I unpacked all the boxes I received from PNNL the other day.  Almost everything appears to be there. They even returned an almost empty shampoo bottle and an empty baby food jar that once upon a time had some change in it.  The first box I opened had the following items in it which I figured would be a high priority item to retain "for evidence" or something.  A 100 yard target and a 500 yard target:

Click here for a high resolution version.

500 yard target.  Click here for a high resolution version.

100 yard target.  Click here for a high resolution version.

The second box I opened had the items I most wanted right away--my Boomershoot hat and HP-48 calculator.  And shortly thereafter I found my collection of books on improvised explosives such as Ragnar's Guide to Home and Recreational Use of High Explosives which I also thought might be something they would want to hold on to. 

It's possible there is something I have forgotten about but right now the only thing I didn't find was some paperwork for applying to Oregon for a Concealed Carry License.  That was in the filing cabinet they claimed they didn't have a key for.  If I don't get it it's not a big deal.  I think I have copies here anyway.

Now I have several garbage sacks filled with Styrofoam peanuts to give to UltiMAK.

This guy is pushing the envelope in main stream media:

Thomas Jefferson clearly stated that when government becomes oppressive, the people have the right to throw it off and establish a new government of their choosing. I am beginning to think it is time for us to start throwing.

He expresses a little bit of fear at being so outspoken too:

About the only freedom we have left is that of the press, and I would not be surprised to hear that I am no longer allowed to speak my mind in this column.

Yup.  I could see that happening.

And what caused him to be so outspoken?  No surprise here either:

...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Amendment Five, U.S. Constitution.
Why is it that the more powerful you become the less ability you have to read clear and precise language? The Fifth Amendment states clearly that private property can only be taken for public use, and that such property must be paid for at a fair rate. How then did five U.S. Supreme Court justices decide that it was legal for the city of New London, Connecticut to force five landowners off their property so it can be given to a giant corporation? The city has no plans to use this property for highways, schools, jails or any other public use.

I think Nicolo Machiavelli may have it right.

Tommorrow I will announce the dates and pricing for Boomershoot 2006.  I will send a notice to the Yahoo group when I do.  Please either sign up to be on the announcement list or keep a watch on the web site.  There will be discounts for early entries and with all the publicity we got from the King 5 Evening Magazine show (online video is here) it probably will be a good idea to sign up early.

Scott Davis (Davis Productions) has finished the Boomershoot 2005 video.  Someone in my house must have picked it up and didn't bother to tell me it was here.  I had seen the case sitting around for a week or two but didn't look close enough to see the title.  Barb and I watched it last night.  Very nice. 

It not as heavy on the interviews as last year but does have interviews with Chuck Hurst, Jack du Toit (Son&Heir of Kim du Toit), and Sara Young.  There may be some others but I forget right now.  There is also video of the fireball opening, the bowling ball motar, and the anvil shoot.  Kirk's rifle was featured prominately (as he noted in this blog posting).  There is video of Ry and I being rather animated at one of the shooters meetings.  Thankfully our blatherings were muted and music was overlayed.

I'm nearly certain you can still get a copy by contacting Scott.

My brother found another picture of his daughter at West Point.  She is in the foreground just right of center.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

Mohandas Gandhi

One of the first geocaches in the Moscow (Idaho) area was this one which I placed March 11, 2001.  A fire on September 8, 2001 destroyed it.  I replaced it on April 4, 2002.  Then the location went under new managment and no trespassing signs were put up (unrelated to geocaching).  Barb and I moved it a few months ago but I just now got around to getting good coordinates, a picture, and reactivating it.  It used to be called "Stumpy" but I renamed it "Rocky" in the new location.  Here are current pictures of the cache:

In the ammo can under the rock.

"Rocky" from a few feet away.

The UltiMAK office is just a few hundred yards away from my house and I have been hanging out there some recently.  They asked me if I would like to test out a prototype scope mount for them.  They supplied the gun and the ammo I just needed to supply the trigger time.  Yesterday, after taking care of my license to manufacture explosives renewal, I went to the range.  Below are some sample pictures--see the rest here.

A new alloy was being tested on the scope mount. No anodizing on the prototype, just the bare aluminum.

The view from 106 yards away.

About three fourths of the way through the tests the target stand on the right blew over and I took a picture of the targets before I continued.

I was shooting the targets in a quasi-random order. For each five shot magazine I would put at least one bullet on each target before shooting a target a second time. Each shot took, on the average, about one second from 106 yards away.  Each magazine change took about seven seconds.  I went through about 450 rounds nearly as fast as I could reload the magazines and get the gun back on target between shots and magazine changes.

The end result was the prototype worked fine.  It got very hot though.  Even the scope got hot enough that I couldn't keep my hand on it.  Lyle, at UltiMAK, told me that there have been times during their tests they got the scope hot enough that rain drops boiled when they hit it.  Of course these are intended to be torture tests rather than reality testing.

