Motion pictures

Revival in church tonight, on the range today...

So I thought the talk at the movie theater would make one or two shooters happy. I thought since my wife is off finding seaweed in the ocean, I would go to the range and preach to the choir. Cause you know if they are going to the range they already have opinions about everything shooting.

What I really wanted to do was confirm my zero and check out my accuracy. I could spare fifty-eight rounds of 22 LR, couldn't I? Have to make every shot count, including the photographs.

So five rounds, adjust my sights and begin with a Zombie target and a sighting square. First shot on the sighting square, next three on the four hundred yard target, I think I failed to confirm my NPOA, don't you? Then a major shift to the 300 yard target, the 200 yard target and the 100 yard target. Thirteen rounds only forty more to go.

So the AQT without time, ten rounds off hand, no rest but I was firing a single shot rifle.






Then the second stage the sitting position.
 
Then the third stage in prone position.



The final stage which counts double, the worst of my shooting skills and why don't I work on that, okay I will.

As I finished each of my targets I wandered the line, talking to the other shooters. About what they like doing 'shooting'! The man with the left handed flintlock was really cool. I talked deer hunting in Pennsylvania, and tours from Afghanistan. I dropped off some Appleseed trifold for a man with a son and a Ruger 10/22. Good weekend ahead.

   

Wearing the Chinese field jacket around...

I took my wife out to see Oblivion, not that I like Tom Cruise, but I do like science fiction. Tom did just fine as Jack (is that his new actor character - Jack?).  Anyway, as I was waiting for my wife to get the medium popcorn and her Cola, I had a younger fellow (they are all younger now) telling me that my patches were cool.  NRA Life Member and the RWVA ones.

We talked a bit about guns, there is a gun show in Puyallup this weekend he said, I told him I was going shooting instead. Something about I didn't have any money and I wasn't sure they would have anything I really had to have. But that got me to asking if he was a good shooter, how could he say not? He told me he was the son of a peace officer and had grown up with guns.

I told him I was an instructor with an organization that taught rifle marksmanship to 4 MOA, and that is a one inch square at twenty-five meters. Since my wife was trying to get me to take some of the food off her hands I gave him my card, and told him to look up Appleseed Project, we all need to make every shot count. His companion looked happy when I said that. I imagine I will get an email from him one day.  Just for wearing my colors at the movie metroplex. 

What are the sounds of Summer?

Doesn't that sound like Spring should be warming up?

Well, I went away and found some fine people...

So I awake very early on Saturday and drive to Whidbey Island for an Appleseed weekend.  No computer and no television and lots of things to do. Mainly find willing students for the training, the History and the encouragement.

First Rifleman on his way overseas soon.

Thee basic positions taught

Looking to lock the Natural Point of Aim

Just when you think you have nailed the shooting Rifleman, we change the picture.

Great instructors, host range, Shoot Boss and hosting family (with two IITs working our lines). Cooper did a 2nd Strike that sticks in my mind, the video clip is part of her tale. Helped a lot of good shooters become better, and Americans feel most honored to be of the posterity those Patriots fought and died for on April 19, 1775.

Good news this morning, my son is back in San Diego, his men will be returning soon from their deployment.

Signs, don't they just work?

I have always disliked signs that said 'Keep off the grass'. Long before it became a anti-drug slogan. I liked the green lush grass and I liked to roll in it, play on it, and get stained up properly.  When I was an Airborne First Sergeant I found that I had some real power, and my troopers were in awe that I had stopped everyone from carelessly walking across the grass in a short cut to get  around the barracks. I called it teaching them responsibility and discipline but we never talked about it, they just knew I would be on them if they disappointed my expectations. But I never needed a sign.

Well, the military has changed a lot, seems everyone needs to read the signs and that will protect us. I got very alarmed when I went shopping at the Commissary with my wife and I saw the sign for fools with firearms to have a gun free zone. I could see them stacking up the young folks and the old retirees like cord wood  as we were wiped out by the fools with the firearms that weren't going to read, nor honor the signs. Too sad, still I shopped, since I may be one of those fools not reading the signs. You pick the battles you want to win, sometimes the battles pick you and your life depends on it.

Don't you worry none there is also a No Smoking outside the door of the building, we are very safe.

It just isn't the same any longer...

So there I am getting old, and making an observation on the shooting line that one shouldn't droop over one's rifle like a daffodil. Which got a chuckle from a shooter.

But I can't do as much as I once did, the weekend wipes me out a bit, my wife has gone on her second hiking with friends in the mountains, she comes back and the next day has a long nap in recovery. Yep, it isn't like it once was... but we are trying.

