Ah, now we know why!

I moved into stately manor almost 4 years ago. I love this place! I mean the view from the porch is not bad!

Shortly after moving in though I became plagued with sinus congestion and related ailments. After 2 CT scans, a boatload of antibiotics, and related efforts someone decided an allergist might be a good idea. 

I am allergic to these:

The house dust mite. To be correct, I am not allergic to them, just the fecal matter they excrete.

Although this method of eradication may be emotionally therapeutic it would probably be expensive and may concern the neighbors somewhat:

Anybody have any tips on reducing the population of house dust mites other than the ones illustrated above?

I know the first step is to get rid of this hideous carpet. It's everywhere except the kitchen and laundry room.

Memorial Day from USA Admiral!

Well done sir! Link to blog

From Brooke, Truly moving words

Her post is excellent! The link seems to have a problem on her site. Direct link is here

Retro Sunday! The Videodisc

Sometimes "when dealing with the cutting edge of technology the blood on the floor is yours". The Laserdisc was technically superior for playback compared to Videocassettes, but never really caught on in North America and ended up in Bob's bell bottoms and Betamax store.

  This is a Pioneer CLD-V2400 model. I had a Luxman that turned itself into a brick so I got this off of Ebay for 20 bucks or so.

The DVD is shown for comparison to the Videodisc. Two lighthearted comedies, no? 

So, now what? Well this is almost too much effort for the results, but it does help keep the geek card in good standing. First get one of these:

Nice little video capture device. Not quite the cache of a high end video card, but good enough for composite video.

After recording to a PC, download this:

Then fire up the entertainment center and set the wayback machine to 1985!

I hope everyone has a great week and a great Memorial Day!

Oh, the equipment is Denon, but I unfortunately do not have any Denon AKDL1 cables. It is something I hope to upgrade to soon!

Product Reviews

Bayou Renaissance Man has a great post on a product and the customer reviews it garnered. h/t to him and I present my favorite the Denon AKDL1 cable. Funny stuff! In a past life I sold high end audio equipment and some of the hyperbole on the merits of "oxygen free copper wire" or some such was really funny!

Remember why...

The reason we have a day off Monday!
The Commander in Chief could not be bothered this year to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier this weekend. I will leave you with this.


This is a video of the changing of the Guards at the Tomb.

Korea?

Interesting post from Orion Hood.

Nice shooting Sir!

From the City of Chicago comes the story of an 80 year-old Korea era (police action instead of war, right?) veteran defending his home. Well done Sir! Thank you for your service to this country!

Snort!

From Are We Lumberjacks comes this:

Oh look! Shiny!

A mostly plastic inert object operating a mostly plastic object! If the horsemen of the Apocalypse are not on the way, they must surely be saddling up!

Confirmed!

Yep... we are de evolving.  From the manual for a 60HP Variable speed drive (for an electrical motor) comes this prose:

The following words are used throughout the manual to describe an action:
Word       Meaning
Can        Possible, able to do something
Cannot     Not possible, not able to do something
May        Permitted, allowed
Must       Unavoidable, you must do this
Shall      Required and necessary
Should     Recommended
Should Not Not recommended

Excuse me? I just hooked this thing up to 460 volt 3 phase power and managed to not kill myself or others. Now you need to explain the English language to me in your reference manual? Meh!

Retro Sunday! The Western Electric 2905

In my very first blog post I relayed that I worked for Western Electric back in the day as a "Level 36 troubleshooter". This was corporate speak for "hey, we just made a boatload of these circuit boards and this pile over here failed final testing, can you take a look at them?" North Carolina Works looked something like this:

The breakup of the Bell System occurred while I was there. One of the conditions of the breakup was the fact that AT&T had to stop using the familiar Bell logo.

So the famous Bell became what we called "The Death Star" in 1984. I won't talk about the even worse "Coffee Cup stain o' quality" logo from 1996. I was long gone by then anyway.

Whoops I digress. Back to it!
The logo changeover caused some problems. Take a look:

It's 1984 and there is the Bell logo and the "Genuine Bell" wording on the box. First quick fix?

Yep, a big sticker over the Bell. That will do it!

So finally here is my 1984 Design Line Model 2905:

Note the Bell logo on the handset. Later production runs do not have any logo on them at all. I purchased it at a "AT&T Phone store" in July of 1984 just after getting hired by Western. It serves nightstand duty as it has since purchased.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Range Report Preview (Not really)

So after cleaning brass for reloading with a recipe supposedly handed down from a 1957 NRA article, I have decided to give it up.  It involved water, vinegar, salt, and dishwashing detergent. Makes a big mess in the kitchen sink! So today my best new friends at Midsouth shooters supply brought me this:

 I will give it a test run and let you know what happens! 

