Category Archives: Home Life

Stuff going on in my personal life.

Quote of the day–Xenia Huffman-Scott

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Getting married in about 32 minutes.

Xenia Huffman-Scott
On Twitter at 1328 PDT June 13, 2009
[It went well with only some very, very minor glitches.


Leaving the bridal party preparation room. The wedding started at 1400.


Barb and I escorting Xenia down the “aisle”.
Photo by Amy Huffman.


Xenia and John
Photo by Amy Huffman


Bridesmaids Hannah and Becky. Best-man James. Matron of Honor Kim.
Photo by Amy Huffman.


John and Xenia leaving in their “getaway car”. A ’69 Corvette.

At 1954 PDT I received a text message from Xenia, “We made it! The room has a beautiful view!”

Another one leaves the nest. [heavy sigh]–Joe]

Busy with the wedding

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Xenia is getting married tomorrow and I have been pretty busy with things. There won’t be much blogging tomorrow either.


They will be getting married near a tree planted by Teddy Rooevelt.


Xenia and John, with Caleb and Kim in the background at the rehersal this evening.

The wedding is on the Adminstration Building lawn on the University of Idaho campus. The list of people in our family who have attended the university is rather large and includes:

  • My father
  • My brother Doug
  • Niece Amy
  • Niece Lisa
  • Barb’s mother
  • Barb’s sister Nancy
  • Me
  • Barb
  • Son James
  • Daughter Kim
  • Daughter Xenia

We have roots there. And don’t forget Sarah Palin attended the Unversity of Idaho as well, but she isn’t family.

My daughter Dorothy

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I probably haven’t mentioned my daughter Dorothy before. That’s because she spends most of her time in Oz:

More pictures here.

Awesome job Xenia.

I must be getting old

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Barb, Kim, son-in-law Caleb, and I went boat camping over the weekend. We left Friday morning and got back yesterday.

After setting up camp on Friday we noticed some rocks up on the opposite side of the lake that we thought would be a nice place to hike and take some pictures. Here is an aerial view. In the picture below, on the upper right, you can see the rocks:


View from our campsite.

On Saturday morning we packed up our cameras, some water, and walkie-talkies. Barb said it looked like too tough of a climb and stayed with our old dogs who would have to been carried (little lap sitters, they are more like cats than dogs anyway). We took the boat across the lake and found a sandy beach to tie the boat up to:


Kim ready to hop off the boat for our hike up the hill.

On the way up the hill we found at least two sets of bones from deer that had been considered food by some other animals (photos by Kim):

It was steep, there was no trail except for occasional game trails, and I had to stop, rest, and drink some water a few times. But it was a nice view when we got to the top (photo by Kim): 


Caleb inspects the edge.


View from the top.

We called back to camp and told Barb we had made it and asked that she come out of the trees near the tents to where we could see her. It was about a half mile away but I used a telephoto lens (300 mm) and took her picture:


Barb (upper left quadrant in blue) near our campsite from 1/2 mile away.

That was all nice and good, but then there was this bird that started circling us:




It was a Turkey Vulture. None of us had ever heard of vultures in Idaho and certainly not this far north in Idaho. But there it was. Circling and getting pretty darned close.

We took some more pictures of the view:


Elk Creek on Dworshak reservoir.


Kim and Caleb from the top of the Rocky Cliff.

We then noticed there were five vultures circling us. I could only get four in the frame at once. It was all a bit surreal–almost like in the cartoons except we weren’t in the desert and we didn’t feel like we were near death:


Vultures circling us.

Reading about them on Wikipedia, I discovered they are one of the few birds that forage for food by smell. We were probably more than a little smelly from the climb up the hill but I don’t think we smelled dead so I have to conclude Xenia has the better hypothesis. I must be getting old.

Quote of the day–Xenia Huffman-Scott

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They probably said, “There’s the old guy. He’ll keel over first. Dibs!”


Xenia Huffman-Scott
May 25, 2009
[After hearing that when Kim, Caleb, and I climbed to the top of a cliff on Saturday there were five vultures circling us. Pictures tomorrow.–Joe]

The girls’ grades

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Xenia and Kim got their grades. Xenia just finished her sophmore year in college and Kim her freshman year. They got all A’s except for one B.


Barb and I are very proud.

Gone camping

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I’ve been on vacation the last couple of days and have not had time for blogging. Tomorrow we are going camping and won’t have an Internet connection or even cell phone service.


I’ve posted some QOTDs that may or may not show up on the appropriate days.


I’ll get back into things Monday or Tuesday.


