Bigot on the public payroll

The school VP suspended a kid because he had a pen with a Glock Logo on it.

I’d show up to pick up my kid with my lawyer while wearing this shirt:

Then I’d give the VP a copy of 18 USC 242 and tell the VP I was going to visit the Federal Prosecutor next. The tone of my voice would scare him far more than the words I used.

In Moscow Idaho my daughter (above) actually wore the shirt you see above to school. She only showed it to one teacher, but still, he thought it was cool.

H/T to Uncle and Bruce.

A couch Xenia might want

Xenia is our daughter who made the vagina cake, wore “Vagina Day” shirts to school, and did the Celebration of Ovulation anthology. Here is her cake:

Thanks to Tam we now have a couch I can only imagine Xenia wanting. A sample picture:

Bobby Fischer is dead

In high school and college I played a LOT of chess. I still have the records of hundreds of games I played and dozens of books and magazines. I had thought maybe my children would be interested in chess but kids seem to develop interests in things other than what their parents are interested in.

In any case I was a big into chess before Bobby Fischer became the first American world chess champion. Fischer winning the championship made chess in the U.S. popular for a while. And I remember walking into the high school cafeteria on the first day of school in the fall of ’72 shortly after he had won and my friend Lance Jones yelling across the room, “Yea Fischer!”.

In later years after I was most of the way through college my electrical engineering classes started sucking up the desire for challenging intellectual stimulation and I mostly dropped out of the chess scene.

Fischer made the news again a few years ago and I wrote about him then. The news about him made me sad and now that he is dead at the age of 64 it’s like another milestone in my life. A childhood hero is gone.

Wonderfalls wrap-up

Last week James and I finished watching Wonderfalls and then started Farscape this week (we found Season One in a far off, obscure video rental store and are shipping it in/out at great expense).

Wonderfalls was a pretty good show. I think James liked it better than I did. There were some good quotes:

Jaye: [spying on a little boy customer] He’s eyeing the Slinky. You know, he has to steal, like, four of those for me to even get a dollar.
Wonderfalls Security Guard: Is this one of those stores that gives its employees a cash bonus when they apprehend a shoplifter?
Jaye: Ten percent of whatever they were gonna steal. One time, I “accidentally” left the watch case open and I got like 500 bucks!

Hale: The Blonde one’s gay. Look at her. The fingernails are a dead giveaway.
Hale: Cut all nice and short. Clean cuticle beds. Lesbians always trim their nails like that. You know why?

Jaye: [talking about Bianca] She’s nice. We should take her clubbing.
Mahandra: …baby seals?

Or noticing the bartender’s cell phone is ringing in his back pocket— Jaye says, “Your ass is ringing.” Bartender: “My ass rings a lot.” Jaye: “Have you ever thought of setting it on vibrate? Bartender: “I’m not sure I’m secure enough with my manhood to do that.” Jaye: “So, why do you have an ass if you don’t answer it?”

James lamented that too many good shows are canceled after one season. In this case I thing I understand why it wouldn’t have that big of audience. Even though had a rather flimsy premise it was well executed and witty but I think the delivery speed and the intelligence required to catch all the jokes as they came whizzing by would eliminate 80% of the population.

[heavy sigh]

Our demographic probably isn’t the best investment of T.V. talent and airtime.

Serenity gun

Yes, some people find it calming to go shooting but that isn’t what this post is about. As Sebastian and Conservative Scalawag point out a replica of Malcolm Reynolds pistol from the movie Serenity is available for $150.

Son James and I are big fans of Serenity and the TV series FireFly which it was based on.

A New Years Eve Party?

From my Sitemeter it appears someone is looking for a good time on New Years Eve:

Domain Name   rr.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address   69.76.1.# (Road Runner)
ISP   Road Runner
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  Idaho
City  :  Coeur D Alene
Lat/Long  :  47.6609, -116.8343 (Map)
Distance  :  65 miles (local visitor)
Language   English (U.S.)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 7.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1024 x 768
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Dec 31 2007 12:47:41 pm
Last Page View   Dec 31 2007 12:47:41 pm
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL http://www.google.co… parties north idaho
Search Engine google.com
Search Words orgy parties north idaho
Visit Entry Page   https://blog.joehuffman.org/2005/12/
Visit Exit Page   https://blog.joehuffman.org/2005/12/
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-8:00
Visitor’s Time   Dec 31 2007 12:47:41 pm
Visit Number   227,546

Sorry, we won’t be having that type of party at our place tonight. It will be spent with our kids, Barb’s sister, and her family. And when I say that, keep in mind this is Idaho, not West Virginia or some such place.

