:00

I'm off!

So it begins. I finally got a hoist and an engine stand, so today I'm making the final preparations to pull the engine out. Disconnecting and clearing electrics, draining the engine, removing the starter, and scratching my head trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to unbolt the torque converter when there's no access cover. Guess they expect me to fit a wrench (and turn it) through the 2" diameter inspection hole.

Beyond that, I'm pretty happy to finally make real progress. Seeing this magnificent car sit in the driveway and rot has been pretty depressing.

Gory automotive dismemberment pictures to follow!

In happier days:

UPDATE: More progress today. Converter's unbolted, so's the forward engine mount. Unfortunately, the guys who were supposed to help me run the hoist today weaseled out, so I have to content myself with what few final preparations I made today.

Four bellhousing bolts and four hood hinge bolts from now I'm going to have this bastard out. The drivetrain won't be supported without the engine in, so I had to rig a cargo strap to hold the transmission, differential, and CV shafts up now that the bottom half is unbolted.

Witness Marks

2008-02-18T08:21:00.005-06:00

Clock Stopped

When this old Phillips 66 station went tits-up some years back, gas was only $1.13/gallon. The sign and a muddy lot are all that's left. The price sign frozen somewhere in 2000 reminds me of aircraft instruments that freeze up on impact, giving mishap investigators clues to the cause of a crash (thus, "witness marks".)

Daily Stupid

2008-02-17T13:36:00.005-06:00

Monster Garage meets Hee Haw
Saw this on the road the other day. I have a feeling that Meth and Jack Daniels had a lot to do with this project:

A big, mud-stomping truck is trashy enough. But putting an old Lumina van body on top of it? That is a whole 'nuther breed of stupid.

Life In the Deep South

2008-02-03T23:52:00.000-06:00

There's a Retard Born Every Minute

On the way back from a kayak trip today, I chanced on some hunters on their way home in traffic with a blind on a trailer.

Never, in my entire life, have I seen anyone take a goddamn fucking port-a-john, paint it camo, sawz-all loopholes in three sides, and mount it on a cart with ATV wheels to trailer it into the field. This defied comprehension. This was "mama is your aunt too" redneckery at its worst. Hard proof that meth does not smoke itself.

If I had pictures of this travesty I would post them. As it was, getting to my camera in my gear bag(conveniently stashed in the truck bed) would have meant a stop. From now on, my camera rides shotgun. This was unreal. But not unexpected.

Toronado rebuild begins

2008-01-30T17:23:00.001-06:00

Project Car Hell

After a year and a half of procrastination, I've begun work on the Toronado. I'm clearing out the engine compartment to hoist the mill out right now, so I can get it out to a machine shop and have everything re-done. This is going to be a full refit for the engine; the only original parts that will remain will be the block, heads, cam, crank, and manifolds. Everything else will be brand-spanking new.

One more day of work and I'll be ready for an engine hoist. Today I cleared off the carb and intake, removed all the accessories (except for the compressor) from the front of the engine, and pulled the radiator and fan shroud. The first step in the Great Engine Bay Gutting of 2008 has been taken.

Three guesses

2008-01-18T20:49:00.000-06:00

If you can't figure out what I was up to today,

"Obviously, you're not a golfer."

Nothing to pass. Watch this, though.

2008-01-16T20:59:00.001-06:00

Picture roundup

2008-01-07T14:01:00.000-06:00

never-before-seen footage

On some trips, I've been a bit too lazy to post anything at all. Here are some shots from the last six months that didn't make the front page:

Warm Water. Cold Beer. Some Assembly Required. In moderation, of course.

Blundering around the delta at dusk.

As the sun goes down, your surroundings go dark but the clouds remain illuminated. These are some of my favorite pictures to take.

Rocking the boat, Dauphin Island, May 07. A good study in blue.

4th of July fireworks in Fairhope. I paddled to within 100 yards of the pier where the fireworks were set off. Closer is better.

More to follow!

Kayaking again

2008-01-07T12:54:00.000-06:00

but not nearly enough

Last year I waited only hours into the new year to go kayaking. This time around it took me a few days. This trip was well worth the wait.

After last week's horrid freeze, we had a fine, balmy, low-70s weekend. It took me the better part of Saturday to find, clean, and reorganize all my gear since it's been close on three months since my last outing. Since I headed out a little too late to make a worthwhile trip to Dauphin Island, it was off to Big Creek Lake once again. Four inches of recent rain and the completion of the dam and spillway repairs have brought the water level up three or four feet since my last trip out there. No more sandbars to stretch out my legs on. Here are some before-and-afters to chew on:

Havoc Branch, December 2006
This is on the west side of the lake, a couple of miles from the boat launch. At the time the low water exposed this thicket of old stumps.

