Monthly Archives: March 2004

General, Wheels of Industry

Dangerous Things

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Acidman wrote about problems with an engineer in his plant. It got me to thinking about dangerous things. Here are a few:

Industrial: The most dangerous thing in a plant is an engineer with a new catalog.

Military: The most dangerous thing in the army is a second lieutenant with a compass and a map.

Oilfield: The most dangerous thing in the oilfield is a Cajun with a waterhose.

Management: The most dangerous thing in management is a boss with a spreadsheet.

I just know that some of you fine folks have more to add….

General, Wheels of Industry

Y2K

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Now the story can be told!

I was working for the the Big Electric Utility Company for the passage of Y2K. Now, folks, let me tell you something: these people were NOT sure nothing was going to happen when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999. They and a lot of other big industries spent untold millions of dollars getting ready for Y2K. I still run into little stickers on microprocessor-based equipment where it was audited for Y2K compliance. This means that somebody, bunches of somebodies, actually, had to go around inventorying and checking this stuff. So it was with my former employer. And after all the chcecking was done, they still weren’t sure that nothing would happen.

So they made plans. A little explanation is needed to usderstand the technology. Those big conglomerations of electrical equipment you see, they’re substations. The equipment in them switches electricity around, on and off, and sends it in different directions and changes voltages from really high levels used to move electricity over long distances to lower voltages that come up your street. This is usually done by remote control. Somewhere an operator sends a command from his control console over a communications link to the substation, and equipment operates. Well, most of the time, anyway. and it was this stuff that our people were worried about.

So here’s the deal: Send real live human beings into all these critical substations to monitor the equipment during the rollover from 12/31/99 to 1/1/00. And give them satellite telephones which link DIRECTLY to the satellites instead of going through any earth station.

Shades of the DMZ! There I was, in a substation in the woods after dark, waiting for midnight. Big parts of my brain told me NOTHING was going to happen, but here was my company, all worried. So I came prepared. Against company policy, the back of my van carried an AR-15, 180 rounds in 30-round magazines, and an extra can of 480 rounds. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, I always say.

So I show up at the substation and meet the three others who were stationed there with me. The lead tech sidles up to me and says, “I’m packing tonight…” 9mm pistol. Other technician. Another pistol. Fourth guy was our resident hoplophobe.

11:00 PM: We crank up the sat-phones for communications check. All stations check in. We wait. 11:30. Check in again. All okay. We wait some more. 11:45, fire up the phones and keep’em hot. Nobody did a real countdown, but I watched my watch move 23:59….00:00! HAPPY NEW YEAR! Nothing. Everything was still working. The operations center reported all equipment on line. Damn! This was supposed to be The End Of The World As We Know It! Off in the distance I could see fireworks as families celebrated the New Year. And here I was in this dumb ol’ substation. 0100. The normal radio squawked. Everybody go home!

That’s it. My personal Y2K story…

Boating, General

Bottom job!

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No, it’s not what you might imagine. This post is safe for mixed company!

As the owner of a boat that stays in the water all the time, every year or so I have to pull her out and look at her bottom, remove things that shouldn’t be growing there, wash her down real good and give her a fresh coat of bottom paint. That’s planned for this weekend. I’m taking Friday off from work to putter over a couple of miles to a shipyard where they will remove my beloved from her natural element and sit her “on the hard” for the needed work.

This is a scenic little trip, too. I leave the deepwater ship channel at the Port of Lake Charles’ docks and travel upstream on historic Contraband Bayou, named because the pirate (and hero of the Battle of New Orleans) Jean Lafitte reportedly used the banks of the same bayou to sell off booty from his day job. One side of the bayou is still pretty primitive, swampy, and one is likely to see wood ducks and other water birds on its banks.

A casino under construction may soon end this beauty, the natural swamp replaced by that castration of American males, a golf course, owned by the casino. Clanging slot machines fed mostly by Texas gamblers pour a lot more money into the coffers of hungry governments than a thousand acres of swampy hardwoods being enjoyed by a nostalgic Cajun.