Boomershoot snowman

Yesterday my daughters, my son-in-law, and I went out to the Boomershoot site and built a snowman.

It’s a 43 Mbyte .WMV file. Don’t even think about it unless you have a high speed connection.

Crank the volume up. There are some subtle sounds.

Update: I just updated the video. There were some very significant changes. The slow parts were sped up, the interesting parts were slowed down and a lot more detail added.

Some technical details: Five gallons of gasoline, ten pounds of Boomerite, and one shot from an AR-15 chambered in .223.

Update2: One of the reasons to make this video was for America’s Funniest Home Videos who requested people make videos of building then destroying a snowmen in “creative” ways. Reading the fine print for the submission I discovered I must take the video off the web when I submit it. I’m giving everyone until Midnight January 2nd to view it. Then it’s coming down. Sorry about that.

Update3: I’ve removed the link to the video. Send me an email if you want to view a private copy.

Quote of the day–Xenia Huffman-Scott

I have this friend whose little brother is a vegetarian except for hamburgers and tacos. I’m that way except with Pandas.

Xenia Huffman-Scott
December 22, 2007
[If I explained it then it wouldn’t be nearly as funny.–Joe]

Christmas at the Huffman-Scott compound

Update: More pictures from Xenia.

Christmas Eve Barb told me the toilet needed to be fixed. I told her the part she thought was broken still had some life in it:

But men who wish to remain married know better than to argue so I replaced it anyway.

We first went to my parents place to have dinner with them and my brothers. We then opened presents with them. Here is a picture of our gathering:

We then returned to our place and opened more presents. Among other things I received three great t-shirts and a high quality pistol case.

The third t-shirt I received says, “There are very few personal problems that can’t be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.”

Another awesome item was the scrapbook of Boomershoot (and other things) that Barb and Xenia made for me.

I got Barb an iPod Nano, a Bluetooth headset for her cell phone, and the items in this package which she refused to show to anyone else:

James and Xenia got some shirts too:


(I have no idea what this means.)

Xenia also learned a lesson in rattling the cage of wild animals:

Our princess Kimberly got a load of stuff but seemed to like the tools for the kitchen the best. The Christmas decoration below will come in handy next year.

Caleb got a black Boomershoot M-65 field jacket like mine but also seemed to like the Hickory Farms smoked cheese that he ate like it was a sandwich:

Merry Christmas from the entire Huffman-Scott clan.

This is an assault weapon!

James wanted his sister Kim to make him a costume for a gaming convention he goes to every year in August. This was the character (Siegfried):

Kim wanted to give him the sword for Christmas and wanted some help with it. What follow are some pictures of it’s construction–which isn’t complete yet.


Caleb, myself, and Dad are doing some tweaking of the design I had come up with.
Photo by Kim.


I’m implementing the grip Dad had suggested (it worked well).
Photo by Kim.


Caleb inspects part of the blade.
Photo by Kim.


The handle and the piece that attach to the blade.
Photo by Kim.


Cutting the handle to the proper length.
Photo by Kim.


Kim had never seen an arc welder in use before. Dad is welding the blade to the grip attachment.
Photo by Caleb.


Caleb, myself, and Dad work on the attachment. The new tractor tires I told you about are in the background.
Photo by Kim.


The main part of the blade is made of two pieces of 16 gauge steel. These had to be clamped down on the edges and then welded.
Photo by Kim.


Near the tip we used a wood spacer to make the blade thicker along the centerline.
Photo by Kim.


Here I’m using my cousin Allen’s MIG welder on the blade edges.
Photo by Kim.


Smoothing off the edges where the tip will attach.
Photo by Kim.


Caleb and Kim clamping the tip in place prior to welding.
Photo by Joe.


The tip is welded on one side. Kim is turning it over so I can weld the other side.
Photo by Joe.


Me welding.
Photo by Caleb.


All the metal assembly is done and it’s “usable”.
Photo by Kim.


Kim is pleased.
Photo by Joe.


Caleb thinks is it pretty cool too.
Photo by Joe.


James thinks it is awesome. Now if he can just figure out how he can get it back to the Seattle area.
Photo by Xenia.

Kim and Caleb still have some work to do on it. It needs to be buffed (it will take on a mirror like finish), coated, the grip wrapped in leather, and minor other tweaks.

It is surprisingly stiff. When smoothing out the welds with his grinder Caleb said he supported it on opposite ends and used it as a bench. And that it was strong enough to sit on.

If you have the muscle for it this would be quite the “assault weapon”. It never needs to be reloaded and if it had an sharp edge it would be as deadly as any ordinary firearm.