Here is the same place today:Those stumps are now a foot below the surface.

As I set off from the launch, the sun was right in my face. For some reason, I didn't object much.
I only went about six miles. Instead of setting a goal (making it to the dam and back in under two hours, or circumnavigating the entire lake in five) and paddling for it, I reveled in the day off and the relief from the incredible amount of stress I have endured lately. I was also on the lookout for bald eagles, since Big Creek Lake is a known nesting ground. For the first time since I've been paddling this lake, I wasn't disappointed: Paddling into Havoc Branch, I spotted not one eagle, but two circling around. I really need a camera capable of zooming, since only one of them was close enough to sight clearly. You may need to click on the picture to see the bird:

By way of a paddling break, I found a small, sheltered inlet just off the lake and put my feet up for a bit. It was out of sight and earshot of the main part of the lake. A good thing, considering how many people were out and about on the lake running their fishing boats at wide-open-throttle or thereabouts, paying nearly no attention to me or a small family of paddlers near the launch that ended up hugging the shoreline. Here I was in late-afternoon, feet-up-on-the-foredeck bliss:

That's what I like about winter paddling. Clean, crisp, clear air vice the awful, rancid, hazy fug that makes up the atmosphere here in summer.

That puts six miles and one trip on the clock for the new year. Many more to follow. I have long since lost interest in election news and fully intend to write-in The Dude on the presidential ballot in November. Abide, bitches.

Unnoticed

2007-12-23T01:19:00.001-06:00

Hit her again

Ike Turner passed away last week at 76.

I'm still having a hard time deciding which I think of first when I hear his name:

Rocket 88 or a right hook to Tina's jaw.

What about you folks?

Meanwhile...

2007-12-08T18:45:00.000-06:00

Congratulations!

While I've been convalescing/ unwinding after finals/ doing nothing useful lately, my younger sister has completed her Bachelor's of Radiological Sciences Degree. Next week she's moving to Jacksonville, FL to begin work at the University of Florida's Proton Therapy Institute, at the cutting edge of radiation therapy for cancer patients.

Well done, and Congratulations, Courtney!

Medical Issues Continue

2007-12-08T17:10:00.000-06:00

SONOFABITCH, redux

I've gotten over that nasty infection from a few weeks back, but on its heels came a massively-swollen lymph node on my neck. IF it's a swollen lymph node. Anyhow, if the swelling isn't down by Wednesday, the antibiotics aren't working, and I'm off for a biopsy.

If it isn't one thing it's another.

Strep and days off do not mix

2007-11-20T21:48:00.000-06:00

SONOFABITCH

For the first time since Memorial Day, I have a week off. No school or work. Plenty of time to unwind, go kayaking, get to work on the Toronado at last, and lapse into a tryptophan coma.

Instead, I have goddamn fucking STREP.

Words fail me.

Yet another Darwin Award candidate

2007-11-15T10:52:00.000-06:00

Hold my beer and watch this

You'd figure that a vacuum cleaner, with its electric motor and spark potential, would be ruled out by anyone looking to siphon gas out of a car. Tell this idiot in New Mexico. He's lucky to be alive, having been blown out of his garage and into his yard.

Money quote from the article:

"The house was condemned by the city after a team found the roof was lifted off and some walls displaced several inches by the blast, Paiz said."

This isn't the first automotive Darwin Award candidate to come forward this week; a few days ago Conservative Scalawag had a piece up about a genius who, unable to free a lug nut to take off his car's wheel, blasted it with a 00 buck shotgun shell, critically injuring himself in the process. No word on the condition of the car.

The "Muslim" Car?

2007-11-11T21:47:00.000-06:00

defies comprehension

Looks like they're trying to corner another niche-market in car manufacturing:

Malaysian firm's "Muslim car" plan

It was only a matter of time. Featuring compasses pointing to Mecca, and extra compartments for headscarves and Korans, Proton figures it can build the ideal car for the Muslim driver.

What other features are you going to see in a dedicated Islamic car? Fresh from Proton's public affairs office, keep an eye open for these factory-offered options:

* Stow-and-Go bomb cache. When 500 pounds of C4 and ball bearings aren't enough. Just fold down the seats and you're ready to go... boom.

* Free gas tank siphon kit and bottle-crate. Molotov cocktails on the go!

* DVD player. When Bin Laden tapes can't wait.

* Free one year subscription to Al Jazeera.

* 2.5 liter V6 engine rated at 175 camelpower.

* 3-year, 36,000-mile bomb damage warranty

* Buy one by November 23 and drive home with 100 kilos of the plastic explosive of your choice at no additional charge!

Unfortunately, extensive testing has shown that the Proton has some problems.

