Author Archives: TMM

And if you build a house and have a sprinkler system installed for the yard, hire professionals to do it.  Putting the drain valves for winterization in such a location that one can barely get their hand in is a bad thing.  Doubly so when the valves are very stiff.

My hand barely fits between those pipes, each one has a drain valve underneath. 

How stiff I hear you ask?  To turn them off I actually need to use a stick to properly apply pressure to get them to turn vertical.  Turning them back on I have to work it in the opposite direction.  Getting the valves started is actually difficult.  This year I had one that stuck so hard the handle on the valve broke.

Yes, you read that write, the plastic broke, that’s how stiff it was.  To get it to turn I had to resort to using some line and a loop wrapped around the other end of the valve handle.  I got it to finish closing however as it closed the line slipped free and I smashed my hand into the side of the box.

Immediately the pain was sharp enough I wondered how bad it was.  I stripped off my gloves and thankfully no broken skin.  However my thumb was already feeling stiff and immediately after the incident it hurt to move.  I splinted it with some scrap wood in the shop and finished the rest of what needed to be done for the sprinkler system.

As I finished up the pain subsided, but the time I got back in the house I could use my thumb again.  I’m able to push around on all sides of the impact point without problem.  Pushing on the impact point itself however hurts like a bastard.  So I’m thinking at this point I just bruised it.  I can put pressure through my thumb and grip as well, with only very minor discomfort at the most extreme of movement.

So, yeah, if you’re going to install one, do it right, or hire someone to do it right.  If you don’t, the next guy is going to hate you, doubly since he now gets to figure out how to fix your screw up.

Earlier this week an individual went full wookie.  By full wookie I mean he with the the most extreme ends saying that someone doing his job as a paramedic was equivalent of gassing Jews in a death camp.

Here’s the thing.  If you want to kill yourself, that’s your business and yours alone.  Don’t tell anyone else, just go out back and do it.  It may seem cold hearted but by god calling up someone and saying “I’m going to kill myself” is nothing more than a ploy for attention, either in life or death.  In death it is done by the guilt caused by those wondering, “Was there anything I could have done to stop them” or even worse, the looks given by family members.

Does someone have a right to take their own life. Yes, that is their decision and their choice.  That said, most often suicide is not a rational decision and done out of fear and depression.  I have family and friends who have taken their own life and the wake it causes makes me very morally opposed to it.  So by god, if you want to kill yourself don’t threaten to do so just do it.  Don’t lay a guilt trip on me by calling me up and threatening to do so.  Doesn’t mean I agree with their being a law, but the law is there.

If you do call me up you have waved your absolute rights to kill yourself.  Why?  You decided to involve an outside party.  You have decided to involve me.  You have no right to force me to be complacent to your plan.  You have no right to lay upon me the guilt I will feel every time a family member looks at me for not stopping you.

Do I agree with the fact that we have laws doing all of this, no.  Frankly I think Phil’s statements put it better than I could possibly put it myself.

AD’s job boils down to that of a care taker. He could be twice as ineffectual towards people as I am and he still would have had to do what he did. If a person truly understands emotional vampires then they’d realize that he did exactly what the guy wanted him to do, no matter how much the guy pretended to protest.

Even without the law, if you involve me in your plan to head to that undiscovered country who’s borne no traveler returns, I am going to try and stop you.  I am going to make sure that this is a calm, rationally thought out decision.  Not one made in the heat of the moment of some very bad news because as a friend has said before, “Stuff is stuff.”  Stuff can be replaced however a person cannot.

The above isn’t to say I don’t understand why some would want to take their own life.  On the contrary, I have seen pain and suffering that I wish upon no other person.  Suffering that haunts me and there was nothing that we could do but wait and let life take it’s course as prescribed by the law.

Someone who presents a clear concise rational reason as to why, go ahead, just go out on your own and do it.  In fact those who do make it as a rational decision do exactly that.  Those who make the threats however are doing anything but.  They are as Phil says, emotional vampires.  Believe me, it is not a way to make me your friend if you’re not already one.  If you are a friend and you make a threat like that, you better be mentally broken because I would assume my friends would know better and just say, “Dude, I need someone to listen than to go full drama queen.”