So for now, I enjoy its beauty. The other bank is somewhat different. First you pass a couple of nice houses, then one of the city sewage treatment plants, then a marina, then more houses, nice ones, with tranquil views of the bayou and the swamp beyond, then the Olmstead Shipyard.

Olmstead’s has been there as long as I can remember. They still do a lot of work, but not like in their heyday. They used to have shrimpboats lined up wating to be hauled out before spring shrimp season. We still see one or two, but shrimp boats have gotten bigger in fifty years, so these will only be smaller boats, plus a lot of recreational craft, mostly powerboats. And me. That’s where I stop. My 47-foot mast is incompatible with the 15-foot clearance of the bridge just past the shipyard.

But that’s not to say there’s nothing past that point to see. Contraband Bayou meanders on, past the bridge, past a motel and a Bennigan’s restaurant, thoughtfully provided with a wharf for powerboaters to tie up for a meal. The bayou then winds on through residential neighborhoods with manicured lawns running right to the water’s edge, and one end of the bayou goes on past the local university. When I was a boy, water pumped from this bayou irrigated thousands of acres of rice fields south of the city. Now the irrigation canal is gone, and the rice fields are buried under urban sprawl.

I could take my eight foot tender (little boat) with its oars or its powerful two horsepower outboard about that far, but that’s pretty much the end for a boat. Nobody goes that far by boat. Not any more. In Dad’s day, it was still a good place to fish. Nobody fishes there now.

Back to the task at hand. Weather permitting, of course, I will wash the boat down with a high pressure water gun, sand off any areas of loose paint on the bottom from previous coatings, and repaint with a copper-based paint which will optimistically retard the growth of marine critters on her nicely rounded bottom. I will also change her propeller to a more modern and efficient design, and while she’s there, clean out the several through-hull fittings where she exchanges water with the sea.

I’m planning this task by myself after the shipyard guys get her out of the water. Fun and games, yeah. But once it’s over, I’m set up for another year or two, and it’s back to slipping through sparkling waters under white sails against a blue sky, quietly superior to other forms of water transportation like a lion is superior to yapping packs of hyenas…

But you know, I might just crank up the outboard and run the tender up the bayou… Bon jour, M’sieur Jean, comment ça va, mon am’?

Current events - national, General, Politics

CAN YOU NAME THIS COUNTRY?

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709,000 REGULAR (ACTIVE DUTY) PERSONNEL.
293,000 RESERVE TROOPS.
EIGHT STANDING ARMY DIVISIONS.
20 AIR FORCE AND NAVY AIR WINGS WITH 2,000 COMBAT AIRCRAFT.
232 STRATEGIC BOMBERS
19 STRATEGIC BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES WITH 3,114 NUCLEARWARHEADS ON 232 MISSILES.
500 ICBMs WITH 1,950 WARHEADS.
FOUR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND 121 SURFACE COMBAT SHIPS ANDSUBMARINES PLUS ALL THE SUPPORT BASES, SHIPYARDS, ANDLOGISTICAL ASSETS NEEDED TO SUSTAIN SUCH A NAVAL FORCE.

IS THIS COUNTRY?

RUSSIA ? NO
CHINA ? NO
GREAT BRITAIN ? NO
FRANCE ? WRONG AGAIN
MUST BE USA ? STILL WRONG (SORT OF)

GIVE UP ?
THESE ARE THE AMERICAN MILITARY FORCES THAT WERE ELIMINATED DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF BILL CLINTON AND AL GORE. SLEEP WELL!

Also, keep this in mind as the political pundits spew their anti-Bush propaganda. I’ve heard several claims that our servicemen are deployed for too long, and serving longer tours. This kind of talk is sure to continue as the election looms closer. If we still had all these military personnel, troops could be rotated more frequently.

(From an E-mail from good friend and fellow inhabitant of Culver’s Gun Talk, Norm Ricci. Thanks, Norm!)

