Happy Birthday to Big Dan!

He be over at Dakota South.

Travelers Guide to Firearms Law

I used to keep one copy in the trunk of my car, one in my suitcase, and one in my reference library.  For some reason, they have all been misplaced.   In any case, those are outdated and it is high time for me to buy a few copies of the latest version.  You may want to consider doing the same.  With or without a carry permit, just crossing a state line can change how you can legally possess a gun in your vehicle.

Happy motoring!

Gun Owners and Self-Defense Law

It certainly is not clear-cut.  Some of what you believe just will not cut it in court.  For some FREE but essential reading, CLICK HERE and read the pdf online or download a copy.  Consider joining the Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network.

Yard and Garden Journal Entry 3/25/2012; The March of the flowers ends this week.

To the best of my near threescore recollection, never before in northern Illinois has their been a month of March like this.  Spring perennials are blooming between 4 – 6 weeks early.  There is not an explosion of colors but enough plantings survived the multiple freeze/thaw cycles we had this winter to put cheer into the soul of this dour curmudgeon.  Some of the blooms will wait until April, but after they fade away it will be far too soon to trust providence and plant all the beds with the annuals.  If the weather holds, the temptation to plant will be irresistible.  This may be the longest flower season in our history and I am going to push my luck whenever I think I can.

Until I can afford a new camera, my cheap cellphone camera will compound my lack of talent. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, choose your weapons!

I will openly speculate that never before in history has there been such a vast and diverse collection of handguns available for the public to choose from.  Even the venerable snub nose revolver has new makes and models, some constructed with super-lightweight space-age materials.

For personal carry or home defense, I offer only that a shooter may be best served by studying, as much as possible, the diverse texts that are available and then spending time at the range with as many different rental handguns as they can afford to shoot before making up their mind as to which blaster(s) fit their lifestyle. 

Michael de Bethencourt specializes in snub gun training and has completed a book on the subject that he is incrementally putting online via his blog.  Michael’s insight may help you decide whether a snubbie is the right handgun for you.

Warning! Do NOT read the following St. Patrick’s Day blog entry!

Whoops! It’s too late; you have been infected.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I voted today.

Today was the last day for early voting in the Illinois primary, so I took advantage of it.   I doubt that next Tuesday will be anywhere near “super,” but if it is, I will not be part of that crowd.  It was surprising to see that I wasn’t alone at the polling place during the last hour of the last day for early voting.  I do need to call attention to the fact that ALL of us had to show a photo-ID before we were given ballots.  It has been that way as long as I can remember and I sure do NOT understand why it is okay here but not elsewhere.

Yard and garden journal entry 3/14/2012

Only 6-more-days or so until spring!  We hit somewhere near 80 degrees F today.  The weather has been great for several days now, but today was the first day this season that I spent over 8-hours working outside. I spread weed-and-feed on the front lawn and some of the side and backyard areas.  This is a full month earlier than I did last year. Once the grass starts greening (hopefully in a couple of weeks) I’ll give it another application to catch the areas that I missed.  We still have plenty of potential for winter weather until the end of April, but I am going to get an early start on whatever I can get away with.

Durned if my Toro zero-turn riding mower won’t start.  I ran it once a month since last fall just to keep it exercised, but today it just will not fire up.  My local small engine expert will need to give it a service call; I think I’ll have him install a “mulch kit” on the mower deck and sharpen the blades while he is at it.  I doubt that I will be doing any mowing until at least the end of April, but I need to get it fixed now before the repair shop gets backlogged.

I have a few potted daffodils blooming, but they are rather scraggly looking and not worth a photo.  I messed most of them up a month or so ago when I moved them out of the garage too soon; a hard freeze killed some of them and damaged the rest.  I seriously need a small greenhouse.  Several in-ground daffodils are looking very healthy and are fixing to bloom.  It looks like the tulips are not doing near as well as the daffodils.  There is one big patch of dianthus that survived the winter and today I noticed one lonely but lovely bloom.

