Category Archives: Home Life

Stuff going on in my personal life.

They’re so PC they are un-PC

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Via email from daughter Xenia I found out the University of Idaho where our entire family (and Senator Larry [Wide Stance] Craig and Sarah Palin) went to school won the dubious honor of Speech code of the month:

In the University of Idaho’s residence halls, “Actions and/or communication that are discriminatory, harassing or insensitive are not permitted.” (Emphasis added.) This policy prohibits a staggering amount of constitutionally protected speech. In fact, this policy prohibits precisely the speech that the First Amendment exists to protect, since people typically do not seek to censor sensitive, respectful expression. Moving beyond the legal issues, speech codes like this one infantilize college students by assuming they cannot cope with any sort of offense. Do we really want to teach our students that they are entitled to seek punishment for others’ insensitivity? Perhaps in a small city like Moscow, Idaho, students don’t have to deal with much insensitivity on a daily basis, but should they choose to expand their horizons (say, to Philadelphia, for example), they would encounter plenty. And I think it’s safe to say a Philly cop would have a good, long laugh if you asked him or her to arrest a fellow Philadelphian for hurting your feelings.

They also ban carry of firearms on campus which is a big concern of mine because my daughters (and niece) frequently walk to and from class from home. This means they can’t have the best means of personal protection with them should they need it even though they may legally do so off campus.

Our kids are ‘interesting’

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Barb’s brother says sister Susan’s kids are ‘nice’. Barb’s kids are ‘interesting’.

This video of Xenia’s speech for her communications class is further evidence of ‘interesting’. I think the topic was something like “An event that changed my life”:

Quote of the day–Kelsey

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I’m a carbs based life form.

Kelsey
August 29, 2009
[Barb and I had lunch with son James and his girlfriend Kelsey today. Kelsey continues to please us with her sparkle and affection toward James. We all had fun and lots of laughs today. The following banter is just one example:

Barb: James was so sweet when he was little.
Kelsey: [to James] So when did you stop being sweet?
Joe: I think sweetness is a constant in your lifetime. If you use it up when you are little you don’t have any left when you get older.
Barb: [to Joe] So when did you use up your sweetness?
Joe: [after the laughter subsided] I’ve just been saving it for someone else.

Also discussed were lentil cookies, how James made QOTD in his comment about them, daughters Kim and Xenia‘s burping contests, and Xenia’s college speech and video about farts.

Barb’s brother says sister Susan has nice children but Barb has interesting children.–Joe]

More evidence of gene sharing

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A couple weeks ago I wrote about evidence that niece Lisa shared genes with me.

Today she applied for a concealed weapons permit.

Which reminds me. I never mentioned that at the last Boomershoot daughter Kim was stopped by the police while driving to Orofino. I think it was a headlight that was out…

Anyway, the police officer said nice things to Kim about having a concealed weapons permit.

I’m so proud of both of them.

Quote of the day–Chuck Bloom

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As a strong supporter of the country’s National Parks System, I just don’t see a logical reason why anyone would want to carry a concealed weapon into such naturally beautiful places like Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Redwoods, Crater Lake, Grand Teton or any of the national parks.

Is someone seriously afraid of being accosted or robbed by Old Faithful or El Capitan? Are there criminals hiding out in the Petrified Forest?

These places should be off limits to such practices because of the presence of children. Just because you have the right to pack heat on a vacation doesn’t mean you should.

Chuck Bloom
Plano, Texas
… but what about the children?
August 21, 2009
[A extraordinary clear example of scrambled thinking on the gun issue. Perhaps the reason he doesn’t see a logical reason for carrying a gun in the national parks is because he is severely logic impaired.

What does being “a strong supporter of the country’s National Parks System” or their natural beauty have to do with concluding there is no “logical reason” to carry a concealed weapon?

Even his straw-men of “being accosted or robbed by Old Faithful or El Capitan” is extraordinarily weak.