Current events - national, General, Humor

Retrosexual

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Every time my TV is on, all that can be seen is effeminate men prancing about, redecorating houses and talking about foreign concepts like “style” and “feng shui.” Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, trans-sexual, metrosexual, non-sexual; blue, green, and purple-sexual-bogus definitions have taken over the urban and suburban world!

Real men of the world, stand up, scratch your butt, belch, and yell “ENOUGH!” I hereby announce the start of a new offensive in the culture wars, the Retrosexual movement.

The RetroSexual Code :

A Retrosexual does not let neighbors screw up rooms in his house on national TV. A Retrosexual, no matter what the women insists, PAYS FOR THE DATE.

A Retrosexual opens doors for a lady. Even for the ones that fit that term only because they are female.

A Retrosexual DEALS with IT, be it a flat tire, break-in into your home, or a natural disaster, you DEAL WITH IT.

A Retrosexual not only eats red meat, he often kills it himself.

A Retrosexual doesn’t worry about living to be 90. It’s not how long you live, but how well. If you’re 90 years old and still smoking cigars and drinking, I salute you.

A Retrosexual does not use more hair or skin products than a woman. Women have several supermarket aisles of stuff. Retrosexuals need an endcap (possibly 2 endcaps if you include shaving goods.)

A Retrosexual does not dress in clothes from Hot Topic when he’s 30 years old.

A Retrosexual should know how to properly kill stuff (or people) if need be. This falls under the “Dealing with IT” portion of The Code.

A Retrosexual watches no TV show with “Queer” in the title.

A Retrosexual should not give up excessive amounts of manliness for women. Some is inevitable, but major re-invention of yourself will only lead to you becoming a froo-froo little puss, and in the long run, she ain’t worth it.

A Retrosexual is allowed to seek professional help for major mental stress such as drug/alcohol addiction, death of your entire family in a freak treechipper accident, favorite sports team being moved to a different city, or favorite bird dog expiring, etc. You are NOT allowed to see a shrink because Daddy didn’t pay you enough attention to you. Daddy was busy DEALING WITH IT. When you screwed up, he DEALT with you.

A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to conceal himself from prey.

A Retrosexual knows how to tie a Windsor knot when wearing a tie – and ONLY a Windsor knot.

A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting.

A Retrosexual knows how to use a basic set of tools. If you can’t hammer a nail, or drill a straight hole, practice in secret until you can – or be rightfully ridiculed for the wuss you be.

A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that your are riddled with fear, guns are TOOLS and are often essential to DEAL WITH IT. Plus it’s just plain fun to shoot.

Crying. There are very few reason that a Retrosexaul may cry, and none of them have to do with TV commercials, movies, or soap operas. Sports teams are sometimes a reason to cry, but the preferred method of release is swearing or throwing the remote control. Some reasons a Retrosexual can cry include (but are not limited to) death of a loved one, death of a pet (fish do NOT count as pets in this case), loss of a major body part.

A Retrosexual man’s favorite movie isn’t “Maid in Manhattan” (unless that refers to some foxy French maid sitting in a huge tub of brandy or whiskey), or “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” Acceptable ones may include any of the Dirty Harry or Nameless Drifter movies (Clint in his better days), Rambo I or II, the Dirty Dozen, The Godfather trilogy, Scarface, The Road Warrior, The Die Hard series, Caddyshack, Rocky I, II, or III, Full Metal Jacket, any James Bond Movie, Raging Bull, Bullitt, any Bruce Lee movie, Apocalypse Now, Goodfellas, Reservior Dogs, Fight Club,etc .

When a Retrosexual is on a crowded bus and or a commuter train, and a pregnant woman, hell, any woman gets on, that retrosexual stands up and offers his seat to that woman, then looks around at the other so-called men still in their seats with a disgusted “you punks” look on his face.

A Retrosexual knows how to say the Pledge properly, and with the correct emphasis and pronunciation. He also knows the words to the Star Spangled Banner.

A Retrosexual will have hobbies and habits his wife and mother do not understand, but that are essential to his manliness, in that they offset the acceptable manliness decline he suffers when married/engaged in a serious healthy relationship – i.e., hunting, boxing, shot putting, shooting, cigars, car maintenance.

