>In Memoriam

>It was unexpected. One of my long-term co-workers, well-liked, good at his job, passed away over the weekend. He was a friend and though it is trite to say, I will miss him and so will everyone else at work.

Schedules had been rearranged and set for weeks in advance, because he was going in for minor surgery — minor, but it would have kept him off work for well over a month. Something went wrong afterward (we’ve all signed the release. It’s not unknown but it is rare).

He leaves behind a loving family — wife, children, grandchildren — and many friends. In a high-pressure business, he brought a kind of steady levelheadedness that is in short supply, calmly dealing with the frequent emergencies and ready for whatever came next.

He was, in short, a good man. He leaves a legacy at work, not only a collection of SOPs that guide operators through all the routine crises but an attitude of dealing with people and events as they are. It is as fine a thing as anyone could hope to leave behind — and makes for very big shoes to fill.

>ECPR: Range Report Under New Management

>Management is new but there were familiar faces among the ROs and we were happy to see them.

Sign-in is more obvious than old system, one stops at the card table and sunshade right at the demarcation between the parking lot and the range proper to pay or present one’s pass.

Note, too that the building is open! Tactical Firearms Training was running a class; I didn’t think to ask if this meant that, maybe, range customers might have access to modern plumbing if we asked nice but I have my hopes![CLICK TO EMBIGGEN]There are new range rules and an additional clearing barrel (at left in photo). IMO, the one to the right of the entrance to the brick training building is better-located, with thick walls on each side and set to point you away from, well, people and (most) property. –And you will be using one or the other, as that rule has not changed: no loaded firearms anywhere but at the firing line. –Most of the rules are essentially the same but everyone gets a refresher, their very own copy and signs for it on their first visit of the season.

The range itself is to the left of the photo, a large, concrete block structure hidden by the classroom trailer; if you look very closely near the truck and green dumpster, you’ll see one of the entrance walls.

Inside it’s pretty nice: two huge bays of 8 lanes each; the “far” bay is generally for classes or overflow, the “near” bay for plain ol’ shooters. Targets are at the seven yard line; you can move them but I figure they should be far enough to make my mistakes show up and close enough that I can see those mistakes from the line.Tam and I set up near the entrance end. That’s her “Zombie Terrorist” target, which sparked spirited discussion among onlookers if it was more apt or less apt in light of recent SEAL pest-control actions. The consensus seemed to be “more,” with a minority holding out for adding gills and fishscales.Here are some of my toys — yes, with Nagant revolver ammo prices down to only mildly painful (“Save that brass!”), I took it along. Y’know, for those people concerned they might shoot someone, the Nagant is about perfect: odds are pretty good you won’t even if you wanted to. Still, if you can keep shots on paper with that long, hard, stack-y trigger pull, you can probably shoot adequately with any DA revolver. –I admit it, I gave up and did about half of ’em single-action, in which mode the Nagant is a soft-shooting revolver with a merely lousy trigger.

Also pictured, my overpolished-but-faithful .38SA 1911 and my Ruger Mk. II .22 with the Pac-Lite upper, both a pleasure to shoot.

It was a pleasant way to pass a morning. The Jack was shooting a few lanes down and after we’d all adjourned a couple hours later, joined us at India Palace for their lunch buffet. Delightful, as ever — and if you have wanted to try Indian food, there is no better way. (First time? Try tandoori chicken, so good The Colonel would steal the recipe if he could. Cold chickpea salad, some naan and/or rice and there you are, a lunch even the most timid palate can enjoy) .

A splendid meal in nice surroundings, especially at the $10.00 per price! –India Palace and Shalimar are owned by Dave Samra and are very much a family business; the food is remarkable, the venue spotless, the service remarkable for both speed and unobtrusiveness.

>We Ate Root Vegetables, Okay?

>We ate ’em and we liked ’em: Breakfast at Roseholme today consisted of what’s-in-the-fridge: a half-dozen slices of bacon, for starters, fried up and resting on a paper towel, followed by:

(Most of) a Rutabaga, in tiny cubes;

A Turnip, likewise;

Three New Potatoes, ditto.