EDIT 3/15/2012:  Just for the tally sheet, a couple of my in-ground daffodils bloomed today!

Life can be taxing

Due to scheduling conflicts (retirement is harder work than most would think, especially for retirees as dirt-lazy as I am) and my battles with a recurring flu-bug, I was not able to get my taxes done as early this year as I normally would.  It was a mild surprise to find that I get a refund this year.  I prefer to pay at the end of each year since I detest the idea of giving the government an interest free loan, but there were complications this year that skewed my estimates.  In any case, it is always good to cross taxes off my list of things to do.  I will sleep well knowing that my tax dollars will in part pay for contraception that people deserve, so they can all go get screwed.  Do it for the children! 

Another nearby shooting

Directly east of my house about 5-minutes if traffic is heavy.  It sounds like a 29-year-old guy is dead because of some sort of confrontation in the parking lot area of a local Burger King.   I quit shopping in that area years ago because of such problems, although, on an errand for a neighbor, I did drive by that very site around noon today.

If you want to really know about crime in your area, invest in a police-radio-scanner.  It took roughly 2.5-hours from when I heard the call on the police-scanner until local Fox News posted the story.  Often these shootings go unreported by the media.  Shootings in this area used to wait until after sundown; this one was broad daylight, around 5:00 p.m. 

Gun-free Illinois is famous for its high annual body counts although only a very few of the many folks who I know realize how much violent crime there is within minutes of where they live.  No laws are going to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and Illinois cannot afford to keep enough prisons open to keep the punks off the streets.

More power to you

An electric car battery with a 300-mile range would be interesting.

The Scary Yankee Chick has moved!

In case you have not gotten the word, you can now find her blog here.  She is still scary, still a Yankee, and still a chick.

Under the weather 3/4/12

In an attempt to use this blog as some sort of personal journal in lieu of it exclusively being an eclectic personal rant, I entered that I was feeling poorly on 2/7/2012.  Just for the tally sheet, I have again succumbed to a flu bug of some sort, only this time I can attribute my malaise to familial bio-terrorism.  Yes, being a Grandpa can be hazardous to one’s health.  When my lovely Granddaughter was too sick for school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of last week, my Daughter brought the oozing little darling over for me to watch.  I should have suspected there was a conspiracy when the child insisted on using MY pillow to sleep on.  Their plot was efficacious; by Friday the flu symptoms were again building in me.  Yesterday and today I have been wretchedly sick.

NOTE TO SELF:  Opt to take the flu shots next year.

Pump that last drop of oil from the ground and burn it up, I don’t much care.

Bring on the end of the petroleum age.  I have an undying faith in the inventiveness of man and I possess a true belief that necessity will be the antecedent of innovation.  Bring on our day of reckoning and let us reckon with it!  As we accelerate toward “the end of global oil reserves,” free market innovation will gear up to finally move us forward.  What a blessing it would be for me to live long enough to hear an end to the blathering about oil being the cause of so many environmental ills.  Let the last oil-fueled lamp burn itself out and let us finally be done with it!  Goodness sakes almighty, when I was a young man during the famous 1970’s “energy crisis” I heard and read seeming endless “expert” opinions that the world’s oil reserves would be exhausted in 20-30 years time.   Those “deadlines” passed without eschatological significance and those predictions have been revised forward several times since.  Be done with it!   Let our enemies, who have flourished from our thirst for oil, finally learn what it is like to possess nothing that we need.   I call on all red-blooded Americans to tank up their gas guzzling SUVs and party hearty until the end is upon us!

For that matter, I wish the world supply of coal were nearing exhaustion.  Unfortunately, we will need to tolerate the argument on its environmental impact until free market prices nurture change.  The pessimist in you may say that the failure of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is evidence that nuclear power cannot be managed.  BAH!  This was an “end of the world” scenario that miserably failed to cause the end of the world.  Yes, the site is the mother of all stinking messes to clean up, but engineers and scientists from all over the world are studying that debacle and the future power plants, policies, and procedures will reflect what was learned.  We live, we learn, and we move forward.