-Five times a day it will swerve towards a big black rock in the desert and come to a complete stop.

-Cannot be fueled in daylight during Ramadan.

-Will reject all driver control and run down Danish newspaper cartoonists on sight. Engine redlines at mention of Salman Rushdie's name

-Has a tendency to explode in the vicinity of American troops and Iraqi police roadblocks. Warranty protection does not cover bullet holes incurred when running down American convoys.

I just wanted to say something...

2007-10-22T13:54:00.000-06:00

"something."

Thanks for stopping by.

Regular blogging will resume one I break down that brick wall of full-time coursework and a full-time job. I have found that calculus homework is more fun when I'm hammered, but my grades are suffering. Of course, after getting off work at 10-11 each night, I'm surprised I understand anything once I get home and hit the books.

The Most Inane Shit Ever Posted Online...

2007-09-20T21:45:00.000-06:00

The envelope, please

Award goes to the Associated Press for this article: Confessed Rapist Castrated to Avoid Life Sentence

Long story short, a bottom feeding turd who should have been shot in the first place has weaseled out of a life sentence by agreeing to be castrated. The AP retard who wrote up the article had this to say at the end of the piece:

Overstreet warned Allen to expect hormonal changes that could lead to the breast development, osteoporosis and hot flashes. Castration results in sterility, a decline in sexual interest and erection problems.

"Erection Problems?" "Sterility?" NO JOKE, SON! That's the point! Shame it cost the taxpayers a couple grand. I would have been happy to do it for less, but my procedure isn't sanitary or humane.

I would ask where the AP finds these geniuses, but I cross paths with retards like them every day on campus. A bunch of washouts who don't want an academic challenge, slouching into "Creative Writing" and "Journalism" courses. Losers.

A day off!

2007-09-18T21:55:00.000-06:00

About Time

Finally, for the first time in a month, I had a true day off. Only one morning class first thing, and my first reprieve in a week and a half from work. With the weather beginning to cool, I've wanted an opportunity to take the kayak out for weeks. I haven't been out since July 4th, and that was the only time I've taken her out since Memorial Day. I didn't want to blow a quarter-tank of gas driving to the Gulf and back, so I went over to Big Creek Lake for a nice afternoon constitutional. Nine miles in two hours down to the dam and back.

Since I haven't been out much in the last four months, my hands blistered up in half an hour. It's nice to be able to reach down into the water to cool them off and take a paddle break again.

You'd think after such a long time with minimal exercise I'd be winded quickly. If I hadn't quit smoking a week ago I would have been out of breath in half a mile, but I kept up the pace the entire time except for picture-taking. I think I'm past it, this time-- the best I managed before in previous attempts to quit was two days.

I needed the de-compression. Sitting on my ass squandering a day off wears me out even more for some reason. That could also be the combination of full-time work and a full course load.

The recent light posting hasn't been because the muse has absconded; the muse is trying to help me keep up with the schoolwork. The classes are easy enough, but the work assignments and the extremely time-consuming Physics Lab clobber up every minute of effort not devoted to work, which involves dealing with inner-city ghetto stupidity these days. Don't ever work retail downtown in cities with large numbers of semi-literate, intractable minorities with senses of entitlement. Especially when company policy prohibits carrying firearms on company property. Bet none of those assholes work in high-crime areas.

WTF, USAF?

2007-09-05T19:25:00.000-06:00

Channeling General Ripper

Here's a nice, comforting little snippet of news today:

Air Force mistakenly flies 6 nuclear weapons over U.S.

I'm not as concerned with 6 nukes in the air on a B-52; BUFFs spent almost forty years keeping an airborne nuclear presence over North America. The accidental drops that have occurred haven't led to any lasting damage, since nukes have a mind-boggling array of safeties to prevent accidental detonation.

What I want to know is, how the fuck did they bugger up accountability on six 150-kiloton nuclear warheads? Are the rest of our nukes in the hands of a bunch of slackers who can't be bothered to account for their inventory at any moment?

I can't help but wonder. Maybe the Air Force left it in the hands of idiots like these:

On the other hand, the aviation ordnance crew who loaded the missiles onto the planes might have had something else on their minds:

Challenges

2007-08-22T10:35:00.001-06:00

At it again

2007-08-21T08:20:00.000-06:00

Once again, I've begun both a new semester and a new job. At least I got a raise this time. Trying to balance Cal and Physics with a full-time work schedule should be interesting; I guess the kayak is going to have to collect more dust for a while. Fuuuck.