I do notice that the rest of the world is driving on, marriages happening, children learning well their letters. God is good, we are being replaced by better models.

Dreams don't bother me, education does...

I had lots of strange dreams last night, went to bed early and dreamed away.  Many military dreams, and then some dreams about one of my favorite games which grew some shrines and Holy trees both which improved powers and must be protected from raiders -- the game isn't built with those features. Dreams don't hurt me.

I went over the Program of Instruction for this weekend's Appleseed this morning. I don't see where we will shoot enough AQTs but if everyone moves Quickly, Quickly, Quickly, we should cover everything. That is marksmanship education with real standards and award for earning the title.

Which makes me wonder why after fifty plus years the education is worse than it was when  I was a student. What happened, why can't it get better? It isn't class size, it isn't text books, it isn't the standards, and systems do work. What is wrong with our system>

I am on top of it...

Bombs go off in Boston. Not the North Koreans nor their special agents. Not the Islamic Terrorists, they have no idea what Patriot Day, nor the Marathon celebrating it is about. So there are only two guilty parties setting bombs in Boston. First some ultra-Rightwing Nut Jobs, and second the BAFTE doing more undercover work to promote locking up the potential dangerous for cause (they might).

Only the East African runners and the North African long distance ones care about winning that race, so they wouldn't bomb Boston. Like I said about North Korea, Little Kim has no idea what a coupe an attack on Boston for that day would be.

So, only those that identify April 19th with fighting oppression (Ultra Rightwing Nut Jobs) and those that want to frame the innocent for burning the Reichstag  (The BAFTE and all their undercover operatives). Since the Oklahoma City Bombing showed how much better the UltraRightwing Nut Jobs are at bombing the innocent, I will have to think the BAFTE did these bombs just big enough to make the statement we have to live in fear, but small enough that when their case falls apart on investigation they won't be hated as much as they deserve.

I am sure they have their evidence lined up and the perfect suspects. And calls for more surveillance by the Democrats in Congress.  If those folks in Washington DC had known that there already was a Patriots Day in New England they wouldn't have named 9/11 the same way.

You don't really think it was the ghost of King George the Third, or a few of his kin that think we should get back under their protection, do you?

Drop out of the North Korean impact area...

Go to your local Sportsman Club and be part of an Appleseed. Worked for me. In Poulsbo, Washington.

Two hard tiring days of teaching, coaching and telling the tales that every American should know by heart. Five new Riflemen awarded the patch and three loud Huzzahs! Families and friends, serious couples all enjoying the event and the learning. I watch a couple in perfect sync while changing magazines, firing their rifles and shifting onto another target and squeezing off the next rounds... they couldn't have practiced that rhythm and impressed me more. So over twenty two shooters, and not one crime committed because they were using rifles.

I would jump up and down and shout 'I told you so' but those against my idea of a good time with firearms would reference the Governor of New York, Connecticut or California as evidence of my foolish idea of fun. But then they do get armed guards and lots of money for reacting to irrational fears and their jobs don't look like fun, just power applied in stupidity.

On day two, fresh homemade cinnamon rolls sent for us to enjoy, they were lovely. The scattered showers were able to scatter all around us and miss the range mostly. I now have a light sunburn on my paleface... y'all take care out there.

One fears what they don't understand..

So of course the idea of armed law abiding citizens strike fear into the law breaking politicians - because they have no morals, no honor and not a lot of intelligence?

I don't like to generalize, there are a few smart, honorable and law abiding politicians, not enough but a few. Of course if a lie is told loud enough, repeated often enough, it will have a feeling of truth. No one has questioned that laws were broken at Sandy Hook, no one wants to mention that - they want to control the guns, like they already do the drugs, the illegal guns, the illegal aliens, the illegal acts against other folks. Those laws are no longer enough, they want background checks for gun purchases, but no background checks for voting, or student loans, or doing business with the United States government.

I am sure the whole push for background checks would immediately die, if the official form and record of the check was used for voter ID.

Bill O'Reilly wants stop and frisk done on all those others not like him, says it will teach them a lesson. I would love to see a criminal slip a gun into his pocket and then sic the police on him for a frisk. There must be a whole lot of problems with the Bill of Rights since Bill O'Reilly wants to do away with so many of them.

                                                                
Kevin Baker would like to know why so many of the police are carrying an assault weapon when  most of their work is in writing tickets and delivering court orders. His picture from Facebook today.

I am still trying to figure out when the law enforcement folks decided that lying to the public, covering their faces and identities, and working to 'con' people that hadn't done anything - into doing something they could then blackmail their cooperation with... When did they decide that being a law enforcement thug was better than being a criminal thug? Don't they have mothers that loved them? don't they have children that would like to be proud of them?

