Nikki Sixx’s side project, Sixx A.M. has a new album. Here’s the first single and video, “Lies of the Beautiful People”
And you know… I don’t see why Sony Music would want to prohibit playback from wordpress.com. If you allow embedding, allow it. This is free press and promotion for y’all… unless of course, you want to ensure to drive traffic to YouTube itself, which is likely the case.
Cracked.com on gun owners and gun ownership. (h/t Unc)
Paints with a broad brush, but a fairly accurate broad brush.
I liked mead.
I wanted to try more.
Wife said she was curious to try, so next time I went to the store the goal was an introduction for her and further exploration for me. With that in mind I bought one of the same, the Redstone Meadery’s Traditional Mountain Honey Wine. I also bought one of their Juniper varieties. Finally, something totally different, a Chaucer’s Mead.
I picked Chaucer’s merely because it was not-Redstone. But I thought the addition of a packet of mulling spices was a cool thing so hey, why not.
The first thing I wanted to try was the Chaucer’s. I open the bottle and smell. Certainly smelled like sweet wonderful honey. Then I tasted it. The taste was wonderful to me, yes, better than the Redstone (to my palate, anyways). What’s the difference? Well, Chaucer’s tasted and had a mouthfeel that was almost exactly like honey. The Redstone of course smells like honey, but the taste is different. It’s like the Redstone has a honey with a “bite” to it. The closest analogy I can think of is say how Barq’s root beer has “bite” compared to say Mug root bear. But that’s not even really a fair nor accurate comparison, but I know of no other way to convey this by just typing. Mouthfeel as well, with the Chaucer’s feeling “thicker”, more of that glycerin-like honey-ness. But certainly, Chaucer’s isn’t pure honey. I liken it to saying it’s like drinking honey that has some white wine in it. It’s really amazing how honey-like the Chaucer’s is, by comparison to the Redstone, and I thought that was pretty honey-like.
Of course, since I had a bottle of the Redstone Traditional, I cracked it open for some side-by-side comparison to get the above “analysis” down. The Redstone is OK, but my palate prefers Chaucer’s.
So with that, the Redstone Juniper… well, the Juniper added an interesting twist to it. I’m not sure if I liked it or not. Hard to say, because I think I was more mentally caught up on the “Redstone vs. Chaucer” difference. That which made Redstone Redstone stood out more to me and I think I focused more on that than the Juniper. Still, I finished the bottle so it must not have been horrible. 😉
As for the mulling spices. I tried it. I’m not sure I like it, but I’m not sure I gave it a fair shake. I heated up a cup of the Chaucer’s mead in the microwave, then let one of the bags steep for a few minutes. Mind you, their instructions are to use one “tea” bag for half the bottle and two for the whole bottle. So I may have overdone it. Or, maybe I don’t like hot mead. Next time I should heat it up and then try drinking “plain” mead warm. See how that fits me. As well, make it properly according to the directions. Finally, after letting the spices steep, chill the mulled mead back down to say in the 40º range and see how that tastes. Of course, trying other spice mixes could be something to consider as well. I mean, who knows how long this might have been sitting on the shelf and if those spices lost some oomph.
Wife’s take? She doesn’t like it. She thinks it’s neat, but since she doesn’t like eating raw honey, it’s not surprising she doesn’t like this. But she does think it’s cool and even went back to try some again. In fact, she joked that she needs to start eating more raw honey to see if she can acquire more of a taste for it. My take on that? She thinks it’s cool and is willing to continue trying it… so long as it’s closer to the Chaucer’s than the Redstone.
Anyways, this is fun. It’s wonderful to explore new things and expand your horizons.
A Ladies Only Pistol Course, taught by Lynn Givens of Rangemaster and Penny Riggs of KR Training will be offered at KR Training on Saturday May 21, 2011.
The course is designed to introduce ladies to the realities of self defense with handguns, and to give the student a firm foundation upon which future skill can be built. It looks like it should be a good course. I’ve trained with Lynn and her husband Tom, and they are top notch people and trainers. I do my best to not miss opportunities to train with them.
If you don’t know who Lynn Givens is, here’s some of her story:
Some years ago, before becoming Mrs. Givens, Lynn was stalked by a mentally disturbed man who threatened her life and the life of her young son. Eventually, that person committed suicide, ending that particular threat. However, as Lynn researched personal security issues in response to that threat, she learned about the actual level of criminal violence and the need to be self sufficient in terms of personal safety and security. That led Lynn to a dedicated study of personal self defense, and she has since accumulated almost 1200 hours of formal training in firearms and other self defense topics. Lynn has trained extensively with Rangemaster; John Farnam; Massad Ayoob; Rob Pincus; Michael DeBethencourt; Southnarc; and other well known instructors. She holds Instructor Certifications from Rangemaster, the NRA, and the State of Tennessee, and is a Surefire Low Light Technology Specialist. She is the Primary Instructor among the group of female firearms instructors at Rangemaster.
My understanding is the class is half-full, and I expect it will sell out. The sooner you sign up, the better your chances of making the class!
(Full disclosure: I am an assistant instructor at KR Training… but regular blog readers ought to know that)
I asked Kiddos what they were giving up for Lent. Wife said that it’s going to be a group thing.
They’re giving up TV.