Criminal do their thing where they have the opportunity, means, and high probability of accomplishing their goal. If their thing involves robbing or hurting people the remote location and disarmed status of their victims in the remote parks can be good hunting grounds. One does not have life insurance for only when their risk is high, such as when traveling by car. They have life insurance for all occasions. And so it is with carrying defensive tools. If you knew you were going to be attacked you wouldn’t go there. But you don’t know so you carry defensive tools wherever and whenever you can. And not all of the threats are human:


Sign in Glacier National Park


Bear in Glacier National Park.

And finally, “because of the presence of children”? Come on, can any anti-gun person offer a plausible defense for that statement? Do children not need to be defended against violent attacks? Is it better to let them be injured or killed than for them to see a bear get shot? Is it better for them to see their mother raped and/or killed than to see the attacker stopped in his tracks by a gun in the hands of his or her parents?

I actually did use my gun while hiking through a state park with my kids several years ago. There was a rattlesnake near the edge of the trail. It was a threat both to us and other hikers that perhaps would not have seen and avoided it. From a safe distance I put a 9mm FMJ bullet through it’s head. The kids did not seem to have suffered any short or long term adverse effects from the use of the gun in their presence. They even seemed relieved after the threat was neutralized.–Joe]

James has a girlfriend

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Son James and daughter Kim invited Barb and me to go out to dinner tonight before Kim headed back to Idaho tomorrow morning. They said it was a late birthday dinner for Kim with James since he wasn’t in Idaho when everyone else celebrated Kim’s birthday last month.

It turns out there was another beautiful woman at the table with James when we arrived. And James and this young woman were making a lot of physical contact at the table. We were introduced to Kelsey–James’ girlfriend. It turns out Kim, Xenia, and even Lisa had known about her for some time now. That explains why Kim and Xenia were putting up so much resistance to my plan to introduce James to the new team member at work I’m mentoring. Barb had plans to introduce him to the woman Kim calls “The Boomershoot Girl” who I would have found acceptable as well. But James found someone without his parents help. It is sometimes a surprise to parents that there comes a time when you don’t have wipe their nose, hold their hand with crossing the street, and checking out who they socialize with.

Kelsey appears to be very bright and socially adept. James needs someone super smart in order to hold his interest and respect.

Barb and I are very pleased with his choice.

$139 fraud lesson

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I delivered over 1700 cardboard boxes and other supplies to the Boomershoot site today. I folded a couple hundred of the boxes and stored them away in crates. Then I visited my parents who live a couple miles away.

They asked how everyone was doing, did son Jamie (he used to be called Jamie rather than James and his grandparents still use that name) like his job okay? How long has he worked at Microsoft now? I told him everything was going fine, Xenia was a little depressed because her new husband is leaving for Iraq very soon. James, Kim, and Lisa (another grandchild) had housewarming party at James’ new home near Seattle. Blah, blah, blah…

As it got late I told them I really had to leave so I could be home in time to eat dinner with Barb who would be getting off work soon. I had stood up, put my hat on and took a step or two toward the door when Dad told me to sit down because he had another story to tell. The following are his exact words as best I can remember them:

I got a call the other day. He said, “Hi Grandpa, this is Jamie. How are you doing?” I said I was doing okay and asked how he was doing.

He asked me if I could keep a secret. I told him I thought I probably could because I had keep a secret or two in my life. He said that he wasn’t doing so well. He was in jail in Ottawa. I asked how that happened. He said that he and a friend had gone to a concert and when they came back over the border they were stopped, searched, and his friend had some marijuana in his backpack. They were both arrested and he needed $2800 to get out of jail.

He asked if I could help him out and I said I thought we probably could. He wanted the money sent via Western Union and he needed it right away. So your mom and I drove to Orofino went to the bank and got the money. But we started thinking that we should have asked a few more questions. “Why didn’t he call you?”, for example. But we went to the Western Union office at the IGA and told them what we wanted to do with the money and told them the story.