Having had to face the facts that real enemies had much better weapons than the modern criminals, terrorists and police, I am not frightened by the police, criminals nor terrorists that have such bad weapons. You should not be either.

The reason that the politicians think they (guns) are scary is they have seen too many foolish media stories where people die everywhere all the time, shot. Honest, if the entertainment people did show after show of drunken or drugged drivers wrecking the lives of innocents in the true relationship to the causes of death in America, there wouldn't be much use in trying to sell a Chevy Volt on those networks.  Week after week of innocents dying by the real killers on the highway. More than all the school, or Chicago gang shootings. Or they could do week after week of stupid reproductive acts between fool humans, and then the visit to the abortion clinic where it is all made better, as long as you get to see what they have to destroy. But then that would be not very entertaining either.   

Even the most honest journalist won't mention the medical errors causing deaths, the accidents caused by the impaired, the abortion numbers for cheap sex.

So for political gain, they will pass some laws and slap each other's back, do some high fives, and the deaths will continue, so they will have to try another law or two to tighten it up. Notice that all the failures have not stopped them from trying to fail bigger next time.

When asked why the Left is acting up, and being plain old rude in public - one commentator says they often do that when they feel powerless - kind of like Little Kim, Jung Un and his nuclear temper tantrum. But the Left isn't losing now, they have everything going their way - and are noticing that what they have won't work and we are all going down the drain together. You will finally run out of rich folks to tax, businesses to ruin and run badly. The Soviets did it, the Americans trying their same foolishness will go the same way.

Some of us gun owners already have the background checks, the registered firearms, the Concealed Carry Permits -- so making a law saying we should do what we already do - isn't going to stop criminals in England, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and Mexico from getting all the automatic, concealed firearms they want to attack judges, other criminals or victims.  So why are our representatives in the capital pretending that another law or two will change facts? They are afraid of the truth, yep, they are afraid of the truth.                                                                                                           

What should we do today, Brain?

We should conquer the world, Pinky.

Yep, we should conquer the world or, clean the rifles of evidence, ya know.

Hope your day went well, it rained as I finished the front yard mowing. But the Sun shown all afternoon.

What hath God wrought?

With those words the Pony Express would fade into History, the electric communications revolution had begun. At the time of the telegraph, most people in America could read and write, letters were welcome, speeches and sermons could be very long, words have meaning.

Over a hundred and fifty years later, the communications are faster, the words have less meaning, not much effort in basic grammar, spelling or offensive content seems needed. The language is still English. In many ways the professionals have gone to geek speak in their fields. Soon only experts are sought to fix things that, once upon a time, everyone could handle.

I was thinking about this as I finished the Enemies Trilogy by Matthew Bracken. I liked all three books, but was reminded of George R. R. Martin in that people, characters you started to care about died suddenly, but then that happens in real life, too. But all the hot issues of the current mess the Americans find themselves in were addressed one by one. Which, unfortunately means when the final story ended kind of happily, I am still stuck being a fat Rockwell Relic in a world I have difficulty understanding at all.

I was introduced to some new stuff in the book, most of the dynamics of frightened incompetent governments with too much power are historical, some truths not worth mentioning are also, they are real but we don't talk about them, still to the people that know those truths it adds to the realism of the tale. I once tried to explain how important it was in Gates of Fire, that the author wrote that the tired warriors stopped being heroic as their spirit became worn. Later they would become brave again as they had nothing but spirit left. In combat there is no time out, no halftime show, no chance to rest and renew.

I recommend the set of books, but I also say to read it as entertainment, if you want to resist and deflect the coming uncivil war in the United States you had better be speaking up and out now, because 'they' have the pulpit and aren't about to give up the microphone. Watching how important the wedding planning, and event seems to be (expensive?) is never going to be as important as how well the marriage goes - is it working? fruitful? a blessing to all?

Case in point: the Sandy Hook school shootings. They already had laws against murder, having a gun in a school zone. That didn't protect any of the children from the shooter. And none of my guns were used in the crime, but for some reason - after they failed to keep people from drinking and driving, texting while flying or driving, abusing drugs and alcohol, and having millions of the unborn killed in sacrifice to irresponsible reproductive acts. for momentary happiness  -- they think that changing the meaning of the 2nd Amendment will make anything better.

Living in the land of the LOST, that isn't some far away place, just down the street. I understand that MSNBC, which I don't watch, thinks that it is our shared community responsibility to raise the children, which sounds nice, until I mention I would like to take them shooting. Then there seems to be a problem. Take them shooting. Read:

Gun Digest Shooter's Guide to Rifle Marksmanship

Yes, take them shooting since it is a community responsibility to raise them properly.