I’m impressed. It’s been a couple of days now and I haven’t heard the TV on and you know, that’s kinda refreshing. A little TV now and again is fine, but the kids have gotten into a bit of a rut and if they’re bored turn to the TV.
I think it will be cool to see what they opt to do to pass time, even if it’s just having to deal with being bored. And more curious, how will they come out on the other side? Will they just revert back to old habits? Or will they discover something new, something else worth spending their time on?
This will be an interesting journey. 🙂
I’ve been too busy with other things to spend time at the reloading bench. But the other night I had a little time so I thought I’d switch the powder drop over from the pistol to the rifle rotor and get it adjusted. With that done, next station is the powder cop die.
Uh… the end of the die rod doesn’t fit into the mouth of a .223 Rem case.
Not good.
But the fix is simple!
Turn it over.
You can see in the above picture that on the left you have a small end, 0.1855″ in diameter. On the right, the larger end, .2485″ diameter. Chances are when you bought your powder cop die, it was installed with the large end down, inside the die, and the small end stuck up and out for you to measure your powder.
Remove the little white rubber ring on the rod. The rod should then fall free of the die body. Flip the rod over, putting the little rubber ring all the way up towards the larger end, then put the rod back into the die flipped around. That’s it! Simple.
I’m not sure if this is any sort of Hornady-blessed way to do things. When I ran into the problem last night I hit Google first to see if there was a whole other die to handle smaller calibers; no, Hornady only sells the one. So further searching turned up this “flip it over” solution. Again, not sure if it’s Hornady-blessed, but others report it works fine. I guess I’ll find out eventually.
Oh… this is… just… too… cool.
.300 BLK has a lot of potential. Coupled with a suppressor and wow, what a difference.
The thing to catch in the video is that the rounds alternate: subsonic, supersonic. Every shot fired you’ll hear a little bit of mechanical action: that’s the action, and the suppressor. Then after ever other shot you’ll hear a “crack” sound, which is the bullet going supersonic. So just take that for what it’s worth in terms of the effect a suppressor (and proper ammo) make.
Ooo… that could make a great hog hunting rig.
Looks like Rep. George Lavender (R, District 1, “A” grade from the NRA) has filed HB 2756 “related to the authority of a person who has a license to carry a handgun to openly carry the handgun.”
I’ve given the bill text a read and it looks like what’s been done is go through the Texas law books and cross out or repeal portions of the law pertained to concealed carry. For example: “who possesses a [concealed] handgun”. I’m not sure anything was added, I unfortunately don’t have the time right now to do a side-by-side comparison of the submitted bill vs. the present books.
I’d like to hear reader thoughts on this.
My initial reaction is this may not go far enough for many open carry advocates. Many of them have changed from advocating “open carry” to advocating “constitutional carry”, the difference being that 2A is all the “license” needed so no other regulations should be on the books. So what this really comes down to is a continuum and how far along it you wish to go.
As well, if I’m understanding the bill, you are still going to have to be licensed to carry, it just doesn’t matter if it’s open or concealed. That might make the CHL Instructors happy because suddenly a need for their classes won’t go away (like the income that goes with it). But could it create more hassle for citizens and law enforcement? Perhaps, because someone will freak out about a “man with a gun”, LEO has to check it out. Or perhaps LEO’s just start randomly checking.
I’ll be curious to hear what the NRA and TSRA have to say on this. My feeling is, from a political standpoint it’s good to start talking about this, it’s good to start crafting legislation and see how people stand on it, how business and special interest react. But it may be too big a leap yet for people to make. But as I said, on the continuum, it may be a small enough leap that people could accept (i.e. it won’t get all “wild wild west”, there’s still licensing to ensure only good people can do this). Who knows. We’ll see. Sometimes it’s better to chip away at the stone instead of dynamiting the entire quarry.
Yesterday I went in to donate blood.
I was answering the donor questionnaire when it hit me: by virtue of being a blood donor, it says a lot about you.
Previously, I wrote about being a gun owner and concealed handgun license holder, and what that says about you. For instance, I’m not a felon, or even a class A or B misdemeanor. I’m not delinquent on taxes. I’m not chemically dependent. I’m mentally fit. I’m not subject to a restraining order. I’m a citizen of the US. And so on. So by simple virtue of saying “I’m a CHL holder” you can tell a lot about the person I am.
Well, the same can be said for being a blood donor. I asked the people at the center about the questionnaire. They said that yes there is an FDA list, so you can be pretty sure that all donor centers across the USA ask these same questions. But then each center may have different questions of their own. For instance, I think she said that some of the blood materials here go to Europe and thus some questions specific to those companies there need to be asked. Makes sense.
I found a copy of the FDA questionnaire here. Some things it tells you about me:
This isn’t something to judge as good or bad. It’s just factual information to take for whatever it’s worth. You cannot and should not read into responses.
I just couldn’t help but think about that while filling out the questionnaire. You tell someone you’re a blood donor, and this is what they can know about you.
I like donating blood because it’s a good and helpful thing to do, plus I can do it (eligibility, etc.) so why not?
But you know what makes it really nice?
When the donation center is next door to a good Vietnamese restaurant. You have to refuel and start to rebuild your blood supply after donating, right? What better and more tasty way. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 