Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Life's journeys

I often find myself thinking on where my journey has taken me so far, and hoping it continues to be as interesting in the years ahead.

Life is just too short to just sit and watch the world pass by; one needs to get more involved and live life to the fullest of their ability.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Sunday morning

The recent attacks by ISIS in Paris is yet another reminder of the consequences having an open border policy could be.  While the refugee situation occurring in Europe is definitely a major problem, one should realize that there could be, as Kor asks Kirk in this great Star Trek episode, "a ram amongst the sheep?".  Or in this case, several...

Terror groups like ISIS would not hesitate for a minute to send some of theirs to infiltrate their target nations mixed in with those refugees trying to escape the madhouse their so-called 'Caliphate' has become.  Once there, they can take the measure of things, get funding, weapons, intelligence, and lodging, then proceed with mapping out their plan of attack.  Don't forget, al-Qaida had years to plan out how they were going to proceed with their attack.  And, save those brave souls on UA 93 who fought back and forced the plane down before it hit the Capitol, they succeeded. 

As to what befell Paris, it could also happen here, especially since the President decided we should take in 250,000 refugees from Syria.  The same batch of refugees which seem to have an over-abundance of young, relatively healthy men in their 20's to 30's...and very few women, children, and seniors.

And they could skip the major population centers on the coast and obvious tourist traps like Vegas or Orlando.  They could strike anywhere, such as Omaha, Tucson, Grand Prairie, Baton Rouge, Burlington, Bangor, Syracuse, Spokane...the list is endless.

Those who choose to carry to protect themselves and their loved ones, along with our LEOs, should be keeping more aware of their surroundings, and  yet not let ourselves get totally going this way:
(Yes I thought it was funny, this post needed a little levity) :-)

I've said enough on this, but for those who want more insight, check out some of the postings the other residents of the blogosphere I follow have made:

The Silicon Graybeard
The Liberty Zone (nice to see Nicki back up and running)
And this and this at WRSA

Stay safe and keep your heads on a swivel.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Catching up

Well it seems I finally managed to beat off this nasty plague I had.  Have been busy the last couple of weeks with work and other things, and decided today to take a look around the blogosphere for interesting tidbits.

First off, Nicki at The Liberty Zone is temporarily going offline while she attempts to either repair her PC or get a new one.  Looking at the comments it seems like someone out there has offered to either get her a loaner or assist in repairing her machine.  I just wish I had enough spares to ship out her one gratis, but am sure someday I'll be able to assist another who might be in the same dire straits.
To continue, Nicki posted this story of total ass-faggotry about a mother who is a Naturopath and allowed her 3 kids to get whooping cough and not be vaccinated!  I read the original posting here and I am just totally blown away that a parent would allow her kids to go through that mess.  Having such beliefs is one thing for yourself, but putting innocent children at risk because of your fuck-tarditry is just way way out of line.
I've always enjoyed reading Nicki and Rob's postings, and look forward to seeing more once she gets back up and running.

Over at the Bayou Renaissance Man's blog, Peter shares some amusing anecdotes on battle cutlery, pseudonyms for artists, and the further adventures of Simon's Cat.  Check it out!

Some interesting eye-candy at The Lonely Libertarian, as Angel is temporarily forced offline until she gets a new ISP.  She always has a way of coming up with some funny stuff! :-)  Gotta love that lady...

At Every Blade of Grass, there are some excellent pics from the Iowa showing their red phones and the 'Coke machine' box which interconnects them.  Check it out and ready the story, which made me cringe thinking back when I thought trying to terminate 25-pair cable with Amphenol connectors was pure hell; that had nothing on what they are trying to do!

And finally, one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Michael Z. Williamson, shares some interesting case of butt-hurt on Facebook, and shows how talented he is in many different facets of life in general.  Trade barbs with him at your own risk...

On the personal side, I had sold my Glock 22, 7 mags, and about 200 rounds of ammo to a buddy at work for some fairly decent cash.  I then turned around and went to the gun show at the South Point casino today and came home with this nice beauty:
A Glock 17, two additional factory 17-round magazines to go with the 2 already with the pistol, plus 250 rounds of 9mm.  The reason why I did the switch is that my dad had purchased a S&W SD9 9mm pistol so he can do armed security work, and it just made sense to switch to a 9mm for ammo commonality.  Plus 9 is so much cheaper than 40 :-)

The 250 rounds should be sufficient for practice until I can go back to the next show in December and really stock up.

Overall, this week has been fairly productive, especially since I am still losing weight, continuing the 30+ pounds I had lost while I was sick, so I hope to keep the momentum going.