Part of what I spent part of my vacation doing was fixing my parents boat so we could take it out camping to some boat accessible only campsites. It had a heating problem. When the engine was running at slow speed it would quickly get hot. At high speed it was fine. Brother Doug and I hypothesized there must be a bad hose that was feeding water from the stern drive (it’s in inboard/outboard Mercruiser) to the engine. The boat doesn’t have that many hours on it but it is 36 years old.


Kim, Caleb and I took the stern drive off and found the hose we knew must exist. It as as hard as a rock and it must have took us about two hours to get it off. It came off in dozens of pieces. Here are some of the larger ones:



It didn’t help that the ends of the hose were only accessible with our finger tips or tools. Getting a clear view, with light and tools on the object was impossible.


Doug happened to be in town and called just before he returned. We gave him a parts list and he picked up the hose, gaskets, O-rings, and a few other things we needed and we started putting the boat back together.



 



That took hours too. Just putting the hose on must have taken an hour by itself.


We didn’t get home until about 21:45. We were tired and covered in grease.


Next time, 35 years from now with the hose goes bad again, I advise our kids and grandkids to take it in and have an expert fix it. We must have put 25 man-hours into it. It wasn’t worth a day of my vacation for the dollars saved by doing it ourselves.

The hardened underground bunker

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I’m not the only Joe with a hardened underground bunker (as Lyle calls it). Joe Biden has one too:



Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president.


According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president.


…


According to the report, Biden “said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment.” 

Ammo and components in Moscow, Idaho

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I couldn’t be in Phoenix with all the cool kids so I went to all the stores in town that sold ammunition and/or components. Here is what I found:

  • Walmart
    • Shotgun primers only
    • A little bit of brass and I bought all the .45 ACP brass they had
    • Virtually no handgun ammo
    • Virtually no powder
  • Tri-State
    • Lots of rifle and shotgun ammo
    • Lots of .40 S&W ammo
    • Three boxes of .45 ACP ammo but I bought two of them adhering to Tamara’s etiquette
    • Don’t carry reloading components
  • Big Five
    • Don’t carry reloading components
    • Virtually no handgun ammo
    • Some rifle ammo
  • Sure Shot
    • Lots of powder
    • Lots of used 9mm and .40 S&W brass
    • Shotgun primers only
    • Virtually no handgun ammo
    • Some rifle ammo


About half of Tri-State’s rifle ammo and in the foreground 2/3s of the .45 ACP ammo for sale in the city.


Apparently Barb called ahead for me. But I didn’t see any gun I really wanted except for the AR-50A1 and there was no indication Barb would allow me to buy the ammo to feed it.


Sure Shot had lots of powder and 9mm and .40 S&W brass.

Why I don’t drink alcohol

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Over the years I’ve been reading that a little bit of alcohol is good for your health. I, basically, don’t drink at all so it could be said that I was risking my health by not drinking. Not wanting to risk my health over something that was fairly easily remedied I decided maybe I would drink just a little bit every once in a while.


Red wine seems to get lots of nods from the medical researchers so I bought a bottle a couple months ago. I opened it up and had a small glass, maybe six ounces, tonight with my dinner.


I then started working on the mathematics for a nifty new way to do range estimation. I had an exceedingly difficult time doing the simplest of math problems. It wasn’t even algebra. It was simple ratios. Things that are normally intuitively obvious to me required that I work out several example in order to find the general equation. I think I finally got it but it must have taken me at least four times as long as normal and I don’t really trust my work.


No more wine for me except when it’s strictly a social situation. Why drink if it’s going to make me brain dead for the evening?

Mother’s Day thoughts

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Via Joe D. on an email list:

A Mother’s Love
Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read it. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
This is so beautiful…..


A little boy says to his mother, “Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?”
His mother replied, “Don’t even go there! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!“

This reminds me of the wise-ass response I used to give after our son James was born. It used to go something like this:

[Barb and I meet some friend or relative with our new-born son. They smile and look at him, then the smile fades to a look of confusion.]

Friend: Why does he have blond hair and blue eyes when both of you have dark hair and hazel eyes?

Joe: We don’t know for sure. We are just glad he didn’t turn out black or Asian.

Barb: Joseph! That’s not funny! We both have a sibling with blond hair and blue eyes and both of his grandfathers have light colored hair and blue eyes.

After a few occurrences the exchange changed. It then went something like this:

Friend: Why does he have blond hair and blue eyes when both of you have dark hair and hazel eyes?

Joe: We don’t [thump] You hit me!

Barb: You deserved it.

