Stockpile Progress

I had to scale down on some of my stockpile goals. It's just too much money. I may get there over the long term, but in the short term I have accepted the following goals:

COMPLETED:

Remington 870 Express Pump Shotgun
SKS Assault Rifle
GP-100 Ruger .357 Magnum Revolver

300 rounds .38 special
50 rounds .357 magnum
360 rounds 7.62mm x 39 FMJ
500 rounds .22 cal rimfire (fer critter & bird hunting)

INCOMPLETE:

Shotgun Loader Kit
Gunpowder (qty?)
Shot (qty?)
Other Loading Supplies (qty?)

100 rounds 12 gague 3 in 00 buckshot (have 30)
50 rounds 12 gague 3 in slugs (have 5)

3 Heirloom Apple Trees to plant in Barboursville (have 0)
high quality non-folding blade knife

Financially this puts me nearly 3/4 of the way there. I'm probably going to a gun show in Richmond soon, so maybe I can find some deals on ammo, a knife, and maybe even a loader kit and loading supplies.

Hillbilly Haiku

Biscuit on my shirt
Gunpowder buffets my face
Barboursville breakfast

Teh H4x0r

Main Entry: Teh H4x0r
Phoenetic Pronunciation: \tay hack-sore\
Function: noun
Date: Late 20th century

1. an elite computer programmer, technician, engineer, or systems architect.
2. anyone who can bend a computer to their will.
3. me, muthafucka!

<--------------------->

I've been banging out so much code over the last week. My job entails much more than just programming, but I've been finding all sorts of ways to solve problems with my code-skillz lately.

On any given day I could be called upon to perform Oracle database administrative tasks, develop .NET code for web apps or services, troubleshoot client side problems, advise on third party solution architecture, or manage and coordinate project teams and activities. Oh yeah - I forgot I also do both end-user and technician level training classes. I've probably forgotten a task or two...

All of this and I serve on a rotating weekly on-call schedule with three other guys. On-call is 24/7/365 between the four of us. Hospitals never sleep, you know. Oh yeah... haha. I also develop the training material for the classes I give as well as develop the documentation for all of the systems I develop and/or support.

Anyways - back to the code. Over the last week or so I have been a veritable Indian sweatshop of code output. In this short period of time I have:

1. Added a historical record revision tracking system to our web based Change Control system (which I wrote originally)
2. Created a record reconciliation routine with excel spreadsheet output and configurable parameters to compare items sent and items received between two different systems here at the Hospital.
3. Detected, isolated, coded a fix for, tested, and deployed said fix for an issue with an Oracle monitoring service (that I wrote originally) whose output had come under criticism. In all honesty, it was a bug in my software but it was a bug that only manifested itself when a certain other group did something they should never do to my precious server.
4. Overcame our LAN group's excessively restrictive security policies in order to coordinate a vendor installation of software on a load balanced server arrangement. ("That didn't work?" Hmmm... troubleshoot, test, troubleshoot, test. Call LAN group "Hey, open up permissions on such and such registry key.")

All that and I fielded a few HelpDesk tickets, too. I'm on call this week.

Teh. Fucking. H4x0r.

Teaching the Kids to Shoot

My Dad taught me how to shoot using a BB Gun back when I was 8 or so. The first real gun I ever shot, however, was my Step-Dad's Ruger 10/22 Rimfire (also at 8 years old).

My oldest son is 13 and my oldest daughter is 10. It's high time I taught them how to shoot a rifle. My Step-Dad still has his old Ruger and has consented to letting me use it to teach them the way of the gun.

I'm psyched. I think, oddly enough, my daughter may enjoy it and take to it better than my son. My son is more of the cerebral type (nothing wrong with that) and my daughter is much more the physical. We'll see.

I hope the replacement rear sight I ordered over the phone with Ruger gets here in time for their visit weekend after next.

In With the New

I have recently replaced Harry with a new revolver. See below:

Ruger GP100 .357 Magnum Revolver
Reliability:	Very High
Accuracy:	Good (as pistols go)
Stopping Power:	High firing .357 mag, Moderate to Low firing .38
Time to Fire:	Low
Ammunition Commonality:	.357 is Somewhat Common, .38 special is Common
Simplicity:	Very Simple
Ammunition Capacity:	Low (6 rnds)
Manageability:	.357 round is Moderate while .38 is very manageable

Of course I'll get out there and shoot this bad boy ASAP and let you know what the deal is in terms of its accuracy. I'm hopeful.

The grip on this revolver is especially comfortable. It just fits well in my hand (I have big hands) and the rubberizing is very nice.

I'll wait util the accuracy results are in before I name this one. I don't want to get attached to it, only to have to trade it in like I did with Harry.

The Might and the Majesty

My wife and two of my kids went to D.C. this weekend. We took Amtrack up and walked everywhere we wanted to go. During our stay we went to the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs!), the Washington Monument, and the Carousel on the Mall. Doesn't sound like much to do for an entire weekend?

