Archive for May 24th, 2022

Random gun crankery, some filler.

Tuesday, May 24th, 2022

Long delayed BAG Day update:

It took a while to get things lined up (my local gun shop had trouble getting in touch with their S&W rep) but I have my birthday gun on order. Unfortunately, there’s a 60 day lead time from S&W on that gun, so I don’t expect to see it before the end of June.

In the meantime, though, my local gun shop took in a foster Smith and Wesson. It looked so sad and lonely sitting in the display case all by itself. Plus, they had a very reasonable price tag on it, and…well…I adopted it. Details and photos to come eventually. It really isn’t much to write home about. There’s a fair amount of wear, but the trigger feels good, it is something I can easily slip into a pocket or carry inside the waistband, and it was $250+tax out the door (thanks to my local gun shop knocking $50 off the tagged price: yes, this is an endorsement).

Tomorrow, I’m heading down to Houston for the NRA Annual Meeting. Blogging will be catch as catch can, but I’m hoping to get in some reports from the road, and maybe even get a chance to handle a few cool things.

Posted in Guns, Smith and Wesson | 3 Comments »

Obit watch: May 24, 2022.

Tuesday, May 24th, 2022

Simon Preston, organist.

Mr. Preston, who was admired as one of the most important English church musicians of his generation, was an archetypal product of a choral tradition that, with unstinting energy and an insatiable demand for high standards, he reinvigorated — and eventually moved beyond. His solo career took him to organ lofts across the world, and he recorded prolifically, including with the conductors Yehudi Menuhin in Handel, Seiji Ozawa in Poulenc and James Levine in Saint-Saëns.

…

But Mr. Preston, who maintained a vigorous solo schedule throughout that period, came to chafe at the tedious routine of playing and conducting regular services. He decided to leave the abbey and to concentrate on his freelance career, one that came to include more than a decade spent working with the Deutsche Grammophon label on the organ works of Bach, in whose more grandly scaled compositions he excelled.
“It was hard to imagine that anyone could have displayed the mighty Skinner instrument of St. Bartholomew’s Church, said to be the largest pipe organ in New York, more fully and effectively,” critic James R. Oestreich of The New York Times wrote in reviewing one of Mr. Preston’s many recitals in the city in 1992.

Noted:

While singing at King’s College, he trained under the organ scholar Hugh McLean, into whose prestigious former post he would move after studies at the Royal Academy of Music. He returned to King’s at an auspicious moment; the new organist and director of music, David Willcocks, was to markedly raise the stature of a choir now widely known for its Christmas broadcasts. Mr. Preston contributed an arrangement of the carol “I Saw Three Ships” that remains in festive use, at King’s and elsewhere.

Robert J. Vlasic, pickle guy. He was 96.

“We decided that pickles are a fun food,” Mr. Vlasic told The New York Times in 1974. “We decided we didn’t want to take ourselves or our business too seriously.”

Posted in Food, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#90 in a series)

Tuesday, May 24th, 2022

Yesterday was one of those “Day For Yourself” days that my company has been granting since the recent unpleasantness began. In my case, I used a large chunk of it to go down and renew my DBA for Low Fat Heavy Industries, which was a less than fun experience. (The people in the assumed names/corporate filings branch of the county clerk’s office were awesome. The problem was that the county clerk’s office has a horrible shortage of parking: it took me longer to find a parking space than it did to get the DBA renewed. And this is not downtown: the county clerk’s office is located near where Airport hits I-35.)

So I missed covering this yesterday, but I’m only a little behind: Harry Sidhu resigned as mayor of Anaheim. He still hasn’t been charged with anything.

Also resigning:

The announcement in a two-paragraph statement from his attorney came after another prominent figure caught up in the probe, Melahat Rafiei, announced she was stepping down as a member of the Democratic National Committee and state party secretary.

…

…Rafiei identified herself to local media outlets as the confidential witness referenced in an affidavit supporting a criminal complaint accusing Ament of lying to a mortgage lender. The affidavit said the witness — identified as CW1 — was arrested in October 2019 on a federal bribery charge, but the complaint was dismissed at the government’s request after the witness agreed to cooperate. But no further cooperation is expected.

That’s Todd Ament, former head of the Chamber of Commerce, aka “Cooperating Witness #2”. (Previously.)

And more from “Field of Schemes”.

Posted in California Über Alles, Law, Politics | Comments Closed