Zombie Awareness Month

May is Zombie Awareness Month.  Fitting, what with the weather finally getting warm, they'll be moving faster (although there's a chance of snow tomorrow night around here... my state's broken.)  A good excuse to get to the range and verify your zero if nothing else.

(H/T to Tam)

THIRTEEN THINGS YOUR BURGLAR WON'T TELL YOU:

Posted over at Military Firearm:

1. Of course I look familiar. I was here just last week cleaning your carpets, painting your shutters, or delivering your new refrigerator.

2. Hey, thanks for letting me use the bathroom when I was working in your yard last week. While I was in there, I unlatched the back window to make my return a little easier.

3. Love those flowers. That tells me you have taste ... and taste means there are nice things inside. Those yard toys your kids leave out always make me wonder what type of gaming system they have.

4. Yes, I really do look for newspapers piled up on the driveway. And I might leave a pizza flyer in your front door to see how long it takes you to remove it..

5. If it snows while you're out of town, get a neighbor to create car and foot tracks into the house. Virgin drifts in the driveway are a dead giveaway.

6. If decorative glass is part of your front entrance, don't let your alarm company install the control pad where I can see if it's set. That makes it too easy.

7. A good security company alarms the window over the sink. And the windows on the second floor, which often access the master bedroom-and your jewelry. It's not a bad idea to put motion detectors up there too.

8. It's raining, you're fumbling with your umbrella, and you forget to lock your door-understandable. But understand this: I don't take a day off because of bad weather.

9. I always knock first. If you answer, I'll ask for directions somewhere or offer to clean your gutters. (Don't take me up on it.)

10. Do you really think I won't look in your sock drawer? I always check dresser drawers, the bedside table, and the medicine cabinet.

11. Here's a helpful hint: I almost never go into kids' rooms.

12. You're right: I won't have enough time to break into that safe where you keep your valuables. But if it's not bolted down, I'll take it with me.

13. A loud TV or radio can be a better deterrent than the best alarm system. If you're reluctant to leave your TV on while you're out of town, you can buy a $35 device that works on a timer and simulates the flickering glow of a real television. (faketv.com.) It's real, I checked.

8 MORE THINGS A BURGLAR WON'T TELL YOU:

1. Sometimes, I carry a clipboard. Sometimes, I dress like a lawn guy and carry a rake. I do my best to never, ever look like a crook. 

2. The two things I hate most: loud dogs and nosey neighbors.

3. I'll break a window to get in, even if it makes a little noise. If your neighbor hears one loud sound, he'll stop what he's doing and wait to hear it again. 

If he doesn't hear it again, he'll just go back to what he was doing. It's human nature.

4. I'm not complaining, but why would you pay all that money for a fancy alarm system and leave your house without setting it?

5. I love looking in your windows. I'm looking for signs that you're home, and for flat screen TVs or gaming systems I'd like. I'll drive or walk through your

neighborhood at night, before you close the blinds, just to pick my targets.

6. Avoid announcing your vacation on your Facebook page. It's easier than you think to look up your address.

7. To you, leaving that window open just a crack during the day is a way to let in a little fresh air. To me, it's an invitation.

8. If you don't answer when I knock, I try the door. Occasionally, I hit the jackpot and walk right in.

Sources: Convicted burglars in North Carolina , Oregon , California , andKentucky ; security consultant Chris McGoey, who runs crimedoctor.com; and Richard T. Wright, a criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who interviewed 105 burglars for his book Burglars on the Job

First Doyle...

Now Dave.  Seems that with all the people tripping over each other to run against him, he's just calling it quits.

Hopefully the people of the state don't waste it come November.

Still the best coffee jingle ever.

Expletive Impressive.

A British sniper has set a new distance record for a confirmed kill.  At around 2,700 yards (1.54 mi.)... that's a long freakin' shot.  Oh, and he did it multiple times.

Harrison killed one machinegunner with his first attempt and felled the other with his next shot. He then let off a final round to knock the enemy weapon out of action.

Harrison was using the British L115A3 Long Range Rifle, chambered in .338 Lapua.  I want one.

Technology...