Ha! You try doing all that with a 14 month old and a 4 year old on foot!

I haven't been to D.C. in a while, but what never ceases to amaze me is the majesty of the place. The train station, Union Station, is gigantic. It's as big as many major airports. The main lobby is beatiful tile floor with large statues all around. The exterior of the building is also quite impressive, with massive stone columns and granite everywhere.

Much of D.C. is built this way. All sorts of federal office buildings all over the city were built with a fortune of granite. And these buildings are nothing special - they're just office buildings. The curbs in DC are granite, for Pete's sake! Then toss the Capitol building in the mix along with all of the monuments and memorials and you have a city built to impress.

Of course this is all by design. For its day I'm sure Rome was much, much more impressive than D.C. There are plenty of other majestic sites in other cities all over the world today. Back in the heyday of Rome this was not the case. Rome was the largest city in the world and had public buildings and spaces unrivaled. The Circus Maximus and the Colliseum would be impressive structures even if they were built today.

It's no coincidence that there are columns a-plenty in D.C. and stone all over everything. Nothing screams permanence like expensive, heavy stone. The Egyptians knew it, the Greeks knew it, the Romans knew it. D.C. is intentionally built to evoke images of glory and empire and permanence.

But those images are all illusions, for nothing is permanent. The structures still stand in many cases, but the civilizations and vibrant life that once filled them are long gone. Egypt was swept away as an independent power by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, and the Romans by a series of barbarian tribes. The Byzantine East survived for a millenium longer, but even they fell to Ottoman Turks eventually.

At least these ancient civilizations fell to invaders. We will probably fall to our own stupidity and corruption without the benefit of foreign aggression. History buffs, please spare me the lecture. I know that each of these civilizations were weakened by internal strife and corruption which set the stage for their conquest from without. I was merely pointing out that we won't even need that push from an external force in order for us to fall over.

Rome and Egypt and Greece never had to deal with a shifting climate and a population addicted to a cheap energy source which made life obscenely easy. They never had to deal with fundamentally dwindling resources with no frontiers left to colonize and exploit. There's no release valve for the pressures we are under today.

Where can you send excess population to go live now? The North Pole? When we run out of food or water where can we go to get more? Ummm... Mars? When the oil runs out and petroleum-based fertilizers aren't available to super-charge our soil any more, how do we feed our 7 billion person population?

Am I crazy? I hope so.

Atlanta doesn't think so. They're in a tough way down there. Maybe a foreshadowing of things to come? Take a look at Lake Allatoona, one of the major water sources down there.

What I'm saying is that no army can stop a drought. No bomber can make crops grow. Our military can't save us like it saved the Egyptians and the Romans and the Greeks for so long. Figthing this enemy takes a lot more smarts and cooperation than anything the ancients faced.

I'm just wondering if we're up to it.

Harry's Out

So I'm going to Ye Olde Gun Shoppe today to trade in my Taurus .357 Magnum Snubbed Nose Revolver in favor of something else. Another .357, more than likely. I'll just pass on the snubbed nose this time.

Other stuff on my list as I build my "Oh, shit!" st0ckpile:

• 1 box 12 gauge 3" OO buckshot
• 1 box 12 gauge 3" slug
• 1 box .22 cal standard
• 1 box 7.62mm x 39
• Ruger 10/22 Rimfire rear sight (to repair my step-Dad's rifle)
• 2 lbs dried green lentil beans
• 2 sets earplugs

My kids live with me during the school year and visit their Mom every other weekend. During the summer they live with her and visit me every other weekend. Anyway, the next time they're with me for the weekend we're going to go out to Barboursville and shoot a bit. This will be their first time ever holding a real gun.

I'm going to break them in on the same Ruger 10/22 Rimfire my step-Dad used to let us shoot. It's a little .22 cal rifle that's a great intro gun for those who have never shot a gun before. It has a 10 shot magazine, is light weight and has just about zero kick.

I'll also teach them the same strict gun safety that my Dad taught me. It's pretty simple, really:

• Never, ever, ever point a weapon at someone you don't intend to kill.
• When there's a man down range keep your weapon trained on the sky.
• Never look down the barrel of a gun unless that gun is disassembled. (Sad that such a rule must be stated, yes, but a whole bunch of people are killed in such accidents every year)
• If you are not shooting, the safety on your weapon will be engaged.
• If no one is down range and you are not shooting, your weapon will be trained on the ground, slightly ahead of you, and down range.
• When holding your weapon and not firing it, your finger is not to rest on the trigger regardless of the state of the safety on that weapon.
• No goofing off of any kind for any reason. None whatsoever. No excuses. No second chances.

As A Ray of Hope...

Not to sound too corny, but my kids and the young people coming into the political process do tend to give me some hope.