The woman there said to be really careful because there are a lot of people trying to commit fraud with Western Union. But we went ahead and sent the money but told them not to give it to anyone at the other end until we did some more checking. They gave us a toll-free number to call to okay the final delivery of the money.

We came back to the house and called the guy in Ottawa that was supposed to pick up the money for Jamie and I asked him, “How tall is Jamie?” He didn’t answer. I asked him some other questions too but he didn’t answer those questions either. He then got upset and asked, “Why are you asking me all these questions? Did you send the money or not?” I told him we didn’t and he hung up the phone.

I called the Western Union number and they sent the money back. I called the Orofino office but they wouldn’t do anything further until we came in and showed them picture ID. We didn’t get back into town until yesterday and they wrote us three checks. The biggest check they can write is $1000 so they wrote us two checks for $1000 and another check for most of the remainder. It still cost us $139 but that wasn’t too bad. It would have been a lot worse if it had been the whole $2800.

You, know if the police had been able to get together on that they could have caught them when they went to pick up the Western Union money. But he said he needed the money within two hours. I told him there wasn’t any way I could get the money that fast. But he wanted it right away.

I asked if they had reported it to the police. He said no. And I said the FBI, if no one else, would be interested because it was Interstate wire fraud. Dad said he would let my brother Doug tell them. I asked if he had told Doug. He said no. Brother Gary was there and he piped up that this was the first time he had heard the story too. He had seen Mom and Dad leave for Orofino the other day but they told him they were going to the Builder’s Supply. They did go there, but that wasn’t the primary reason for the trip into town. They were trying to keep the secret for James.

I think Dad and Mom are a little embarrassed. They are 86 and 84 years old and not thinking quite as quick as they used to. We discussed lots of ways it could have been prevented from going as far as it did. I made sure they had the cell phone numbers for everyone in our family so they could call us directly to check things out. And I told them I didn’t think James had ever been to a concert other than little things in the park and that he had never been to Canada let alone a part of Canada 2000+ miles away.

I’m writing this down so brother Doug can get the story as I heard it as well as getting the details from Dad again. Plus I’m sure my parents aren’t the first people these criminals have tried to scam and if they aren’t stopped and other people get some warning there will be others they are successfully with. This is to help warn others about the scam.

I expect there will be more to the story. There certainly still are a number of questions. Like how did they find out how my parents had a grandson by the name of Jamie? Facebook maybe? Probably something to do with the Internet. Perhaps even my blog (if you guys are reading this you should know I keep all my blog log files and will cooperate fully with law enforcement).

If anything further comes out that I can talk about I’ll let you know.

Update: Mike sent me an email with this link to news that this scam is reasonably well known.

Shiny

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Yesterday afternoon I spent some time cleaning up the garage (not that anyone other than family could tell if they were to take a look at it even now). I sorted all the mixed caliber brass and put a batch of .40 S&W in the case cleaner. I figured I would take it out after supper. I forgot about it and instead of the usual two hours in the Dillion CV-750 it spent about 12 hours.

I now have some very shiny brass.

Update: Kris (in comments) wanted pictures.

See also the .300 Winchester Magnum brass I put in Sunday Morning:

Quote of the day–Dmitry Orlov

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In the United States, the agricultural system is heavily industrialized, and relies on inputs such as diesel, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and, perhaps most importantly, financing. In the current financial climate, the farmers’ access to financing is not at all assured. This agricultural system is efficient, but only if you regard fossil fuel energy as free. In fact, it is a way to transform fossil fuel energy into food with a bit of help from sunlight, to the tune of 10 calories of fossil fuel energy being embodied in each calorie that is consumed as food. The food distribution system makes heavy use of refrigerated diesel trucks, transporting food over hundreds of miles to resupply supermarkets. The food pipeline is long and thin, and it takes only a couple of days of interruptions for supermarket shelves to be stripped bare. Many people live in places that are not within walking distance of stores, not served by public transportation, and will be cut off from food sources once they are no longer able to drive.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[It’s harvest time on the farm. I’m going to visit and drive combine for a while. It’s been a couple years since I did that and it’s time to satisfy that urge again.

