The Big Update

So I’ve been meaning to actually drop this on the blog for a while but busy has barely begun to describe my life.

Why so busy?

Well we went into overdrive getting the house fully ready for sale. It’s on the market, we have an offer and we’re waiting for the other party to sell their current house. If I don’t look at a caulk gun for another 4 months it will still be too soon. Same thing with paint, dry wall, and mud.

We ended up in overdrive to sell the house because well…

Barnett 2.0 arriving August 2015.

TMM 2.0 arriving August 2015.

That’s right, TMM V2.0 is due August 24th. We needed to get as much done in advance because well this month is going to be spent finding more stuff we don’t want/need to clear out, moving stuff to storage, and rearranging the house.

Couple this with job related item and other things I just haven’t had much time for anything and well the outlook into the future doesn’t look good for my spare time either.

If you need a regular fix of my dry sense of humor, make sure to hit up the Gun Blog Variety Cast. It may only be once a week but it’s better than nothing. You can also go follow me on the Facebooks.

I always thought this was a bad idea…

So I had previously seen a lot of different coverage in different places about the “festival of colors“. For a quick background see this.

I always thought it intriguing yet weird because well my fascination with fire and explosives has taught me the dangers of such things as dust, especially in large quantities. Well my apprehension was evidently well founded.

An article on the incident had this to say,

Explosions and blasts continued to take or put human lives in danger across the globe over the past week as fun and frolic turned into tragedy in the space of minutes. In the Formosa Water Park in the Bali district in Taiwan, over 200 people suffered severe burns after a dust explosion engulfed an area where people were merrily dancing.

I learned about the wonders of dust explosions back in scouts and the ripe age of 13. Non-dairy creamer, flour, really anything in a powdered form that is combustable will produce fantastic results. The MSDS for white chalk further provides data that while it may be chalk, danger is a serious concern for fire and explosion.

So remember, trust your gut and just because a bunch of people are doing it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe.

Surprise, Feds making it up as they go along!

So some somewhere got his panties in a bunch.  even more entertainingly the feds are claiming they have the right and authority to ban it and regulate it.

There are so many things I can comment about that piece. Such as “lets run to the airport and tell some pilots people are shooting skyward.” Tell me, what the hell is trap and skeet shooting, there’s a reason they use shotguns in the sport not rifles.

Moving forward we have the feds claiming their aircraft and creates a safety hazard while then having the following Charlie Foxtrot:

But the question here is not why the FAA considers hand-sized drones to be aircraft, regardless of their size or the altitude at which they’re operated.  But why it can’t decide that an 1100 pound passenger-carrying Flying Hovercraft that looks like an aircraft – wings and all – and can fly at speeds of 70 miles per hour (and more) and at altitudes of 20 feet to more than 50 feet in the air, over water or land, is also an aircraft.  These flying machines, called WIG craft or wing in ground effect craft, fly on the air cushion created by aerodynamic lift due to the ground effect between the craft and the surface, the same as occurs between any aircraft and the ground on landing.  

Not to mention the complete destruction of the hobbyist activity of RC aircraft by reclassifying everything as a drone. Know why the FAA is now going that route to attack the activity? Because they keep losing their arguments on why they have the power.

So here’s a set of rhetorical questions:

  • If our elected officials are not held accountable to the same laws and regulations they create over us, why should anyone comply or care?
  • If regulatory agencies are constantly modifying and changing the rules to grow their power, why should anyone comply or care about them any more?
  • If regulatory agencies are using their power to stop activities which harm no one but the people in charge disagree with for political reasons, why should anyone comply or care?

America is a Republic, and what we’re seeing is the destruction of law through bureaucratic fiat. Me thinks I need to build a couple just for lunch time destruction during Boomershoot. Hey if it’s my own personal property, !@#$ off! There isn’t any commercial aspect involved.

Barron why do you want to shoot at drones?
Because !@#$ YOU!!! That’s WHY!

**Seriously I had no interest in doing such a thing until I saw they’re trying to stop it. Now it’s like owning a 100 round drum magazine that freezes after firing 10 rounds. I need one just because you said I can’t have one!

Hat tip “The short lady with the grey hair” (Otherwise known as my mom.)

Puritan: Someone that is afraid someone, somewhere is having fun.

I’m sure somehow we’ll be blamed for this…

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office are asking for help from the public in gathering information about the theft of approximately 559 pounds of high explosives from a USFS explosives bunker located near Red Lodge.

We’re not talking just blasting agent either.

