Home Defense

Back in June, I was trying to decide what to do with my stimulus check and I decided to use part of it to update my gun collection and home defense system. I wanted a shotgun, but wasn't sure I wanted a 12 gauge because I'm not as young as I used to be and I thought a 20 gauge might be the answer. I did some research and found that Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man recommended The Mossberg Bantam for home defense, especially in situations such as mine. So ,when the check came, I went t0 Gander Mountain and bought one and I've really been happy with it. As Peter said in his post, it's lightweight and easy to handle, and at home defense ranges, 20 gauge buckshot is just as effective as 12 gauge. Tam prefered the Remington 870 but the sentiment is the same. Thanks to both of them for sharing their knowledge and experience. Update: the second link was wrong, so I fixed it. Update: Had a typo in the update.

You'll be missed, Kim

Kim du Toit is retiring from blogging. He will be sorely missed. He is one of the first blogs I started reading about four years ago. I don't remember how I found his blog, but it was one I read almost every day. He's the reason I finally started blogging. Best wishes to he and Connie.
Oops. Forgot to title this the first time.

Thoughts on Mumbai

In another life, I was an intelligence analyst and, with that in mind , I've been thinking about the events in Mumbai and what might happen here. I think it's unlikely that another attempt will be made to hijack aircraft. I also believe all our efforts at airport security have been useless and even counterproductive, but that's a subject for another post, another time.

A terrorist attack by boat or ship as some of the terrorists in Mumbai apparently used probably won't be attempted either. I don't know much about port security in this country, but I believe smuggling the needed men weapons, ammunition, and supplies into this country by boat or ship would be too difficult.

Our southern border, however, is another story. Crossing it with whatever they needed would be relatively easy. In none of our cities are malls, hotels, and business centers secure, or even close to it, and that it is as it should be. Our police departments are not equipped for that kind of attack, nor should they be.

Most of the states along our southern border are friendly to the Second amendment, and an unknown number of their citizens are armed, at least part of the time, and are trained in the use of their weapons. What is almost always overlooked is the fact that many of these citizens are veterans and have received military training. And some of those are combat veterans who possess skills they will never lose or forget.

If these terrorists are as accomplished at planning as some in the media would have us believe (media reports are all I have heard, I have not heard any reliable reports from a military source), they will avoid these states.

That leaves us with California. That is just one more reason why I don't wish to live there or go there.

I Didn't Know That!

Let me start by saying that I'm not the sharpest knife in
the drawer as far as technology is concerned. As I heard
on a radio commercial the other day, I think high tech is a
power drill on the top shelf. Anyway, the other day, I
dropped my cell phone. It was one of the flip/camera
phones, and when I picked it up to check it, the screen
remained dark, so I knew I had a problem. I went to
the phone store, which thankfully is nearby, to
see if they could repair it or somehow make it work
again.

The young lady looked at it, and when she checked
the account, told me, that under some recent change in
Federal law I was not an authorized user, but that my wife
was because she had opened the account. I remembered
having heard of this change somewhere, so I was not
really as disturbed by this bit of news as I would have
been if I had never heard of it. I went home and asked
my sweetie if she to return to the store with me to see if
the phone was insured or if I was eligible for an upgrade.

So we went back to the phone store and sure enough the
phone was not insured and I won't be eligible for a full

upgrade until next May. I thought I was going to have

to buy a new phone. Then the young lady told me that, "

What a lot of people do is.." to go to Walmart and buy a

$15.00 Go Phone and take the sim chip out of my old

phone and put it in the Go Phone, and that it would work

fine. So I did that and I at least have a phone until I can

get the full upgrade deal, (which is significant.) The

only thing I don't have on the Go Phone is the camera

function and that's no big deal. All I can say is

"Aint't technology wonderful?"

Silence

The silence of President-Elect Obama concerning the terrorists in Mumbai is deafening.

Scofflaws

I had to go out this morning to pay some bills and run some other errands, and that required that I travel in many of the heavily travelled areas in town. Traffic was not as bad as I expected on Black Friday, but that was not what caught my attention. At nearly every intersection where I had to stop for a traffic light, there were two, three, or more people running red lights. By this I mean they were continuing through the intersection after the light had turned red. These people don't seem to understand that they are being selfish and discourteous at best and endangering the lives of themselves and everyone around them at worst. No matter what, they're breaking the law. I believe this type of disregard for the law and the safety of others is symptomatic of the general lack of regard for the law so prevalent in our society, and that is also contributing to the win at any cost attitude of many of our politicians and lawmakers these days.

Music

Xavier has a nice post about one of my favortie kinds of music.

A Good Day

Thanksgiving turned out to be a good day. My sweetie had to stop during cooking the meal to clean the oven. Last night a small amount of some mystery liquid appeared in tne bottom of the oven and that contributed to the problem. We still haven't figured it out.

Now that I've gotten the nuts and bolts of this figure out, I'll get ot eh real

Now that I've gotten the nuts and bolts of this figure out, I'll get tol

More Fun

In the words of the aforementioned Lewis Grizzard, "This is more fun than a pet chicken".

Success

Now that I've got that right the link in the last post is to my wife Pam's new blog about her hand-made jewelry shop. So go there and check it out.

Try Again

Try again. That didn't work,so let's try this

Check This Out

Check this out while I learn to link to another blog

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who happens to stumble on to this blog.

Progress

Blogroll posting is underway. There must be an easier way to do post a blogroll, I just haven't figured it out yet, but i have to say Blogspot makes it easy to get started.

First Post

Lewis Grizzard once said the hardest part of writing a column was deciding what he wanted to write, and then getting over feeling self-conscious about it. Grizzard died, prematurely in my opinion, in 1994 which was pre-blogging, but for me the sentiment is the same. I know I have a lot to say, I'm just not sure how to say it. I've been reading blogs for four or five years. They've sort of set the standard for me. As soon as I figure our how to post my blog roll, I'll do so and you'll be able to see that the standard is high indeed.