Why? Well, in terms of my kids I would say that they have it much better than I ever did - at least in the ways that truly count. I love my Dad, don't get me wrong, but I think I'm doing a better job raising my kids than he ever did. We both have the same genetically predisposed temper, but I think I must have realized it earlier on in life and figured out how to control it earlier.

I believe they've lead a much less stressful childhood and had all the right values passed to them: hard work, loyalty to family, critical thinking, and a healthy skepticism in regards to authority.

And when I talk about the new wave of young people I see getting involved in the system I actually have a bit of pride on that point. As a trailing member of the punker generation I like to think that the counter-culture that my generation helped establish laid the groundwork for some of the political common sense that is evident in the 20-somethings who are just now tuning in.

Where the baby-boomer hippy generation failed is in the spirit of their counter-culture. It was too dreamy and Utopian. Such fanciful nonsense never succeeds.

Free love? Pashaw! The contradictions against human nature involved in the free love concept are far too numerous to detail here.

"We stopped the war, man!" Whatever, hippy. Vietnam went on for 13 years. Yeah, you really brought that to a screeching halt, didn't you?

Where punk differed was in it's core philosophy and the spirit of the movement. It was political at its core. It was angry and aggressive. It didn't back down from the pigs and it looked certain truths square in the eye:

• The world is not, and never will be, some Utopian paradise
• People are naturally corrupted by power at the same time that we all seek it
• Power speaks to Power. It's the only language understood by the powerful.
• The entire world is on a collision course with Doom (politically, environmentally, socially)
• People are people - with all the good and bad that comes with that truth. We are all essentially the same.
• Fear is your enemy
• Love does not always conquer all - life is full of tragedy

These punkish principles and the counter-culture developed around them have laid the groundwork for a new generation of politically skeptical (and thereby more aware) voters who inherently do not trust their leadership.

There is nothing more American than a healthy mistrust for those in power. It is one of the cornerstones that the Founding Fathers counted on when building the framework for our nation - the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. They counted on the People to be suspicious of their government.

Fascists blindly follow authority (usually to their demise). They do not question and they do not inform themselves.

I take heart at the fact that a rising percentage of young voters are informing themselves. I am encouraged by the fact that many, many more of them are getting off their asses and voting. 22 million more people were signed up just in the Democratic primary.

I quote that figure not because I am necessarily a Democrat, but because I am not hearing of the Republicans signing many new people up. I also quote that figure because now that we are in the general election season we will undoubtedly see more people signing up. Many of these potential voters stood on the sidelines waiting for the general to begin.

Don't listen to the pundits. They have been wrong over and over again this season. They want you to think this is going to be a close election. It isn't. Don't believe the hype. The new voters coming in are going to skew every poll they've run so hard that they will all be statistically irrelevant.

This has to please the Founding Fathers. Not because it is the Dems are likely to win, but because they believe that a periodic ballot box revolution was a prerequisite for a healthy democracy. Don't forget - our Founding Fathers were revolutionaries. They were the Che Guevaras of their day, striking terror into the royalty of Europe.

Their revolutionary fervor did spread, too. It was a very short time before the revolutionary spirit spread to France and the heads of the powerful rolled... literally. The longest sitting royal dynasty in Europe at the time had been unseated. One of the few royal houses that still enjoyed absolute power had been defeated by the masses.

In 2000 we had a good economy, good standing in the world, a budgetary surplus, a military that stood ready to defend us from any enemy, and strong global alliances. We took a chance on the guy we'd like to have a beer with. We took a chance that leaned towards the right - a conservative promising to be a "uniter, not a divider."

Maybe it's time to take a chance towards the left? Let's risk it on another new face to Washington promising to work across the aisle and change the way Washington works. You might has well get on the bandwagon. Do you think these new, young voters - 22 million and growing in strength - are going to break in favor of McCain? If you do, please share that awesome crack you're smoking.

All Good Things...

I'm generally not a fan of bumper stickers. I kind of hate them, as a matter of fact. They're meant to be condensed "wisdom" applied to the backside of an automobile (just above and to the right of our polluting tailpipes).

I did see one the other day that actually struck me. Very few ideas worth considering are boiled down to a single, short statement.

Some classic nuggets of such short and sweet wisdom would be:

• Life is too short for [insert stupid b.s. here]...
• It's a small world.
• Treat others as you want to be treated.
• All things must come to an end.

... and maybe a few others, but that's basically it. This bumper sticker adds another nugget to this elite list:

• These are the good old days...

Think about that for a second. Sometime in the not-too-distant future they'll look back at us like Roman nobility, with a culture all gluttonous and over-sexed. They'll analyze our hip-hop videos with half-naked women, our Girls Gone Wild, our porn, our idiotic leadership, our divided culture, our illnesses (diabetes, gout, heart disease, obesity, autism, cancer of everything), our militant nation-states, our moronic political process, and the blind way we stumbled through life and they'll wonder:

"How the hell did they make it as long as they did?"