That’s my wife

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Last night as Barb and I were in bed preparing to watch a DVD on my laptop computer I scanned Google News. There was a headline which read Couple arrested for sex on lawn at Windsor Castle. I passed it over but Barb read it out loud. So I asked, “Did you want to read that?” Her immediate and matter of fact response was, “Do they have pictures?”


That’s my wife.

Boomershoot 2009 raffle proceeds

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The following should be self-explanatory.


 


From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:50 AM
To: ‘wounded@soldiersangels.org’
Cc: ‘Chuck Ziegenfuss’; ‘Barb Scott’; ‘Jason Scott’
Subject: Boomershoot 2009 raffle proceeds.


 


Boomershoot (http://www.boomershoot.org) is an annual long range precision rifle event held in North Central Idaho. Each year soldiers from Fort Lewis attend and for two days prior to the main event help teach Boomershoot participants the science and art of accurate long range shooting. Some of those soldiers later went on to Iraq and Afghanistan and were injured and some were killed.


 


In October of 2007 my wife and I met Chuck Ziengenfuss at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno. He told us of his injuries and how Soldiers’ Angels helped him. It turns out that it was the second time my wife had met Chuck. She had also met at Walter Reed when she was visiting our nephew Jason Scott who was wounded in Iraq and also benefited from your help.


 


At Boomershoot this year we held a raffle with the intent that half of the proceeds would go to raffle participants and the other half going to Project Valour-IT. After the event someone quietly came up to me and gave me three $100 bills to give to you.


 


Below are the reference number and other information from my bank that is mailing you a check of the proceeds. If it does not arrive as expected please let me know.


 

















Send On


Amount

Expected Delivery

Reference #

Payee


04/29/2009

$1,385.00

05/06/2009

DBRBS7UH

Soldiers’ Angels


 


 


-joe-


—–


https://blog.joehuffman.org/


http://www.boomershoot.org/


http://www.modernballistics.com/


 

Quote of the day–Rebecca West

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I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.


Rebecca West
[I remember having a similar conversation with Barbara either before we were married or shortly thereafter. I told her that as near as I could tell the way people defined “a lady” was in terms of the things she wasn’t allowed to do and “men” in the things he did.


But that isn’t why I posted West’s quote. I post it because it reminds me of what people call “reasonable regulation” of firearms. Their ideas of “reasonable regulation” appear to be based on the assumption that gun owners are, or should be, doormats.–Joe]

We Get it, Already

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This is an open letter to all the talk show hosts, pundits, party hacks, cheaters, scumbags, sick twisted freaks (you know who you are) and pro-freedom bloggers.  We could spend the rest of our lives cataloging the outrageous behavior of nasty, America-hating, ignorant, self-loathing, cultist, freedom-hating, anti-human, leftist politicians including Progressive Republicans.  We know they’re bad, OK?  If there are three or four people who still don’t get it, that’s all right.


I’d rather try to figure out how we’re going to get some principled Americans nominated so we’re not always forced to choose between bad and worse– between more socialism slower, and more socialism faster.  This last national election was a real puker.  The Republican Party is, at the moment, just as lost, dumbfounded, selfish and clueless as ever.  They’re a herd of does, staring blankly into the headlights of an on-coming truck, and the worst part of it is; they don’t even suspect that they’re clueless.  They in the Republican leadership think they have some really clever answers, which amount to more of what got us into this mess.  I recently heard it described as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  That fits very well.  The Republicans have some really super great, super ultra smart ideas for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  No really, listen…  (all the while we have this simple, proven model for success, and it’s being ignored.)


We need to change that.  You need to change it.  I need to change it.  There isn’t anyone else.  I suppose, since it’s up to us, it will have to be on the local level for most of us, being as we’re not billionaires.  That’s OK.  We can still do what we can do.  A lot of people are jazzed up right now.  They just need somewhere to start.  Well, pick a place, a local issue or a local politician that needs a hand (or a very public spanking) and get to it!


That there are clueless people is not the issue.  There will always be the clueless.  They’ll sit on the sidelines, worrying about who likes them and who doesn’t, trying to figure out where the “center” is so they can position themselves in it and claim superiority for having done so, while someone else does the lifting.  Are you a sitter or a lifter?


I have a bad feeling that things could come to blows before this government is brought under control, and I really don’t want that to happen.  Do you?  This country is far too important in the grand scheme of things.


And with that; I don’t have much more to say on here, other than to repeat myself or talk about the weather and what I did last weekend, unless it’s to tell you what I’m doing on the local level to influence politics.  Now I think I have some calls to make.


