Every Blade of Grass: Please Sign The "I Support Arizona" Petition

Every Blade of Grass: Please Sign The "I Support Arizona" Petition

Whew! I Feel Safer!

The FAA is really looking out for us; lookie here! How insightful and wise! No more games in the cockpit of airliners!

Mashup Video!

I am so glad the tubes were aligned today on the interwebs to bring me a Sugarloaf tune circa 1975 and a video that is somewhat older. What's sad is I would like to hear the original soundtrack on the video!

Oh great! UPDATE!

Looks like they did not like the publicity! 

I don't know if this is for real or not, but yet another thing to worry about! I can haz vampires?!?!? News report here.

Retro Sunday!

Today's entry is a bit special to me for many reasons. I hope you enjoy!

No GPS, no cruise control, no OBD-II electronics, no fuel injection, no airbags (except maybe the driver),  no intermittent wipers, no anti-lock brakes, no automatic climate control, no digital anything. But with all the perceived shortcomings, what does it offer?

Distinct styling:

Truth in advertising:

A simple user interface:

 

Mechanics you can work on:

For me this is more than a car, it is a time machine. My father bought it new, I drove it in high school, rebuilt the engine while in college, and the cosmetic restoration is approaching the 20 year mark.

The 1971 Mustang was the longest, heaviest mustang ever made. (Little comfort to anyone in the back seat however =). It was available in 7 different engines, 3 rooflines and 6 models. A far cry from "any color as long as it is black".  

We will talk about the little red one on another Retro Sunday! 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

 

A bit temporary link!

From the always entertaining Fatale Abstraction comes this missive on Zombies:
http://phlegmfatale.blogspot.com/

I am sure....

You have viewed this before, but it requires repeating:

From the bench

This has gotten interesting. Its sorta the "gun of the week club" or something. Clean one, take it back to its owner and get another one. Thanks again to everyone on the Femaru and holster information! 

This weeks hardware is a Colt Police Positive Special .32-20 WCF caliber. The owner states it has never been fired while he has owned it
(over 40 years). The questions for my much more knowledgeable blog friends are simple.

Reblue or leave alone?
Ammo available anywhere?
If not, anywhere to get components to stuff into a Hornady press and make your own?
If so, recommended loads?

The goal is to shoot it! 

Thanks again for helping a newbie out and have a great weekend!  

Oh, click the pics to embiggen! 

Boobquake

From a fellow blogger comes an interesting experiment on plate tectonics

Friday Feel Good Story

The story of a remarkable dog! Good to have friends like that.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I'm Confused

The "Uptown Crowd" in Charlotte always makes a big thing of any event that chooses to make the Queen City the destination for activities on a regional or national level. They always spout numbers on the economic impact of the tax revenues, restaurant numbers, jobs, and such drivel.


Curiously absent from this fevered pep rally for a totally dysfunctional broke city with a crime rate that might make Chicago blush is the arrival of the National NRA convention in less than a month. There has been little to no coverage of the economic boon slated to arrive in the local media.

And I have to wonder why the NRA choose here. I can't legally carry to the convention on foot? If I drive to Charlotte (or park somewhere and use the totally superfluous light rail). Excuse me?

The Colt Collectors Association Annual Convention was held last year in Concord, NC and I had no problems.

I do not understand!

I have to get one of these!

I really feel better now about specifying Rockwell stuff for the plant! Don't let corporate see this, they will try to order 5 of them!

Oh, if you are in a legit classroom somewhere and this is what the lecture sounds like, get up and leave. You are in over your head.

For the uninitiated, all of the video is total BS. Running engineering joke for several decades. Yes I said engineering and joke in the same sentence.  

h/t to Bayou Renaissance Man!

I thought this was illegal?

Hmm.  A handgun in D.C.? I don't believe it!

Actor Kal Penn recently quit his White House job to return to Hollywood. As a special goodbye, a local resident robbed him at gunpoint early this morning. Ahh, the ol' Capitol Kiss-Off. Suspect is unknown. Though it definitely wasn't lupus.

Link!

Kel-Tek Part II

In a previous post I chronicled the history of my Kel-Tek P3AT. Well, after all of that, it now has a failure to eject problem about 10to 15% of the time. Across different factory and hand loads. Called customer service and they sent an ejector, still no joy. I will call them again, but does anyone have any ideas for correcting this? This is crossing the line from "annoying" to "PIA".

Lest we forget:

ALL HANDS:
Today is April 16, 2010. Sixty-five years ago today, our ship, USS LAFFEY DD-724, survived the fierce attack of 22 Japanese kamikazes.
Thirty two heroes died that day and seventy two were wounded.
Please take a moment to remember our heroes.
Also remember the brave sailors that survived that battle and lived on to save our ship from the deep six. These men, and their wives, worked hard to have our ship placed at Patriots Point as a museum ship to be seen by future generations.
It is our duty today to remember their sacrifices and tell everyone about their stories.
Our ship will be returned to Patriots Point in about another year or so and we will be able to continue our work preserving her for still more generations to come.
Thanks to all of our WWII veterans.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
Sonny Walker
President
USS LAFFEY ASSOCIATON

Maybe a nerve has been struck?