And now for something completely different

2007-08-02T00:50:00.000-06:00

For Once

Another semester gone. A miracle 4.0. It's surprising, since I figured that I'd have difficulties with the time-compressed summer schedule. The last month or so was a killer, between classes, work, and squeezing every available minute of free time into car repairs. At least my fall schedule will only be three classes, three days a week. Two weeks of blissful ignorance and boozing lie ahead. If I'm lying low I probably fell off the barstool, so don't be surprised not to hear from me.

Rebuild photos

2007-07-31T21:10:00.001-06:00

Final Word

Now that I'm rested and semi-lucid, here are the final stages of the refit. Once the head was torqued in and the timing set correctly, she flew back together.

Head, cams, timing sprockets and chain laid in:

Manifolds bolted on:

This left only a little wiring and re-rigging to be done. The EGR valve and its line, those bastard AIR lines into the exhaust manifolds, the new oxygen sensor, valve covers, distributor, plugs and plug wires. Before the plugs went in, I did a compression test. This was a chance to turn the engine over and prime the oil pump as well:

Compression pressure is supposed to be 165 psi with a tolerance of plus or minus 10 psi. Piston ring and cylinder wall wear can reduce it over the years. It was gratifying to pull 160 psi across all cylinders on the check. With this test completed, I put in the plugs, wired them up, and turned the engine over. It started on the first try; I had thought that it might take a couple of days of troubleshooting to get her to crank. The first start and run were done without the exhaust bolted in (at least not the flange between the collector pipe and the catalysts.) This was at 1am, and only for a few minutes while I allowed the oil to circulate, filled the cooling system, and checked for visible leaks of exhaust or coolant. After shutdown, I put the car up on jackstands and re-connected the exhaust, ending a 14-hour maintenance marathon.

After a pitiful few hours of sleep and a job interview Monday morning, I took a test-drive. A couple of minor problems surfaced; neither was engine-related. There's a power-steering leak, looks like the seam on the fluid reservoir opened up. If the J-B weld I used to seal it up doesn't work I'll order a new one. There was also a bit of transmission slip, but with a few hours' driving that seems to have let up. I just need to change its fluid and filter. Otherwise, she runs like a Swiss watch, with excellent throttle response and a smooth idle at the proper RPM for the first time since I've been driving her. All in all, a successful refit.

Completed...

2007-07-31T00:51:00.000-06:00

About bloody time

Now that the Jag's back up and running, I'll return to my regularly scheduled ranting soon. Once I get some sleep. I spent all Sunday afternoon and most of the night reassembling everything and preparing for a test run. I decided to get the test-run done before trundling out the jack and jackstands to get back underneath and re-assemble the exhaust. The result was a nice, healthy roar out of the engine once she fired up. Of course, this was at 1AM, so between that and the spectacle of me dancing half-naked and smeared in grease in my driveway, the neighbors were none too pleased.

Bugger them. I've been working on this for weeks, I wasn't going to deny myself a little bit of jubilation at finishing a challenging piece of work with such success. I had figured that it would take a few days of troubleshooting and adjusting to start her up and run properly.

Pictures and details later. I am fuggin' wiped out.

Reassembly in earnest

2007-07-25T23:00:00.000-06:00

You know the drill

I finished the summer term today with an easy final this morning. Trigonometry is like clubbing baby seals anyway. Finished the test in under half an hour and dashed home to get back to work on the Jag and capitalize on the next few days off.

With the valves lapped in and ready to go, reassembly took me about six hours, mainly because I kept taking breaks indoors out of the heat. It also took a while because valve spring keepers are tiny little things that are easily dropped and a frickin' nightmare to position correctly through the PVC pipe spacer on the valve spring compressor. Took me about half an hour to get the knack of it.

The cylinder head is now ready to go back on the engine, once I prep the engine compartment tomorrow morning. Taa-daa!

In case anyone wonders what's left, here's a rough list of things that remain to be done:

1. Intake disassembly. To place the head correctly and repair the heater hose I cut when I took the head out, I need to break down the intake manifold. While I'm at it I plan to clean the MAF sensor and throttle body. Been meaning to do that anyway.

2. Cylinder block prep. Tapping the bolt holes, making head alignment dowels out of old head bolts, placing the new head gasket, etc. A good hour's work to make sure it's all ready. I also need to dial the crank back to TDC.

3. Head installation. Might need some help for this. Once it's on and the head bolts are torqued to specs, the timing chain and cam sprockets go back in. The heater hose will be reconnected and manifolds re-installed. The intake will be a nightmare to bolt back in unless I disassemble it so I can actually reach the bolts and torque them properly.

4. Fluid refill. Coolant and oil. Can't do anything without either.

5. Re-rigging. Reinstalling the wiring, hoses, vacuum lines, valve cover, etc.

6. Priming. I have to crank the starter for a little bit to get the oil circulating, coolant back into the engine, and the fuel system primed.