Steel and snow

I shot in a steel match yesterday. Results are here. I’m improving. I’m only 10 seconds down from the winner. On “Smoke & Hope” I cut almost two seconds off of my September time. And the weather conditions were a little more challenging than in September. The pictures are below. Again I need to point out that a lot of the Seattle area ranges stop their outdoor matches in the winter. But this isn’t Seattle. This is Idaho. The Seattle area shooters are wimps.

 


Mike claimed he had a little trouble with the contrast between the white targets and the backstop.


Notice the snow build up on the bill of Rogers hat?


Mike brought tamales!


The scorekeeper stayed under cover when it was snowing.

I Am Legend

James and I went to see the movie on Saturday night. This was apparently at about the same time as Kevin and his wife. James thought it was really good. I thought it was very well done but came away feeling not quite right about it. I couldn’t put it in words for James or Barb but if you take what Kevin said and multiply it by about 0.8 you get pretty close.

They get their curly hair from me

We have beautiful daughters. Amazingly beautiful.

But then I won’t argue if someone were to suggest the potential for bias exists. But that doesn’t mean I’m even the least bit in error about my claim.

My claims about their talents, intelligence, goodness, etc. also have potential for bias as well and would also be lacking in any error.

And yes, I’m well aware of the Heinlein quote from Time Enough For Love (page 241).  I’ll save you the trouble of reminding me:

Delusions are often functional.  A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

Lazarus Long
1916-4272

Also of note from this same book and character is this quote:

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

This quote is of particular interest because it was the first quote in my collection of quotes (and things) which now totals 8491 items. It was when James was a few months old I decided I liked that quote and did not want to forget it as we reared James and his future siblings. I added it to my autoexec.bat file so that I would see it every time I booted my IBM XT. A week or two later I had some other quotes I wanted to be reminded of. I then wrote a simple program that would select and display a quote at random and put a call to the program in autoexec.bat. I ended up rewriting the program in the early 90’s and recompiling it for Win32 after Windows 95 came out but the collection of quotes has just been growing and is one of the sources I used for the QOTD on this blog. I now have the program set up so that every time I open up a command prompt (frequently, and don’t give me any crap about this–yes, I work for Microsoft and use a command prompt for a LOT of things including building MS software) the programs runs and selects a quote at random for me.

Back to the girls. Wow. They sure are beautiful.

It’s been a long time coming

The regulation that prohibits firearms in National Parks has long been a point of irritation for me. Barb and I really enjoy visiting the National Parks and have contemplated trying to visit all of them. But we aren’t supposed to bring a self-defense firearm to places where grizzly bears snack on the tourists? What’s up with that?

I received my marching orders from the apex of the triangle of death along with another wheelbarrow full of cash yesterday informing me they have been working on this for the last five years and finally have made some significant progress. Idaho Senator Mike Crapo sent a letter, signed by 46 other senators, to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne requesting the regulation change.

What they didn’t mention on the website or in the note on the wheelbarrow was that not only was it an Idaho Senator that played a big role in writing this letter but that Interior Secretary Kempthorne is a former U.S. Senator and more recently governor of Idaho and has a strong pro-gun rights record. He did veto a bill that would have allowed concealed carry on school grounds by teachers and parents but he had a lot of pressure by the media and even national attention that caused him to cave on that one. When I called his office to encourage him to sign it I was told the phone calls, letters, faxes, etc. were running something like 50:1 against the bill.

Furthermore, Kempthorne graduated from the University of Idaho in 1975 and his wife Patricia also graduated from the University of Idaho. Barb and I graduated from there in 1977. Our son James graduated from there, our daughter Xenia is currently attending, and our daughter Kim has applied there. The University of Idaho is walking distance from our home in Moscow. In fact Xenia, since she (procrastinator extraordinaire) still doesn’t have a drivers license uses her feet as her primary transportation to and from class from our home.

If it’s up to Kempthorne I expect we will, at long last, get rid of this oppressive and dangerous restriction on our ability to defend ourselves in national parks.

If that happens I’ll be a lot more enthusiastic about visiting the parks and less grumpy when I’m hiking through the woods without the constant reminder of that empty feeling of no gun on my hip in country with large predators.

What follows are some more pictures of our recent trip to Glacier National Park (and here):

Thank yous go to NRA-ILA, Idaho Senators Crapo and Craig, who both signed the letters and Ashley for the email (and also said she liked my earlier pictures of Glacier).

Shame on you to the senators that didn’t sign the letter such as the Senators of Washington State where I currently reside. Please note that Presidential hopefuls Senators Clinton and Obama did not sign the letter. McCain did.

Farscape season one

James and I just finished up Stargate Atlantis season three and were going to start watching Farscape but the first season is very tough to find on DVD. Is there anyone near where I roam (Seattle to north central Idaho) willing to loan it to us for a few weeks?