Officials say that various emulsion-type explosives, explosive cast boosters and detonating cord were taken from the facility.

How serious is the ATF taking the theft?  They’re offering a $5,000 reward.  Their warmth and sincerity given the theft occurred with forced entry makes me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside.  Doubly so given the propensity of the government, not to mention the BATFE, is more than willing to throw civil rights and liberties to the wind.

[Sarcasm] But remember, it’s me and you that they need to restrict.  The government could never fail us. [/Sarcasm]

Challenge Accepted!

Via Alan I found this.

New bombproof waste bins to be planted throughout London will address not only the city’s security concerns, but environmental issues as well.

Designed to absorb the heat of explosions, the armored receptacle collects trash and recyclable materials in separate compartments. It also displays a weather-proof LCD screen streaming news and travel information, according to a Times Online story.

Note they didn’t say bomb-resistant, they said bomb-proof.  I have the sudden urge to do an Idaho Stress Test.

The most interesting thing is it’s designed to absorb “the heat of explosions”.  Yes, most explosions are exothermic, but due to the rapidly expanding nature there isn’t much heat overall. If there is, that’s usually because of extra fuel in whatever was being used as an explosive.  Further you can’t even just evacuate air out of the tank because even then you can make explosives that can still detonate.  The pressure is the deciding factor and the hard part to defend against.

So,  to Media Metrica, if you’re willing to put your money where your mouth is, please feel free to contact me.  I know I’ll be stuck picking the bits and pieces out of the field but by god this would totally be worth it.  No matter what you can always engineer a solution to cause it to fail.

Quote of the Day–Unknown (01/06/2013)

I felt that in my balls.

Unknown

For full context:


[Yeah, that was awesome and I’m sure he did.  Funny story about that…

For you see, when I was about 4 years old my dad took me to an airshow.  This the day after I broke my ankle by repeatedly doing something stupid.  It was probably about the 10th time that I broke it but I digress.

You see it wasn’t a major break, didn’t swell up, I could still walk on it, it just hurt.  So when my dad took me to the airshow the next day I just rode around on his shoulders everywhere.  None of us knew it was broken until the next day when I had X-rays because it wasn’t getting better.

At some point during the day, I’m sitting on my dads shoulders and I point to the horizon.  Coming in just above the deck are two A-6’s hauling ass like there’s no tomorrow.    The go directly over us so close I could swear I could touch them.  If you’ve never seen a jet do a flyby it is loud and you can feel that through your whole body.

So there I am, sitting on my fathers shoulders, A-6’s are hauling ass over head and I am a small boy with no verbal filter.  Does anyone want to guess what kind of statement I made?  Anyone?  Bueller?

I said the following once the jets were far enough away:

Daddy, that made my penis tingle!

Before my dad even has a chance to erupt into laughter, the woman standing in front of him turns around and gives this nasty glare and says, “Sir, are you going to correct your son?”

To why my dad then replies along the lines of, “Why?  It’s the correct response for the son of a naval flight officer, and that boy knows what he likes!”

Yeah, I hated that story growing up… It was one of my dad’s favorites, I have since begun  to appreciate it and understand why. ~sigh~ –B]

ESS and Boomershoot – Part V

Previously on Masterpiece Theater:

For some extra humor, the blue canopy in the back ground is a couple of guys right next to the ESS crew that were shooting without eye-wear.  They even refused to try the stuff ESS had.  Yes, when I was told that story, I’m reasonably this was my reaction.

I chatted with Ari a bunch while at Boomershoot, awesome guy.  As I’ve said before, I highly recommend the Cross Series of products.  Just to show how much I like them, the FTC can suck an egg, I was paid nothing for saying any of this.  I got a free pair, no strings attached, but it wasn’t even really with a review in mind.

This One’s for Sean…

So, I kind of batted at Joan in my Priceless video but it wasn’t really a good solid hit.  It was more of just a fun video.  Joe took a good solid swing here which I felt was on the right track but the more I thought about it, more needed to be done.  I had piles of video of pumpkins blowing up between 2010 and 2012.

Sean posted a comment when Joe did his first post on Joan’s PSH stating we should have a self contained video that explained her break down and put everything in one easy to see spot.  Well I did just that.  Now while overall this really didn’t need to be made, it was more practice and work with the Adobe tools.  The learning curve is steep but doing projects, no matter how pointless is how you get over them.

So this one’s for Joan!

Besides, it’s quite fitting since it’s Halloween with the pumpkins and all.