7. Ignition prep. Plugs, wires, and coil wire.

8. Starting. Bringing her roaring back to life. I may leave the pipe section between the collector pipe and mufflers off just to hear it unrestrained for once. Don't ever do that at 7 on a Saturday morning.

9. Warm-up. Idling the engine up to normal operating temp, completing the cooling system fill, and checking for visible leaks.

10. Odds and ends. Exhaust pipes back in place, new oxygen sensor installed, all fluid levels checked.

11. Test drive. Nice and easy, no wide-open throttle or tire smoking stupidity. I'm going to give the engine a few days of easy driving so that all the parts I've just taken out and reassembled can bed back in.

I think it's doable in a day, but I'm going to take two to make sure it's all done perfectly and to the letter.

Still at it

2007-07-24T21:02:00.000-06:00

Parts, finally

It's about bloody time the new valve and the cam alignment tool arrived. Nice of them to turn up the week I have final exams from the Summer semester.

So far, reassembly has consisted of lapping the valves in. This is simple, mating up the valves and their seats, using some grinding compound to ensure a good seal between the two. This eliminates one potential source of compression loss (the other being the piston rings, and I'm not in the mood to haul the rest of the engine out for that anytime soon. Besides, compression test pressures are supposed to be 165 psi plus or minus ten. The good cylinders clocked in at 160 when I checked it out in the process of troubleshooting, which consisted of long periods of screaming and cursing in the driveway punctuated by moments of clarity in which I performed simple, sensible mechanical checks.

The neighbors think I'm batshit insane after my recent activities in the driveway, but at least I haven't had to shell out a few grand to have some mechanic make a mess of the repair.

Valve lapping is nice and easy. Once the valve is seated, with a liberal amount of compound applied to the seating surface, one only has to rotate it back and forth for a couple of minutes. The best way to do this is to attach a suction cup to the valve and run it between your hands as if trying to light a fire. I'm sure that some people just chuck the valve stem into a drill and let a drill do all the work, but I have more confidence in results achieved by hand. It's possible with power tools to wear down the seating surfaces too much.

I would post pictures, but Blogger isn't permitting uploads at the moment. Turds.

More Jag housekeeping

2007-07-17T21:15:00.000-06:00

Grinding wheels and fingers don't mix

Since I'm still waiting on parts, I decided to make today a continued cleaning day. Remember this unkempt, sooty mess of a cylinder block?

Here it is after about an hour with a wire brush, a few turns of the crank, and a couple more bloody knuckles:

I have now left enough blood from skinned knuckles on this car for it to be a relative. After I finished scrubbing the bores and tapping the bolt holes, I took another crack at the exhaust valves with a new wire brush and a cordless drill. No more carbon. Period.

Tomorrow I'm finally going to J-B Weld the cylinder head, since the valve I need probably won't turn up for another day or two anyway.

More advances

2007-07-16T19:24:00.000-06:00

Work! Must! Progress!

Taking advantage of an unexpected off-day from work, I took the freshly-stripped cylinder head to a local machine shop. In the interest of giving props where due, Engine Machine Shop on Old Shell Road here in Mobile performed the hot-tanking on the cylinder head free of charge. When I finally get off my duff and tackle the Toronado's engine, they'll have my business.

At all events, with the exception of some small, especially stubborn carbon deposits in the exhaust ports, the head is now clean, but one more wipedown with solvent will be in order before I begin reassembly. I'm going to take another crack at the last of the soot tomorrow too:

After I got back from the machine shop, I began the "grinding" task of removing the built-up deposits from the valves. The intake valves took about 2 minutes each, but the exhaust valves took considerably longer, as the deposits seemed to be hard-baked on the metal. From the burning-oil smell of the dust when I was grinding, I figure the heavier deposits on the exhaust side were engine oil that got past the valve guides while the engine was off, only to get baked on later.

This car was left undriven for months at a time over the course of her lifespan before I took possession, so I figure that oil must have congealed on the valves, only to be baked on by high engine temps when she was driven. It's been said that Jaguars run better the more they're driven. Now I can see a convincing reason why.

Here are before-and-after shots of one of the valves:

That was an intake. One of the easy ones. Some of the exhaust valves still have deposits that I haven't managed to crack yet, but I'm going to give them another go tomorrow before I begin hand-lapping the valves back onto their seats.

When I began this project last week, I set a personal goal of reaching a halfway mark by this Tuesday. Once the valves are lapped in, the head will be ready for reassembly tomorrow afternoon; Barring laziness or bad weather, I'm also going to clean the carbon off the pistons and tap the cylinder head bolt holes. Once that is all in order, readiness for reassembly is my halfway mark!