I was reflecting on these notions last night as we had Father's Day dinner at my house. I had prepared these awesome Cuban style pork tacos and for desert my wife made a great strawberry peach shortcake with homemade whipped cream and homemade shortcake. I looked over at my four year old daughter, who had some silly sunglasses on, a feather boa, and some Disney princess dress. I watched as my eldest finished up his chores and immediately picked up his Nintendo DS to play some Pokemon game.

I thought to myself, as I sipped my expensive local microbrew, "Not too long ago, only royalty and the very wealthy lived like this."

And then it occurred to me that not even nobility would have had the benefit of air conditioning like I do. Not even nobility could travel miles in mere minutes on a whim in a personal motor coach like I can. No matter how rich you were you couldn't communicate with a friend or family member on the other side of the planet instantaneously. I can.

Then I realized that people have never lived this well. Never. I mean there are many, many problems with modern industrial society but comfort is not one of them. I have of course had this thought before, but the idea that - these are the good old days - really sunk in. It may never be this easy again. We may never again lay in the lap of such luxury.

I don't know if that's a bad thing. There are so many times when I just can't stand the idea of working for lesser men, of toiling towards goals that are so abstract. I spend all day away from those I love to go work in some terrible building under flourescent lights for a paycheck that is usually spoken for the instant it arrives.

Why? I'm really not sure why. Because that's what people do? I guess that's as good a reason as I can muster. Maybe because I'm addicted to this soft life that I simultaneously hate in many ways. I like my blog and my internet and my MMORPG and my easy access to food and clean water.

I like functions like security and fire fighting being left to the professionals. I like my HOA which comes by and cuts the grass and fixes my roof and siding.

And I hate it. I hate it all. I hate this stupid waste of time I'm engaged in right now. The internet is 80% stupidity, 10% porn, 9% storefronts, and 1% useful information. Really you could throw the porn in with the storefront category. They're just selling sex.

My gaming is a waste of time. It's an idle way to piss away the precious few moments I have to be on this Earth.

I hate the stupid, meddling emails I get from the HOA. I'm actually on the board. I thought I'd be the voice of reason for these jackasses.

Nope. These petty tyrants can't be beaten by words - that's where they rule. Make them actually do something themselves and that's where they fail. But with the complicated machinations of law and society and management companies to back them up it's guaranteed they'll never lift a finger.

Meh.

Bumper Sticker Logic (Cooler War Ammo)

So many people will only grasp and retain "knowledge" if the idea or piece of "knowledge" can fit on a bumper sticker. A classic example of this is the pro-Bush, pro-Iraq, pro-Cowboy Diplomacy argument that goes:

"Well, if Bush is such an idiot then why haven't we been attacked again?"

You could also substitute in "If Iraq isn't a part of the War on Terror then why haven't we been attacked again?" It's essentially the same "argument" (throw in exaggerated air quotes around argument).

Here's the way you respond next time a hawk drops that on you at the water cooler:

1. Make sure they prepare themselves mentally for a response that will take longer than 10 seconds to explain. ("Now you know I'm going to have to talk for longer than ten seconds to explain this to you. Do you think you can handle that without screaming Clinton got a blowjob?")
2. Then tell them that Osama binLaden was a mujahadeen back during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. You may have to explain to them what a mujahadeen is.
3. Next explain that the Afghani mujahadeen bled the Soviets dry economically in Afghanistan, eventually causing the Soviet Union to collapse.
4. Then, go on to explain that 9/11 was a provocation, more or less. binLaden wanted to provoke America into a Middle Eastern war (in Afghanistan). Around this war he could declare another jihad and try to bleed America dry in the same way the Soviets were bled.
5. Unfortunately, the attack was much more successful than he could have imagined. It horrified the world and everyone united behind America. It appeared that his plan had backfired. America, with the aid and backing of the world, would invade Afghanistan. It would not be possible to bleed America dry when calls of jihad would be largely ignored by a horrified Muslim world. In addition to the lack of support binLaden would be getting, America would be assisted by everyone and wouldn't bear the burden of pacifying and rebuilding Afghanistan alone. There was no way the Taliban could protect al Qaeda now.
6. Then, Bush granted a wish binLaden could never have hoped for: he derailed the Afghanistan train and diverted America's resources to Iraq which not only allowed binLaden to evade capture in Afghanistan (a la Tora Bora), but squandered the goodwill of the Muslim world engendered by the horrors of 9/11. It also served to isolate America from her European allies. America would have to go it alone in Iraq.
7. Now America could be bled out in a protracted struggle against a low grade insurgency in Iraq... just like the Soviets were in the 80's in Afghanistan and just like the French were in the 50's and 60's in Algeria.

That's only seven points and it basically sums up the entire case against staying in Iraq. We fell for an old ploy which has destroyed other Western nations in the past.

We cannot afford Iraq. Period. Whatever your ideology we cannot afford it. No matter what you believe or don't believe about this war the simple fact is that we cannot sustain these expenditures much longer. It doesn't matter if you believe the seven points above, either.