Yeah, I think it's a gun day.

Greg Hamilton
Insights Chief Self Defense Instructor
February 6, 1999
Explaining that sometimes you just have to accept the fact that unarmed self-defense doesn't cut it in all situations. Eg., you've been trying all your de-escalation techniques for avoiding a fight, but you find that you're faced with disparity of force.

I got an email from Crystal yesterday.  It said, in part:

Did you send your renewal paperwork in? Maybe it hasn't been input yet, but licensing data this morning shows July 1, 2005 as expiration and doesn't indicate a pending renewal. Licensing goes by received date, not postmarked date.

Ouch!  I was thinking it was July 29th, not the 1st.  I sent a reply back thanking her and started hustling: Fingerprints, special photo, lots of forms to fill out, create a map of the water flow near the manufacturing site.  This morning I still had a question and called her.  She had a great answer and said she would call the recipent of my paperwork to let her know it was coming and that Crystal had signed off on things in May.  Crystal called a few minutes later saying things were fine and send it to a different address, directly to the person reviewing the material.  I got it into the FedEx box a few minutes ago.

Note to all the people who filled out the Employee Possessor Questionnaire for the next Boomershoot: Those questionnaires went in with my renewal.  Thanks everyone.

I received my personal belongs from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory yesterday.  I haven't opened everything up yet--I've been way to busy with other stuff.  But it's clear they really don't like me.

In addition to taking three weeks to ship me my stuff they overloaded two of the boxes and they were falling apart on receipt.  Add in they didn't send me my performance reviews (and some other favorable material) it's pretty obvious they don't want me to be having any happy days anytime soon.

One more post then I'm going off to the range soon to put some holes in some cardboad of my own.

See also:

I was fired yesterday
Update on being fired
Termination report delayed
What did I expect?
No performance reviews

Update: It doesn't appear anything was damaged by the poor packing.

Sure, it's a commentary but I don't see any opposing commentary and it's in the Los Angles Times.  That's a very big paper in a liberal city/state.

The Big Lie of the Assault Weapons Ban

This wasn't supposed to happen. When the federal assault weapons ban ended on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes and police killings were predicted to surge. Instead, they have declined.

For a decade, the ban was a cornerstone of the gun control movement. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun control advocates, warned that "our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis." Life without the ban would mean rampant murder and bloodshed.

...

For gun control advocates, even a meaningless ban counts. These are the same folks who have never been bashful about scare tactics, predicting doom and gloom when they don't get what they want. They hysterically claimed that blood would flow in the streets after states passed right-to-carry laws letting citizens carry concealed handguns, but that never occurred. Thirty-seven states now have right-to-carry laws — and no one is seriously talking about rescinding them or citing statistics about the laws causing crime.

Gun controllers' fears that the end of the assault weapons ban would mean the sky would fall were simply not true. How much longer can the media take such hysteria seriously when it is so at odds with the facts?

PHXnews.com has this for our viewing pleasure:

When police chiefs and sheriffs are allowed to respond to poll questions anonymously, the politics may be removed from their answers.

...

Gun Control: With regard to private citizens owning firearms for sport or self-defense, 93.6 percent of the respondents supported civilian gun-ownership rights. Ninety-six percent of the police chiefs and sheriffs believe criminals obtain firearms from illegal sources and 92.2 percent revealed they hadn't arrested anyone for violation of the so-called "waiting period" laws. When asked if citizens concealed-weapons permits would reduce violent crime, 63.1 percent said yes.

Banning guns to prevent crime is like banning cosmetics to prevent prostitution.

Joe Huffman
May 9, 1997

My brother sent this email out to the relatives about his daughter:

Amy flew to Newark Sunday and called us after she reached the hotel in
Newark.  We haven't heard from her directly since, but we did find her
picture on the internet, so we know she made it to West Point.

In the following link: http://www.usma.edu/Class/2009/R-Day/RDay05.htm

click on image #145.  Amy is the one with the messy hair.  Judging from
the other pictures, they have been standing in lines all day, so she
doesn't look real happy, but at least we know she is okay.

Doug

The old stuff had tremdous problems with spam and was no longer supported.  The plan is to move all the old posts over to this blog in the near future.  I'm still working on getting a theme I like and there are lots of other things I'm trying to figure out.  Please remain patient while I work on things.

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizen to keep and bear arms... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in American but which historically has proven to be always possible.

Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey
1960

The historical data for this site is online here. I will be importing the old entries and comments soon.
Ry

Friday night Barb and I left Moscow to bring Ry back to Moscow from the Seattle area.  His van died and he wanted his Jeep to replace it.  We arrived about 00:30 Saturday.  Ry and I talked to 03:45 or so.  Ry told me his story of getting fired once for taking a bunch of people to the range to go shooting.  For a week afterward everyone talked about the trip to the range and how great it was--except for one gun-hating bigot who made a complaint to HR about Ry creating a "hostile work environment."  Since Ry was on contract and not an actual employee they told him the his contract wouldn't be renewed because of the complaint.  Anyone else have similar stories to tell?  I'm thinking of collecting them and putting together a magazine article...

Barb and I got up about 9:00 and found a park to take a walk in.  We picked up Ry, went to Dixie's Barbeque for lunch.  Barb "Met the Man" and was not pleased.  That was the first hot sauce she has ever tasted that she didn't like.  We headed back to Moscow about 14:00 or so.  Ry took this picture and made the post from the back seat as we were driving up the mountain toward Snoqualmie pass.

We arrived back in Moscow about 20:00 or so.  I dropped off Barb at home and Ry and I took daughter Kim's ATM car (a car you pay no more than your withdrawal limit from your ATM machine) back to where she bought it on Friday.  Ry drove behind me and said it was like behind behind a skywriting plane at an air-show or maybe a fumigation machine.  The car ran fairly well when we bought it on Thursday but it basically was disintegrating before our eyes on Friday.

I took Ry to his place and with a surprising small amount of work got his Jeep to start after a year of sitting in one spot.  There was still lots of work to be done on it and he needed to replace a hard drive on the computer we use for all our websites and email.  He came back to my place and it took us (him mostly) four hours to get the data moved over and everything up and running again.

I took Ry home, came home, and crawled into bed beside Barb at 02:08.

At 9:02:56 Kim called waiting to get another car.  By 11:15 she was driving her “new” car.  It cost 4.5 X what the first one did but maybe it will last more than a day this time.

I stopped by Ry's place on the way back and woke him up at 11:25.  At about 14:00 Ry stopped by our house on his way out of town to drop off the jumper cables he had borrowed.  He said his van drives like a race car compared to the Jeep (the steering “floats”).  It used to almost be able to make it to Pullman from his place (less than 15 miles) without overheating too seriously.  I helped him fill up two five gallon cans of water to replenish his Jeep on the drive back to the Seattle area.  His trip to Seattle is likely to be 'interesting'.  He is about 2 hours into his adventure now.

Good luck Ry!

Update: He picked up some onions in Royal City for Dixie's, through Ellensburg, and at last report reached Issaquah.  He really should be home by now.

Most of the great evils that man has inflicted on man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.

Bertrand Russell

When evil wins in the world, it is only by the default of the good.  That is why one man of reason and moral stature is more important, actually and potentially, than a million fools.

Ayn Rand

I looked through every single page of the “personnel file” PNNL sent me.  No performance reviews to be found.  So they don't want me to be able to show the good stuff about my time there to anyone?  What else could be the motivation?

They did apologize for not sending my personal belongings in a timely fashion.  They said it was because they couldn't find the key to a filing cabinet and they were “awaiting a locksmith“ (for three weeks?).  I gave the key to my boss when they suspended me and told him what it was for.  And I told him that inside the filing cabinet are keys to “everything else“ which includes some computers and cupboards.  [heavy sigh]  I guess I shouldn't expect competence from them.

I was sent a travel report to sign so I can get $175 back in out of pocket expenses for the trip I took to Albuquerque back in April.  I was thinking I might have to complain about that.  But they caught it on their own--after three weeks.

Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse.

...

It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.

Nicolo Machiavelli
The Prince
[In response to the Supreme Court Opinion from yesterday.  Joe]

I received a FedEx package from PNNL today.  It purported to contain my personnel file.  But neither Barb nor I could find any of my performance reviews in it.  The one thing I really wanted.  I'll look again tomorrow when I have some more time.  Barb said, “So what did you expect?  Did you really think they would give you what you wanted?“ 

As far as the policy and procedures manual they said one doesn't really exist.  It's on line and “access is limited“.  How convenient.  They say, “You didn't follow the rules.  You're fired.“  I ask, “What were the rules?“  They answer, “We aren't telling.“

I had a very, very busy day today.  Daughter Kim was having a convergence of crisis's and I spent nearly the entire day helping with her problems.  Things are mostly under control now.  She really needs to find better friends.

I did not expect this.  I can barely believe it.  This is just so incredibly wrong.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a city can take a person's home as part of a private development project aimed at boosting tax revenues and revitalizing a local economy, a decision that could have nationwide impact.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court upheld a ruling that New London, Connecticut, can seize the homes and businesses owned by seven families for a private development project that will complement a nearby research facility by the Pfizer Inc. drug company.

Guns rank second in importance only to the Constitution itself.  They are our Liberty Teeth.

George Washington