Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
Not Christian? See if there is something below that fits the holiday season for you.

Happy (pick one)!

Bodhi Day - Buddhist; 8 December – Day of Enlightenment

Festivus - Fictional; December 23

Hogswatch - Discworld; 25 December

HumanLight - Atheist; December 23 - celebration of "a Humanist's vision of a good future."

Hanukkah - Judaism; starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.

Kwanzaa - Fictional; Created by Maulana Karenga - A fake "African" holiday contrived in 1966. He was a prominent black nationalist during the 1960s, when his organization was involved in various violent operations. He was sent to prison in 1971, after he and some of his pals tortured two women with a soldering iron and a vise, among other things. He emerged from prison in 1974 and he got himself installed as the chairman of the Department of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. CSULB wasn't the only American university that got the racial willies during the 1970s and set up a tin-pot black-studies department, but CSULB was the only one that hired a chairman who was a violent felon.

Pancha Ganapati - Hinduism; 21–25 December – modern five-day festival in honor of Lord Ganesha.

Yalda - Paganism; 21 December – The turning point, Winter Solstice.

The New Barbarism

Bill Whittle rides again!

Diet of Nope, Part II

My weight loss has become inherently obvious even to the most casual observer. I am 70 pounds down now. People ask the same question, “Are you hungry?” Well, it is a diet by definition so I do expect to be hungry before the next meal hits or I would not be losing weight.

The next beauty of a question is asking if you can eat a particular item and then proceed down a grocery list of similar items. You would think that after the third desert item asked that you could anticipate the answer. I have learned that saying no is not a good answer and you must answer in generalities to try to keep this session tolerable.

·         Can you have Twinkies? No, no sweets.

·         Can you have pie? No, I just answered that.

·         Can you have potatoes? No, no starches.

·         Can you have pasta? No, I just answered that.

·         Can you have bread? No, no white flour.

·         Can you have whole wheat bread? No, by law it only has to be 50% whole wheat to be able to do the advertising. It is half white flour.

·         Can you eat meat? Yes, any kind.

·         Can you eat fish? Isn’t that meat?

·         Can you eat vegetables? Most, but not all.

·         What about carrots? No, they are high in sugar.

·         Can you eat fruit? Some. Only blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries for this stage of the diet.

·         What about apples? No, because of the sugar. Didn’t I just answer this?

THIS GOES ON FOREVER IF YOU LET IT!

What has actually surprised me is that after a line of questioning like this, I have been adamantly and at length informed by a couple of people that, “Well, there is no way in h$ll that I would go on a diet like that! There is no way I would give up …(fill in the blank)... because that is my favorite food!” This is usually stated in a confrontational manner as if I was recruiting. You started this conversation so don’t complain at me if you don’t like the answers I provide. I don’t normally respond as I really don’t give a rat’s patoot what you do or eat. This type of response is always from a person who needs this program or any program much worse than I do. I swear that if any of the buttons popped on that shirt, it would be traveling about 3,000 fps and would probably kill you or at least put your eye out!

I asked one individual, after listening to his lengthy rant, if he had guilty or jealous feelings about being overweight since it seems like you are very unhappy with my answers and successful weight loss. He doesn’t talk to me much anymore. Imagine that?

The 7^th was the last of my deer season. I am disappointed as I could not grow antlers on anything this year. However, it is so nice to have that 70 pounds off when out in the field! I plan to take another 40 pounds off and then see if I am where I want to be.

Almost a Darwin Award Candidate

RTFM: Man Loses Fingers When Gun Explodes Due To Using Wrong Powder

I have never seen a manual on a black powder rifle that did not warn against loading smokeless powder in Big Print. This sounds like one of those moment with these magic words, "Hold my beer and watch this."

Top Breaks

Many years ago I had my first opportunity to shoot an H&R 999 Sportsman 22 LR 9 shot top break and I was hooked. 

 I thought that being able to drop all nine empties in one motion was just the cat’s meow and it was quite accurate. The money and opportunity to purchase one never seemed to coincide until a few years ago. I finally saw one at one of the gun shows that was in really good shape, negotiated, and purchased it. I was pleased to see that there is a speed loader available for it! 

You must realize that one cannot own just one top break as they are just too much fun. My next find was another H&R 22 but a short barrel 7 shot that had the definition of a bad trigger.

None of the smaller (read Saturday night special) H&Rs from this time period had smooth actions. I believe that any weapon that did not exhibit a gritty long irregular pull was rejected and sent back to manufacturing for further rasping and sand imbedding. It is still fun to shoot. This one usually just gets loaded with 22 shorts. There is a definite lag between the shot and target impact at twenty yards!

Still not having enough, I ran across an H&R 5 shot .32 S&W.

It is not the 32 long so the ballistics are anything but impressive. Standard load is an 85 gr. Bullet with a muzzle velocity of 600 FPS. I would suggest that you could load up a little bit but would advise against in these older guns. Some of the earlier H&R 32s used black powder cartridges and should not be fired with smokeless. I figure that you could use one of these to stun those pesky chipmunks assuming that they don’t see the bullet coming and move out of the way. I just thought that there was lag from shot to target with a 22 short (about 1000 fps) until I shot this one. You could swear that one could fire and then run downrange to catch the bullet. It only seems that way as the fastest sprinter can only achieve about 28 MPH or 41 FPS. Brass is still made by Starline so there is no need to pay the ridiculous prices for Winchester factory ammo.

I also found an H&A (Hopkins & Allen) in 32. I probably did not need two 32 S&W revolvers but the price was too good to pass. These are not as well constructed as the H&R.

 You might ask, "Why two 32s?" I may well respond with another question, "Who do you think you are, my wife?"  

Well, I already have the dies and you never know when the chipmunk zombie apocalypse is going to hit.

  The future is not clear so it is unknown what will be the next top break but I am pretty sure it won’t be another 32!