President Bush Saves Environment

I'm no great fan of President Bush. I know, hard to believe. He's not conservative where he should be, liberal where he shouldn't be, and no where libertarian. Meh. But, he did save the planet from certain doom! One should give credit where credit is due. It happened on his watch, ipso facto, he gets the credit. Now, I still don't give a lot of credence to the environmentalists. Sure, I like clean water, soil and air, who doesn't? When those things were mostly cleaned up (or much better then they were 20-30 years ago) all those hippies at EPA and DEQ weren't going to just, you know, get real jobs that produce goods or services people will voluntarily pay for. So, they had to come up with the latest religion of Gia scare, global warming. Now, if they had just stuck with "Hey buddy, clean up your trash or you'll make Indians cry", then I'd cool with that.

Anyway, poor George II will get no credit for this, alas. As we all know it's who ever is at the top that has the levers of power. No, I mean real honest levers. There is one that is marked "Jobs", and one that is marked "Cheap Health Care", and one that is marked "Pollution" and one that is marked "War" and one that is marked "Kittens". The mean ol' Re-thug-licans always pour on the "War" and pull back on "Jobs" and "Kittens". Jerks. The "Cheap Health Care" lever you ask? Heck, who knows how to work that thing.

Life Update

The basement is now full of couches, desks, chairs and TV's. At first, we were not sure we were going to be able to get everything down there that we wanted to. As I said to Mrs. TOK "We have 6 pounds of poop to go in a 5 pound poop bag". Now we are using the basement, and it is awesome.

I spent my Saturday doing a work day at the Red Flannel Rod & Gun Club, of which I am a Free and Accepted Member, 4th degree. We put in some conduit for the sign, laid some stone around the building, that kind of thing. I really need to shoot more than I have been, and I should have some time this week. I have to go re-test my Smith & Wesson Model 19. The guy who had it before me backed the hammer spring screw way off to get a lighter trigger pull. As a result, with my reloads I was getting light strikes(a.k.a. not firing). Hat tip to the Smith & Wesson message board for the advice.

When I got back from the RFRGC, our friend Kyla had painted the babies room for us! Huzzah! She did a far better job the I would have done. Montelle spent the day at our garage sale. We made $35. It was almost worth the 20 hours of work to get the garage cleaned and organized, and the stuff laid out.

Later on Saturday I went to Founders with brother Tyler, Mom and Uncle Kent and Aunt Elaine. I told Tyler they had a braggot there he and he was all up-on's. It was pretty good. Tasted more like honey then other kinds of honey beers have. Sometimes fermented honey has a wintergreen flavor that I don't like, but this Braggot didn't seem to. I wouldn't want a half gallon of it, but the 8 oz snifter was really nice to try. Then I had a snifter of the Kentucky Breakfast Stout. MMMMMM....good. If you ever have the chance to try that on tap, do it. You won't regret it.

If anyone as ever finished off a basement, you know how hard it is. Luckily for me, I married a girl with a above average level of handiness in the family. By that I mean her cousin is wicked awesome and did about 85% of the work in my basement single handedly. Attached you'll find he pics of my basement. It is done! The carpet went in Wednesday and it looks great. All we have to do now is move in all the stuff. Next on the docket: finish the baby's room.















Here you see the built in safe. A must for any self respecting American gun owner.

Bringing it Back

I have always wanted to wear hats. They look so cool. So, I figured "I'm almost 30 years old, I'm going to be a father soon, there is no reason I can't wear a hat if I want too". Life is too short to not do little things like this if you want too.

This hat is a Akubra Fedora. I ordered it from Hatsdirect in Australia because even with the airmail, the exchange rate is so good that one can get it cheaper then buying in the US. I wore it for the first time yesterday. Really comfortable, soft and it got positive comments from most of my coworkers. I have a great wife that tolerates my eccentricity. That, and I look all kinds of dapper in it. So I've been wearing it around for a couple of days and I really like it. I haven't received any comments from strangers, but that's fine with me. My goal is simple: Bring Back the Hat.

Suggestions

My good friend Jon over at The VanOeveren Standard has made mention of wanting to do a series on posts on firearms in America. First, I think it’s an interesting idea to look at for a public policy stand point. Second, I think there is very little that is left to be said on it. Third, 95% of articles I have read that are written by "non-gun" people are littered with either ignorance of the current laws, hyperbolic language or inaccurate terminology.

So, my suggested reading to anyone interested in the current state of the US Firearms laws is as follows:
1934 National Firearms Act

1968 Gun Control Act

1994 Assault Weapons Ban

Some ATF Opinions

2005 Federal Firearm Regulation Reference Guide

Note: I only supply wiki links as they are a good clearing house of information. Go to the actual laws linked for varification.