Continuing to Press

2007-07-14T21:04:00.000-06:00

Tool problem solved

UPDATED 070715

Turns out Sears had the valve spring compressor I needed. The only problem was, the jaws on it wouldn't work without some sort of insert to press the spring down and allow retrieval of the valve spring keepers. Taking the advice of some knowledgeable Jag owners, I sawed off a short section of 3/4" PVC pipe to serve as the adapter. In order to improve access to the keepers, I spent a few minutes with a drill and a file to make a pair of slots in the insert. It isn't pretty, but it works:A marvel of shadetree engineering

Thus armed, I had an hour before going to work to tackle as many of the valves as I could. I managed to remove all of the exhaust valves before bagging and tagging them. The cardboard layout template I made yesterday was only a temporary solution before I went to the store and bought several boxes of Ziploc bags. The Winn-Dixie cashier must have thought I was getting ready to bag a batch of crack or something.

Using the valve spring remover was awkward at first, but once I got a knack for seating the jaws and insert on each valve and spring, it progressed pretty quickly:Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair

That's all the progress for today. Tomorrow I'll tackle the intake valves, and then I'm going to turn my attention back to the engine compartment and the mort of work that awaits me there.

Update 15 JUL: After yet another round of afternoon thunderstorms, I managed to finish disassembly. Tomorrow I'll be looking for a machine shop to hot-tank the head and get the rest of the scale and carbon out. There's enough corrosion on the head near the water passages to worry me a little, but none of it is near any of the gasket sealing surfaces. After the head comes back from the machine shop, I'm going to fill in the corroded spots with high-temp epoxy. With a polishing bit on the end of a drill, I was able to get most of the carbon deposits off the combustion chambers; next item on the agenda is getting the crap off the valves. The intakes all turned out OK, but the exhaust valves will be a bit of a challenge.

One final note from the Great Cylinder Head Field-Strip of 2007: All the valve guide oil seals on the exhaust side disintegrated, but all the oil seals on the intake side were still as pliable as the day they went in back in 1990.

Jag repair continues

2007-07-13T19:39:00.000-06:00

A little co-operation from the parts stores would be nice

After a nice, long afternoon nap while waiting for the storms to subside, I got back to work.

All that remained was breaking the head bolts and lifting that 90-pound beansucker off the engine. I wasn't exactly surprised by what I saw.

There wasn't much corrosion to speak of, but there was a lot of built-up scale blocking some of the head's coolant passages. The engine must have been running hotter than the temp gauge led me to believe.There was also an incredible amount of carbon build-up in the bores and combustion chambers:

Now that the head's off, the culprit is identified. here's the burned-up exhaust valve on #5 cylinder. There's a vacuum line on the intake manifold near the passage for #5, there must have been a leak that allowed that one cylinder's air-fuel mixture to lean out enough to cut through that valve like an acetylene torch:

Now that the head's off, I've relocated to the back yard, to the porch of the workshop out back. I would set up shop indoors, but the workshop is pulling duty as a storage room, piled to the rafters with crap because I'm too cheap to do mini-storage. At least I have a roof over everything now.

The cylinder head, balanced on a pair of sawhorses, was ready for final disassembly. As the bearing caps, camshafts, tappets, and valve shims came out, I placed them on a pre-marked piece of cardboard to keep them organized so I can put them back in their exact places once the job is done:

I did say this required some organization, didn't I?

As always, Murphy has put in his two cents too. To finish the disassembly of the head so I can clean everything up and replace the barbecued valve, I need a valve spring compressor. Unfortunately, and in spite of the prevalence of overhead-cam engines, two hours of phone calls failed to yield up a solitary store with the correct compressor available. I guess that tool manufacturers expect consumers to take it in the shorts from mechanics rather than tackle a simple valve replacement.

Oh well. I'll see if I can get the spring compressor tomorrow before work; I won't get all the parts I need for a few days anyway.

Fun in the Sun

2007-07-12T20:09:00.000-06:00

Alabama driveway, or sixth circle of hell?

On the 4th my car began acting up about 40 miles from home. I noticed a sudden loss of power and a rough idle; I also had to deal with a highly unpleasant stall in an afternoon thunderstorm which dropped enough rain to reduce visibility to 25 yards for a while.

After limping the car home, a compression check narrowed down the problem to two possibilities, both of which involve a prohibitively expensive (with a mechanic, anyway) removal of the cylinder head. It's either a blown gasket or a burned-up valve.

Most people hear the words "head gasket" and their eyes glaze over. It seems to be an insurmountable challenge. It's actually not too complicated for a do-it-yourself-er. It is an involved process that calls for a small degree of organization and preparation, but it's not too difficult. If not for the the sweltering July Alabama heat, it would almost be fun. It feels as though the sun is only a few feet over my head out in the driveway all day; if not for the two gallons of water I drank out there I wouldn't have been able to function.