The farm visit reminded me of the above quote. We do burn lots of fuel on the farm and of course the fuel consumption is far from over by the time the crop is delivered to the grain elevator in town.–Joe]

Sharing some genes

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I was giving considerable thought to posting something about niece Lisa sharing some genes with me when she made this post. Then today she described attending her first professional baseball game.

That’s pretty much how I feel about them too–only I didn’t think of writing an equation for the amount of fun people are having at a baseball game. But now that she has done it I think it’s a great idea.

I only went to one game which was back in 1972. It was the San Diego Padres against the Saint Louis Cardinal or Boston Red Sox or some such thing. We left after the 13th inning when the score was still 0-0.

Gone camping

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The rest of the family is packing up to go camping and they will soon discover I’m trying to make a blog post instead of helping them.

A QOTD should show up later today but I’m not sure if I will get others in the queue before I am dragged away, deep into the wilderness of North Central Idaho.

Why we have perfect children

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Via an email from Barron (don’t think that I had missed this I saw it before Barron sent the email but he does deserve some credit) we find that Joe’s Cure for Everything also improves the genetics of your offspring:

Daily sex can improve the genetic quality of a man’s sperm and could raise his chances of fathering a child, research has suggested.

Couples who are trying for a baby are often advised to have sex every other day, so that the man’s sperm count has time to recover, but scientists in Australia have discovered that this may lower some men’s fertility.

While abstaining from sex for a few days raises the sperm count, quality can be damaged if a man ejaculates too infrequently. A study at Sydney IVF, a centre for infertility treatment, has found that daily sex for a seven-day period substantially improves the genetic quality of sperm, without lowering sperm counts enough to impair fertility.

Barb and I sometimes wonder how we got such (nearly) perfect children. In addition to the superior genes from their parents and the awesome job we did rearing them it appears that our active sex life prior to their conception may have contributed as well.

You are welcome James, Kimberly, and Xenia. It was our pleasure to have you.

The move to a new bunker

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I’m finally settled into my new hidden, underground, hardened, bunker well enough to make a few blog posts. That doesn’t mean I’m all caught up reading everyone else’s blogs and commenting on all the things I would have liked to comment on.

It was more work than I expected. It’s amazing how much stuff a pack-rat can accumulate in 3.5 years in one place. I did throw a bunch of stuff away–which helps some in the new place.

It turns out it’s a 15 minute walk to work instead of a 10 minute walk but that isn’t bad. It makes it easier for Barb to have lunch with me when she is over here too.

Barb did a lot of the work and has her nest in the corner mostly configured the way she wants it. We still have to buy a few things that we shared in the common kitchen in the old bunker.

One thing that is surprising is how much moisture is in the air of the new bunker. I never needed to use the dehumidifier in the old one. This one started smelling wet after just a couple days. I turned on the dehumidifier and it’s pulling out about two gallons of water from the air each day. The humidity dropped from 60% to, as of this minute, 48%. This is probably acceptable.

After learning that the Bellevue police have been fully informed on open carry I decided to do that a bit on an experimental basis during the move and then extended it into my normal activies in the parking lot of not only the bunker but of banks and the mall. There have been no problems so far. I think a couple of teenage girls in the parking lot noticed as they and (I presume) their mother were moving in nearby. The mother gave me a smile and said, “Hi” as she got into her pickup the next time I made a trip with my arms full of boxes from the Jeep in the parking lot down the stairs to the bunker. But other than that there have not been any reactions that I have noticed.

Tonight another women was moving in and she might have seen the gun as well. She smiled and said hi before she had an opportunity to see it. I didn’t look back after I walked by so I don’t know she did see it or had a reaction. The license plate on her car is from California so she might not think it was so cool to see someone packing in public! If I see her running for cover and/or concealment when I come to the surface I’ll know she has an adverse opinion of gun owners.