How it's always shifting.  I just noticed some Best Buy commercial where a guy is messing around with a DSLR of some variety, and is taking pictures by framing things up in the LCD screen on the back, just like all the little digital point and shoots all over the place.

My D40 doesn't do real time display on the LCD screen, you have to look through the viewfinder like a real camera, and a few of my friends always get confused when I tell them to go ahead and play around with it at the range and whatnot.  One of these days I'm going to drag out the old FM10 and just laugh... I mean it doesn't even focus by itself!

The nice thing about viewfinders though, is that even in bright light, you can still see what you're doing.  No glare.  I have an Olympus point and shoot type camera that doesn't even have a viewfinder, just the screen, and every now and then you can't see much.  The only real advantage I can see with the screen is I don't have to mess with my hat to take a picture.

Frustration of frustrations.

Much like Tam's complaints earlier today, I can't access the blog.  I can get to the Dashboard, and thusly complain, but it won't load the blog itself.  Apparently everything else is working, except looking at the actual blog.  And now it's not loading anybody else's blog from blogger either. Neat.  So I don't know if this is even going to post.

ETA: It's working now........ but... for how long?

Times Square...

I'm glad things went well, and nobody was hurt.  Great text book example of everything going right for us.

But I can't help but laugh at the bomber...

A bomb squad blew open a large gun locker found in the Pathfinder, revealing eight bags of a substance determined to be nonexplosive grade fertilizer and a pressure-cooker-type of metal pot containing wires and M-88 firecrackers.

Building an ANFO bomb:
Step 1: Procure fertilizer
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Terrorism!!!

Sounds like there was a lot of propane tanks, firecrackers, and assorted wires.  No word yet if the wires were actually wired to anything, or simply draped about Hollywood style, but the later would not surprise me in the least.

Now as far as blowing up cars.... here's a pic from the last demo-ex I did.  There's numerous bits of '92 Chevy Corsica flying around there.  That's how it's done.

Night shots

Not guns or coffee, but I think they turned out nice.

Posting...

Will continue to be a bit light the next couple days... Paleomagnetic Reversals and their relationship to Glacial study is kicking my butt.

Gerber LMF II ASEK

Mike over at ENDO asked about it on my pic from yesterday, so I thought I'd take a little more in depth look at it.  I ordered mine from L.A. Police Gear a while ago, but I haven't really used it much yet, I usually carry my K-Bar when I'm camping, but this one will be on me next time.

Anyway, the LMF II was originally designed as an Aircrew Survival & Escape Knife, and the ASEK version comes complete with a seperate "safety knife," otherwise known as a seatbelt cutter.  Both come in MOLLE compatable sheaths.

The seatbelt cutter's pretty neat, there's even extra blades sandwiched in the handle and a lanyard.

Of course the star of the show is the knife.  Short thick stubby blade, sticky rubber hand-filling grip complete with holes to lash it to a pole for use as a spear.

The first thing you notice about when handling it is the heft. It is a beefy knife. The blade is only about 5" long, but is 3/16" thick.  Shown below with some .45acp for scale.

The pommel is pretty well pointed for use as a glass breaker, and I've seen a video out there somewhere on the interwebs of it shattering plexiglass.  It also sports a flat side for hammering, and it's insulated from the blade in case you happen to cut into a hot wire.

The sheath also features an integrated sharpener.  I used it to put a pretty decent working edge on the blade.

My only complaint is the MOLLE system on the knife sheath leaves something to be desired. It's just not as secure as I like, and the snaps could be a little stronger.

"Wild West" and Women's Fashion

Say Uncle linked an article from the Wall Street Journal this morning about Open Carry, in which the author, true to form, makes a fool of herself.  In so many words, allowing Open Carry will result in massive amounts of testosterone driven one-ups-manship, women requiring quick change grips so they color coordinate, and a reversal of society to the days of the "Wild West."

Which is why they called it the Wild West and we are lucky not to have been born then.

Anybody who watched the History Channel back when it was about History probably knows that the whole violent aspect of the "Wild" West mythos is widely overblown.  Eugene Hollen's book Frontier Violence: Another Look tells us that-

• In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides.  This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.
• In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.