A Retrosexual knows how to sharpen his own knives and kitchen utensils.

A Retrosexual man can drive in snow (hell, a blizzard) without sliding all over or driving under 20 mph, without anxiety, and without high-centering his ride on a plow berm.

A Retrosexual man can chop down a tree and make it land where he wants. Wherever it lands is where he damn well wanted it to land.

A Retrosexual will give up his seat on a bus to not only any women but any elderly person or person in military dress (except officers above 2nd Lt) NOTE: The person in military dress may turn down the offer but the Retrosexual man will ALWAYS make the offer to them and thank them for serving their country.

A Retrosexual man doesn’t need a contract — a handshake is good enough. He will always stand by his word even if circumstances change or the other person deceived him.

A Retrosexual man doesn’t immediately look to sue someone when he does something stupid and hurts himself. We understand that sometimes in the process of doing things we get hurt and we just DEAL WITH IT!!!!

(from an email, and then posted on Culver’s Gun Talk by Jeff Spradling)

General, Gun Stuff

Grandpa’s Lesson

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Pappy took to drinkin’ back when I was barely three.
Ma got pretty quiet. She was frettin’, you could see.
So I was sent to Grandpa and he raised me up real good.
He taught me what I oughta and he taught me what I should.

I learned a heap ‘o lessons from the yarns he liked to tell.
There’s one I won’t forget because I learned it ‘speshly well.
“There jist ain’t many folk who live a peaceful, carefree life.
Along with all the good times there’ll be lotsa grief and strife.

But ain’t many troubles that a man cain’t fix
With seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six.”

Grandpa courted Grandma near the town of old Cheyenne.
Her daddy was cantankerous – a very greedy man.
He wouldn’t give permission for a fancy wedding day
‘Til grandpa paid a dowry–biggest ever people say.

Her daddy softened up when Grandpa said that he could fix
Him up with seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six.

Grandpa herded cattle down around Jalisco way.
Ended up behind some iron bars one dusty day.
Seems the local jefe craved my Grandpa’s pinto mare.
Grandpa wouldn’t sell her so he lit on out of there.

Didn’t take much doin’ ‘cept a couple special tricks
plus seven hundred dollars and his thirty ought six.

Then there was that Faro game near San Francisco say.
Grandpa’s cards was smokin’ hot and he took all one day.
He woke up nearly naked in a ditch next early morn’.
With nothin’ but his flannel shirt, and it was ripped and torn.

Those others were professionals and they don’t play for kicks.
He lost seven hundred dollars and his thirty ought six.

He begged some woolen trousers off the local storekeep there
Who loaned him both a pony and a rifle on a dare.
He caught those thievin’ cardsharks at another Faro game.
He got back all his property and also his good name.
He left one bleedin’ badly and another mostly lame.
My grandpa’s trusty rifle shoots just where you choose to aim.
Grandpa’s slowin’ down a bit and just the other night
He handed me his rifle and a box sealed up real tight.
He fixed me with them pale grey eyes and this is what he said,
“You’re awful young but steady too and I will soon be dead.
I’ll bet this here old rifle and this honest money too
Will come in mighty handy just as readily for you.
There jist ain’t many folk who lead a carefree, peaceful life.
Along with times of happiness, there’s always woe and strife.

But … aint many troubles that a man cain’t fix
with seven hundred dollars and his thirty ought six.”

Lindy Cooper Wisdom
December, 1995
(Published by permission from Jeff Cooper)

Here are Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries

General, Gun Stuff

The ubiquitous SKS – A Gun Post

I remember when an SKS rifle was a rare and envied war trophy brought home by Viet Nam veterans, and they couldn’t find ammo to shoot their trophies. That was then, this is now.

We’ve been through several iterations of importation of SKS rifles: Chinese, Russian, and now Yugoslavian. There are undoubtedly others that I’ve forgotten. I remember buying Chicom SKS’es for less than $70 each in lots of ten and selling them for $100. I just bought a Yugoslavian rifle for $160 plus shipping. I’d venture to say you can find them for less than $200 at a dealer.