Thanks.

Running on empty makes the news

I reported the other day that I was very, very busy at work and was putting in some very long hours on weekends and evenings/nights/early-mornings. They’ve been telling us it’s really important to get these changes done soon, we can’t miss this deadline, etc., etc. It’s not that I doubted that, but it’s interesting when aspects of the project my officemate and I have been spending unreal hours working on (she worked all day on her birthday this last Sunday) make the news.

To my Program Manager and Dev Lead who have been expressing concern; Yes, we will be code complete by Friday. There will probably still be bugs which won’t be fixed for week or two but the feature set will be there and working. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Quote of the day–E. B. White

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

E. B. White
[While this may seem to be true I would have to see the actual numbers to believe it myself. I have known and worked with many people that qualify as genius in the I.Q. department. I suspect that the genius can see what others either cannot or do not want to see and ignores many societal conventions simply because they are superfluous. This gives the appearance of “cracked”. The non-genius wishes to either deny they are blind, and/or have their eyes closed, calls the genius “cracked” in an effort to bring the genius down to their level. Still, using the model as described above could be useful if for no other reason than you don’t reject the company or contribution of someone “a little strange”. Being in the company of genius can have it’s advantages and is perhaps worth putting up with a little strangeness.–Joe]

Running on empty

I’ve been working very long hours the last week or so–including this weekend. Barb came over to my Seattle area “bunker” to visit and it’s a good thing she had lots of scrap-booking supplies to work with while I was doing the “work from home” thing. I’m waiting for a build to complete now after making tons of changes.

Anyway, sorry for not making anything but the QOTD posts, not answering email, and almost not reading anyone else’s blog postings for days. I haven’t been doing much except work, a little food, watching a couple crappy movies on-line with Barb (Breasts, A Boy and His Dog, and Darwin Awards), and partaking in liberal amounts of Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything as needed.

Things will probably still be pretty busy for the rest of the week before I get through this crunch period.

Thanks for your patience.

Quote of the day–KW Hipps

I just got the new (blue) rule book. It says anyone shooting a classifier at below freezing temperatures in falling snow deserves the crummy score they get.

KW Hipps
Lewiston Pistol Club Discussion Group email list
December 1, 2007
[We have an IPSC match today. The current weather forecast is:

HOUR   Sun
6AM
Sun
7AM
Sun
8AM
Sun
9AM
Sun
10AM
Sun
11AM
Sun
12PM
Sun
1PM
Sun
2PM
SKY   Chc Snow Chc Snow Chc Snow Chc Snow Chc Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow
CHANCE OF
PRECIPITATION
  Slight Slight Slight Slight Slight Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate
TEMP (F)   31° 31° 31° 32° 32° 33° 34° 35° 35°
WIND CHILL(F)   18° 18° 18° 19° 19° 21° 23° 25° 25°
DEWPOINT (F)   25° 25° 25° 26° 26° 26° 27° 27° 27°
HUMIDITY   78% 78% 78% 79% 79% 75% 76% 73% 73%
WIND (MPH)   SE 21 SE 21 SE 22 SE 23 SE 24 SE 22 E 20 E 18 E 18

We start shooting at 10:00 and probably won’t be done until 12:00 (the wimps won’t be there so it shouldn’t take too long). 20 to 25 MPH winds and snowing. This is practical shooting. Caleb and I plan be there. Pictures later if I manage to make it over Snoqualime Pass this afternoon on my way back to the Seattle area. The current pass report:

Conditions & Weather:
Snow, slush and ice on the roadway. Interstate 90 eastbound is reduced to one lane as the WSP performs chain enforcement near milepost 34. // Snowing hard, poor visibility

 

Updated: 5:23 AM, Dec 2, 2007
This is the most current info available
and is promptly updated when conditions change.

Today is going to be an interesting day. Perhaps Serenity Washburn ‘interesting’.–Joe]

Dr. Halls of Shame/Fame

Technically I am the domain owner but I have nothing to do with the content here:

Dr. Hall of Fame
Dr. Hall of Shame

I think a good candidate would the neurosurgeon a physical therapist I know worked with several years ago. The nurses and therapists had a nickname they used for this brain surgeon behind his back. They called him The Veg-O-Matic.

Just a little hint on finding a good doctor if you are new in town and don’t know anyone. Go to the hospital and ask the nurses. But you have to be a little sneaky about the way you ask the question. If you ask, “Who is a good doctor?” you will get an answer similar to, “They are all good.” But if you ask, “Who would you choose as a doctor for yourself/spouse/child/mother-in-law/whoever?” you will get a much more useable answer.