Cook until starting to brown (sprinkle with Cajun seasoning if desired) and add

Sufficient Onion (this depends on the onion; the one I had was a mean, old one and it took less than a quarter);

One Large Carrot (diced)

One Poblano pepper (same)

Stir in, ponder, stir again and push to the sides; turn the heat up to High, grab a chopstick or wooden skewer and add

The Egg. !?!?!!! Thought I had three but two were cracked and unhappy. So it goes.

Bacon is mixed back in, shredded, right before you turn off the fire. End result was better than it had any right to be; those who-buys-them root veggies fry up in flavorsome fashion. Season to taste — we’re using Tapatio hot sauce this time ’round and it works well.

Hey, You Guys: I’m Goin’ To The Range

Yep, off to the range! Today is the Grand Re (but first time this year) Opening of Eagle Creek Park Pistol Range.

Tempted to bring my slingshot and the blackpowder ball ammo for it.

Classic Book Review

I do not read “classics” as a rule; I don’t even read popular books. My literary tastes are more or less lowbrow, mostly Science Fiction and old pulps.

But Heinlein gives it a mildly left-handed recommendation* and, finding myself a bit stale on what I’d been reading, I looked for, found and have now read Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog).

It’s a remarkable little book; a bit uneven but charmingly so, a comically mishap-laden vacation trip up the Thames leavened with the author’s musings on history of the passing towns and islands. (It was supposed to be the other way ’round, but that’s how things often go). Published in 1889, the style and tone are remarkably modern and if you admire P. J. O’Rourke’s smooth snark, you’ll find Jerome’s a familiar voice. The setting is just about the peak of civilization in Britain (IMO), which may be food for thought.

As Wikipedia points out, all the pubs and inns are still around, and I believe most of the weirs and locks as well (to say nothing of the islands). With only a little ingenuity, one can recreate the entire river voyage on the ‘net.

I should not have the least doubt the book can be had from Amazon, via the link at Tam’s.
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* In Have Space Suit — Will Travel. No, the young hero’s first name is not “Wire.”

Dangerous Wildlife

The Feather Boa Constrictor: The most brightly colored of all snakes. Soft, too. Found in the dressing rooms of strip clubs, etc. Smells faintly of expensive perfume and stale cigarette smoke, with sweaty undertones. Deadly to its prey, which it strikes near closing time, when exhaustion and/or alcohol (etc.) leaves them most vulnerable.

>N. B.: Dinner

>Even a pie-sized chicken pot pie from the fancy corner market (nearly as good as scratch-made) can be improved if you quickly saute one each Poblano and Anaheim peppers (with a little sugar, wine vinegar and red pepper) and add them to the plateful of goodness. Vary to suit your taste.

(In other news, I skipped lunch today).

>Me & Guns: How’d I Become A Gunnie?

>A lot of the gunbloggers are doin’ it. It’s Jennifer’s fault.

…I grew up in a house with guns, exactly two of them: a Remington 941 .22 (a very nice bolt-action rifle my Dad had bought used when he was a teenager) and a shotgun (Remington’s 870 — hey, he’d liked the rifle!).

When I was very young, The Guns were Do Not Touch items that lived in their cases at the back of the big closet; Dad kept the ammunition locked up in the master bedroom. About the time each of us kids were big enough, we each learned to shoot, starting with a toy BB gun and graduating to the .22 (adult supervision required!). We were fortunate in having a big old “bomb shelter”/tornado shelter in a berm in the back yard with a mile-plus of cornfield beyond and we still got my Dad’s Socratic version of the Four Rules. Merely memorizing them wasn’t a passing grade — you had to demonstrate understanding of them in word and deed, starting with the BB gun.