Also helpful are a little bit of common sense, careful reading of the manual, a smattering of advice from the knowledgeable (Pete, I owe you a case of beer so far,) and grease up to your deltoids. You are going to get dirty. Accept it. I must have gone through an entire tub of Gojo in the shower this evening while removing grease and grime that went all the way up past my sleeves.

In the first hour of work, I had her up on jackstands, the collector pipe below the exhaust manifold was removed, and the coolant was drained from the radiator and the block. Removing the plug wires was the first order of business topside.

Another hour's work saw the manifolds unbolted and cleared away. I pulled the exhaust manifolds, but just unbolted the intake. I'm really not interested in re-rigging and re-wiring the fuel rail right now.

After a few breaks and some re-organization, it was time to tackle the valve cover, chain tensioner, and camshaft sprockets. This is where the screaming and cussing began. I removed the chain tensioner before breaking the bolts on the cam sprockets, so the cams moved a little bit out of true as the bolts came loose. I'm glad I made index marks on everything.

By nightfall, I was done for the day. All that's left are the head bolts, then it comes off and I find out just what the hell is wrong in there. If I'm lucky, it's just a head gasket. Conveniently, the new gasket set arrived via UPS right as I reached the point where I'm going to need it.

If I'm not so lucky, there's a burned-up exhaust valve on cylinder #5. If so, it's no matter. I need to adjust the valves anyway, so I shouldn't complain about spending a few hours lapping the valves and putting in some shims.

Stay tuned!

Easy enough...

2007-07-02T22:42:00.001-06:00

I am smarter than 97.85% of the rest of the world.
Find out how smart you are.

Happy Birthday, Kissyface!

2007-06-26T21:52:00.000-06:00

Many happy returns!

Idiots with Guns

2007-06-26T21:37:00.000-06:00

Picking up some slack

Idiots. If you're going to test body armor, set it up on a lumber crosstree. Suppose that the shooter had jerked the trigger or missed (even at close ranges I've seen people fuck up the simple.) Instead of one idiot wincing and one laughing, you'd have one idiot on a slab and another in the pokey for negligent homicide.

There are four cardinal firearms safety rules. They do not encompass all aspects of weapons safety, nor do they factor in simple common sense, which both of these tards lacked. Usually Xavier posts these with a disclaimer that his Idiots with Guns posts "...are not to humiliate, but to educate..." I say bollocks to that. Maybe it's the Jarhead in me. People who handle firearms without learning the basic safety rules, or obeying them when they know them, deserve to be held up to ridicule and scorn, because they put lives at risk with their careless behavior.

1. All weapons are loaded. This means you handle any firearm as if it is loaded. Keep the muzzle up, open the action to ensure the chamber is clear, and keep the safety engaged. It also means don't point your weapon at your idiot drinking buddy whom you conned into donning body armor.

2. Never point a weapon at anything you don't intend to shoot. Muzzle awareness. Always ensure you keep your weapon pointed in a safe direction. No goofing around, pointing a gun at a camera to pose for a picture, dry-firing at your buddies (or anyone else,) and no "Taxi Driver" bullshit in front of your bathroom mirror.

3. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire. If you have been a dumbass and not obeyed the first two rules, this one rule may be your saving grace. Almost all accidental discharges result from someone stumbling while holding a gun, holstering, or unholstering, with a finger on the trigger. See this, from the same idiots:

4. Be sure of your target and what is behind it. Most rifle and pistol rounds will eat through indoor and even some outdoor walls before coming to a stop, to say nothing of a body. When at the range, make sure there's nothing behind a target (except for a nice, high berm or a pile of sandbags) before firing. If confronted with a threat in your home, pray that some part of your hindbrain assesses the risk before you fire.

Thatisall.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2007-06-17T13:24:00.000-06:00

Boom boom boom boom

UPDATED 22 JUN

Another thing I've slipped up on in the last few years has been shooting and repairing/restoring old weapons. When I got my orders to Okinawa a couple of years back I sold the handful of old military-surplus rifles (a German K98, a couple of Russian Mosin-Nagants, a British No. 4 Mk. 1 Enfield, and (sob!) an M1 Garand) I had on hand before I shipped overseas. The proceeds from selling them went to long-term storage for my car, because the DoD's long-term vehicle storage facility in Dallas wouldn't store my car while I was in Japan. Dicks.

Since I returned to the States I've begun picking up weapons again, starting with a Springfield Armory .45 to deal with home-invaders or carjackers, and another old M1891 Mosin-Nagant to work on. After months of letting it collect dust, I took the Mosin out and stripped it down the other day.