Hardly that violent really.  Most major cities in the US have far worse murder rates than that, just look at Chicago (a comparatively whopping 15.6 per 100,000), where guns are completely banned!  The anti's will continue to equate any widely accepted carry of weapons, open or concealed, to accomplishing nothing but reverting the country (or state, or town, or whatever) back to the "Wild West."  Really doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.

As for her other "complaint" of women widely accepting guns, complete with such gems as:

Next thing you know, women could be trading tips on the Web about the best way to attract men in a world where every girl can have a gun. Should she try to stand out from the crowd with a piece of rustic exotica that reminds him of the safari dolls in 1953's "Mogambo," like a .416 Rigby? Or go with something more crudely flashy, like one of the pretend AK-47s?

Sounds like my kind of girl (author's tip: the .416 Rigby would definitely catch my eye more than an AK.  In this context the AK sounds more like some scenester's attempt at being ironic, like thrift store clothes, and that's just lame.)

To top it off though, her first sentence of the final paragraph:

Speaking of serious shooters, I don't know a soul among gun owners who is itching to prance around showing everybody what is in their holster.

Give me two minutes and access to the internet.  We simply know that there's a time and a place to show off our iron, that's all.  (Here's what's usually in mine by the way, although I do sport my Kimber Custom II on occasion.  Just that with the stupid vehicle laws in Wisconsin, the setback happy .45acp isn't a good idea.) I do kind of wonder... could there be a market for a color coordinated quick change grip system?  Although I think coordinating the holster would be far more important.

Pic-O'the-Day

Sad Brady Panda...

Days of our Trailers has a little retrospective look at the Brady Bunch. Oh how I love laughing at them.

A Tale of Two Toks.

Well, a picture anyway.

Mind*%&$

In Russia, helicopters are apparently fixed wing aircraft.  And most of the noise on a chopper comes from the tail rotor anyway...  Still, even though I fully understand what's going on, it still messes with the head.

(H/T Sharp as a Marble)

Tuesday

As is their way, the Angels of Vengeance brutally destroyed the enemies of the Imperium, in this case the green Xenos scum known as Orks.  Annihilation, final score 10:5.  I love my Drop Pods when things go right.

As always, there was plenty of talk of the silliness of grown men playing with toys, and I did mention that despite the Imperium's various tank designs' absurdity and horrible lack of suspension, they still look pretty cool.

Angels of Vengeance Land Raider Crusader "Mortis Angelis"

The Inquisitorial party, on the other hand, continued the suck.  Sometimes I wonder how the Inquisition continues to let us live, let alone pay us.

hellinahandbasket posted some Necrons from Iraq the other day, which is cool.  I couldn't find any current players or drum up enough interest in 40k when I was in Afghanistan, but I did get a few Imperial Guardsmen painted in my downtime.

Come & Gone

Boob quake 2010 has, more or less, and the only earthquake of significant magnitude was a 6.5  off the Coast of Taiwan.  Had to goto the USGS site to find it, so I assume it didn't do much.

Pic

Can you tell I like my newest shotgun?

A cause I can get behind

Although apparently news didn't make it around campus (sadly).  Today is "Boobquake," an event purely to annoy backwards Islamic Clerics*.  We should make it an annual event, if not a monthly one.

*I have nothing against Islamic Clerics as a whole, just backwards rights suppressing ones, especially if they speak out against one(two?) of my favorite things.

Unpossible!

Chicago's murder rate so high lawmakers call for the Governor to deploy the National Guard.  Funny how some of the highest violent crime locations have the most stringent gun laws.

I don't think it's answer either, National Guard soldiers don't train for domestic law enforcement, and unleashing a death blossom in downtown Chicago would probably be frowned upon.  (I'm not saying that Nat. Guardsmen are loose cannons, hell, I am one, but it's hard to override certain learned responses...)  But really, I don't see how imposing borderline martial law on the city would help fight crime rates.

Maybe they just need to hurry up the court decision and allow the law abiding citizens of Chicago to defend themselves and take their town back... crazy talk, I know.

(ETA: at least the police agree about the "Guard Solution" (H/T Say Uncle)

B.A.G. Day

I didn't slack, Dad just reads the blog on occasion, and I couldn't ruin his birthday surprise. Henry .22lr lever action.