Our. Sagging. Economy. Cannot. Afford. This. War.

If we do not begin withdrawing in short order our nation will sink into an economic depression like we've never seen before.

That's my ray of sunshine for the day.

Preparing for the Squeeze

It's all going to hell and probably faster than even I would like to consider. I'm the kind of guy with his eyes open, too. I just don't see anything encouraging.

The fundamentals are all screwed. We're mismanaging the land, our water, global warming, our national defense, our infrastructure, our education, and our economic base.

Every place I've ever worked has featured multiple (not just one, but multiple) managers with college degrees that were barely literate. These guys made much more money than I did and they wrote unintelligible emails. Emails that my ten year old daughter would have been embarrassed to send.

I'm not talking about a misspelling here and there. Hell, we all do that (although with spell checking I can't imagine why). I mean that these guys wrote emails that featured strings of alphanumeric characters which bore no resemblance to complete thoughts, let alone sentences. These are managers! Managers! They are supposedly our leaders and examples.

I don't need to get into the environmental stuff. At this point if you aren't on board with this notion you're an imbecile or you're on Chevron's payroll.

Everyone remembers the bridge that collapsed out of the blue in Minnesota and the tunnel collapse in Boston. Now there are cranes collapsing in New York. I read this Popular Mechanics article that made my toes curl. Popular Mechanics tries to look at this crisis in the best light possible, citing technology as our possible savior. I have to say that it takes will and people and dollars to apply technology. Where is the will and where are the dollars that will bring the people who will apply the technology?

I don't see them.

A staggering statistic from that article:

"One-quarter of the 599,893 bridges in the United States have structural problems or outdated designs."

That's 149,973 bridges in need of replacement or repairs. I could tick off three in my hometown alone that make me nervous. And that's just the ones I've noticed casually passing them by.

On national defense - every source from within the military will tell you our military is at its lowest state of readiness since before WW II (back when we basically had no military). Regardless of where you stand on why we got into Iraq or if we should have or if the public was lied to in the lead up there is one fact that stands undeniable:

Our military and our nation are being bled dry in Iraq. We are losing the lives of our valiant men and women in uniform and for what? For freedom and democracy in Iraq? Don't make me laugh. An altruistic invasion to spread democracy at bayonet-point? Really?

People keep comparing Iraq to Vietnam and I tell them they're wrong. While there are some similarities to America's involvement in Vietnam, our struggle in Iraq is much more like the Soviet Union's struggle in Afghanistan which started in 1979.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan for murky reasons and ended up running 40 divisions through that meat grinder. This is what defeated the Soviets, not Reagan or Bush the Elder. The Soviets were economically and thus militarily ruined in Afghanistan due to a low grade insurgency like the one we're experiencing in Iraq and the one the French experienced in Algeria in the late 50's and early 60's.

We're bleeding out in Iraq. Our budget has massive defecits and here's the kicker, kids:

We aren't even counting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into the regular budget. They've been entirely funded by emergency supplemental spending which isn't factored into the budget and therefore wouldn't show up in any deficit numbers.

In short, as bad as you think the nation's budgetary crisis is - it is in fact much, much worse.

That is why, no matter what you think about our nation's War on Terror, we must withdrawl from Iraq. We simply cannot afford to continue. Despite what you think about our nation's treasury it is not a limitless treasure trove. If it were only empty there might be some hope.

Sadly our treasury is full to the rafters. It is not full with money or gold or reserves of any kind. No, our treasury is full of debt. Our treasury is, as of this moment, so bankrupt that only the continued denial of this obvious reality on the part of our creditors allows us to keep up our illusions of power and wealth. We are less than poor. We are absolutely destitute.

With no manufacturing base left we stand little hope of reversing this trend. During the Great Depression we were still a mighty manufacturing nation - our factories just stood silent, all full of potential jobs. Now these factories in many cases have literally been packaged up and shipped overseas. They simply aren't present any more.

We can't all work in high end service jobs like information technology. Somebody, somewhere has to actually make something in order for our economy to function. This isn't happening.

The thing that really scares me is this - it may be coming faster than I can prepare for it. I may not be able to complete my preparations for these hard times to come before they arrive.

Harry Doesn't Make the Cut

Man, I hate to say it, but my .357 magnum snub nosed revolver isn't going to make the cut. It is way too inaccurate. I'm a good shot, if I do say so myself, and I couldn't hit a basketball sized target reliably at 40 feet.

That's just not acceptable. I was drilling it with my brother's Glock .45. Oh yeah, baby. Nailing it, so I know it's not my aim that's the problem.

I'll just have to trade it in. I'm pretty sure I want to get another .357 revolver. I'll just avoid the snubbed nose this time. I like the fact that a .357 can fire two types of ammunition (.38 and .357 mag). I like that versatility and I love the reliability of a revolver.