Some are made better than others. Some of the Chicom guns were roughly machined, lots of stamped parts, and stocks made of unidentifiable woods. Some of the Chicom guns were made of entirely machined parts, with weatherproof synthetic stocks. My Yugo is a nice-looking gun, mostly machined, with a wood stock of dubious nature.

What you get for an SKS is a handy little rifle which shoots the 7.62x39mm cartridge also common to the AK-47. Although some Chicom rifles were made to take a detachable magazine, the normal SKS has a fixed ten-round magazine. The rifle is semi-automatic, gas-operated, has the normal sights for Commie-bloc weapons, a post front sight in a hood, and a square notch rear sight graduated optimistically for ranges to 600 meters. These are not National Match sights, but they’re more than adequate for their design niche, i.e., the human form out to maybe 300 meters.

Out of the box, both my SKS rifles were able to hold 2-3 inches at a hundred yards, maybe a tad more, with commercial ammo. Shooting surplus ammo, expect groups to open up. In case you’re wondering, the energy of this round is equivalent to a .30-30, more velocity though, and a lighter bullet. What you’ve got is a decent little deer rifle. In fact, my oldest son got his first deer with one.

Accessorizing an SKS is easy. There are wide varieties of scopes, stocks and other paraphernalia available, as well as after-market magazines. These magazines have to have a long snout on the front to work with the SKS action, and I have not had good luck with them. No problem, the ten-round issue fixed magazine is more than adequate for most uses. If you have compelling need for fast loading, ten-round stripper clips, surplus, are available, and they are FAST.

This is a reliable little gun. I have NEVER had a failure in mine, and I have used Chicom, Egyptian, Russian, South African and American ammo. And I haven’t been too careful about cleaning either. This is not a delicate firearm. It’s meant for the mud, wet, dry whatever, use by people of rudimentary skill. Stripping for cleaning is expectedly easy.

Need a truck gun? A good answer is the SKS: reliable, accurate enough, powerful enough. And cheap enough to where you won’t be dreading that it gets scratched or stolen. A decent centerfire rifle. And all for less than the price of a good .22.

General, History

Thoughts on “The Greatest Generation”

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Mom and Dad were of what has been called “The Greatest Generation”, those Americans who came out of the Great Depression and brought the nation through WW II. Dad was a Navy veteran. Mom started out as the first female Western Union Telegraph delivery girl in this area until she got married and followed Dad to San Diego. My maternal grandmother was a welder at an area shipyard. This was pretty much typical America after Japan yanked us into the war. After the war my family and the rest of America came home, took off the uniforms and went back to being America at peace. They did a pretty decent job, too. So many of us were reared in neat little homes with Dad off at work and Mom at home, kids going to school, etc., etc.

We kids grew up to be the baby boom. Ours wasn’t the same war as Mom and Dad’s. The Soviets and the Chinese never made the big precipitating move to galvanize the nation, so while there were many Americans who saw the threat, others saw the same scene and labelled it something else. Fortunately, America remained reasonably convinced that the threat was real, and the Cold War was waged from the Berlin airlift until the fall of the Berlin wall. Funny how the capital of a defeated foe defined the Cold War, isn’t it?

Yes, the war did heat up: Korea, Viet Nam: But in neither did a direct threat to the cozy safe lives of America arise. So while the battles raged in far away places, the common American didn’t have to do like grandma did, that is, change her whole life to work for American victory. No, while individuals and neighborhoods might sadly note the passing of a son or daughter, these wars didn’t re-invent America. A lot of the Greatest Generation had been through much worse. The cold war was won because our way of life was promulgated by the members of the Greatest Generation. Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down this wall!” was the final challenge. The wall came down. The Soviet Union folded up like the house of cards it had been for seventy-odd years.

The Greatest Generation is passing. Bob Dole will go down as the last WW II veteran to run for president. George Bush the First will be our last WW II veteran president. Veteran status did not of itself confer wisdom. LBJ, a WW II Navy veteran, took some huge steps into socialism with his Great Society. But many men of the age knew that a strong America was the single greatest hope of the world for liberty. And so it came to pass. Two superpowers fought the Cold War, and then there was one.