His very first rifle ever was an old Ithica lever action .22, but it hasn't worked for a while (problem with the shell lifter that is apparently quite common) so us kids all chipped in and got him a up to date, functional .22.

Beats the snot out of my belt-fed Nerf gun.

h/t Soldier Systems

Mmm... Coffee...

Despite the efforts of the Brady Bunch, Starbucks reports a 7% increase in sales.  This does not help the daydreams of my blog's title one day becoming the name of a store...


(h/t SayUncle)

Local Hippiness

The big local news this last week was a bunch of hippies (mainly college students) attempting to "reclaim" a vacant lot owned by the city and trying to establish a community garden, if you came down and broke a sweat, you'd be able to take some of the vegetables home.  Seems like a pretty cool idea, although they were trying to set it up without city approval, and the city hopes to find investors willing to build small business and possibly apartments on the site, giving downtown a much needed economic boost.  I swung by a little while ago to try to get some pictures, but apparently the police beat me to it.

The evolving story was pretty entertaining, especially in a quiet little mid-west college town (for comparison, we had the first "drive by shooting" I can think of Wednesday night... and oh is the whole event great for a laugh) originally the mayor had stated that there were no plans to do much about it, then the other day the police cited a couple of the hippies and posted no trespassing signs around the lot, which were quickly taken down by the hippies.  Apparently the city got tired of it (if I had to guess, due to their setting up tents and sleeping on the site) and arrested them all early this morning and tore everything down.

I kind of enjoyed following the whole debacle, and really found the whole thing pretty funny.  You see, there's a reason that the city's been sitting on a vacant lot in the heart of downtown Stevens Point.  The site was once upon a time the location of the Lullaby Furniture Factory, which closed around 1996, and the building was later torn down.  It is now believed that the ground has been heavily contaminated with lead.  So if somebody really wanted to build a house on the property, you would be advised not to put in a vegetable garden.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership

Stole that title from Say Uncle.  It made me laugh.

Anyway, fresh off their laughable Anti-Starbucks kick, the Brady bunch is trying their hardest to attack the Open Carry movement once again.

Given other articles and polls on the subject, I don't see this going to far for them, and as Sebastian notes, it's still sitting at a whopping $20 donation.  Plus, as I've noted before, that video is far from the ZOMG!!1! GUNS!!! effect that you'd think they're trying for.  Far from "compelling," at least as to the point they're trying to make.

I also haven't heard of any of the gun lobbies fighting for Nation-wide OC either, and that has in fact been one of my complaints about the NRA as of late.  If anybody knows of this actually happening, I'd love to know who and what exactly the deal is.

There's Still Some Hope

1st of Three SEALS cleared in assault case.

Light Postage...

Combination of real life and college pilling up on me.  ArcMap decided to crash and then refuse to load my project, and I'm still completely lost in my stats class.  I hate stats.

Anyway, hopefully I can get some content up relatively soon, especially since the weather refuses to stay warm enough for more than two days.  Don't want to dump a kayak in 40 degree water...

Small guns...

One area I haven't really had a chance to venture into.  I mean really small guns.  The smallest centerfire handgun I own is my CZ-82, and it is far from what I would consider a sub-compact.  I have always liked the look of tiny guns though, and I would love to own an old Colt vest pocket pistol.  But living in Wisconsin, I haven't had enough of an excuse to get something in that size group.

Over the weekend though, I had the chance to run a few rounds through a Taurus Millennium Pro chambered in .45acp.

The double stack 10 round mag filled up my hands pretty well (granted I've got large-ish hands...) and the little dimple on the frame just ahead of the trigger was perfectly placed for my offhand thumb.  The trigger was surprisingly pretty decent, and overall the fit and finished seemed pretty nice, even for a used pistol like the example my friend has.  The Hienie Straight 8 sights are a very nice touch as well.  Overall it was pretty controllable, and seemingly accurate enough for such a stumpy little barrel.  I didn't bring any .45, so I didn't want to shoot up too much of his ammo though, so I only put a few rounds downrange.

Overall though, it's definitely going on the list for possible CCW options if that ever comes to be 'round here.

Is the NRA Losing Relevance?

The Wall Street Journal takes a look.