Yet another excuse to post photos and links and some ramblings. I’ll put a jump here since some of the photos might take time to load…
Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
After action report: Reno, NV.
Wednesday, June 13th, 2018I lit out from Reno…
Monday, June 11th, 2018Travel day today. Early morning flight, long layover in Denver, so I may have a chance to blog.
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Obit watch: June 8, 2018.
Friday, June 8th, 2018I don’t remember now what prompted me to pick up Kitchen Confidential, but I’m glad I did: it was a wild, fun, and funny book that I enjoyed immensely. I think at this point I’ve read almost everything Mr. Bourdain wrote that was bound between covers. I wasn’t as up on his TV shows, what with the whole not having cable thing. And I really wanted to meet him sometime when he wasn’t frantically searching for a bathroom in an airport and say thanks.
I had been reading Appetites: A Cookbook right before I left, and I remember him talking about how much he loved his family and friends, and cooking for them. That was pretty much the whole point of the book: cooking well for the people you love. I guess I sort of half-consciously knew that he went through a divorce after that…
There are plenty of people who have lives you think you’d like to live. But you wouldn’t want to live the life they lived inside. https://t.co/eHCUH5eKYy
— NarrowlyDecidedHat (@Popehat) 8 June 2018
Bethany Mandel wrote a good piece for the NYPost the other day about suicide and what it does to the people left behind. I commend it to your attention, especially the last paragraph.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.
Travel day.
Wednesday, June 6th, 2018Blogging will be catch-as-catch-can, especially since the latest update to the WordPress app on IOS appears to have broken either the app or the connection between the app and my blog.
Talk among yourselves. I’ll start: the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman, nor an Empire. Discuss.
Okay, slightly more seriously: I’m about halfway through Bryan Burrough’s Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence and expect to finish it on the plane tomorrow. I’m liking it a lot, though not quite as much as Public Enemies or The Big Rich.
The most striking thing to me: just how many bathrooms the Weathermen blew up. There are parts of the book that are just a litany of “blew up a men’s room”, “blew up a ladies room”, “destroyed a bathroom”, “blew up a bathroom in the Pentagon”. It’s like these people didn’t do anything except blow up bathrooms (and, of course, themselves).
The whole book is a veritable catalog of certified bat guano insanity. And I haven’t even gotten to the part about the guy with one eye and one thumb (he lost the other eye and nine fingers when his homemade bomb detonated prematurely) who escaped from jail by cutting the metal grate out of his window (ever tried using wire cutters with no fingers and one thumb?) and dropping 40 feet…
Day two.
Saturday, May 5th, 2018Starting this in the car on our way to Grapevine. The blogger screams for buffalo meat.
We had a pretty good meal Friday night at Campisi’s in downtown, and a so-so one at the Press Box Grill.
Best swag bag: EFK Fire Dragon. Thoughtfully designed, with a long enough strap so you can hang it off your shoulder. Runner-up: Brownells.
I have so many bags, I can go grocery shopping for the rest of the year without reusing any.
Best swag: hard to say. I got a free moon clip from Ranch Products, and had a good conversation with a guy in the Eley booth (who also tossed in some swag).
More tomorrow, I think. Time for to go to bed.
There’s a first time for everything…
Thursday, May 3rd, 2018I have been a NRA member for about 41 years now.
(If you’re thinking I’m awful old or else I joined young: Dad got me a junior membership when I was 12, I think. Maybe earlier.)
In all those years, I have never been to a NRA Annual Meeting. Until now.
Does this mean that I plan to abandon you, my faithful readers, while I run around the convention gun geeking? Of course not!
Carl Kolchak cosplay, anyone?
(I didn’t bring a seersucker suit or a straw boater with me. But I do have a hat and a camera and my phone records audio. And Kolchak cosplay seems to be much cheaper than Steve McQueen cosplay.)
(Did you know you can design your own press pass online, and have it professionally printed and sent to you? Thanks to LawDog for the inspiration.)
I’ll post as much as I can as and when I can.
Questions. We’ve got questions.
Wednesday, July 13th, 2016Prompted by various things, including recent events and other people’s travels:
- Why did the FBI feel compelled to announce they’ve abandoned the search for D.B. Cooper?
Is it possible they’re playing a long game here?
“Olly olly oxen free. Come out, D.B. Cooper!”
“Hi, I’m Dan Cooper.”
“Hi, Dan. You’re under arrest.”
“Hey, wait! That’s not fair! You called ‘olly olly oxen free’! No takebacks, you cheater!”