From the always fab Tam comes this commentary on public protests and how they are perceived :
Here
Enjoy! Oh, the links on the entry may be considered NSFW or for people of common decency or who have recently eaten!

Perhaps there is hope

Take a look at some Tea Party signs here. Perhaps its not too late! I did not know that the "several hundred" Tea Party members could be so creative!

Ars Mens Mentis: The taxman cometh...

From my friend, some thoughts on Taxes:

Ars Mens Mentis: The taxman cometh...

From the bench

Here's one I need some help on. This little pistol showed up looking for some TLC:

It also has some interesting markings on several places:

According to the net this is a Femaru, a Hungarian pistol made during Nazi occupation in WWII. But that is secondary to what I am going to ask for help on from my blog friends. It came stuffed in this:

This is also marked on the back:

With U.S. DOYT (or BOYT) 43. Anybody tell me anything about the holster? Seems to be missing parts and I would really like to know more about this holster and what should be in it if it is worth the effort!

Retro Sunday!

Before Mr. Kilby working for Texas Instruments gave us the integrated circuit in 1958, hand held computing was a bit difficult. Even with Bell Labs invention of the transistor in 1947, discrete components were bulky.

Prior to that adding numbers required some type of mechanical device reminiscent of Charles Babbage's mechanical computer. The first viable mechanical adding machine to gain widespread use was William Seward Burroughs machine that was patented in 1888.

So, here is a Contex half keyboard model A:

It had a long life, manufactured from 1946 to 1960. This one sits on my desk above my PC to remind me how far we have come.


Need to go more portable? Not a problem!

So yes, there was a time when you stood a very good chance of fixing a computer with a little light machine oil and a light tap with a hammer!

Hope everyone has a great week!

K

AAAGGGGH!

Oh noes, the killer geese are attacking the community college! I really did not expect that! Zombies maybe but not this!  I can haz hazardous duty pay?

Lawn mower lawsuit?

You have got to be kidding me! I guess it's true, you can sue anybody for anything in this country! 

From the bench

Since select family and friends are now aware of my reawakened interest in firearms, they occasionally ask if I would "take a look at something and clean it up". As I am a usually guarded person, it takes some time to reach this level with people. I guess that is why Blogging is totally different for me. Excuse my noobness at this.

But I digress. A person I care deeply about gave me this:

This is a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 magnum revolver. According to my little NRA book: "..bears a strong resemblance to the original Colt Single Action Army and Frontier Model of 1873". I would agree and the firearm shows much holster wear, much handling wear, but very little firing wear. He told me that it had not been fired in over 30 years.

The best thing (or worst) is that it came packaged in this:

 For thirty + years. With rounds in the loops! It took some time to figure out how to clean the loops!

The knife is a German Puma and is still incredibly sharp!

The holster is a Bianchi and looks complete. The Puma knife was added to the rig later. The holster has gone through two washings with Lexol cleaner and one of Lexol preservative. It is sucking the stuff up!

Anyone have any ideas on cleaning the rounds up from the loops? Pretty ugly stuff!

The best thing about this labor of love is that I get to "test fire" this weekend!

K

Easter!

Its Easter and nothing says that here like "Filmed in VistaVision and Western Electric sound recording". I am of course referring to The Ten Commandments


Been running at Easter as long as I can remember. I have the DVD as I fear that ABC has trimmed the 3+ hour movie down to 9.25 Commandments for commercial breaks.

Trivia on the IMDB states that after the gruelling orgy filming that lasted over three weeks, one female extra wanted to know who she had to get intimate with to get off the film!

K

Retro Sunday! Updated!

I have enough people hanging around now that gave me grief about the quality of the photos on this post. Point taken! New images! Yes, the phone is a Frankenphone. Best I could do, but it works admirably in the garage! 

Used to be that you could not swing a dead cat in the US without hitting one of these:

An article from CNN details the demise of this portion of the POTS. And to be true, if you want to run one of these you need a couple of things. First the owners manual:

Then the magic occurs here:

 This little thing did stuff like off-hook detect, ring the bell, give you a dial tone, coin detect and other miscellaneous stuff.


Phone booth optional!

Happy Easter everyone!

Spring is here!

Looks like its time to put down the taticool pants and find the taticool shorts! We might break the record high here of 87 today. Nice day to go to the range!

Whoops!! Gotta go!

Well it looks like the end is near. Troubling report here on something not quite right at the Large Hadron Collider. I'm leaving the office now to hole up in the safe room and wait it out as long as I can! Anybody need a crowbar?