I have plenty of test subjects.

And yes, the first photo is the dining room table. Lucky for me Better Homes and Gardens is not coming this weekend for the photo shoot! 

USPS Fail!

Apparently, shipping people and I are not getting along this month. Exhibit #2:

 I would guess that approximately 46 pounds of bullets could be defined as a "heavy box". The question for me is was it actually loaded for delivery and in the car? I have a contract rural carrier so I don't know. 

I do know that the bullets were stuffed in a "flat rate it fits it ships" thing. USPS must hate reloaders! Well, OK, I will pick them up tomorrow AM! 

Shhhh! be verry verry quiet!

I am hunting rabbits! Well not really, but there is one in the front yard working on a Den. I will try to get some pics and I am really torn about the usual thing. I spend a great deal of time and money to attract wildlife to the house, I would hate to kill it and eat it. If it was somewhere else however...... Plus the fact I could take it from the rocking chair on the front porch from about 15 feet. Not very sporting in my book.

I love it!

From Old NFO comes this: Well, good!

I'm back!

If you ever need to get away from it all, I suggest Salemburg, NC. Truly a placid place. Makes Mayberry look metropolitan. Except for the large contingent of local and state LEO's that attend the NC Justice Academy for training! Shoot and scoot was in full force! That was a fun trip and a great facility!  

Blog Interruptus

I have to travel over the next couple of days. So, I will leave you with the Colt 2010 catalog cover to tide you over:

And yes, you most certainly are an American legend. Just like GM, Ford, Zenith, RCA, Pontiac, Chrysler, Oldsmobile, Packard,  International Harvester and countless others. Instead of relying on history, make firearms that people want at a price they can afford. Did you forget how to make Pythons, Mustangs, pocket semi-autos? Detective Special's?


Sorry for the rant. I DO love Colt's, I am a member of the Colt Collector Society and all of that, but still.

I have to go before I get started! See you soon!

Retro Sunday!

Retro Sunday has been interrupted due to the NRA festivities! See ya next week!

Welcome to Charlotte!

Hope to see you tomorrow at the convention center! Here is what the paper of record for the Queen City is saying about us! Don't take it personally, they can't help it!

Ok, I have a problem here.

I truly love the fact that I have made some "virtual friends".  I would hate to lose them. but I am getting way to much traffic from someone new and they actually posted some derogatory comments. Y'all are much more versed than me, I ask for advise. Continue blogging? Or let it go. I do not want to cause grief for the few friends that have decided to follow me. I will shut this down if I cause discomfort to my followers. If I disconnect, please email me if we have connected.

. 

In honor of Zombie awareness month...

I present these:

Nifty, huh?

If you are planning to show up over the weekend..

Media reports that hotel rooms are in short supply. I would recommend Rock Hill, SC (oh go to Nichols Store in Rock Hill if you are there, amazing store), Concord, NC, Monroe, NC, or Gastonia, NC. Close enough without the bloat of Charlotte.

A great story about a cartoonist!

From Old_NFO comes the story of a great cartoonist. Morale booster to all the grunts. Thank You Sir!

He did stuff like this:

"Able Fox Five to Able Fox. I got a target but ya gotta be patient."

Kel-Tek Part III

I am about done with the Kel-Tek P3-AT. I don't trust it. So looking around the interwebs I ran across this:

Ok, so S&W is selling a .380 semi-auto at about the same price a Kel-Tek and a crimson trace would cost. It's DAO but also has a thumb safety. Interesting, but I hear that may be for the Kalifornia market. No biggie to me as I always sweep the thumb anyway, the Colt Mustang has a propensity to drive the thumb up after shooting (activating the safety) and the Combat Commander is always "cocked and locked" so no big deal.

But I have problems with the commercial. Women get the revolver and guys get the semi-auto. Still. And lets whip something out and sweep the place. Need dry ice and fog to make the gun look cool nowadays I reckon. For such a storied manufacturer I expected better.

Even worse is the fact that after calling two gun stores they give me the slack-jawed look and say they know nothing about this gun. According to Smith, its available May 2010. Sigh...

I will not entertain debate here on the "minimum stopping power caliber" war. I know that something is better than nothing, and I don't have a lot of options for carrying concealed.