Hike-n-Shoot on the Bearfence Scramble

My brother and a good buddy of mine from work and I went out and did some hiking this weekend. We hiked the Beafence Scramble along the Appalachian Trail along with a short bit of another portion of the trail. It was about 6 miles total and with the heat yesterday that was plenty (105 degrees with the heat index).

I'm by far the fat-ass of the group, so when we got to the portion of the hile that gives the trail the "scramble" portion of its name, I was taking it slow. I didn't think anyone would appreciate having to carry me down the mountain if I broke an ankle. The "scramble" bit in the name "Bearfence Scramble" is due to the fact that you have to scramble over some rocky portions on the trail.

On the top of the mountain there was a rocky outcropping with a stunning vista. Maybe those of you who are used to the Rockies or Swiss Alps may think that a view from the top of a mountain in Virginia can't be all that great. I respectfully disagree ("Strawman, strawman!"). I'll post some photos if my bro comes through and sends me some of the pics he took. I, as usual, forgot my digital camera.

After the hiking bit of the day was done, we drove back to Barboursville. Damn, was it muggy and hot. Just nasty. After getting out of the car and gathering my guns and ammo, we walked maybe thirty yards to the gully in which we'd be shooting. I was sweating like a pig, and not from any sort of exertion, either.

We shot Cletus, of course. We also shot Harry for the first time. I may end up trading Harry in for a model without a snubbed nose in the near future. Harry was very inaccurate. We shot 25 rounds of .38 and about 10-12 rounds of the .357 mag hollow points. The .357 was by far the loudest of all the rounds we shot that day (.38, .357, 12 gauge target, 12 gauge buck, 12 gauge slug).

And I forgot my earplugs. Great.

We must have shot 50 of the 12 gauge target shot, about 15 buckshot, and 15 slugs. I suspected that the buckshot and slugs would kick more than the target shot and oh, boy did they!

Bike Riding & the Killer Ape

I'm back to riding my bike to work. I had stopped riding my bike in favor of walking for a couple of reasons.

My daughter used to ride in with me. We'd ride together to her school and drop her off, chain up her bike, and then I'd be on my merry way to work. On a couple of occasions we had jackasses who weren't paying attention nearly run us off the road. They'd come around a blind corner too fast and have to swerve to avoid us even though we were hugging the curb as we rode. It was making me nervous to ride in with her knowing that we shared the road with a gang of retards.

The second reason was a guy who literally swerved his car at me to threaten me. There's a stoplight on my route at which I make a left turn. I was second in line and there was a third person (in a car) behind me. The light turned green and I started to go. If anything, I was tailgating the car in front of me a little bit.

Starting from a dead stop and immediately turning I can keep up with the cars through the turn (unless they're driving like they were in a race). Since there's no such thing as a left turn bike lane, I ride in the same lane as the cars until we're through the turn and then I merge over to the right where the bike lane resumes. Perfectly legal and it slows no one down.

So this guy behind me (fat-ass with glasses and a beard in a maroon early 90's Toyota Corolla) got mad at me for whatever reason. He gunned the engine in his car, pulled alongside me on my left (in the oncoming lane), looked over at me, honked his horn and then swerved his car at me. He gunned it past me and the car in front of me, swerved back into the right lane and raced ahead of us.

At first I was stunned. When I got over the initial shock (maybe 2 seconds) the Murderous Primate kicked in. I wanted this fat motherfucker's blood. I wanted to break my fists on his face. In short, I would kill this tiny-pricked bastard if I got a hold of him. I don't think I've ever been that bent on hurting someone in my life.

I remember thinking to myself as I pedalled like a maniac, "Let the stoplight catch this asshole. Please, God, let me kill this motherfucker."

The stoplight turned red. The fat-ass in the maroon early 90's Toyota Corolla stopped his car and my heart leaped for murderous joy. The mental photograph of him glaring at me while he stiff-armed his horn bubbled up. Both the passenger and driver side windows were open.

His window was open. Huge mistake, fat-ass.

I side-saddled my bike as I rapidly approached his driver-side window. I was going to just ditch the bike and let it go where it might. I was going to reach in this guy's window with my left hand, hook my index and middle fingers up his nose, clamp down with my thumb, and pull his head out of his window. I would then proceed to drill his skull repeatedly with my clenched fist. I wanted to bruise his brain and make it swell up in his fat head.

He looked up in his rear view mirror as I was about 30' behind his maroon early 90's Toyota Corolla. His eyes opened up like saucers, the brake lights went out, and the rear end of his car dipped a bit as he punched his gas pedal and ran the red light. His tires gave a short chirp.

"Fucking twat!" I screamed after him. "You better find a new way to work, motherfucker! I'll fucking kill you!"

I screamed so loudly at him that I hurt my throat in that one outcry. By the time I got to work, my voice was raspy and I was shaking from the adrenaline that was wearing off. I hate that sick feeling in my stomach after I get jacked on adrenaline.