(I would ask why they were still pursuing him after 45 years – I thought the statute of limitations would have run out long ago – but, per Wikipedia (I know, I know) there’s a John Doe indictment in absentia against Mr. Cooper.) - More of a rhetorical question: I didn’t know there was a Cleveland Museum of Natural History. I don’t think I did, anyway: if I ever went, I was very young. I’ll have to make a point of going next time I’m up Cleveland way. (And it is my turn.)
- Speaking of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, why is Balto, the famous Alaskan sled dog who took the diptheria serum to Nome, in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History?
(I know what the more or less “official” answer is: Balto died in what’s now the Cleveland Zoo. And why was Balto in Cleveland in the first place? Because the children of Cleveland and the Plain Dealer collected pennies to purchase Balto and the other dogs, because they were allegedly badly treated after being sold to a “dime museum”. It just seems odd. If George Kimble had been a resident of Houston, or a graduate of UT, would Balto be in Texas now?) - Have I linked to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History before?
- Why doesn’t the CMNH want to return Balto to Alaska? I kind of get the idea that Alaska may have forfeited rights to Balto, given the way that he was supposedly treated. But I’m not sure I blame the state, or Balto’s first owner, for what they did. Also, it was a long time ago in another country: wouldn’t it be nice to give Balto back?
- Another rhetorical question: I was unaware of the Balto/Togo controversy. It wasn’t covered in the children’s book I read about the serum run when I was a lad. (In case you were wondering: Togo’s skin is in Alaska, while his skeleton is at Yale.)
- What’s Balto’s Bacon Number? The Oracle says 3. But I’m not convinced: if you were voiced by Kevin Bacon in an animated movie based on your life, shouldn’t that lower your Bacon number?
- There were three Balto movies?
- What was the name of that children’s book about the serum run, anyway? I know it was non-fiction, and I swear it had a blueish cover, but I can’t remember the name. I’d kind of like to find a copy.
It’s not the bullet that kills you…
Friday, June 3rd, 2016…it’s an allergic reaction to the sulfa drugs they were giving you to manage infection, this being in the days before modern antibiotics.
At least, that’s what a medical professional of my acquaintance told me yesterday; this is not a theory I had heard previously, but I trust this person implicitly. It seems like the one thing we know about the death of the Kingfish is how little we really do know.
For example, this may not be a bullet hole at all: it may be just “an imperfection in the marble”, according to that NOLA.com article I linked yesterday. I’m not sure I agree with their police work there, Lou. It looks awfully strange to be just an imperfection in the marble. But on the other hand, it also seems to be in a strange spot for a bullet hole. If you’re facing the pillar, I’d say it is roughly at a 270 degree angle from the front, almost around to the back side. Maybe someone trying to hide could have been hit there? Maybe it is a hole, but from a bodyguard’s gun?
Context:
Expanded context:
One more.
Thursday, June 2nd, 2016I was going to crop and enhance this, but I imported it into Shotwell, took a look at it…and I’m actually kind of happy with the way it came out, unenhanced and uncropped.
Louisiana’s Old State Capitol, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This is distinct from the new State Capitol, which is where Huey was actually shot (more on that later) but the gun and bullets on on exhibit in the old one.
Taken with the little Nikon Coolpix S6500.
Random gun geekery.
Thursday, June 2nd, 2016Also: a historical note, suitable for use in schools.
Taken with the iPhone camera, cropped a little, and enhanced in Shotwell:
I like the use of the word “supposedly” there, but that’s another discussion for when I have more time.
And don’t forget who else used an FN 1910.
A little more context on Weiss, Guerre, and the bullets, along with a lot of the assassination mythology, here.
Historical note, of questionable suitability for use in schools.
Monday, May 23rd, 2016Today is the anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde’s death.
I would otherwise have missed it, were it not for this (Warning! Slideshow!) article in the HouChron (Warning! Slideshow!).
While the photos are worthwhile, I’m kind of annoyed by the captions: some them, and the article, refer to the ambush taking place today, while other captions refer to it taking place May 24th. Wikipedia (I know, I know) backs up the May 23rd date, as does Jeff Guinn (from what I’m able to tell).
There’s one photo in particular that I like in that slideshow: the one of Alcorn, Hinton, Gault, and Hamer (number 19).
And I was hoping that I could visit the shooting site when I’m in Louisiana in a few weeks, but I sat down and did the math: sadly, it’s over three hours each way from Baton Rouge to Gibsland, and that’s just not going to work this trip.
(I know I’ve mentioned it before, but Go Down Together still gets an unqualified endorsement from me.)
Good news, everyone!
Monday, May 2nd, 2016Liberace is back!
Well, more specifically, his cars are back. The Liberace Garage at the Hollywood Cars Museum is displaying a group of them.
You may remember that at least some of these cars were on display at the now tragically closed Liberace Museum.