For those lamenting the lack of .380 ammo, I feel your pain! That is why I felt compelled to do this:

I can make it!

Well, nice balls!

From the Crazy-Assed Woman comes a really good juggler!

And the hits keep coming!

True that!

I like this blog!

This blog is funny and intelligent. Much like the others I follow!

Hai FedEx!

In a previous post, I lamented on some FedEx stuff.  Brigid came by and told her story of FedEx woe. Last night a comment appeared from "FedEx Dolores" offering to make it all better:

"Hello this is FedexDolores I apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you. Can you please send me your tracking number, contact information, & delivery address to fedex-dolores@fedex.com? I will be happy to make sure that your local delivery stations are aware. My apologies on behalf of Fedex for these reoccurences. I hope to hear from you soon."

Well OK Sparky, I'm all for huge mega corp plugging into this new fangled social media and all, but if I'm FedEx, wouldn't the tracking number alone suffice? She does appear real and all of that, but I still have to call it a fail.

And it also appears that I need to break out the tin foil hat and retreat to the bunker, this is a little bit like the Major League Baseball satellite. 

Impressive Video of the Day: Star Wars Theme Flawlessly Played on an Electone

Impressive Video of the Day: Star Wars Theme Flawlessly Played on an Electone

Uh.... Wow! Good stuff for a Monday.

The latest from Charlotte, NC

Here is the article detailing all of the fun stuff going down this week in Charlotte from the Charlotte Disturber Observer.

That's not why I'm posting this though, check out the comments on the story. Wow, how many stereotypes can you throw out in one comment section? If you are coming, please don't think all locals are represented by the link above! 

Retro Sunday! UFO

Ok first the intro:





Note the teletype and the "world of the future" namely 1980. Large walls of blinking lights, computer tapes, and for some reason, purple wigs, go-go boots, and tin foil mini-skirts. Oh, and stuff blowing up! Well, so far so good in my book!

The series is a 1970 British science fiction television series about a secret military organization which defends the Earth from Alien invaders. The series was created by Gerry & Sylvia Anderson, who previously created the "Supermarionation" puppet TV series in the 1960's (THUNDERBIRDS, FIREBALL XL-5, etc.), and would later create SPACE: 1999. UFO was filmed in 1969-70, and began broadcasting in September 1970 in England and September 1972 in America. The series ran for only a single season, for a total of 26 one-hour color episodes. 

That was the problem. Having previously made shows geared to children, programming executives did not know what to do with this show. I watched it "back in the day" and just wanted to see stuff blow up and admittedly some of the "technology" intrigued me. We will not talk about the plot holes you could drive a UFO through, but for the most part this was a dark series. The plots usually centered on the personal costs of serving in a secret organization and actually had some clever moral dilemma stories and even an episode dealing with a interracial relationship.

Ok, now you can see the wires on the miniatures on the upconverting DVD player on the HDTV (yes I did buy the DVD's it's required to keep the geek card in good standing), but the effects for a TV series in the early 1970's are still quite watchable considering the superb craft of the model makers and special effects personnel that have now been replaced to a large extent with computer generated graphics.

For all of that, there were still some problems. The Ford seat belts used on the spacecraft are noticeable and the defenders of the world smoked like freight trains and drank like fish. Worked for some back in WWII, so I will leave that alone.  

All in all the DVD's are a guilty pleasure now, but occasionally I will pull one out.

So now you are saying: "where is the retro angle there spanky?" Well right here:

Yep, my made in 1973 Thermos lunch box. I went to a private religious school (I will not give the denomination but they are the ones that will not wave back at the liquor store). I think this is where the problems started with administration people. One side of the box:

It was legit, but some got bent. In retrospect, it had to be pretty racy in 1973 for a kid to be carting around. I hung around until I graduated from there.

I hope everyone has a great Mothers Day, (my mother bought the lunch box for me) and a great week!

For anyone coming to Charlotte next week! Range! UPDATE!

If you are coming for the NRA convention and just need to shoot something while you are here (I will not jump into the firearm ban debate at the convention). I suggest two places. First, Elite Training Academy (I prefer this range BTW), second, Firepower. If you go to Firepower ask for Ben, at Elite, ask for Paul or Ken.

If you want to shoot and give someone grief over their skills, drop me a note at keads3 AT gmail DOT com.

If you are flying in commercial or can't have a firearm for driving through not happy states, both ranges have rentals or I can offer admittedly old school stuff.  Colt combat commander series 80 .45 or a Colt .38 Special Detective special revolver. We are not talking about the totally problematic Kel-Tek .380 right now!