But, man, do I love the soaring power I feel in my limbs and chest when I'm that mad. It's like a drug. Clarity settles into my mind and a singular focus consumes all (in a Darth Vader voice, of course):

Destroy that which has angered thee, Murderous Primate! Kill all that would defy thine glorious vengeance!

Disclaimer

I'm really very psyched about this whole Hike-n-Shoot thing coming up on Sunday. In addition to my brother and I, a friend of mine from work will be joining us. Another very old friend of mine has a scheduling conflict, but wants to join us next time.

So the army grows. Mountain hiking for conditioning and shooting afterwards for training. I'm just kidding about growing the army. It's kinda silly that I would have to say that, but with all of the data mining going on and the growing police state we live in I feel that such a disclaimer must be made.

DISCLAIMER:

The author of this web log (referred to as a "blog" hereinafter) does not in any way wish to overthrow the United States Government by any means other than legal electoral processes. The Author also does not espouse violence of any sort on this blog. Any references to violence are explicitly meant in the context of self-defense and even then, mostly in reference to anarchistic periods following a general collapse of Government.

Such a collapse would occur as a result of foolish and myopic Government policies or geopolitical strife that the Author of this blog could neither incite nor control. Neither does the Author wish for this collapse to occur and would therefore not facilitate such disintegration of the authorities and machinations of Government.

The entire purpose of this blog is to chronicle the Author's attempts to reach a state of preparedness in the event of such a collapse, not to incite rebellion other than ballot box rebellion (which is still legal as far as we've been told). Should voting against the ruling party become illegal, one would expect that revolt and rebellion would come from so many directions that the Government wouldn't worry about this pathetic little blog that no one reads.

State of the Union

My fellow Americans,

The state of the Union is not strong. As President of the United States of America I feel it is my duty to tell it to you straight. This country has been horribly mismanaged by a two-party system paralyzed by gridlock for far too long.

Corporate interests have pillaged our national heritage for the sake of the next quarter's profit statement. Manufacturing in America is something from an era gone by. Gone are the good middle class jobs that would afford a decent living to people with no college education. These jobs have gone overseas and the corporations who sent them overseas got tax incentives to do it.

The college education that is a necessity these days will cost you far more than it ever cost your parents, starting most graduates off in a state of debt from the moment they take their diploma. The average American family is hard pressed to send their children to college. This sets the stage for a less and less competitive and qualified American workforce in the future. This will put America at a severe disadvantage in the global marketplace.

These are not the only hardships the middle class faces. While all of the other industrialized Western nations have moved on to nationalized healthcare affording coverage to all of their citizens, America's healthcare system has become more expensive and slipped to a ranking of 37th, just behind Costa Rica. The threat of bankruptcy due to illness looms large over the heads of every American family.

After decades of underfunding, America, whose public education system used to be the envy of the world, now has a decrepit system where lower income students are at a severe disadvantage and every student is expected to learn with fewer and fewer resources.

All of these things go to undercut and weaken the middle class, which is the backbone of a strong America. The middle class has always fueled the American economy and with the middle class deteriorating can it be any surprise that America itself seems to be in decline?

The Recession of 2001 was a recession from which we never truly recovered. The "recovery" we experienced was largely fueled by rising housing prices which afforded consumers seemingly free money in the form of home equity loans. This meteoric rise in housing prices coupled with stagnant wages was an unsustainable trend and lead to the inevitable housing market correction we are seeing today.

The lack of regulation in the mortgage industry lead to predictable abuses piled on top of a wildly overvalued housing market, coupled with abusive repackaging and reselling of these loans on the international markets. Millions of foreclosures on American families coupled with millions more American families trapped in their current homes* will only deepen a long-running economic downturn that has never truly and sustainably been reversed.

Oil prices skyrocketing causes food prices to rise, the cost of a commute to rise, and a general rise of prices across the board for all things you buy. Stagnant wages. Falling consumer confidence. The highest debt-to-income ratio in the American household since the Great Depression.

A lack of action from the federal government on global warming has put us further behind on an issue that we should have began work on in the late 70's as envisioned by Jimmy Carter. I myself take issue with many things he did during his time as President, but on this issue he displayed uncanny prescience.

The war in Iraq is a barrier to progress on any of the above issues. While we are bleeding in Iraq we can not undertake any solutions here at home. The human cost in Iraq is a tragic metric which proves the folly of ever going in. The financial cost drains our coffers while the infrastructure in America collapses around us, while Americans lose their jobs, their homes, and their health - while Americans lose their security.

In short, nothing is going right. Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat we should all hang our heads in shame. We have greviously failed the American people and the American dream. Thankfully all is not lost. Not yet. We can reverse these trends.

We can pull out of Iraq with honor. Our soldiers have accomplished their mission. It is the political leaders who have failed in their mission, not the brave men and women in uniform. I propose that within the next two years that we draw down all combat forces in Iraq, leaving a diplomatic and humanitarian mission in their place. It is our moral obligation, after killing so many innocent Iraqi civilians and destroying their nation's infrastructure to be in the forefront of the humaitarian mission they so desperately need.