Blogging may be light

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I’m in the process of moving to another hidden underground hardened bunker. My old one was compromised due to multiple contacts with the police through no fault of my own.

Well…that’s not the only version of the story. It’s also true that the rents have been dropping in the area and I can get an underground bunker for only slightly more money than I’m currently paying and is walking distance from my work instead of a 20 minute (assuming no traffic–yeah, right!) drive.

Until the move is complete and I’m all settled in blogging will be a little lighter than normal. I expect to be done by next Monday.

Quote of the day–Kenneth Chinran

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Population pre-event, fifteen million. Population post-event, ten million and dropping. Four Operatives. My share of the initial casualty count was one million, two hundred and fifty fucking thousand people. The number was meaningless except as a strategic calculation and a sick, horrible comment percolated thorough my thoughts.

I. Am. A. Weapon. Of. Mass. Destruction.

Kenneth Chinran
A character in the book The Weapon, Page 440.
By Michael Z. Williamson
[A few days after I made this post on April 1 2008 Freehold and The Weapon showed up on my desk at work courtesy of Tony. As Jim said, “Joe, if you haven’t read Freehold and The Weapon by Michael Z. Williamson you really ought to, they describe your ‘April Fools’ scenario almost to a T.”

I don’t have much time for reading dead tree stuff but I put these books on the top of my stack. I finished Freehold in about three or four months and I currently have only a handful of pages left on The Weapon. They are very good books. Had I decided to take the time they would have been the type of book I would have read straight through stopping only to tell Barb to leave me alone–I really didn’t need to eat or sleep yet.

Being an engineer I would have liked more detail on some things. But being a good engineer I can figure out the details for myself should I have the need.

Sleep well.–Joe]

Exposed!

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I went to the doctor for a minor procedure yesterday. I just had my physical last Thursday and for some stupid reason I didn’t think I would be asked for my weight and other vitals again. Wrong.

I was carrying my usual self-defense tools, utility tools, and a double handful of keys (how can this be? Yet, I can go through them one by one and claim a need for all of them) rather than putting them in a fanny pack I could dump quickly while on the scales. I told the nurse she didn’t want my weight. It would be about 15 pounds more than last week. “17”, she corrected.

Then she wanted my blood pressure. I was wearing a unbuttoned light-weight denim shirt over a t-shirt with my STI Eagle 5.1 (link is to the very similar 5.1) with a spare 18 round magazine on the off side in between. She had some trouble getting the cuff to go over my arm and shirt so I took the denim shirt off and tried to drop it part way down in such a way that it still covered my gun. It went all the way to the exam table and left my gun fully exposed in the Kramer IWB #2 holster. The nurse had to see it. She was working with the cuff just a few inches from the gun but she didn’t comment or stare. She did her business with the vitals and other stuff then left saying the doctor would be in shortly.

After many minutes the doctor was still not there and I became concerned. I thought maybe they were waiting for the police to arrive or something. The doctor has a bit of an accent and I wasn’t sure where it was from. I thought she might be from England and I worried she would refuse to see me. Bitter tried to reassure me but I wasn’t all that reassured. After a few more minutes she came in and there was no indication of concern about the gun on my hip. Whew!

As she prepped for the procedure she made small talk and I had a good opportunity to ask about her accent. South African she said. Ahhh! Much, much more gun friendly than England. Maybe that partially explains it. I didn’t ask.

I’m with Robb, I expected something once I lost concealment. But nothing? I guess that’s good.

Factual but Misleading

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Dan Rather did Fake but Accurate so I now present Factual but Misleading.

The two pictures below were taken within a short time of each other on Saturday before Xenia’s wedding. Xenia is looking in the direction of her husband to be, John, who is shown in the picture below hers.

Draw your own conclusions about what these pictures mean.

I’ll let Xenia and/or John explain the straight story.