FedEx Fail!

Hey, I'm all for following SOP and all of that but sometimes you need to break out the clue meter and deviate as needed. Take a look at this:

Are we de-evolving or something?

Oh, the package is a Mother's day gift! Don't forget this Sunday!

Can you spare a dime?

Seems that the good guys sometimes need some help.
Well, last night was a bad night to be a bad guy in the armed robbery profession, as reported by KPTM Fox 42. Apparently two masked bad guys walked into a Walgreens in North Omaha and declared that this was indeed a good place for a stickup. Bad Guy #1 was armed with a shotgun and pointed it not only at the register but at the customers. Walgreens turned out to be a poorly chosen location for the thuggery business when they leveled their firearm on 32 year-old Harry McCullough, an average citizen. An armed, average citizen. Harry, after being threatened with deadly force, pulled out his heater and proceeded to ventilate Bad Guy #1 who was operating the shotgun. Bad Guy #1, 18 year-old Marquail Thomas, fled from the scene, collapsed outside the drug store, and later died at the hospital. Bad Guy #2, 17 year-old Angelo Douglas, was held at gunpoint by Mr. McCullough until the Omaha Police responded to the call and arrest Bad Guy #2.

Ok, so far so good, but: "Since Mr. McCullough’s Smith & Wesson pistol was taken by the Omaha Police Department and now lives in the OPD evidence room, it could be up to a year before Harry gets it back, if he ever does. In an effort to help Harry defend himself since his carry gun has been confiscated, The Nebraska Firearm Owners Association is taking up donations and has arranged with a local Omaha Federal Firearms Dealer to replace Harry’s pistol at dealer cost. If you’re interested in contributing to replacing Harry’s heater or contributing to his legal defense fund, head on over to the NFOA website. Harry potentially saved the lives of the other customers in that Walgreens, and now after choosing to do the right thing, he has swelling legal fees and a handgun to replace. Please consider giving; even $10 would help."

I'm in for ten!

You are kidding me right? UPDATED

You get kicked off a school campus in America for wearing an American flag? I am simply too stunned for words here. News link.

The always wonderful wordsmith Brigid, however did find words to speak and they along with the images far surpass my attempt to express my total disgust for this event.    

Anybody coming to Charlotte?

For the NRA Annual Convention? Love to meet you if possible! I don't know if I would be a stellar ambassador for my home state, but I won't know until I try! You be the judge! E-mail me at keads3 AT Gmail DOT com if you are interested.

Still busy!

I have an idea, how about letting me carry my firearm on campus!



Incident at Harper Campus
CPCC Office of Community Relations Communicator
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 9:29 AM
To: CPCC Faculty & Staff
Cc: 'email archive' [cpcommunicator@lists.cpcc.edu]
Attachments:

Late Monday afternoon a CPCC registrant was the victim of a robbery in the Harper Campus parking lot. The suspect – a black male with dreadlocks, a dark blue or black t-shirt, blue jean shorts and boots – took the registrant’s personal property. No weapon was used in this incident and the registrant suffered minor injuries. The College is working closely with the authorities on this investigation.



The safety and security of our students and staff are top priorities at CPCC. Please keep your safety in mind as you go to your vehicle on campus. Walk with fellow students or co-workers whenever possible. CPCC's security department will escort any student or staff member to his/her vehicle on any campus. Just call 704.330.6632 for security's assistance. For more campus security and safety tips, visit http://www.cpcc.edu/college-security.

3-year-old dead in shooting - CharlotteObserver.com

Busy day here in the Queen City!

3-year-old dead in shooting - CharlotteObserver.com

Gun range

And has been pointed out before, the story states that the "gun went off" at the range. Uh, no it did not!

Let your freak flag fly!

I can hear it now. Here in suburbia we have secretly replaced a pedestrian state flag on this humble abode with something a bit more interesting:

I mean really. One of the first colonies and no cool motto (Esse Quam Videri) as compared to say Virginia (Sic Semper Tyrannis) Or cool flag; Virginia and Tennessee come to mind.

But we can spice it up a little with this:

Oh, bad shot. Here is a closeup:

I can almost hear the neighbors now: "Look Nellie, we had such high hopes for the young man on the corner when he moved in. It appears that unfortunately he is a knuckle dragging mouth breather right wing nut job however. Property values will suffer for this!"


Go vote tomorrow!

Retro Sunday! NOT!

Been a little busy today tending to stately manor, be back next week!

Everyone have a good week!