For our men and women in uniform returning home, we owe nothing less than the best medical and psychological care that is available. We owe them a chance at a real future in the form of a full ride to any college to which they can gain admittance. We owe them our thanks and our understanding and our sympathy as they adjust to life after war.

We must capture Osama bin Laden and destroy the resurgent Taliban and alQaeda. We must finish what we started in Afghanistan. To that end I will propose commiting 50% more soldiers to the stabilization mission in Afghanistan, granting Afghanistan preferred trading partner status, and creating a collection of special forces teams whose entire purpose is tracking down Osama bin Laden.

Getting us out of Iraq is not only morally correct, but a financial necessity. We do not want to follow the Soviet Union down the path of a bankrupting war in the Middle East. To correct any of the problems here at home will require we stop spending money we don't have in Iraq.

The American people are far ahead of their leaders on almost all of these issues. The need to break our dependence on oil is one of these issues. We need to spark a Green Revolution in this country. By ending subsidies for oil companies and transitioning this money into federal grants for green technology research and low interest startup loans for green technology companies, we can stimulate the economy in a true way creating a new generation of jobs - "green collar" jobs that will pay a good wage.

These jobs will provide the basis for a revived middle class and address our environmental problem at the same time. Restructing of the tax code to end the Bush tax cuts for those who make more than $200, 000 a year will put the federal budget back on track and allow for renewed investment in America's infrastructure and education system.

We must raise the CAFE standards for all auto manufacturers who sell cars in America. To further the cause of the environment, I will propose a bill that will grant tax incentives for American auto makers who exceed the minimum CAFE standards on the cars they make.

In this same bill I will also propose a massive reinvestment in public transportation, the centerpiece of which will be a new national highspeed rail system. Couple this with funding help for municipalities who pursue local light rail solutions and we will reinvent travel and the transportation of goods in America.

At the same time we do all of these things, we must address the national shame which is the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina. We must rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We must reach out and help our fellow Americans. We must resettle those who wish to return to their homes and reinvest in these Gulf communities, many of which were struck by desperate poverty even before Katrina.

In part this can be done by rebuilding all of the schools in neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The federal government should partner with local and state officials to build model schools in these regions. State of the art facilities that will be the benchmark for returning America's education system back to the envied position it once held.

Terrorism and failed states are the new enemies America faces in the 21st century. To face these new threats will require a new national security stance whose roots we can trace to the past. Like Truman at the dawn of the Cold War, we must face these enemies with a strong alliance of like-minded states. We must rebuild the alliances that have suffered so much lately as well as forge new alliances.

With this coalition we must share not only intelligence gathered concerning threats, but we must share the burden of dealing with these threats. Standing together with old allies and new, America will be better positioned to lead the world to a new era of global peace and prosperity.

To earn the right to lead this new alliance, America must reestablish its moral authority. Let me be clear to the American public, to our allies, and the world at large:

America renounces torture in every way. America recommits itself to the Geneva Conventions and will reestablish itself as the world's leader in human rights advocacy. We renounce all policies of the previous Administration concerning "enhanced interrogation" techniques and torture. Waterboarding is torture. Any rendition programs that may exist are summarily terminated as of this very moment.

All detainees at Guantanimo will hereby be given a trial or freed. The legal grey zone that is Guantanimo and its detention center is a stain on America's honor. Let me be clear, this stain was not inflicted by the men and women in uniform who honorably followed the orders of their superiors.

This stain is laid clearly at the feet of the previous Administration. I urge Congress to finally hold the hearings that may bring accountability to those truly to blame for these crimes, not the low ranking enlisted soldiers who have borne the brunt of the punishment to this point.

===================

And so on... I could type for hours. No matter who gets in the White House I will follow them to the bitter end if they give this speech for their first State of the Union speech and then follow through on making it happen.

* Trapped by being upside down in their mortgage, which is owing more on your mortgage principal than the amount for which you could sell your home

Solidarity!

I've found that a friend of mine seems to share my thoughts on the potential for gridcrash. At least it would seem so based upon the brief email exchange we had. He may be coming with my brother and I on our Hike-n-Shoot* on June 8th. If not, then we're sure to get together for a beer soon to mill over the topic.

Also, my wife just read the book Peak Oil Survival by Aric McBay (linked in the Required Reading section to the right). That's a good thing. I'd hate to think that if anything happened to me that all of the survival-type knowledge in our family would go with me. She seemed to find it an interesting read.

My brother and I also may have made some headway on getting her to come out and shoot with us. Not sure how the logistics of that would work (with the kids), but it's encouraging that she's at least opening up to the idea.

* Hike-n-Shoot: A morning of backpack hiking in the mountains followed by an afternoon spent target shooting in Barboursville. An event we will be doing every other week.