A little older, a little bigger, each of us went deer hunting (a shotgun-only sport in Indiana) with Dad. To my knowledge, he only took two deer in all his married life, but he hunted them every year. With a child along, this took the form of tramping about in the woods, quiet advice as to how, where and why (and how to cross fences), and at the close of the day, a shot or three at a dead tree. Visiting one of the family friends about that time (a farmer in downstate Illinois, there’s irony for ya) , I was handed a .22 revolver, a target and a box of ammo, directed to the farthest outbuilding and told, “Have fun!” Pity no one explained about sight alignment or that it was okay to use two hands: I genuinely could barely hit the side of a barn. (It was, to be fair, the narrow side).

And that was it. Guns were a non-issue in my house: you had ’em, you used them carefully, they were not given any more emotional weight than a BB gun or lawn darts, fun but to be handled with care.

Leap forward: as a young adult on my own, primed by Heinlein, I found L. Neil Smith and learned there are a lot of people with political notions similar to my own. Very kewl, but I still did’t buy any guns. (Mind you, I have always carried a knife or two). I didn’t know anyone who shot, I didn’t know where one could shoot and all I knew about gun stores what what I saw on TV (D0n’s Gun’s ads and cop-show stereotypes; but I repeat myself). LNS’s firearms philosophy made good sense to me but I didn’t feel I could apply it in the real world.

The years passed. Eventually, one fine day my ex-to-be got in an online argument and used the “a firearm is like a fire extinguisher….” line. I pointed out we had neither an’ he dug out a nice Colt Diamondback. So, ask I, why have we not shot it? –And let’s pick up an extinguisher, too. (He had no idea I had ever shot and had automatically assumed I’d be anti. Yeah, should’a been a message to both of us there, hey?)

Lo and behold, there were places to shoot not far away, they even rented guns, and I wasn’t half bad with some instruction. Within a year, I had a carry permit (pretty much needed to carry a gun even to the range in Indiana; our laws are good otherwise and that one’s up for change), owned a firearm or two and shot regularly.

Things have developed from there; while Tam takes mild amusement at my collection of Spanish semi-autos (mostly Star, honestly-made little guns, IMO built to a price but built well for that price), my normal range fodder is a Ruger Mk II .22 and a pair of 1911s in .38SA and .45 (the latter a nice Sistema Colt with C&S lockwork).

I’m a gunnie. It’s L. Neil Smith’s fault but my Dad paved the way.

>Supper

>See that? It’s cabbage and kielbasa and it’s for dinner as soon as I finish this post. With egg noodles cooked in chicken stock on the side!

Update: Not half bad, though next time I’ll cook the cabbage — bagged “coleslaw mix” — about half as long. Maybe a minute or two at high-ish heat with red wine or cider vinegar and a dabba sugar, then add in the kielbasa for about as long, reduce heat, cover and ignore for 10 – 15 minutes.

Start for this was a couple slices of bacon, well-peppered; cook, set aside. Add some olive oil to the bacon fat, heat and add the cabbage with sliced onion. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of sugar and enough tasty vinegar; stir ’round and add some garlic (Mrs. Dash — I cheated), caraway seed, red pepper flakes, paprika and a dash of Worcestershire sauce — seasoned salt if you like — followed, in due course, by the kielbasa and there you are.

Blamed if I’ll tell you how to cook noodles in chicken stock; you can pour sand out of a boot, right? 😉

>Rat Overboard!

>Y’know, when a Democrat President loses the Washington Post…well.

Beseems the Post has found a wee bit of fudging in Mr. Obama’s rousing speech on his administration’s salvation of the auto industry — and they’re citin’ facts and figures.

When your spin is so blatant even you own side can’t bring itself to remain quiet about it, it might be time to give it up. Why, heck, even The Wiener managed to do that much after he was taken to task.

The President, though? He’s convinced his phonily-rosy claims of having stiffened Detroit’s “recovery” with a diamond-shaped blue pill of no-cost fed.gov assistance are Just Fine.*

Facts: why face them when you can just give a nice-sounding speech instead? It’s the D.C. way.
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* I have this vision of U.S. auto industry execs receiving spammy e-mail from the Feds: “MAKE your business LAST and LAST! Quicker RECOVERY! Customers will faint from PLEASURE!” Etc. And, of course, 2/3 of them actually bought into it.