BlogMeeting Day!

This morning: BlogShoot, Eagle Creek Pistol Range, 10:00 am -- ??

This afternoon: BlogMeet: Locally Grown Gardens, 3:00 pm.

See you there?

Star Trek Movie

So, we saw it.

Remember Ruger's recent, cryptic teasers about "rebooting a classic?" Maybe they should take lessons from the Star Trek franchise. I'm not sayin' it's a must-see-asap but it gets the job done; there are plenty of nits for the hardcore Trekker to pick and the usual disregard of physics, economics and common sense, not to mention command discipline and the promotion process within a military service; but it's a movie, f'pity's sake, and it does a pretty good job of tellin' a big, shiny story, which is what movies do. Go see it. Set your phaser on "fun." And meet the original crew all over again.

NRA Coverage

...At Sebastian's. Waiting on Atomic Nerds. Breda experienced TSA doing its job with the same warmth and friendliness as a meat grinder.* Alan gets to play with the new Ruger...thing. (An AR-15 needs an oprod? I mean, you'd'a thunk the Army -- or the Marines, anyway -- would have noticed).

More coverage elsewhere from the other bloggers attending -- Kevin has a roundup o'linkage.
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* This bugs me on many levels. I helped set up equipment for news coverage of Hillary Clinton's stop at a factory here in Indianapolis, making multiple trips through a very high, dead-serious level of security, local police plus Secret Service and y'know what? It was invasive but they were decent about it. They didn't treat anyone like a pail of slops -- not me, not the janitorial staff, not the reporters, nobody. They didn't joke around or play at bein' your pal but they looked folks in the eyes and said hello and explained what was goin' on. But TSA with a tiny librarian? Oh hell no. They can't be bothered, even when she bursts into tears.

Oh?

Bumper stickers spotted on our return from Dayton. The District of Columbia, alas, is still technically part of America, sir: FAIL.

...You know, I was gonna add on about how I think our current President is way more wrongheaded (in the Edwin H. Armstrong, "What he thinks he knows that isn't actually so," sense) than idiotic, but then Tam linked to this. It's either idiocy or effrontery. Possibly both.

Leaping Into Hysteria

...Some folks are taking more than a little fish oil and vitamin B to get a boost and the editorial board of the Christian Science Monitor has decided to get all bedwetty over it. F'rinstance:

The bigger danger in this new "mind hacking" is that it furthers the idea that people are material machines that can be altered like robots to perform ever-greater mental feats. The notion of life being more than molecules fades like a beautiful sunset behind a storm cloud.

Awww. Isn't that pretty? Kind of hides the way it ducks the reality.

Looky here, either we are meat machines and drugs work -- and the evidence appears to bear that out -- or not. Yeah, I'd like to think there's a ghost in the machine, too, but I haven't seen one. Which doesn't mean it's not there.

If somebody's abilities can be significantly boosted by a pill, how is that different to another person who can only function if they take a pill? Why is it okay for the latter to have 'em but not the former?

The CSM isn't sure but they're heap fretted. In their anguish, they muse, "...At some point this drug taking may no longer be a matter of free will." Well now, that'd be a whole different question with a whole other set of answers. How's that "nationalized medical coverage" look to you now?

Eatin' Dayton Alive!

(WGTZ, a "rimshot" FM signal into Dayon from Eaton, OH, at one time used the title phrase as their top-of-the-hour ID).

So, driven by the redoubtable Turk Turon in a twenny-frikkin'-ten, howlin' red Camaro* (and yeah, heads turn), he and I went to the Hamvention.

...We walked the entire flea market; this is the rough equivalent to walking the parking lots of a good-sized mall. Up and down every lane. All of them filled with ....stuff! Ham gear. More ham gear. optics. Ham gear. Telegraph keys. A 12-ga blank cannon. Jewelry made from radio parts. Ham gear from the 1940s (I wanna Radio Manufacturing Engineers model 46 receiver!). Ham gear from The Future. Books. Tom Perera, Gil S., Doug Hauff. Ham gear. A Mecograph bug, working. An air pistol. And so on...all day!
Pictures to follow. I returned with:
1. Earrings made from vacuum tubes.2. A vari-speed device for a LaHiff-designed Vibroplex bug -- $2 worth of brass, $20 worth of know-how and $7 of machining time. Vibroplex stopped making them...but there was another fellow there who hasn't!
3. Variable Condensers
4. A Begali semiautomatic telegraph key of unique design, the "Intrepid" and a handshake from Pietro Begali with it. (Think "high-end 1911;" think "Ferrari." Now combine them. It's like that. Ooooo) .
5. A nifty little benchtop meter -- I was lookin' it over and the seller said, "You should have that." Free. "'Cos you know what it is."
6. A replacement 1011B telephone lineman's buttset. (Scroll down for pix) (Which I just realized is still in the Camaro with Turk. I hope). This is a good find 'cos my old one is kind of dead and they have a medium-high "unknown sproing" factor. And yes, it is a rude-sounding name, short for "butt-in set," a test telephone that can be patched in to check phone lines. This is an older type.
7. Sunburn. Also free. Treated with white vinegar, which sounds painful but isn't and usually works. When will I learn to take sunscreen to the Dayton Hamvention?

Pix to now follow; I am majorly wore out. It was a pretty good hamfest.
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* He swears the word means "shrimp." As in "delicious boiled, chilled and served with cocktail sauce," but can that possibly be right? Holy cow!

Adventure!

I'm off to the Dayton Hamvention! (Tam's on guard duty at Roseholme, as amateur radio is not her cuppa geek).

Wish me luck!

Thursday???

Not so much blog this morning -- had to get up in the wee small hours and talk a Drive Control tech through a minor glitch. Well, it was minor to me, sitting on the edge of my nice, warm bunk. It was pretty major for the tech. But we persevered and success was ultimately grasped.

What's the Douglas Adams line? Oh, yes: Don't Panic! Easier said than done but words to live by.

Airguns

What with ammo getting scarcer and expensiver every day and with my free time limited, I am giving serious though to picking up an air pistol, especially after Tam showed me vids of a determined Japanese shooter training with them, then doing very well at IPSC.

Heck, I've gotta basement and a garage; the city and I would both frown on .22s there but an air gun, maybe not so bad.

I want something that closely mimics a 1911A1 in size, heft, control placement and performance; I have a spring-powered Beretta service pistol copy that is none of these things. Any suggestions? The one in the link above looks interesting but I don't know much about these critters.

BlogShoot?

Last month's BlogShoot at Eagle Creek Park Pistol Range was a success! We could do the same thing this coming Sunday; I'm overdue for some range time ("How much practice do you need?" "More!" At least I do, YMMV).

Same plan, totally informal, Iggle Crick opens at 10 ack emma and bloggers & readers just show up as suits them. Hoping we can get Tam to shoot a little -- you know how shy and retiring she is. Ahem.

Anagram This!

Anagram Server! "A cabana biker hums so;" or so they tell me. Charisma Nabob Ukase? Goodness, it's just like a horrorscope! ;)

"Starship Lupine" anagrams to "Harpist's Lineup." I certainly hope not.

(Found via Looking for Lissa).

May BlogMeet

The skinny on this is, we'll get food at LGG and depending on crowd size, may wander a half-block North up the Monon to a nearby pocket park to hang out and talk. Locally Grown Garden's prepared food is really good (visit their website!) but they don't have a huge kitchen and you order at the same counter they ring up their wonderous assortment of veggies, eggs and other fine items. The owner/chef is usually there; he and a very few handpicked assistants are the entire staff.

I do not yet have a line on how many folks we'll have in attendance; Indy BlogMeets average about a dozen.