The banner has passed now. This generation is the comfortable children of those men. There are some among us who hold as strongly the beliefs of our fathers, that for the world to be safe, America must be strong. Others do not hold this view. Both are in America, and both aspire to lead the country. But only one group leads to America remaining America, that great bastion of freedom, liberty and individualism. The other group wants to emulate Europe, the Old Europe whose transit from monarchy led to socialism instead of freedom.

It is in the honor of those that have gone before that I continue to struggle to keep “the shining city on a hill”. And the young faces of my children compel me to do what I can to present them with an America as great as my father presented to me.

General

WE WON!!

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WE stinkin’ won! Sometimes I think we just need to jump up and say it. Ever since WW II, we’ve been kinda standing in the shadows fiddling with our collective national hat, aw shucks’ing and pssshaw’ing and watching the kiddies in Europe play in the sandbox we built for them, the same kids whom we had to pry appart from their sibling rivalries and get to play nice. And now that they’re able to do a bit on their own, they think their survival is the result of their skills. Yeah, it was: Their skills in letting us separate them, heal their boo-boos, and stand between them while the played nice. Their skills in accepting billions in American largesse to rebuild their scarred countrysides. In the statement, “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple,” That’s old Europe.

And when the bully across the fence wanted to come take all their marbles, it was America, me and a few million others, who watched the fence day and night, holding a big stick behind our back, to keep the bully out. And you know what!?!?! WE BEAT THE BULLY TOO!!!!

SO WE, US, ALL OF US, WE WON!!!!

Terrorists? Nothing more than a poisonous snake invading a summer picnic. While the liberals want to cuddle the snake, analyse the cause of its’ snakeness, and give it room to grow, all WE need to do is remember WE WON THE WAR!!!! and act like it, and push the ooooohhing and aaaahhing kids out of the way, push the appeasers out of the way, and get on with the business of killing the snake in the park and then go after the nest.

WE WON THE WAR!!!! We had some sticky battles: Korea, Viet Nam, but in the greater view of the war, WE WON!

So what if France acts like the little kid whose daddy rescued him from the bully and now leans from behind daddy’s legs and pokes his tongue out as the bully stares on impotently… Deep down, France knows WE WON!!!! They could bulldoze the graveyards in Normandy and still know deep down that they don’t speak German (or Russian) today because WE WON!

And just as sometimes **I** need to say it to myself and my friends and fellow veterans, sometimes I think that WE as a nation need to say it, too.

So who’s gonna say it for us? George “American Cowboy” Bush, or John F. “french-looking, I fought in Viet Nam and then stuck a knife in the backs of those still there” Kerry?

Domestic Bliss, General, Gun Stuff

Range day with the kids

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This afternoon I loaded up Bonnie and Corey and their cousin Bethany up in the van along with a Ruger 10-22, a 7.5mm Schmidt-Rubin K-31, a Yugo SKS and the new Bushmaster AR-15 and we took off for the range. The kids burned up 200 or so rounds of .22 LR and the two girls each fired a round or two from the AR-15, and I generally occupied myself with making sure they stayed safe, although I did manage to do a few rounds from the AR-15, twenty rounds through the SKS and five rounds from tne K-31. A good time was had by all.

One of these days, though, I need to get out there and do some serious shooting. That K-31 is intriguing. The action is particularly sweet to operate and I just wonder how it’d perform in the monthly military bolt-gun matches. I also need to get a definite zero established for the AR-15. Popping a few recreational rounds off at targets at random ranges is fun, but it doesn’t tell me what I really need to know about these guns.

Another project for this week is to load up some ammo for the next monthly bolt-gun match. I need to cast and process some bullets, but if the schedule does not permit that, then I have a thousand 173-grain surplus match bullets that I can dip into. I can still use the same light load for the bolt-action rifle with the jacketed bullets as I did with the cast bullets for 200 yards.

Tomorrow: A day on the sailboat!