Oh, and Morse didn't get an answer - God wasn't impressed with the telegraph, He already had his masterwork and it wasn't noted enough. Live in His Love.

Does not matter what they call you...

It only matters what you answer to.

 
Well I had to go to the range and zero my Stevens 414 Armory Model, and I was going the wrong way half the time when drifting my front sight. Scattered rain, cold to cool wind, and really looking forward to Spring and Summer. Still I was having a good time. Adjusted my RS1 sling, it worked very well.

 While I was wandering around looking at all the other shooters and talking between shooting periods I wandered into a blogger, who gave me his card and told me he was on his way to Korea for two years. Which brought up a whole conversation with other shooters about how come the Army has outlawed drinking, passes off base and other restrictive measures - almost seems like the Nanny state has conquered the Pentagon? Doesn't that follow Political Correctness? One elder veteran mentioned he had gone pheasant shooting on Cheju-do, before the Koreans made it into their personal Hawaii Honeymoon destination.


Anyway, the young sergeant has his blog at MyGunDiary.com so we will see what he writes once he gets there.

Well, my last five rounds were fired, and I will save D2 L2 until the next time I check my zero and start some serious shooting. Y'all havc a great week, I will be on an Appleseed in Poulsbo,WA next weekend.

Promise not kept...

He showed lots of promise, he had promise, his birth was a promise to a prayer request.... he didn't live up to his promise, he was living a lie....

I like to think I was a promise that my mother dreamed of long before she ever met my father... but then I am the central figure in my story. She had dreams, designed and sewed her own wedding dress, she waited (remained virgin) until the day she married, she wanted to cuddle and nurse a baby, change its diapers, sing to it, and tell it stories. And one wouldn't be enough, she wanted a small gang of babies, one after another. She believed in planning for the next one. Only one unplanned blessing, all welcome, all promises in answers to her dreams.

I guess like most plans, they are destroyed with first contact with the enemy, in my mother's case and my promise - her dreams met my desires. In diapers I would break out the slats of the crib to get free of it, I would fall out the second story window (too young to explain), would jump from the same window for an opportunity to see the circus downtown, escaping my nap. She was ironing and looking out the lower window as I landed, and started to cry because I was busted. I didn't get to the circus, but likely took the nap.

She gave me a love of stories, reading, and my own dreams and exploring my questions about the world, almost fearlessly.

I will have to confess I have had a wonderful life, even the bad parts were not that bad (I lived with only minor scars and few nightmares over time), but I haven't lived up to the promise my birth was for my parents. My father had different thoughts for my growing than my mother had, and he allowed more options on my life, and support for the strange ones I chose. Still didn't live up to the promise.

I had play football for a couple of years in junior and senior high school, line thug. When my scores for the National testing came back and about ready to graduate high school, Mister Starr, the football coach and Biology teacher told me I could have gone to college on a scholarship if I had continued playing. He was referring to my academics, not my sports skills, I did go to college, was in love with the concept of education, but I went off to the military since it was my choice. Finished college in the military, which is the hard way.  Never met my promise, but my mother was proud, my wife was proud, and my friends were happy.

I never became a lawyer, minister, politician, business owner, or teacher... just a line thug, a fine thug.

I think I would like to believe I am a Norman Rockwell Relic, just a throwback to a better era, a kinder time,  when men were gentlemen, and hard working providers and heroic anchors to solid families in the community.  But then if it were true, it would be a promise kept.

April Fools everywhere...

I have had a great day, new picture for the header, one of the neighbor ladies planted that tree years ago, and has sold out and moved, but she was always wondering if the tree was in good shape. It is.

I did pay all the bills, sent out the checks, balanced the books and know I am so much smarter than all those fools in Washington DC and the Federal Reserve Banks that think they know better than I. They probably don't shoot straight either.

I went to the YMCA and worked out, kind of just starting over again, but 5K rowing machine, 2.5 miles on elliptical in thirty minutes, and six point nine eight miles on the bicycle machine. Heavy sweat, breathing fine, and hot shower and nice lunch with wife. Pay another bill, make the entries and go out to cut the grass in the temporary sunbreaks. Finish the front yard, then rake and sweep up the tailings so it looks good. Figure on saving the back yard and general yard maintenance for the rest of the week after progressively more exhausting workouts at the YMCA.

I want to look so pretty by May... or something. I cannot continue dying by recliner. The only thing I didn't do today was dry fire in preparation for Saturday shooting. There is still time.  The Trusty Triumph got switched on today, and the battery looks solid, so will clear the deck and check levels and pressures and get out on the road soon...