This one has a beautiful laminate beechwood stock; it was covered in thick, nasty, dark-red, Soviet-issue shellac. To strip this ghastly finish off and actually see the grain in the wood, I used a scotch-brite pad and a can of oven cleaner. The plastic scouring pad doesn't mar the wood, and the sodium hydroxide in the oven cleaner does yeoman's work removing old finishes and leaching oil and other contaminants out of the wood without damaging it either. Here's how it's progressed over the last three days:
Stripped of the old shellac. This is beautiful, luminous beech laminate. The veneer grains are set at 90-degree angles, so changes in lighting have a fascinating visual effect. Stained to taste and oiled to a nice sheen, it's going to be a beauty.

First coat of stain. Looking better and better. After two more coats, I began applying tung oil as a protectant. I prefer tung oil over synthetic finishes (polyurethane) or boiled linseed oil because tung oil actually penetrates the wood, sealing it up for superb weather resistance without drying and cracking it underneath. 10 thin coats will do nicely. To keep the coats even, I rub it down with paint thinner and sand it with #0000 steel wool between coats.

Two coats down. Right where I want it for both color and sheen.

This is a work in progress. I hope to have it finished, re-assembled, and test-fired next weekend. I've had this rifle for ten months and haven't shot a single round yet.

Update: Finished, reassembled, and ready to rock!

This is going to be one spectacular rifle. It's always great to bring a 70+ year-old rifle roaring back to life (this one was made at the Tula ordnance works in 1935,) especially when that roar is the manly 7.62X54R round. Imagine a .30-30 on PCP.

More stuff you might not have seen

2007-06-06T21:58:00.000-06:00

Filler

It's becoming harder to find time to kayak. New semester, new job... Blah.

Inadvertent Art

2007-06-02T19:02:00.000-06:00

All I'm capable of

I took this one on a sunset paddle recently. The camera's poor low-light focus allowed this ethereal shot. Very Munch-ish. "The Splash," anyone?
Or this blurry mess taken moments later:
Some have gone far with less....

Biloxi, MS 18 May

2007-05-22T15:16:00.000-06:00

Progress?

I decided to take my kayaking over state lines last week with a trip to paddle Biloxi. Ravaged by Katrina's winds and nearly annihilated by a 30-foot storm surge, Biloxi is still slowly picking up the pieces, instead of pointing fingers of blame and whining about the lack of willing participants in its reconstruction, like its over-publicized neighbor (New Orleans). Biloxi has hardly drawn any national media attention at all over the last 21 months, since its citizens have their shit together and didn't let their city descend into headline-news chaos. I knew I loved the place. Hell, I was born there.

That being said, This was my first foray into the disaster area, to see it up close. Mobile copped it pretty badly from Katrina, but nothing on the scale it reached just over the state line. I set off from what was left of a public marina next to the nearly-rebuilt Hard Rock Casino, which has been in reconstruction for the last two years. I covered 12 miles in four hours, with a northerly wind and pleasant (low 80s) weather.

The chief revenue-generators in Biloxi (and Mississippi for that matter) are the casinos on the coast and along the banks of the Mississippi. Few survived the storm in operable condition. Here's a picture of the remnants of Casino Magic, still in disrepair with only one work crew on-site. The hotel still stands, but the barge that once supported the casino itself was washed off its moorings and has since been broken up for scrap.

The waterfront is coming back to life, as this beautiful schooner with a full complement of tourists attests.

The bridges over the mouth of the Back Bay between Biloxi and Ocean Springs didin't stand a chance, as the surge was high enough to lift the span sections off their piers and drop them into the water. The westbound span of the Highway 90 bridge is about half-rebuilt, and construction has only just begun on a new eastbound span.

Just north of the US90 bridge, the Howard Avenue bridge didn't fare any better. Since its span was only 4 feet above the waterline, it had no chance; this bridge had to be rebuilt after Camille in 1969 and then after Frederic in 1979. Untouched since Katrina, this bridge gives you some idea of what US90 looked like before reconstruction began, and the power of a storm surge with wind and tide to back it up.

Just past this bridge I entered the back bay, where a great deal of damage remains. Abandoned marinas, debris left where the surge deposited it, and another damaged bridge. Shore damage notwithstanding, the shrimp fleet seems to be in pretty good shape, albeit thin on the ground.

Speaking of shrimp boat docks, I wonder when they're going to clean this up:

After this shot, I pressed on another mile past I-110, until I was just north of Keesler AFB before turning around to head back. On the way back, I had another dolphin-run in and more unsuccessful attempts to take pictures. Maybe next time.

On saturday I went on a MBCAKC group paddle to an island in the Tensaw delta with a large cluster of ancient Indian mounds. I'll be writing that up soon. It was a good picture-taking trip.