So the bottom line is this, if you actually want to kill yourself, don’t call me up and tell me you want to.  Just go out back and do it.  If you’re an attention seeking parasite, then by all means call.  If you do don’t be surprised when it turns out just like Ambulance Driver said it would.

There is no advanced warning.  You don’t know when it could happen, and it may not even be for a two legged varmint.  The problem could be of the four legged variety.  The life you save may not be your own either, but the life of your pet.

According to Lewiston Police, Renee Carter was walking her dogs in front
of a home when the Pit Bull ran across the street and grabbed her small
dog by the neck. Carter was bit on the arm while attempting to rescue
her dog. At that time, a passerby scrambled out of his car to help.

Thankfully there were a couple bystanders in the area who intervened to help.  The dog is currently in quarantine for 10 days.  Since the attack killed the other animal it has been declared a dangerous animal and if a home isn’t found outside the city it will be put to sleep.

That aside, thankfully there were others around to help this woman but that is not a assurance.  The only assurance is that this could happen to you and you are not immune and some how special and exempt from the possibility.

Stand tall, be ready, and carry your damn gun.

Robb asks the following question:

What is the most fun firearm you own and why? Which boomstick puts a smile on your face every time you take it to the range? If you have another gunnie coming over, which piece from your armory to you ensure you pack in the bag to show off?

You know, I have a lot of fun toys.  All of them put a smile on my face in one way or another.  However there is only one I refer to as my baby.  There is only one that I lovingly look after like a protective father.  Others do experience the bliss that is my baby, but for them it is no where near what I feel settling in behind that stock.

The Very Beginning

Let me tell the story from the beginning.  You see, when I was about three and a half years old my dad took me to the range with him.  I do not have the luxury of actually remembering this experience.  However my father did.  My father told me numerous times years later of sitting on his lap and lining up the sights to squeeze that trigger.  After which I was grinning from ear to ear.  Which that story does strike me as interesting given when I was little me and loud noises didn’t exactly get along.  I actually cried at the beginning of Top Gun the first time I saw it… At least so I’ve been told.

I was hooked and as time went on, I would shoot small-bore rifle, shooting was in my blood and life was good.  As I began to close towards graduation my dad for a while had been talking about getting me a tack driver as a gift.  When my Uncle came to visit for my Eagle Court of Honor we went to the range. 

Shopping Around

This range also had the added benefit of being a gun shop.  My dad and I both had an idea of what we were looking for as the start of the rifle.  After we were done shooting for the day we went out to do some browsing for the rifle that would become my gift.

There was a Savage in .308, don’t much remember the exact model, up in the rack, I handled it and said, “It’s O.K.”.  My uncle (no relation to this uncle) and father just shook their head and said, we can get a much better tool than that.  I was raised in a family who never skipped when it came to tools.  Buy the best you can afford and don’t go cheap.

The guy behind the counter asks, “so what exactly are you looking for?”

My reply, “Something like a Remington Model 700, VS.”

He cracks open the catalog, starts thumbing through it and then asks, “What caliber, .22-250?”

At which point I reply, “.308 Winchester”.

His reply, “Good lord, what are you going to shoot with that.”

This next bit put a smile on my dads face, without missing a beat I said, “Two legged varmints at 500 yards.”

The guy behind the counter kind of chuckled and he delivered to us the cost for the base rifle.  We were now working on a plan and how it would be done.

The Gun Smith

Two weeks later we go to the WAC gun show in Puyallup.  We meet a local gunsmith who specializes in custom rifles.  A man by the name of Brett Evans of Northwest Armswerkes.  My dad gets his card and we meet up with him later in March.

We walk through the list of requirements and he begins to spec out a rifle.  A rifle that is not like any other.  A rifle that will be most assuredly mine and one of a kind.  It will be a Remington 700 action, but under the hood it would be anything but stock.  Due to popular demand though my rifle wouldn’t be finished for a while.  For you see there was a long line of people in front of me.  Good things however come to those who wait.

I met up with him mid-summer once he had all the parts in and did a few final selections on things that were choices.  After that he was off to the races.  At this point though I was off to college.

No Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy

Originally, my destination was Huston, Texas.  That however like most plans, did not survive first contact with the enemy.  In this case the dean of admissions at Rice, University.  That is a different story for another time, suffice it to say I will never send my kid there and with the attitude I got from the admissions dean and her office staff informed me that was a school I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

You know, they say most things happen for a reason though and I’m reasonably sure someone had a hand in that.  For you see when everything fell apart I defaulted to the University of Washington.  It was close to home but whatever I was in college. Come about 4 weeks into the first quarter though my dad was on his way into surgery.  Where?  The UW Medical Center.  It made traveling to see him much easier than if I had been in Texas.  The bad news was the cancer had attached itself to things that couldn’t be removed by the time they got there.  They had to remove a decent amount of the pancreas, but not all of it could go, some of it was attached to the descending aorta.  He began chemotherapy immediately.

Two moths later it was Christmas time, which also means it was in the same time frame as my birthday.  On the morning of my birthday my dad said we were heading out to Brett’s.

Delivery

We arrive at Brett’s and it’s like I’m 6 and it’s Christmas morning all over again.

I know, it’s amazing, I still had hair on the top of my head and I was so much thinner! Brett gives me a run down on the rifle. Maintenance issues I need to do. Properly breaking it out of the case to use it, there’s a reason there’s a torque wrench with it. Using the 1907 sling and properly snugging it up.

Four day’s later I’m gifted a pile of ammunition to match the rifle.

In the box was a combination of Federal Gold Medal Match, 168 and 175 grain.  As well as Blackhills 168, 175, both regular and moly coated. 

The Ending

Sadly my father would never see his last gift to me fire.  That summer he was still undergoing chemo and we never made it to the range.  I was able to make it to the range once with a friend just before he passed away.  I brought home the 5 shot group that was about an inch and a half in size from 200 yards.

He grinned from ear to ear.

I have a few things on the rifle that have changed from it’s a original configuration.  I have since put a Mark IV scope with a TMR reticle.  Last year I had intended to have the stock changed too, but alas finances stopped that plan.  Hopefully come this winter I can take it to Brett to have that work done.  If my dad had known what HS-Precision would eventually do, there is no way that stock would have gone on that rifle.  The heart will always remain.

I still shoot my baby, the first year I went to Boomershoot that was all I really had.  It performed well and I was taking the small bastards at 700 yards.  I still do.

For me though, especially with that rifle, shooting is quite Zen.  Noise fades away, all I hear is my own breathing and pulse.  My attention is focused on those cross hairs, and every time a shot breaks I hear my dad telling me to call it.

Yeah it holds a very special place in my heart and I love that rifle more than any other in my safe.  It also gives me a connection back to my roots that the only other rifle could begin to do is my first rifle a Marlin 915Y .22.

Thanks’ again dad.  It’s the best gift you could have ever given me.

*It came to my attention as I was writing this my dad never had his picture taken with me and the rifle.  I am reasonably sure I know why he never handed the camera to Brett.  It never occurred to me at the time to do it.  My dad’s invincible right, nothing will stop him… Yeah fuck you cancer…

Wichita police are investigating an aggravated attempted robbery at a northeast Wichita restaurant that may have been a prank

It happened at the Subway restaurant, 3200 N. Rock,
around 11 a.m. Monday. Police said two teenagers, 15 and 16-year-old
boys, walked into the building with their hands in their pockets,
ordering everyone on the floor.

One of the suspects started
counting people on the floor, while two other teenagers ran out of the
restaurant, police said. The third teenager ran away a short time later.
No one was hurt.

Assuming this is a prank.  Talk about a quick way to end up with extra holes god didn’t intend for you to have.  Is there some type of idiot game going on that is under the radar?  Just late last week there was the incident of the kid trying to rob a police station as a “prank”.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three or more times is enemy action.  Thing is, I don’t believe in coincidence.  How this appears is: rob some place, when you get caught, claim it was just a prank.  Too bad the judge most likely isn’t going to care and neither will the prosecutor.

Lucky doesn’t even begin to describe the situation for those kids.  They were trying to appear as they were armed and if anyone had decided to react, they could easily be dead.  At no fault of the person who was defending themselves.

Seriously, what happened to the bucked of water balanced on the door?  When did robbing people become a “prank”?  When the hell did our youth become so monumentally stupid?