(Note that I placed this in nearly every one of Joe’s categories. It’s relevant to everything we do and every opportunity we want for our kids in the future)

It’s official

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I won’t be attending the Second Amendment Blog Bash and NRA convention next month. I just sent my regrets to the organizer.


Xenia’s getting married in June and there are a lot of other things that are sucking up time and money this year so I just can’t make it happen.


Last year I had a wonderful time (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for examples). Nearly every time my wife or kids talked to me on the phone they commented on “how happy you sound”. I think Barb got a little jealous that I sounded happier to be with other bloggers than be with her. Yeah, I had a really, really great time.


Maybe next year. For this year the Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day next Thursday, with 11 gun bloggers attending, is going to have to be my main fix for the year. Even the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in September is out.

Crazy mixed up world

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The world is kinda messed up right now. Economic conditions are scary. We have a socialist government in D.C. that is apparently working toward the destruction of the capitalism and our freedom. It’s hard to understand what is really going on. Barb and I have spent a lot of time on the issues and this weekend she got me a card, “Just because it is so appropriate.”



The front.

The inside.

Who would have guessed?

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I gave a friend of Barb and mine a ride to/from Idaho this weekend. She was visiting her boyfriend who was working on job site in Pullman, Washington for a few weeks. Pullman being about 10 miles from my home and on the way made it no big deal. There was a minor complication in that there was “some festival” in Pullman and all the hotels were full and his company had to put them up in a Clarkston for Friday and Saturday night. That added an hour to my trip Friday night but it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. Friends do that for friends. On the way back he was going to be in a Pullman motel and it would take zero extra time.


Over the weekend we learned the “festival” was actually “Mothers Weekend” at both Washington State University in Pullman and the University of Idaho in Moscow. So it filled up all the motels in both towns.


Barb working in the hospital reported that emergency room staff say “Mothers Weekend” is always the busiest of the year. They come in drunk, disorderly, and disgusting (a new meaning for triple D as applied to women). It was also reported that condom sales go up 300%*.


After I picked up our friend yesterday and began our trip back to Seattle I reported my findings on the “festival”. Our friend burst into laughter that seemed just a little more enthusiastic that was appropriate. She then told me that her boyfriend and co-workers had also found out it was “Mothers Weekend” but they called it “MILF Weekend”.


Update: More confirmation of Mom’s Gone Wild in Moscow.


Update2: Via an IM from Kris:


If they combined Mothers weekend and boomershoot (on the same weekend)… “ok sweetie, you have fun with the rest of the mothers… I’m going shootin’ with the boys ”

This was after Kris informed me he probably wouldn’t be able to attend Boomershoot this year. It sounds like I need to “sweeten the pot” a little bit for him next year if I want him to come. I’m all for him having a good time, but I’m not going to go that far just to get him to come.



*I questioned the source of the condom sales numbers and Barb asked around at the hospital. “Everyone” had heard it and believed it to be true but no one knew where it came from. I suspect it is an urban myth but it makes a good story.

Quote of the day–Kimberly Frederick

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I know that all of you as conscientious citizens want to protect our people. We need to band together and demand that the government protect us. We must demand that all chairs, even couches and sofas, are required to have safety belts, and that everyone be required to use them. If someone is caught not using their safety belt they should be required to pay a $1000 fine and with a three strike rule attached that on your third strike not wearing a safety belts that the perpetrator goes to jail. Repeated offenders should be taken to jail, because by not wearing their seatbelts they are endangering themselves, and as a community it is our responsibility to protect and care for each other.


Kimberly Frederick
We Must Protect Our Citizens
March 13, 2009
[Daughter Kim got an A on this piece of satire. I read the notes the prof wrote on the paper so I know he knew it was satire. I’m a little bit afraid some dimwit in government (but I repeat myself) will take the idea and run with it as a campaign issue. But I figure that if I put it up on the web with it clearly labeled as satire then we have a chance of embarrassing whoever might try something like that.–Joe]

Watchmen

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I just got back from the theater.


Son James loaned me the book in early January (I think). Then nearly every time he saw me he would tell me how many weeks and days I had left to finish the book before the movie came out. I finished the book last night so we went to see the movie tonight. It was the second viewing for James.


I was a little disappointed in the book. “What’s the big deal about?”, summed up my opinion. Okay, yeah, there are some good characters and the twist at the end is interesting. But it’s not that good.


The movie was awesome. It wouldn’t have been quite so awesome if James hadn’t insisted I read the book first. The attention to book details in the movie was incredible. And it’s the type of story that doesn’t quite make sense until you go through it a second time knowing that many of the little details have a lot of significance.